V. I.

Lenin

See also in Volume 10:
Socialism and Anarchism (1905)

Theses:

1. Anarchism, in the course of the 35 to 40 years (Bakunin and
the International , 1866–) of its existence (and with
Stirner included, in the course of many more years) has produced
nothing but general platitudes against exploitation .

Thesephrases have been current for more than 2,000 years. What
is missing is (alpha) an understanding of the causes of
exploitation; (beta) an understanding of the development
of society, which leads to socialism; (gamma) an understanding
of the class struggle as the creative force for the realisation of socialism.

2.An understanding of the causes of exploitation. Private property as the basis of
commodity economy. Social property in the means of production. In anarchism–nil.

Anarchismis bourgeois individualism in reverse. Individualism as the basis of the entire anarchist
world outlook .

{
Defence of petty property and petty economy on the land. Keine Majorität . [1]

Negationof the unifying and organising power of the authority.

}

3. Failure to understand the development of society–the role of
large-scale production–the development of capitalism into
socialism.

(Anarchismis a product of despair . The psychology of the unsettled intellectual or the vagabond and not of the
proletarian.)

4. Failure to understand the class struggle of the
proletariat.

Absurdnegation of politics in bourgeois society.

Failureto understand the role of the organisation and the
education of the workers.

Panaceasconsisting of one-sided, disconnected means.

5. What has anarchism, at one time dominant in the Romance
countries, contributed in recent European history?

– Nodoctrine, revolutionary teaching, or theory.

– Fragmentationof the working-class movement.

– Completefiasco in the experiments of the revolutionary
movement (Proudhonism, 1871; Bakuninism, 1873).

– Subordinationof the working class to bourgeois politics in the guise of negation of politics.

---
Notes:
[1]
No majority (i.e., the anarchists’ non-acceptance of the submission by the minority to the majority).– Ed .
— Lenin