I am looking for good books that explain the relationship between anarchism and communism, and how they differ in practice. I am not looking for a book that takes a communist angle and calls anarchism merely utopian or a liberal version of communism that has no revolutionary potential, or the liberal anti-communist propaganda that calls itself anarchist or radical and mostly serves to spread the lie that Stalin was actually worse than Hitler.

I have had trouble finding books that do not approach each other from this lens but instead takes you through historical examples where both groups disagreed and why, and when there has been clear unity in the fundamental goal of communism and anti-capitalism

  • dandelion (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    32·
    4 days ago

    wouldn’t Peter Kropotkin’s Conquest of Bread be a classic example?

    I would imagine reading classic anarchist works by Bakunin, Kropotkin, Proudhon, etc. would probably illuminate many of the similarities and divergences with communism. Anarchism is a form of left-communism, so reading Lenin and Engels can also be illuminating to the way more right-wing forms of communism differ, in particular Lenin’s “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder and The State and Revolution, and Engels’ “On Authority”

    I don’t personally know of any history book that systematically records examples of conflicts between anarchists and communists.

    You might also be interested in Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, since it also covers the way the USSR suppressed the anarchist revolution in Catalonia.

    Emma Goldman’s My Disillusionment in Russia might also be relevant, for an anarchist perspective on the USSR. Goldman also has some writing on Catalonia, for an American anarchist perspective on the revolution there.

    Anarchism & communism are both broad movements, so what you are asking for is a very broad scope - I would suggest narrowing to a particular point of interest - in what context are you interested in differences between anarchists and communists? You may not care at all about critiques of 19th century American individualists like Josiah Warren on the labor theory of value, for example.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
      6·
      4 days ago

      Lenin’s “Left-Wing” Communism is moreso directed at other Marxists, not anarchists. A better piece for answering the anarchist perspective as a Marxist would be Anti-Dühring, or at least Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

      I don’t think categorizing Marxism as “right” communism and anarchism as “left” communism is particularly accurate. It’s more that Marxism is about collectivizing production and distribution, while anarchism is about communalization.

      I wouldn’t take Eric Blair too seriously on Catalonia. On Orwell is an excellent read, with some great revelations of his character:

      Most of the Orwell cult only irritates, but one thing legitimately grates: the idea of Eric Blair as a monument to British decency. The author of 1984 not only wrote a deathbed list for the authorities denouncing notable writers and public figures as Communist sympathisers. He had meticulously kept throughout the last decade of his life a paranoid notebook filled with 135 names.

      These, he had variously labelled what he called “cryptos,” “F.T.s” for fellow travellers, or those he alleged were Stalinist sympathisers, suspect agents or outright members of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Orwell’s list included figures as eminent as the future leader of the Labour Party Michael Foot, the broadcaster and writer J.B. Priestly, and the historian E.H. Carr. Whilst occasionally it was right, more often than not the list was absurd.

      There is a notable and obvious overlap in Orwell’s notebook between many of 1940s London’s prominent gay, Jewish and anti-colonial public figures and the accused “cryptos.” Orwell’s bigoted commentaries fill his suspects notebook. Jews are clearly labeled (“Polish Jew,” “English Jew,” “Jewess”) whilst others were mislabeled (“Charlie Chaplin — Jewish?”). The African-American bass singer and future civil rights activist Paul Robeson finds himself in Orwell’s list with the note “very anti-white,” whilst the half-Jewish poet Stephen Spender is damned as a “sentimental sympathiser… tendency towards homosexuality.” Orwell was a British McCarthyite before the hour. It was only Orwell’s death in 1950 that saved his reputation from his paranoia.

      Lovely fella /s