It is a common assertion by Marxists that anarchists reject the idea of "leadership" and so think in terms of a totally spontaneous revolution. This is also generally understood to imply that anarchists do not see the need for revolutionaries to organise together to influence the class struggle in the here and now. Hence the British SWP's Duncan Hallas:

"That an organisation of socialist militants is necessary is common ground on the left, a few anarchist purists apart. But what kind of organisation? One view, widespread amongst newly radicalised students and young workers, is that of the libertarians . . . [They have] hostility to centralised, co-ordinated activity and profound suspicion of anything smacking of 'leadership.' On this view nothing more than a loose federation of working groups is necessary or desirable. The underlying assumptions are that centralised organisations inevitably undergo bureaucratic degeneration and that the spontaneous activities of working people are the sole and sufficient basis for the achievement of socialism . . . some libertarians draw the conclusion that a revolutionary socialist party is a contradiction in terms. This, of course, is the traditional anarcho-syndicalist position." [Towards a revolutionary socialist party, p. 39]

Ignoring the usual patronising references to the age and experience of non-Leninists, this argument can be faulted on many levels. Firstly, while libertarians do reject centralised structures, it does not mean we reject co-ordinated activity. This may be a common Marxist argument, but it is a straw man one. Secondly, anarchists do not reject the idea of "leadership." We simply reject the idea of hierarchical leadership. Thirdly, while all anarchists do think that a "revolutionary socialist party" is a contradiction in terms, it does not mean that we reject the need for revolutionary organisations (i.e. organisations of anarchists). While opposing centralised and hierarchical political parties, anarchists have long saw the need for anarchist groups and federations to discuss and spread our ideas and influence. We will discuss each issue in turn.

The first argument is the least important. For Marxists, co-ordination equals centralism and to reject centralisation means to reject co-ordination of joint activity. For anarchists, co-ordination does not each centralism or centralisation. This is why anarchism stresses federation and federalism as the means of co-ordinating joint activity. Under a centralised system, the affairs of all are handed over to a handful of people at the centre. Their decisions are then binding on the mass of the members of the organisation whose position is simply that of executing the orders of those whom the majority elect. This means that power rests at the top and decisions flow from the top downwards. As such, the "revolutionary" party simply mimics the very society it claims to oppose.

In a federal structure, in contrast, decisions flow from the bottom up by means of councils of elected, mandated and recallable delegates. In fact, we discover anarchists like Bakunin and Proudhon arguing for elected, mandated and recallable delegates rather than for representatives in their ideas of how a free society worked years before the Paris Commune applied them in practice. The federal structure exists to ensure that any co-ordinated activity accurately reflects the decisions of the membership. As such, anarchists "do not deny the need for co-ordination between groups, for discipline, for meticulous planning, and for unity in action. But they believe that co-ordination, discipline, planning, and unity in action must be achieved voluntarily, by means of a self-discipline nourished by conviction and understanding, not by coercion and a mindless, unquestioning obedience to orders from above." [Post-Scarcity Anarchism, p. 215] In other words, co-ordination comes from below rather than being imposed from above by a few leaders. To use an analogy, federalist co-ordination is the co-ordination created in a strike by workers resisting their bosses. It is created by debate amongst equals and flows from below upwards. Centralised co-ordination is the co-ordination imposed from the top-down by the boss.

As such, anarchists reject the "centralised" model of the party as it is a "revolutionary" grouping organised on the capitalist model. As such, it is not revolutionary at all. It simply reproduces the very problems within the "revolutionary" movement that, ironically, inspired the initial revolt of its members towards socialism. The idea that the membership should run the organisation becomes simply that the majority designates its rulers and, like the bourgeois system of parliamentary democracy it is copied from, quickly becomes drained of any real meaning and becomes a veil thrown over the unlimited power of the rulers. The membership does not run the party simply because it elects delegates once a year who, in turn, designate the central committee — no more than the people are sovereign in a parliamentary-style republic because they vote for the deputies who designate the government. Moreover, it trains the membership in accepting a division between leaders and led which, if applied during a revolution, will quickly mean that the party, not the masses, have real power.

Ultimately, centralised organisations become very undemocratic and, equally as important, ineffective. Hierarchical organisations kill people's enthusiasm and creativity. Such organisations are organisations where plans and ideas are not adopted because they are the best but simply because it is what a handful of leaders think are best for everyone else. Really effective organisations are those which make decisions based frank and open co-operation and debate, where dissent is not stifled and ideas are adopted because of their merit, and not who suggests them (i.e. the leaders of the party). In their quest for power and command, authoritarians usually end up manipulating processes, railroad their agendas, and in the process alienate people — exactly those people who are new to organising for social change. They cause experienced organisers to quit and put-off people who might otherwise join the movement.

This is why anarchists stress federalist organisations. It ensures that co-ordination flows from below and there is no institutionalised leadership. By organising in a way that reflects the kind of society we want, we train ourselves in the skills and decision making processes required to make a free and classless society work. In other words, that means and ends are united and this ensures that the means used will result in the desired ends. Simply put, libertarian means must be used if you want libertarian ends.

Secondly, anarchists are not against all forms of "leadership." We are against hierarchical and institutionalised forms of leadership. In other words, of giving power to leaders. This is the key difference, as Albert Meltzer explains. "Some people in some circumstance," he argues, "do naturally 'give a lead.' But this should not mean they are a class apart. Any revolutionary in a factory where the majority have no revolutionary experience, will at times, 'give a lead.' But no anarchist would form an institutionalised leadership, nor wait for a lead, but give one." [Anarchism: Arguments for and against, p. 36]

This means, as we argue in section J.3.6, that anarchists seek to influence the class struggle as equals. Rather than aim for positions of power, anarchists want to influence people by the power of their ideas as expressed in the debates that occur in the organisations created in the social struggle itself. This is because anarchists recognise that there is an unevenness in the level of ideas within the working class. This fact is obvious. Some workers accept the logic of the current system, others are critical of certain aspects, others (usually a minority) are consciously seek a better society (and are anarchists, ecologists, Marxists, etc.) and so on. Only constant discussion, the clash of ideas, combined with collective struggle can develop and narrow the unevenness of ideas within the oppressed. As Malatesta argued, "[o]nly freedom or the struggle for freedom can be the school for freedom." [Life and Ideas, p. 59]

From this perspective, it follows that any attempt to create an institutionalised leadership structure means the end of the revolutionary process. Such "leadership" automatically means a hierarchical structure, one in which the leaders have power and make the decisions for the rest. This just reproduces the old class division of labour between those who think and those who act (i.e. between order givers and order takers). Rather than the revolutionary masses taking power in such a system, it is the "leaders" (i.e. a specific party hierarchy) who do so and the masses role becomes, yet again, simply that of selecting which boss tells them what to do.

As such, the anarchist federation does not reject the need of "leadership" in the sense of giving a led, of arguing its ideas and trying to win people to them. It does reject the idea that "leadership" should become separated from the mass of the people. Simply put, no party, no group of leaders have all the answers and so the active participation of all is required for a successful revolution. "To give full scope to socialism," argued Kropotkin, "entails rebuilding from top to bottom a society dominated by the narrow individualism of the shopkeeper . . . it is a question of completely reshaping all relationships . . . In every street, in every hamlet, in every group of men gathered around a factory or along a section of the railway line, the creative, constructive, and organisational spirit must be awakened in order to rebuild life — in the factory, in the village, in the store, in production, and in distribution of supplies." Hence the need to "shatter the state" and "rebuild a new organisation, by beginning from the very foundations of society — the liberated village commune, federalism, groupings from simple to compound, free workingmen's [and women's] associations." Such a task could not be "carried out within the framework of the state and the pyramidal organisation which is the essence of the state." [Selected Writings on Anarchism and Revolution, pp. 261-2]

As such, anarchists reject the idea of turning the organs created in the class struggle and revolutionary process into hierarchical structures. By turning them from organs of self-management into organs for nominating "leaders," the constructive tasks and political development of the revolution will be aborted before they really begin. The active participation of all will become the picking of new masters and the revolution will falter. For this reason, anarchists "differ from the Bolshevik type of party in their belief that genuine revolutionaries must function within the framework of the forms created by the revolution, not within forms created by the party. . . Anarcho-communists seek to persuade the factory committees, assemblies or soviets to make themselves into genuine organs of popular self-management, not to dominate them, manipulate them, or hitch them to an all-knowing political party. Anarcho-communists do not seek to rear a state structure over these popular revolutionary organs." [Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 217]

This means that "an organisation is needed to propagate ideas systematically — and not ideas alone, but ideas which promote the concept of self-management." In other words, there "is a need for a revolutionary organisation — but its function must always be kept clearly in mind. Its first task is propaganda . . . In a revolutionary situation, the revolutionary organisation presents the most advanced demands: it is prepared at every turn of events to formulate — in the most concrete fashion — the immediate task that should be performed to advance the revolutionary process. It provides the boldest elements in action and in the decision-making organs of the revolution." [Bookchin, Op. Cit., pp. 216-7] But what it does not is supplant those organs or decision-making process by creating institutionalised, hierarchical leadership structures. As such, it is not a question of organisation versus non-organisation, or "leadership" versus non-"leadership" but rather what kind of organisation and the kind of leadership.

Clearly, then, anarchists do not reject or dismiss the importance of politically aware minorities organising and spreading their ideas within social struggles. As Caroline Cahm summarised in her excellent study of Kropotkin's thought between 1872 and 1886, "Kropotkin stressed the role of heroic minorities in the preparation for revolution." [Kropotkin and the Rise of Revolutionary Anarchism, 1872-86, p. 276] However, as John Crump correctly argues, the "key words here are in the preparation for revolution. By their courage and daring in opposing capitalism and the state, anarchist minorities could teach by example and thereby draw increasing numbers into the struggle. But Kropotkin was not advocating substitutionism; the idea that a minority might carry out the revolution in place of the people was as alien to him as the notion that a minority would exercise rule after the revolution. In fact, Kropotkin recognised that the former would be a prescription for the latter." [Hatta Shuzo and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan, p. 9] In Kropotkin's own words:

"The idea of anarchist communism, today represented by feeble minorities, but increasingly finding popular expression, will make its way among the mass of the people. Spreading everywhere, the anarchist groups . . . will take strength from the support they find among the people, and will raise the red flag of the revolution . . . On that day, what is now the minority will become the People, the great mass, and that mass rising against property and the State, will march forward towards anarchist communism." [Words of a Rebel, p. 75]

This influence would be gained simply by the correctness of our ideas and the validity of our suggestions. This means that anarchists seek influence "through advice and example, leaving the people . . . to adopt our methods and solutions if these are, or seem to be, better than those suggested and carried out by others." As such, any anarchist organisation would "strive acquire overwhelming influence in order to draw the [revolutionary] movement towards the realisation of our ideas. But such influence must be won by doing more and better than others, and will be useful if won in that way." This means rejecting "taking over command, that is by becoming a government and imposing one's own ideas and interests through police methods." [Malatesta, The Anarchist Revolution, pp. 108-9]

Moreover, unlike leading Marxists like Lenin and Karl Kautsky, anarchists think that socialist ideas are developed within the class struggle rather than outside it by the radical intelligentsia. According to Lenin (who was only agreeing with Kautsky, the leading light of German and International Social Democracy at the start of the twentieth century) socialist (or "Social-Democratic") "consciousness could only be brought to them [the workers] from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness." Socialist ideas did not arise from the labour movement but from the "educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals." ["What is to Be Done?", Essential Works of Lenin, p. 74]

Anarchists reject this perspective. Kropotkin argued that "modern socialism has emerged out of the depths of the people's consciousness. If a few thinkers emerging from the bourgeoisie have given it the approval of science and the support of philosophy, the basis of the idea which they have given their own expression has nonetheless been the product of the collective spirit of the working people. The rational socialism of the International is still today our greatest strength, and it was elaborated in working class organisation, under the first influence of the masses. The few writers who offered their help in the work of elaborating socialist ideas have merely been giving form to the aspirations that first saw their light among the workers." [Words of a Rebel, p. 59] In other words, anarchists are a part of the working class (either by birth or by rejecting their previous class background and becoming part of it), the part which has generalised its own experiences, ideas and needs into a theory called "anarchism" and seeks to convince the rest of the validity of its ideas and tactics. This would be a dialogue, based on both learning and teaching.

As such, this means that the relationship between the specifically anarchist groups and oppressed peoples in struggle is a two way one. As well as trying to influence the social struggle, anarchists also try and learn from the class struggle and try to generalise from the experiences of their own struggles and the struggles of other working class people. Rather than seeing the anarchist group as some sort of teacher, anarchists see it as simply part of the social struggle and its ideas can and must develop from active participation within the class struggle. As anarchists agree with Bakunin and reject the idea that their organisations should take power on behalf of the masses, it is clear that such groups are not imposing alien ideas upon people but rather try to clarify the ideas generated by working class people in struggle. It is an objective fact that there is a great difference in the political awareness within the masses of oppressed people. This uneven development means that they do not accept, all at once or in their totality, revolutionary ideas. There are layers. Groups of people, by ones and twos and then in larger numbers, become interested, read literature, talk with others, and create new ideas. The first groups that explicitly call their ideas "anarchism" have the right and duty to try to persuade others to join them. This is not opposed to the self-organisation of the working class, rather it is how the working class self-organises.

Thirdly, as we discuss in section J.3, anarchists recognise the need to create specifically anarchist organisations to spread anarchist ideas and influence the class struggle. As we discuss the different kinds of anarchist organisations in that section, we will not do so here. Suffice to say, the idea that anarchists reject this need to organise politically in order to achieve a revolution is not to be found in the theory and practice of all the major anarchist thinkers.

Ultimately, if spontaneity was enough to create (and ensure the success of) a social revolution then we would be living in a libertarian socialist society. The fact that we are not suggests that spontaneity, however important, is not enough in itself. This simple fact of history is understood by anarchists and all the major anarchist thinkers.

See section J.3 for more details on what organisations anarchists create and their role in anarchist revolutionary theory. Section J.3.6 has a fuller discussion of the role of anarchist groups in the class struggle. For a discussion of the role of anarchists in a revolution, see section J.7.5. For a fuller discussion why anarchists reject the idea of a revolutionary socialist party see section H.5.1 ("Why are vanguard parties anti-socialist?").