Yes. Anarchists have always argued that real socialism cannot be created using a state. The basic core of the argument is simple. Socialism implies equality, yet the state signifies inequality — inequality in terms of power. As we argued in section B.2, anarchists consider one of the defining aspects of the state is its hierarchical nature. In other words, the delegation of power into the hands of a few. As such, it violates the core idea of socialism, namely social equality. Those who make up the governing bodies in a state have more power than those who have elected them.

Hence these comments by Malatesta and Hamon:

"It could be argued with much more reason that we are the most logical and most complete socialists, since we demand for every person not just his [or her] entire measure of the wealth of society but also his [or her] portion of social power." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 2, p. 20]

It is with this perspective that anarchists have combated the idea of state socialism and Marxism (although we should stress that libertarian forms of Marxism, such as council communism, have strong similarities to anarchism). This opposition to authoritarian socialism is a core aspect of anarchism, an opposition which has been consistent and strong. While it is sometimes argued by some on the right that libertarian socialists and anarchists only started voicing their opposition to Marxism and Leninism after the Soviet Union collapsed, the truth is totally different. Anarchists, we must stress, have been opposed to all forms of state socialism from the start (in the case of the Russian Revolution, the anarchists were amongst the first on the left to be suppressed by the Bolsheviks). Indeed, the history of Marxism is, in part, a history of its struggles against anarchists just as the history of anarchism is also, in part, a history of its struggle against the various forms of Marxism and its offshoots. To state, or imply, that anarchists have only lately opposed Marxism is false — we have been arguing against Marxism since the start.

While both Stirner and Proudhon wrote many pages against the evils and contradictions of state socialism, anarchists have only really been fighting the Marxist form of state socialism since Bakunin. This is because, until the First International, Marx and Engels were relatively unknown socialist thinkers. Proudhon was aware of Marx (they had meant in France in the 1840s and had corresponded) but Marxism was unknown in France during his life time and so Proudhon did not directly argue against Marxism (he did, however, critique Louis Blanc and other French state socialists). Similarly, when Stirner wrote The Ego and Its Own Marxism did not exist bar a few works by Marx and Engels. Indeed, it could be argued that Marxism finally took shape after Marx had read Stirner's classic and produced his notoriously inaccurate diatribe The German Ideology against him. However, like Proudhon, Stirner attacked other state socialists and communists.

Before discussing Bakunin's opposition and critique of Marxism in the next section, we should consider the thoughts of Stirner and Proudhon on state socialism. These critiques contain may important ideas and so are worth summarising. However, it is worth noting that when both Stirner and Proudhon were writing communist ideas were all authoritarian in nature. Libertarian communism only developed after Bakunin's death in 1876. This means that when Proudhon and Stirner were critiquing "communism" they were attacking a specific form of communism, the form which subordinated the individual to the community. Anarchist communists like Kropotkin and Malatesta also opposed such kinds of "communism" (as Kropotkin put it, "before and in 1848" communism "was put forward in such a shape as to fully account for Proudhon's distrust as to its effect upon liberty. The old idea of Communism was the idea of monastic communities . . . The last vestiges of liberty and of individual energy would be destroyed, if humanity ever had to go through such a communism." [Act for Yourselves, p. 98]). Of course, it may be likely that Stirner and Proudhon would have rejected libertarian communism as well, but bear in mind that not all forms of "communism" are identical.

For Stirner, the key issue was that communism (or socialism), like liberalism, looked to the "human" rather than the unique. "To be looked upon as a mere part, part of society," asserted Striner, "the individual cannot bear — because he is more; his uniqueness puts from it this limited conception." [The Ego and Its Own, p. 265] As such, his protest against communism was similar to his protest against liberalism (indeed, he drew attention to their similarity by calling socialism and communism "social liberalism").

Stirner was aware that capitalism was not the great defender of freedom it was claimed to be by its supporters. "Restless acquisition," he argued, "does not let us take breath, take a claim enjoyment: we do not get the comfort of our possessions." Communism, by the "organisation of labour," can "bear its fruit" so that "we come to an agreement about human labours, that they may not, as under competition, claim all our time and toil." However, communism "is silent" over "for whom is time to be gained." He, in contrast, stresses that it is for the individual, "[t]o take comfort in himself as the unique." [Op. Cit., pp. 268-9] Thus state socialism does not recognise that the purpose of association is to free the individual and instead subjects the individual to a new tyranny:

"it is not another State (such as a 'people's State') that men aim at, but their union, uniting, this ever-fluid uniting of everything standing — A State exists even without my co-operation . . . the independent establishment of the State founds my lack of independence; its condition as a 'natural growth,' its organism, demands that my nature do not grow freely, but be cut to fit it." [Op. Cit., p. 224]

Similarly, Stirner argued that "Communism, by the abolition of all personal property, only presses me back still more into dependence on another, to wit, on the generality or collectivity . . . [which is] a condition hindering my free movement, a sovereign power over me. Communism rightly revolts against the pressure that I experience from individual proprietors; but still more horrible is the might that it puts in the hands of the collectivity." [The Ego and Its Own, p. 257]

History has definitely confirmed this. By nationalising property, the various state socialist regimes turned the worker from a servant of the capitalist into a serf of the state. In contrast, communist-anarchists argue for free association and workers' self-management as the means of ensuring that socialised property does not turn into the denial of freedom rather than as a means of ensuring it. As such, Stirner's attack on what Marx termed "vulgar communism" is still important and finds echoes in communist-anarchist writings as well as the best works of Marx and his more libertarian followers.

To show the difference between the "communism" Stirner attacked and anarchist-communism, we can show that Kropotkin was not "silent" on why organising production is essential. Like Stirner, he thought that under libertarian communism the individual would "discharge his [or her] task in the field, the factory, and so on, which he owes to society as his contribution to the general production. And he will employ the second half of his day, his week, or his year, to satisfy his artistic or scientific needs, or his hobbies." [Conquest of Bread, p. 111] In other words, he considered the whole point of organising labour as the means of providing the individual the time and resources required to express their individuality. As such, anarcho-communism incorporates Stirner's legitimate concerns and arguments.

Similar arguments to Stirner's can be found in Proudhon's works against the various schemes of state socialism that existing in France in the middle of the nineteenth century. He particularly attacked the ideas of Louis Blanc. Blanc, whose most famous book was Organisation du Travail (Organisation of Work, published in 1840) argued that social ills could be solved by means of government initiated and financed reforms. More specifically, he argued that it was "necessary to use the whole power of the state" to ensure the creation and success of workers' associations (or "social workshops"). Since that "which the proletarians lack to free themselves are the tools of labour," the government "must furnish them" with these. "The state," in short, "should place itself resolutely at the head of industry." Capitalists would be encouraged to invest money in these workshops, for which they would be guaranteed interest. Such state-initiated workshops would soon force privately owned industry to change itself into social workshops, so eliminating competition. [quoted by K. Steven Vincent, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and the Rise of French Republican Socialism, p. 139]

Proudhon objected to this scheme on many levels. Firstly, he argued that Blanc's scheme appealed "to the state for its silent partnership; that is, he gets down on his knees before the capitalists and recognises the sovereignty of monopoly." Given that Proudhon saw the state as an instrument of the capitalist class, asking that state to abolish capitalism was illogical and impossible. Moreover, by getting the funds for the "social workshop" from capitalists, Blanc's scheme was hardly undermining their power. "Capital and power," Proudhon argued, "secondary organs of society, are always the gods whom socialism adores; if capital and power did not exist, it would invent them." [quoted by Vincent, Op. Cit., p. 157] He stressed the authoritarian nature of Blanc's scheme:

"M. Blanc is never tired of appealing to authority, and socialism loudly declares itself anarchistic; M. Blanc places power above society, and socialism tends to subordinate it to society; M. Blanc makes social life descend from above, and socialism maintains that it springs up and grows from below; M. Blanc runs after politics, and socialism is in quest of science. No more hypocrisy, let me say to M. Blanc: you desire neither Catholicism nor monarchy nor nobility, but you must have a God, a religion, a dictatorship, a censorship, a hierarchy, distinctions, and ranks. For my part, I deny your God, your authority, your sovereignty, your judicial State, and all your representative mystifications." [System of Economical Contradictions]

Equally, Proudhon opposed the "top-down" nature of Blanc's ideas. Instead of reform from above, Proudhon stressed the need for working class people to organise themselves for their own liberation. As he put it, the "problem before the labouring classes . . . [is] not in capturing, but in subduing both power and monopoly, — that is, in generating from the bowels of the people, from the depths of labour, a greater authority, a more potent fact, which shall envelop capital and the state and subjugate them." For, "to combat and reduce power, to put it in its proper place in society, it is of no use to change the holders of power or introduce some variation into its workings: an agricultural and industrial combination must be found by means of which power, today the ruler of society, shall become its slave." [System of Economical Contradictions, p. 398 and p. 397] Proudhon stressed in 1848 that "the proletariat must emancipate itself without the help of the government." [quoted by George Woodcock, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: A Biography, p. 125] This was because the state "finds itself inevitably enchained to capital and directed against the proletariat." [Proudhon, System of Economical Contradictions, p. 399] In addition, by guaranteeing interest payments, Blanc's scheme insured the continued exploitation of labour by capital.

Proudhon, in contrast, argued for a two-way approach to undermining capitalism from below: the creation of workers associations and the organisation of credit. By creating mutual banks, which provided credit at cost, workers could create associations to compete with capitalist firms, drive them out of business and so eliminate exploitation once and for all by workers' self-management. In this way, the working class would emancipate itself from capitalism and build a socialist society from below upwards by their own efforts and activities. Proudhon, as Marxist Paul Thomas notes, "believed fervently . . . in the salvation of working men, by their own efforts, through economic and social action alone . . . Proudhon advocated, and to a considerable extent inspired, the undercutting of this terrain [of the state] from without by means of autonomous working-class associations." [Karl Marx and the Anarchists, pp. 177-8]

Rejecting violent revolution (and, indeed, strikes as counter productive) he argued for economic means to end economic exploitation and, as such, he saw anarchism come about by reform via competition by workers' associations displacing capitalist industry (unlike later anarchists, who were revolutionaries that argued that capitalism cannot be reformed away and so supported strikes and other forms of collective working class direct action, struggle and combative organisation). Given that the bulk of the French working class was artisans and peasants, such an approach reflected the social context in which it was proposed.

It was this social context, this predominance of peasants and artisans in French society which informed Proudhon's ideas. He never failed to stress that association would be tyranny if imposed upon peasants and artisans (rather, he thought that associations would be freely embraced by these workers if they thought it was in their interests to). He also stressed that state ownership of the means of production was a danger to the liberty of the industrial worker and, moreover, the continuation of capitalism with the state as the new boss. As he put it in 1848, he "did not want to see the State confiscate the mines, canals and railways; that would add to monarchy, and more wage slavery. We want the mines, canals, railways handed over to democratically organised workers' associations . . . these associations [will] be models for agriculture, industry and trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and societies woven into the common cloth of the democratic social Republic." [No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 62] Workers' associations would be applied for those industries which objectively needed it (i.e. capitalist industry) and for those other toilers who desired it.

Marx, of course, had replied to Proudhon's work System of Economic Contradictions with his Poverty of Philosophy. Marx's work aroused little interest when published, although Proudhon did carefully read and annotate his copy of Marx's work, claiming it to be "a libel" and a "tissue of abuse, calumny, falsification and plagiarism" (he even called Marx "the tapeworm of Socialism.") [quoted by George Woodcock, Proudhon, p. 102] Sadly, Proudhon did not reply to Marx's work due to an acute family crisis and then the start of the 1848 revolution in France. However, given his views of Louis Blanc and other socialists who saw socialism being introduced after the seizing of state power, he would hardly have been supportive of Marx's ideas.

So while none of Proudhon's and Stirner's arguments are directly aimed at Marxism, their ideas are applicable to much of mainstream Marxism as this inherited many of the ideas of the state socialism they attacked. Thus they both made forceful critiques of the socialist and communist ideas that existed during their lives. Much of their analysis was incorporated in the collectivist and communist ideas of the anarchists that followed them (some directly, as from Proudhon, some by co-incidence as Stirner's work was quickly forgotten and only had an impact on the anarchist movement when George Henry MacKay rediscovered it in the 1890s). This can be seen from the fact that Proudhon's ideas on the management of production by workers' associations, opposition to nationalisation as state-capitalism and the need for action from below, by working people themselves, all found their place in communist-anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism and in their critique of mainstream Marxism (such as social democracy) and Leninism.

Echoes of these critiques can be found Bakunin's comments of 1868:

"I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty and because for me humanity is unthinkable without liberty. I am not a Communist, because Communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit of the State all the forces of society, because it inevitably leads to the concentration of property in the hands of the State . . . I want to see society and collective or social property organised from below upwards, by way of free associations, not from above downwards, by means of any kind of authority whatsoever . . . That is the sense in which I am a Collectivist and not a Communist." [quoted by K.J. Kenafick, Michael Bakunin and Karl Marx, pp. 67-8]

It is with Bakunin that Marxism and Anarchism came into direct conflict. It was Bakunin who lead the struggle against Marx in the International Workingmen's Association between 1868 and 1872. It was in these exchanges that the two schools of socialism (the libertarian and the authoritarian) clarified themselves. With Bakunin, the anarchist critique of Marxism (and state socialism in general) starts to reach its finalised form. Needless to say, this critique continued to develop after Bakunin's death (particularly after the experiences of actual Marxist movements and revolutions). However, much of this involved expanding upon many of Bakunin's original predictions and analyses.

We will discuss Bakunin's critique in the next section.