Anarchy and Communism

Ed West has some thoughts on the recent (highly organized) "anarchist" activities in central London over the weekend. He asks the questions inquiring minds want to have answered: "Shouldn't anarchists be in favour of cutting the size of the State?"

The irony is that here are self-proclaimed “anarchists” protesting against a reduction in the size of the state. Aren’t anarchists supposed to be in favour of smashing it?

Well, to an extent. According to the Whitechapel Anarchist Group, the most prominent of the various organisations: “Anarchy is a highly organised form of society that is clearly the only morally sensible way to run the world where everybody is the master of their own destiny.”

“The Anarchist solution… would be a society where there is no State, all wealth is owned in common by the people, relationships are non-exploitative, work is shared and decisions made in the knowledge of all.”

Or in other words, they wish to create all the conditions for Communism, while hoping that a Communist dictatorship won’t emerge, despite overwhelming evidence that it would.

Read the rest here.

My only quibble with West's analysis is that I think he is a bit generous in taking seriously the protestations of the anarchists that they don't want Communism. Classic Marxist theory requires chaotic conditions leading to revolution before the classless society can come to be, so anarchism is just stage one Marxism. You need anarchy in order to get Communist dictatorship.

Granted, there may be some "useful idiots" among the anarchists (and there certainly are many in the labor movement) who still swallow the line that the goal of all this anti-Capitalist protest is a nice, egalitarian, social justice Utopia. But they are being played like a fiddle by the real core of hard leftists who are guiding the movement toward violence and chaos.

Anarchists come in two varieties: Communist Anarchists and Stupid Anarchists.