Anarchists Never Surrender

Essays, Polemics, and Correspondence on Anarchism, 1908–1938

Victor Serge, Mitchell Abidor, Mitchell Abidor

• Publisher: PM Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781629630533
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Anarquismo

Anarchists Never Surrender provides a complete picture of Victor Serge's relationship to anarchism. The volume contains writings going back to his teenage years in Brussels, where he became influenced by the doctrine of individualist anarchism. At the heart of the anthology are key articles written soon after his arrival in Paris in 1909, when he became editor of the newspaper l'anarchie. In these articles Serge develops and debates his own radical thoughts, arguing the futility of mass action and embracing "illegalism." Serge's involvement with the notorious French group of anarchist armed robbers, the Bonnot Gang, landed him in prison for the first time in 1912. Anarchists Never Surrender includes both his prison correspondence with his anarchist comrade Émile Armand and articles written immediately after his release.

The book also includes several articles and letters written by Serge after he had left anarchism behind and joined the Russian Bolsheviks in 1919. Here Serge analyzed anarchism and the ways in which he hoped anarchism would leaven the harshness and dictatorial tendencies of Bolshevism. Included here are writings on anarchist theory and history, Bakunin, the Spanish revolution, and the Kronstadt uprising.

Anarchists Never Surrender anthologizes Victor Serge's previously unavailable texts on anarchism and fleshes out the portrait of this brilliant writer and thinker, a man I.F. Stone called one of the "moral figures of our time."

Our Antisyndicalism

TODAY, IN LIGHT OF THE UPCOMING ANTIPARLIAMENTARY CAMPAIGN, THE anarchists are divided into two apparently irreconcilable groups: the syndicalists and the antisyndicalists.

The comrades on the other side, in a brief declaration that it is only right to recognize has the dual merits of clarity and honesty, have said what they want and who they are. Their antiparliamentary campaign will serve as the basis for syndicalist-revolutionary agitation.

It is thus on this plane that we meet up with them. After Lorulot spelled out our antiparliamentarism I think it is right to spell out what our antisyndicalism should be.

This theme has already been discussed and re-discussed thousands of times among us, and we must recognize that the arguments of both sides have often been of a disconcerting puerility. No later than last week did I not hear friends reproach unions for establishing fixed dues and compare these to taxes? And others defend them by saying that in such and such a professional association they had educational discussions? Ordinarily it is with such futilities that the union movement is attacked and defended. Or else hairs are split over side issues like the functionary-ism of the CGT, the arrivisme of the leaders, the authoritarianism of the revolutionary method …

These are details that are without a doubt interesting to know and useful to criticize. But our antisyndicalism is based, I believe, on more serious, more profound arguments, and it is important that in the upcoming antiparliamentary battle we have something other than these clichés to oppose to the theoreticians of working-class action.

We shouldn’t be declaiming against the demagogues of the Rue de la Grange-aux-Belles, nor should we be involved in endless discussions over whether or not it’s advantageous to participate in a corporate association, nor should we be elucidating the question of knowing whether we can make anarchist propaganda there. Yes, there is perhaps an interest in taking part in a trade grouping; yes, we can sometimes carry out good anarchist work. In the same way there is an interest in being a good soldier and a good worker. In the same way it is sometimes possible to spread ideas in a barracks. It’s the very principle of syndicalism that should be attacked in order to demonstrate its inanity and dangerous consequences.

Let us first look at what syndicalist theory is and what it rests on. We can sum it up in this way:

Two adverse social classes exist and confront each other: idle owners and working non-owners, the latter being far more numerous. All social evil comes from the fact that the ownership of the means of production permits the minority, called “bourgeois,” to pressure and exploit the minority, called “proletarian.” There is only one remedy for this state of affairs: that the proletarians group together in corporate associations, in a vast confederation—class associations—and that they battle to every day wrest from the enemy caste a few small advantages until such time as, having become numerous and daring enough, they profit from a war or an economic crisis to decree the insurrectionary general strike and seize the means of production. Once this is accomplished the unions will organize work. It will be the Social Republic. The fundamental “causes” of human suffering having disappeared, humanity will progress in peace, joy, and happiness … Here the field remains open to everyone’s imagination, permitting the composition at leisure of tableaux of universal happiness that, of course, can only ever be far below reality! This is, with more or less variations, the sales spiels that the syndicalists of all shapes and forms prepare to serve (with, incidentally, much conviction and sincerity) to the good voters. We have to refute this entirely, point by point, omitting nothing. And I say this is quite feasible.

The problem to be solved is this: how do we transform our revolting society in order to finally establish a social milieu that assures every individual the maximum of happiness? This, in summary, is our objective as reformers and is also that of the syndicalists. Let us then pose the question this way: Given this goal, is it logical to count on the working class for this labor of destruction and construction?

Can we reasonably believe it capable of leading such an enterprise to a successful conclusion?

“Yes,” say the ouvrieristes (without ever explaining why). “No,” we answer them, and we will prove it: The working class suffers from the atavism of servitude and exploitation. It is the weaker of the two classes from every point of view. It is above all the less intelligent, and this is the sole cause for its state of subjection. It is within the logic of nature for the stronger to dominate the weaker. By virtue of this law the unconscious and cowardly plebe, the imbecilic masses, credulous and fearful, have always been despoiled by more intelligent, healthier, more daring minorities. At present, after nineteen centuries of oppression, the difference between the two classes has been considerably accentuated. Let us repeat it again: in all areas impartial science demonstrates to us the inferiority of the working class. That being so, it is foolish to believe it capable of organizing a rational society. The degenerates, the hereditary slaves, the pitiful mass of working stiffs that we know de visu are physiologically incapable of living in harmony.

Consequently, it is a waste of time and energy to organize the working class to carry out social transformation.

Consequently, all the theoretical affirmations flowing from the principle that the working class can and must modify the social regime are false.

Consequently, there is only one urgent, useful, indispensable task, one which, in creating individuals finally worthy of the title of men, gradually improves the society: the task of education and anarchist combat.

This being established through scientific and logical arguments, and the very principle of syndicalism having been demonstrated false, let us now pass to a critical examination of the union movement and see if it confirms our deductions. It fully confirms them.

To begin with, let us note a salient contradiction. With the goal of organizing one class against another, the workers are invited to unite in professional associations. Yet the interests of various corporations are often opposed, which renders class cohesion economically impossible, on this basis at least. And which is the cause of enormous waste …

Now let’s look at the unions. Examined closely we see that they reproduce to varying degrees the defects and the wounds of the bourgeois society they claim to have a mission to destroy. A union is the old society in miniature. Foolish and complicated administrative gears galore; regulations restrictive of individual initiative; oppression of minorities by feeble majorities; the triumph of the mediocre on condition that they have the gifts of gab and swindling. Everything can be found there, up to and including parasites.

Let us look at their tactics. Far from combating the established social order, it seems that the unions have their sanctioning as a goal. Supposedly antistatists, they never cease battling for this or that law or demanding another one, thus recognizing the entity Law and, as a corollary, the entity State. These antiparliamentarians sign duly legalized contracts and call for this to be voted for and that to be rejected …

In their organization they are a perfect copy of the parliamentary farce. Even the clowns aren’t missing. Delegation of power, votes, decisions having force of law, as well as half-hidden combinations, personal competition, kitchen squabbles: we can find in the CGT an exact, though reduced, transposition of parliamentary hideousness.

As for the unmistakable incoherence of their blather, they pass from a tragic to a comic character by a series of gradations amusing to observe. It’s the smashing—is it not, Clemenceau?—victory of the postal workers transformed a few days later into … well, you find the diplomatic word. It’s the valiant corporation of construction workers who a few months ago naively allowed themselves to be muzzled by a collective contract that was extremely … clever. It’s the CGT today building itself up as defenders of bank employees, as if the valets of the financier were not as repugnant as the financier himself. We could write columns on this theme.

Let us look at the results. Today the CGT is combative; in words more than in acts, but combative all the same. With this as a starting point, comrades promise us that in the future its combative force will grow and will end by assuring it the complete triumph of its demands. We saw above what the reasons were that authorize us—let us be modest—to have some doubts on this subject. A glance at our neighboring countries will be instructive in this regard.

At their beginning all parties, all groups (even all individuals) are combative. Age comes, and with it a potbelly and wisdom. This is the story of many men who we are today permitted to admire raised to the top of the social machine, the history of the trade union socialist parties. Very revolutionary during the blessed period of their youth, the English trade unions have become what we know them to be. The same thing happened to many German unions, and is now happening to the Belgian workers’ movement, which is losing all its energy as it grows. In certain places in the United States, in Australia, in New Zealand, in England, where the unions have reached their heights, they have only managed to create a caste of privileged, conservative workers, lined up under the protective shield of the state, and are hardly worth more than the more official bourgeois.

Having seen the evolution of the French unions and observed the incoherence of the CGT, I don’t think it’s possible to foresee a different destiny for it.

We will thus not lack for arguments during the upcoming discussions, for each of these criticisms lends itself to interesting developments and must be backed with proofs drawn from union activity itself—proofs it is not difficult to find cartloads of.

Our critical work thus understood, we still have to define the positive, affirmative part of our propaganda. It is clear and has no need of long developments: the making of anarchists.

In parallel with the tissue of illogic that is syndicalism and the monument of incoherence that is the union, let us show how, by the transformation of men, society is transformed; how as men become more healthy, more noble, more intelligent, more educated, the air becomes breathable and life appears admirable …

“Salvation lies within us!” Let us show that the salvation of men is within them and that the route to enlightenment has been laid out for them, if they want to make the effort to free themselves from the old lies … Let us show, in all its fertile intransigence, anarchist action!

And I can’t end any better than did Lorulot the other week:

“And now … to work!”

(l’anarchie, February 24, 1910)

The Revolutionary Illusion

“HUMANITY MARCHES ENVELOPED IN A VEIL OF ILLUSIONS,” A THINKER—MARC Guyau—said. In fact, it seems that without this veil men aren’t capable of marching. Barely has reality torn a blindfold from them than they hasten to put on another, as if their too-weak eyes were afraid to see things as they are. Their intelligence requires the prism of falsehood.

The scandals of Panama, Dreyfus, Syveton, Steinhell, etc; the turpitudes and incapacities of politicians, and the rifle blows of Narbonne, Draveil, and Villeneuve have, for a considerable minority, torn away the veil of the parliamentary illusion.

We hoped for everything from the ballot. We had faith in the good faith and power of the nation’s representatives. And that hope, that faith prevented us from seeing the fundamental idiocy of the system, which consists in delegating one to look after the needs of all. But the ballot revealed itself to be a rag of paper. Parliamentarians showed themselves to be ambitious, greedy, corrupt, and, most of all, mediocre … Men appeared who were angered by the electoral farce, the comedy of reforms, the reign of republican clowns. A minority was born, which necessarily grows every day and upon which the old illusion has no hold.

Nevertheless, in order to inspire men who are used to being led, in order to stimulate their activity, images are needed … and so, replacing the defunct parliamentary illusion, another illusion was forged and encrusted onto brains: the revolutionary illusion.

Yes, laws are powerless to transform society, parliamentary assemblies are pitiful, and there is nothing to expect from governments. But what legislation can’t do demonstrations and strikes will do; and union assemblies will keep the promises of their pitiful predecessors, the Chambers. Finally, we can expect everything from the conscious proletariat which … and which … and that …

Once suckers thought that sonorous speeches and official texts written and placarded with solemnity were capable of favorably modifying social life. This time has passed. At present it is thought that in order to do this it suffices to demolish street lamps, burn kiosks, to “knock off” a cop from time to time (on very serious occasions).

Once, popular hopes were concentrated on deputies. These paunchy messieurs were capable of some good morning decreeing marvelous things. Alas! Now that we’ve seen them slog through the mud the ideal type of the transformer has taken on a different appearance. It’s the “comrade secretary,” influential member of the CGT, whose voice during meetings unleashes waves of enthusiasm. It’s Pataud—his malicious and jovial face, his imperative speech … and it’s also the longhaired revolutionary, with his hat worn at an angle, and who (his neighbors assert) never goes out without his two automatic pistols …

Once the brave voters trusted in parliament—incarnation of the Welfare State—to organize their happiness. Only the “backward masses” today still maintain so foolish a confidence in their representatives. The “advanced,” the “conscious,” in short: the revolutionaries know what the state and parliament are worth. So they announce to us that after the general strike it will be the CGT that will organize universal felicity and the union committees will deliberate on the measures to be taken for the common welfare. As you can see, this in no way resembles the old parliamentary regime.

Like all errors, it was harmful to become intoxicated with the parliamentary illusion. And it earned for the good citizens of this country the admirable democratic regim...