This article on anarchist thought comes from this link.
II.
Let us now turn to production and consumption, the levers of all existence.
Maybe in them we shall find a degree of Communism that will justify us in calling life in Russia Communistic, to some extent at least.
I have already pointed out that the land and the machinery of production are owned by the state.
The methods of production and the amounts to be manufactured by every industry in each and every mill, shop and factory are determined by the state, by the central government—by Moscow—through its various organs.
Now, Russia is a country of vast extent, covering about one sixth of the earth's surface.
It is peopled by a mixed population of 165,000,000.
It consists of a number of large republics, of various races and nationalities, each region having its own particular interests and needs.
No doubt, industrial and economic planning is vitally necessary for the well-being of a community.
True Communism—economic equality as between man and man and between communities—requires the best and most efficient planning by each community, based upon its local requirements and possibilities.
The basis of such planning must be the complete freedom of each community to produce according to its needs and to dispose of its products according to its judgment: to change its surplus with other similarly independent communities without let or hindrance by any external authority.
That is the essential politico-economic nature of Communism.
It is neither workable nor possible on any other isis.
It is necessarily libertarian, Anarchistic.
There is no trace of such Communism—that is to say, of any Communism—in Soviet Russia.
In fact, the mere suggestion of such a system is considered criminal there, and any attempt to carry it out is punished by death.
Industrial planning and all the processes of production and distribution are in the hands of the central government.
Supreme Economic Council is subject only to the authority of the Communist Party.
It is entirely independent of the will or wishes of the people comprising the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics.
Its work is directed by the pollicies and decisions of the Kremlin.
This explains why Soviet Russia exported vast amounts of wheat and other grain while wide regions in the south and southeast of Russia were stricken with famine, so that more than two million of its people died of starvation (1932-1933).
There were “reasons of state” for it.
The euphonious has from time immemorial masked tyranny, exploitation and the determination of every ruler to prolong and perpetuate his rule.
Incidentally, I may mention that—in spite of country-wide hunger and lack of the most elemental necessities of life in Russia—the entire First Five-Year Plan aimed at developing that branch of heavy industry which serves, or can be made to serve, military purposes.
As with production, so with distribution and every other form of activity.
Not only individual cities and towns, but the constituent parts of the Soviet Union are entirely deprived of independent existence.
Politically mere vassals of Moscow, their whole economic, social and cultural activity is planned, cut out for them and ruthlessly controlled by the “proletarian dictatorship” in Moscow.
More: the life of every locality, of every individual even, in the so-called “Socialist” republics is managed in the very last detail by the “general line” laid down by the “center.”
In other words, by the Central Committee and Politbureau of the Party, both of them controlled absolutely by one man, Stalin.
To call such a dictatorship, this personal autocracy more powerful and absolute than any Czar's, by the name of Communism seems to me the acme of imbecility.
(Continued tommorrow, ed.)
This series of posts will insure that these anarchists' works live on in living memory.
If only a few.
Don't lose hope now, dear reader.
We've made it this far.
At some point the ride gets easier.
Rule by force has had it's day.
When everybody sees the iron fist in the velvet glove we win.
We just have to survive its death throes.
There is a reason these facts are not in the modern curriculums.
Setting rewards to burn only burns the author portion of the payout.
The crowd isn't silenced.
Please cheer loudly, if that is your thing.