Like most other concepts, anarchism is poorly understood
To me “anarchism” conjures up, or at least used to before I read this book, an image of a society that follows no laws, gives absolute freedom to its members, and hopes to sustain itself by appealing to the better nature of its inhabitants. No wonder I never considered it to be feasible, much less an alternative to the existing democratic structures.
The dawn of industrial revolution in the 1700s meant the western nations were in need of raw materials to feed their rising industries. This led them to set up their tents in, mainly, African and Asian countries, at a time when most of them had little or no concept of a “nation”. With time, they came to control the raw materials, the industries and international trade emerging from these countries. The indigenous people were transformed into machines, into cogs of a wheel which kept the industrial revolution alive.
It was in this background that socialism (the state should own the means of production) and communism (abolition of private property and creation of a collectivised classless society) emerged. Their aim was basically to restore dignity into the lives of the labourers and abolish “wage slavery”, which forced them to sell their health, life and soul barely to stay alive.
Socialism and communism arose in various forms throughout the world, especially in Asia and Eastern Europe, a process which continued into the first half of the twentieth century. As we entered the second half of the twentieth century, however, another idea had extended its roots deep into the minds of some emerging nations.
Democracy in the twenty-first century, as in the latter half of the twentieth century, emerged as the result of centuries of struggle against the western imperial powers which had set up their tents throughout the world. It was the result of a long struggle, a struggle for equality, for freedom, for making the administrative machinery answerable to the governed, and for providing appropriate mechanisms for bringing about changes in those very machineries.
In most implementations of a democratic setup, it promised, at the very least, equality before law, ensured the rights of each person were as important as any other’s, and strove towards a society where each person could live his life free from the chains of exploitation.
Most democracies supported, not necessarily driven by something innate in their philosophy, but as a barometer for individual freedom, a free market economy. This meant that people with the required resources, which included land, labour, capital and raw materials among other things, could set up their industries and employ other people to do certain jobs. This was an important development, as the anarchists later proclaimed, in that it perpetuated wage slavery but this time under the guise of freedom of the individual, thus escaping the conscious moral revulsion associated with it in the previous centuries.
This, from what I could gather from the introductory portions of the book, was the seed which precipitated the dawn of anarchism as a possible political alternative.
What is anarchism, in its core? As Chomsky explains in the book, an anarchist demands that every form of power must justify the reasons it is holding that power, and this prerogative lies on the power-wielding authority and not the governed. Be it religion, capitalism, government or any other framework that holds any kind of power, if it can’t justify itself, it must be done away with.
The Spanish revolution of 1936-37 is the most pertinent example in our study of a truly anarchist society. As Orwell writes in Homage to Catalonia, from which Chomsky quotes extensively, anyone who had been lucky enough to be in Spain, especially cities like Catalonia, Aragon or Barcelona during the time, would have been surprised by the level of cohesion and practicality that an anarchist society could offer. Everybody was equal, each did the kind of work he or she wanted not because of the compulsion of earning a living, but merely because he wanted to do that work. It would have been a revelation for the sceptics.
But why this scepticism? Why does the term anarchism seem to represent the paragon of impracticality, is labelled flawed before the word is even completely uttered, and is consequently hand-waved into impertinence?
Chomsky cites this as a result of a trend where leading historians, many of whom have received the most decorated honours, commentators, analysts and even the press, failed to objectively report the Spanish revolution and its events, mostly due to an inherent liberal bias they had, and also on account of the dominant political narratives that were playing out in the western nations, and even those with a communist government at the helm, who were not supportive of a positive portrayal of the anarchist revolution that had swept parts of Spain.
Chomsky doesn’t blame them per se, but he doesn’t spare them either. Through extensive quotations from some of the sources that managed to honestly represent, though still not completely, the developments in Spain during the revolution, he proves that some of the most followed and respected authors, whose works are considered canonical works of the revolution, failed to honestly report some of the most important and crucial moments of the anarchist movement. What a pity.
Chomsky ends the book with an exposition on the nature of the connection between language and freedom, for, he says, having an independent mind, of which (human) language is possibly the principal indicator, is one of the prerequisites of freedom.
I must admit, this book is a bit scholarly and the casual reader may not find it interesting enough in parts, but it is a great comment on how the course of history, and of the lives of the people who read it, can be influenced and moulded, sometimes unknowingly and sometimes with intent, by a few voices.
In this tale of the Spanish revolution, we find a message of grave importance. How often have we misunderstood history, not only because we haven’t got as many sources as we would ideally want, but also because the thought of questioning the credibility of the sources often escapes us. It’s not something we naturally do.
Chomsky shows just how much we stand to lose by staying in this mould, and how much to gain by breaking free.