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Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Robert Graham, ed., Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939) (Montreal: Black Rose Books 2005)

ANARCHISM, as an anti-authoritarian political philosophy and revolutionary practice, has a long and rich history. Rather than being a unified doctrine, anarchism is a heterogeneous series of ideas and theories which arose in different historical periods and cultural contexts. Its sheer breadth and diversity is shown in the eclectic series of writings that Graham gathers together in the first volume of his anthology of anarchist thought. From the writings of early 4th-century Daoist philosophers through to the revolutionists and Communards of the 19th century and the anarcho-syndicalists of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s, Graham presents a panoramic array of anarchist thinkers and activists, and, in doing so, explores an elaborate genealogy of anti-authoritarian thought.

While Graham is right to point out in his Preface that anarchism as a conscious political philosophy only emerged in the 19th century—Proudhon was the first to call himself an "anarchist" — libertarian and anti-authoritarian ideas have been around for much longer. Without wanting to adopt a naturalist terminology, we might say that there has always been an anti-authoritarian 'impulse' that has arisen at different historical moments and in different social contexts. This 'impulse' is not so much an essential dimension of the species being, as Bakunin believed, but rather a kind of radical emancipative imaginary, and an ethics that continues to raise the problem of authority, unmasking its claims to legitimacy, rationality, and inevitability. It is an ethics that says, despite the claims made by the apologists for sovereignty — like Hobbes and Locke — that there need not be a State or centralized forms of political and social authority based on coercion and violence; that there need not be hierarchy and inequality; that the domination of institutions over individuals, of capitalists over workers, of men over women is neither natural nor inevitable, that these power relationships and authoritarian structures have a history that is violent and bloody, and are based on imposition rather than consent.

This book is symptomatic of a growing interest in anarchism and a revitalization of the anarchist tradition, a tradition that for so long has been marginalized and overshadowed by Marxism. Indeed, with the collapse of Marxism, we might say that a new spectre is haunting our societies today—no longer that of communism but of anarchism. Of course, certain strands of classical anarchism draw on elements of Marxism — particularly in its analysis of the capitalist economy—and, moreover, the goal of both is the same—a collective society based on free association. However, where anarchism departs from Marxism is in its analysis of centralized political power — in particular the institution of the State — seeing it not only as the condition and basis of economic exploitation, but also a fundamental impediment to revolution, not as a neutral tool that could be used to advance socialism. The radical innovativeness of anarchism lies in its analysis and critique of political power, as well as its insistence on a revolution that is libertarian and spontaneous.

Now that we have seen the eclipse of the Marxist project, in the wake of the manifold failures of the communist state system that emerged in its name, it is time to reinvoke the anarchist tradition. Perhaps anarchism can serve as the reference point for the radical political struggles of today. A number of contemporary conditions suggest this possibility: the aggressive reassertion of an authoritarian state under the pretext of "security," even, and especially, in our so-called liberal democracies; unprecedented economic inequalities and concentrations of wealth as a result of the intensification of capitalist globalization; and, lastly, the emergence of new struggles and identities—not only the "new social movements" such as feminism, environmentalism, and gay struggles, but also the broadly termed "anti-globalization" movement — which suggests a radical politics no longer based on the centricity of the proletariat, and which contests multiple forms of domination and exclusion.

These could be seen as conditions for the anarchist moment in politics today. However, any revitalization of the anarchist tradition must also involve a rethinking of some of its key categories and concepts. In the epistemological conditions of "postmodernity," many of the theoretical assumptions of classical anarchism— such as the evolutionary/dialectical view of human progress, the essentialist and rationalist conception of the subject, and the vision of society as being based on a natural harmony—are increasingly difficult to sustain. However, the abandonment of these "metanarratives" does not lead by any means to the abandonment of the anarchist tradition as a whole. What is central to it—its radical analysis and critique of power, its anti-authoritarian ethos, and its commitment to a radical politics of emancipation and egalitarianism— can be rearticulated and applied to contemporary political struggles. Any sort of rethinking of anarchism — any sort of politics of "post-anarchism" — must involve a serious reflection on the tradition of classical anarchism, which Graham so comprehensively covers in his anthology. The ideas of not only Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Proudhon, but also Stirner and La Boetie have never been more relevant. For instance, the latter's essay On Voluntary Servitude, from which there is a brief excerpt in this book, shows us that any consideration of political authority, and any form of radical politics which seeks to contest this, must first consider the problem of the subject's willing complicity with the power that dominates him/her.

Many different strands of anarchist thought are represented in this book — Daoism, collective anarchism, anarchosyndicalism, individualist anarchism, and so on. The assorted fragments of anarchist writings are arranged into different historical periods, themes such as Art and Anarchy and Anarchy and Education, as well as the different cultural contexts in which anarchist ideas appeared — there are texts here from not only Europe and Russia, but also Japan, China, Korea, and Latin America, reflecting the universal appeal of libertarian ideas. There are considerations of subjects such as revolutionary strategy, philosophy, historical events such as the Spanish Civil War and the Paris Commune, as well as art, love, and marriage. The strength of this book is in its bringing together into a single volume these diverse writings, some of which have never been published in English before. It will serve as an excellent introduction to the anti-authoritarian tradition, and an important resource for the scholar of anarchism.

However, the eclecticism and sheer panoramic scope of the book is a weakness as well as a strength. Graham includes too many different writers here, and the excerpts from their writings are often very brief, some no longer than a page and a half, making it difficult at times to gain anything other than a superficial introduction to their work. It would perhaps have been better to have fewer thinkers and a more extensive and in-depth treatment of their work. Also, while a brief biographical context is provided for each writer, there is no real analysis of their work, or of how their approach to anarchism might differ from others. The reader is given only a very de-contextualized exposure to anarchist ideas. While Graham wants to allow these different thinkers and writers to speak for themselves, the book would have benefited from commentary which situated their ideas in a philosophical and political context.

Despite these limitations, however, this book is a long overdue survey of the classical anarchist tradition, bringing to the English-speaking world previously untranslated anarchist texts from different cultural and historical settings, thus reflecting the diversity and richness of the anti-authoritarian tradition. Moreover, the book is a testimony to the renewed interest in, and ongoing importance of, anarchism today.


Saul Newman University of Western Australia

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