The history of anarchist-Marxist relations is usually told as a history of factionalism and division. These essays, based on original research and written especially for this collection, reveal some of the enduring sores in the revolutionary socialist movement in order to explore the important, too often neglected left-libertarian currents that have thrived in revolutionary socialist movements. By turns, the collection interrogates the theoretical boundaries between Marxism and anarchism and the process of their formation, the overlaps and creative tensions that shaped left-libertarian theory and practice, and the stumbling blocks to movement cooperation. Bringing together specialists working from a range of political perspectives, the book charts a history of radical twentieth-century socialism, and opens new vistas for research in the twenty-first. Contributors examine the political and social thought of a number of leading socialists—Marx, Morris, Sorel, Gramsci, Guérin, C.L.R. James, Hardt and Negri—and key movements including the Situationist International, Socialisme ou Barbarie and Council Communism. Analysis of activism in the UK, Australasia, and the U.S. serves as the prism to discuss syndicalism, carnival anarchism, and the anarchistic currents in the U.S. civil rights movement.
Contributors include Paul Blackledge, Lewis H. Mates, Renzo Llorente, Carl Levy, Christian Høgsbjerg, Andrew Cornell, Benoît Challand, Jean-Christophe Angaut, Toby Boraman, and David Bates.
“This is a welcome and essential collection that is sure to spark debates and support ongoing efforts to build a liberatory movement in which Marxists and anarchists can find common ground and practice mutual respect and humility. In this period of late-capitalism, survival itself is at stake. Theory and practice, whether Marxism or Anarchism in their many manifestations, lead to dead ends without careful assessment of the world as it is now.”
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
Contributors include Paul Blackledge, Lewis H. Mates, Renzo Llorente, Carl Levy, Christian Høgsbjerg, Andrew Cornell, Benoît Challand, Jean-Christophe Angaut, Toby Boraman, and David Bates.
“This is a welcome and essential collection that is sure to spark debates and support ongoing efforts to build a liberatory movement in which Marxists and anarchists can find common ground and practice mutual respect and humility. In this period of late-capitalism, survival itself is at stake. Theory and practice, whether Marxism or Anarchism in their many manifestations, lead to dead ends without careful assessment of the world as it is now.”
—Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States
