Augustin Souchy is a German anarchist of considerable experience. Souchy, born in 1892, was an anarchist activist in the anti-militarist movement which failed to head off the First World War. He attended sessions of The First International in Russia had arguments with Lenin over the brutal treatment of the Russian anarchists by the Bolsheviks and over the projected course of the International. He was the ''Foreign Affairs Secretary" for the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union, the CNT, during the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. Souchy also participated in the anarchist movement in South America and had first-hand experience of the Israeli kibbutzim. He is currently living in Munich and is as active in the anarchist movement as his age allows. His political memoirs, Beware, Anarchist! A Life for Freedom (Luchterhand), were published in 1977.
When we met Souchy some three or more years ago as he was touring North America on behalf of the "reborn" CNT, he impressed us as one who had thought deeply on history and his own experience, one who was irrevocably committed to anarchism and freedom, and one who tried to understand the world in a principled but undogmatic fashion. We feel that all this comes across, albeit imperfectly, in the interview.
Yet this is surely a controversial interview, and this should be pointed out. Souchy is what is called a "reformist" anarchist, or more unkindly, a "collaborationist." He often in the interview presents as decided issues that are yet the subject of debate and disagreement. Some outstanding examples: The question of anarchism and violence is much thornier than Souchy would present it, with both Kropotkin and Malatesta, each well-known and influential anarchists, supporting violence against the State, though not indiscriminately so. Souchy does not mention that there is a great deal of disapproval within the anarchist movement of the Spanish anarchists having joined the Republican government during the Revolution and Civil War. He also fails to mention that there were dissident German Marxists who were publicly opposed to militarism before the First World War and Bolshevism afterward. Nonetheless, despite our disagreements with some of what Souchy asserts, his positions are always reasonable, and we felt that this was an interesting, provocative interview, raising some points well worth consideration and discussion. Thus we decided to print it.
The interview was translated from the German periodical Europaische Ideen, Vol. 39,1978, and was translated by lames D. Pustejovsky. It was edited and prepared for publication by Michael Murphey, Nancy Driscoll and myself. We would like to thank Paul Breines for his assistance.
-Peter Abailard
E I : In a few words, what is anarchism and what do the anarchists want?
A S : There are several interpretations of anarchism. Translated literally anarchism means "orderlessness." From that, however, one is able to grasp very little. Naturally one wants to know how an unordered society is supposed to function. Whole books have been written on that subject and there have also been practical experiments as well. The most important of the latter are the collectives during the Spanish Civil War and the kibbutzim in Israel. The most popular definition would be: anarchism is equivalent to libertarian or free socialism. But I don't support the use of words with -isms in them. They are supposed to say everything, but from this clear generalization, libertarian socialism, comes very little which is concrete. Observed undogmatically, the themes of the French Revolution of 1789 were "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite." This is what the anarchists want.
There are, moreover, many different currents within anarchism: the Individualists (Max Stirner), the Collectivists (Michael Bakunin), and the Communists (Peter Kropotkin), with but slight differences between the latter two. Proudhon, who is called the "Father of Anarchism", defined his interpretation in a letter from 1864 in these words:
Anarchy, if I may so express it, is a form of government or state of affairs in which the public and private conscience is built upon the development of knowledge and justice, a state which is just sufficient enough for the preservation of order and the security of all freedoms, where the principle of authority and police institutions, taxes, etc. are reduced to a minimum. A condition in which all forms of monarchy and centralization disappear, replaced by federative institutions and communal activity.
E I : A few years ago, Colin Ward, an English anarchist, wrote that anarchism is ". . . a theory of spontaneous order." What does that mean?
A S : "Spontaneous order" may at first appear to be a contradiction in terms, but actually it is not. The word "spontaneous" has a double meaning, one being "suddenly, without outside force," and the other being "free-willed, from inner impulses." Colin Ward means "free-willed order," the opposite of forced subordination.
E I : How is that related to one of the chief points of anarchistic theory, its aversion towards all state, church, legal, and police authority?
A S : Anarchism is a socio-cultural movement, not a political party for the conquest of power. Its focus is the critique of power, not the exercising of it. Power corrupts; that is well known. If the anarchists were to take part in power, they would also become corrupt. Their uniqueness and their contribution to progress lies in their very non-participation in practical politics. This is not to say, however, that they withdraw themselves from their social responsibilities.
After their initial partial victory over General Franco, the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists took part in the government, refusing, however, the dictatorship. And with that they differed from the Marxist Bolsheviks in Russia.
E I : It has been said, "All anarchists challenge not just institutional authority but even intellectual guidance as well." In fact, the "Fathers of Anarchism", such as Proudhon and Bakunin, for example, thought of the learned and the intellectuals as the tyrants of the modern age. This tradition has continued in post-war anarchism. What is the reason for this passionate anti-intellectualism of anarchism?
A S : I have to disagree with you. Proudhon and Bakunin, for example, never turned against intellectuals on principle, as is easily proved by studying their writings. In the beginning of the international workers' movement, when the social gulf between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie was much larger, and the cultural gap much deeper between them, a certain mistrust for the upper classes by the underprivileged seemed justified. However, at the Geneva Congress of the federative wing of the First International, after the split between the Marxists and the Bakuninists, the Bakuninist worker representatives - predecessors of the anarchists - declared that an intellectual could be just as good a revolutionary as a worker. The anarchists Proudhon, son of a craftsman, and Bakunin, of aristocratic descent, were both intellectuals. In my almost seventy years of militancy in the international anarchist movement I have never encouraged workers to distrust intellectuals. In Germany, Gustav Landauer and Erich Muhsam, both anarchist theoreticians and intellectuals, enjoyed widespread support and trust among anarchist workers - and other groups as well.
E I : In principle have conceptions of the goals and strategies of anarchism changed since its beginnings in the previous century, and, if so, in what ways?
A S: The anarchistic theses of the previous century are still topical today. In the 1870's Bakunin wrote:
The new free society must be freed from the belief in God and instead support itself with a cult of love and attention to humanity. The foundation of the new social order should be the individual and collective freedom of the human conscience. Monarchy, social classes and degrees, economic and social privilege, all must be abolished. General conscription and the standing army must be dissolved; women must be set on an equal footing with men in all areas; public, judicial, and civil functionaries as well as community and regional representatives must be elected directly. The economic structure has to be organized from the bottom up, from the periphery to the centre. Furthermore, official religions and state churches will be abolished, and total freedom of speech, press, assembly, and union will all be guaranteed. Communities are to be autonomous and send representatives to the provincial administrations. They can, on the other hand, organize to form a nation without coercion. Free nations should join together in a league of nations to maintain and defend both peace and freedom . . .
Political freedom presupposes economic equality. Social equality can only be attained, however, when the right of inheritance is done away with. Private property as well as means of production ought not be changed into state property, but should become collective property. A spontaneous collective economic order will take the place of the private capitalist order.
These are the main points of Michael Bakunin's programme. A few have already been realized today, others must still be fought for.
E I : One exceptional chapter of your book is dedicated to "Anarchism and Authority". There you dispute the claim that anarchism is a movement for power. "The anarchistic ideology, which is, after all, nothing other than a project for a social order without rule, expressly excludes violence and, more importantly, terror, for where there is no ruler and no ruled, assassinations and terror become superfluous." Does this mean, however, that no terror and violence are to be used to attain this goal?
A S : The principle of non-violence is inherent in anarchism, and belongs to the idea of non-rule. Would you trust someone who tells you, "Today I'm a devil, but tomorrow I'll be an angel?" In the anarchistic theory of society violence and terror are not to be found. When people say, "Terror arises from anarchist ideology," I respond that this statement is semantic nonsense, that anarchism is possible only in the absence of violence and terror. This must always be emphasized.
The mistaken identification of anarchism with violence and terror arose in the previous century. There were assassins who called themselves anarchists. Even in the twentieth century there have been a few assassinations committed by anarchists. I have known several thousands of anarchists, of whom but three were assassins: Alexander Berkman, Buenaventura Durruti, and Simon Radowitzky.
E I : You stress the non-violence of anarchism. But haven't anarchists been involved in violent revolutions?
A S : Comrade Richard Wagner, Bakunin's comrade-in-arms in the Dresden insurrection of May, 1849, yet one who certainly cannot be called a preacher of violence, wrote in his famous essays on "Art and Revolution", "I want to destroy this rule of one over the others. I want to shatter the violence of the mighty, of the law, and of property. I want to destroy this order of things, which divides a united humanity into hostile nations, into the powerful and the weak, the privileged and those without rights, and into the rich and the poor."
Max Stirner, the individualist anarchist theoretician, could not have formulated it any clearer. It is obvious that the destruction advocated by Wagner would not be attainable without the practice of violence. Yet it would be wrong to call him an apostle of violence. The same is true of Bakunin. His infamous saying, "The urge to destroy is a creative urge," does not mean destruction for its own sake but rather a demolishing of the old and of the oppressing, accompanied by a building up of the new, the liberating. His words can only be interpreted in this manner. Any other interpretation would not agree with Bakunin's intention.
In any case, anarchist theory is free of dogma. Whoever frees a people from oppressors, autocrats, dictators, or other people in power by the use of violence is not an anarchist. Violence has been till now the basic principle of all "archies" (from monarchy to oligarchy) and all "cracies" (from aristocracy to plutocracy to democracy). To maintain and defend a dominion violence is necessary. Only in an anarchy, an order without rule, does force become superficial.
E I : German terrorists such as Baader, Meinhof, Ensslin and others are always labeled as "anarchists" in the press. Were they anarchists?
A S : No. They themselves had explained in their basic declaration, with complete clarity, that they are Marxists, Leninists, and/or Maoists. The fact that they were labeled as anarchists in spite of this in the media is to be attributed to ignorance.
E I : You have said, "To this day, nationalist revolutionary terrorists, who are anything but anarchists, carry out assassinations without anyone ever making nationalism itself responsible for these crimes."
A S : There have been political assassinations for thousands of years. The Athenian tyrant Hipparchus fell at the hands of an assassin in 514 B.C. Since then many oppressors have been murdered without their assassins being anarchists. During the last few decades the world has been afflicted with acts of political terrorism to a degree never before seen. The perpetrators are fanatical nationalist revolutionaries: Latin American guerillas, Tupamaros, Arabic Fedayin, Croatic Ustashi, Turkish nationalist students, Black Panthers, Basque ETA militants, Irish freedom fighters, as well as Leninists, Maoists, and Trotskyites. In contrast, the number of assassinations committed by anarchists in an entire century can be counted on one's fingers. Terrorist acts committed in the last ten years by nationalist revolutionaries could not fit on any list.
Terror does not arise from any particular ideology. Individual terrorism is a desperate weapon, one which is the least effective of all in realizing a free, stable social order. Organized mass terrorism is particularly reprehensible. The Stalinist forced collectivization terrorism cost many Mushiks their lives. And if we look back a bit further in history, we ought not forget the terror of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages under which hundreds of "heretics" and "witches" lost their lives. Anarchist ideology, therefore, cannot be connected with either individual or mass terror.
E I : Anarchism is said to be "anti-political", that is, the resolute denial of political reality - of might. This would seem to be a protest against reality in general.
A S : Anarchists have always been striving to influence the "polis", public affairs, in the direction of progress, freedom, and peace. They had pushed for popular action long before the phrase was in vogue. May Day, a world-wide workers' holiday, owes its origin to the initiatives of the Chicago anarchists, five of whom lost their lives in this struggle in 1886. In Mexico it was the anarchists who launched the slogan "Land and Freedom", and with this became the authors of Latin America's first agrarian reform in 1917. Throughout the world the anarchists, later joined by the radical pacifists, stood at the forefront of the anti-militarist and anti-war movements, which were quite neglected and perhaps sabotaged by the German Marxists. The anarcho-syndicalists more than any other group were responsible for the opposition to the Spanish military putsch of 1936.
E I : In your book you come to the following conclusion: "Drawing from my historical knowledge and my own practical experiences, no revolution can remove all social evils from the world, once and for all. The Great French Revolution, which abolished feudalism and absolute monarchy, was unable to prevent the then just beginning exploitation by private capitalism. The Russian Revolution displaced the Tsar, yet the new rulers established a state-capitalist hierarchical dictatorship and police state which yet today robs the people of their freedoms while continuing social inequality." You must admit that such doubt about the historical success of practically all revolutions is surprising coming from the mouth of an anarchist. If not revolution, what then?
A S : Let me clarify a misunderstanding. After a reference to symptoms of degeneration in the Mexican Revolution, which I knew from my personal experience, I continue in the book: "It is the task of the following generations to prevent new abuses and social evils through constant popular actions; but, when this cannot be done through peaceful means, it is then their task to remove them through new revolutions. So it was in the past, and by all indications it will be no different in the near future. The pendulum of history always moves back and forth between two poles - authority and freedom." Revolution and evolution are two phases of the same process. Revolution is just an accelerated evolution which flows on into a new revolution when it is not restrained in its rhythmic movement.
E I : This brings us to the question of the relationship of anarchism to the Marxist theory of "class struggle."
A S : This historically controversial thesis, which says that the history of mankind is the history of class struggle, has no meaning for the fight for freedom and the progress of humanity. The Marxist objective, the seizing of political power, leads to the establishment of a new power elite. Anarchists have supported the workers' struggle for better living conditions and more freedom for a long time. No special theory is needed for that. Its "leitmotiv" was, and is, humanism. Proudhon proposed methods for the abolition of class differences. These included libertarian unions as well as cooperatives of producers and consumers, and federative cooperation on local, regional, and national levels. That was a class struggle of a special type. Since then, in over one hundred years, the cooperative movement has developed into a noteworthy factor in the political economy, an area in which there is no class struggle in the Marxist sense. Members of production cooperatives are simultaneously employers and employees.
In Germany the anarchist Gustav Landauer, murdered in Bavaria in 1919, advocated similar ideas. "Anarchism," he said, "has no other task but the following: to attain the end of the struggle of man against man in whatever form it may take, to assure that humanity strives upward in union, and that each and every person is able to occupy that position which he is best suited to by virtue of his natural talents and abilities."
In 1897 Max Nettlau encouraged workers to think of themselves as producers and to refuse to manufacture weapons for purposes of war. He further encouraged them not to build low quality housing for the proletariat in the large cities, not to produce merchandise of bad quality, or to falsify groceries in the markets, and to expose unfair advertising where it occurs. If organizations would take part in these actions where the workers and consumer unions see themselves as producers, a higher degree of humanism would be instilled in the class struggle.
My conclusion is this: The practice of Marxism, as the experience of the twentieth century shows, leads to an anonymous submergence of individuality. The aim of anarchism is individual freedom paired with social responsibility.
E I : In your Memoirs you write that you have come to the understanding "that the nationalization of the means of production does not abolish exploitation, and that a state-planned 'economy according to needs' does not get rid of social inequalities." And finally, "Seen on the whole, the wage system will not let itself be totally abolished in a socialistic social order, and if social justice is to serve as a measure, then the wage system as such is no evil." Does this mean, if taken literally, a rejection of the conceptions of the classical anarchist theoreticians?
A S : Since it is opposed to the oppression of man by man, anarchism is naturally opposed to the exploitation of work by capital. On the question of work/value and wage/value there are differing theories in circulation. The individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker saw the various forms of monopoly as the fundamental cause of social evil. Proudhon proposed an interest-free credit system and an exchange bank to go with it. According to the opinions of the communist anarchist Kropotkin the citizens of a village can run their own communal economy without wages and without money, based on the principles of collective land ownership.
The social theories of anarchism, socialism, communism, and so forth still circulating today were drawn up in the preceding century. In view of the technical, industrial, and social advances which have occurred since then, these theories must be revised and refreshed. The view that theories require constant revision was one that Proudhon believed strongly in.
In Proudhon's and Marx's time ideologies could only be compared with each other in theory. Today we are in a position to confront the invented theory with concrete reality and to test social revolution for its truth and contents. This is exactly what I have worked to do for the last fifty years. I would like to cite two examples from my experience in connection with the question mentioned earlier on wage systems.
First, in the collectividades (village collectives) established during the Spanish Civil War a unitary wage for all was established, including village doctors as well. The main idea was each according to his needs. That meant payment according to the number of members in a family. After the end of the harvest year, each person received the same share of the surplus, if there was one. In the collectivized industry and trade enterprises the high salaries of the directors were abolished, yet the engineers' wages were retained since the position required qualified craftsmen. The income differences were reduced and the workers in the factories took over the control themselves. The opposites of capital and work were abolished. I was in the country during the entire Civil War and experienced all this personally.
Second, in the Israeli kibbutzim, which were in part inspired by Gustav Landauer's anarcho-socialist ideals, the wage system was completely abolished. The kibbutz is very like Kropotkin's communist anarchism. At harvest time, however, it became necessary to hire wage earners to pick the fruits. There was a theoretical confrontation among the members of the kibbutz. "The employment of wage earners destroys the idealistic foundations of the kibbutz," said the old kibbutzniks. "If we pay them the desired wages and treat the wage earners as comrades, then we are not capitalistic exploiters," replied the new members, who were in the majority. I was there at the time of the discussion. Later when most of the kibbutzim established industrial enterprises, the organizational structure was transformed. Wage work, in the beginning the exception, became the rule. The kibbutz, however, has not become a capitalistic exploitation society.
E I : Anarchism, like Freemasonry, was always bitterly opposed by the Church. Do anarchism and Christianity fundamentally exclude each other or are models of cooperation imaginable?
A S : I hope you will not object to my answering your questions so often by referring to my personal experiences. But first a preliminary ideological remark. Anarchists have nothing to do with a belief that one God the Father, sitting on His throne above the clouds, who crucified His Son, buried Him, and then out of repentance let Him ascend into Heaven where He sits today at His right hand. Tolerance, however, the Sister of Freedom, allows anarchists to live peacefully together with genuine Christians who are neither exploiters nor dictators. There were, and are today, Christians of charity who recognize the anarchistic principle of non-rule and the desire not to be ruled. I am reminded of Tolstoy, who was called the Christian anarchist. Also, in the Rhoen Brotherhood founded by Eberhard Arnold in Oberhessen after the First World War Christian and anarchist anti-militarists lived in an harmonious community, renouncing private ownership of the means of production. In a word, of course it is possible for anarchists and Christians to cooperate peacefully in worldly matters.
E I : In your book there is the warning, "The international workers' movement can learn one lesson from the Russian Revolution: how not to handle itself if it wants to achieve well-being and freedom for all!" Where do you believe the international workers' movement is heading today?
A S : In my warning, which dates from 1920, I was concerned because of my experience in revolutionary Russia that a party dictatorship - even in the name of the proletariat and with Lenin at the helm - cannot build a just social order. The last 58 years have proved me correct. To date nothing has changed structurally in the Soviet Union. Russia has become the most conservative country in the world. Freedom of speech, assembly, and union do not exist; nonconformists and dissidents are persecuted, sent to prisons, concentration camps, psychiatric hospitals, and even exiled. Even in industrial development this great country still lags far behind the West. The fact that it has moved into second or even first place in the armaments race is no honor but rather a disgrace for a country calling itself socialist.
Your question about the direction of the international workers' movement today is not directly related to the situation that existed at that time. Between 1917 and 1920 we lived in a revolutionary climate. All of us, Lenin and Trotsky included, believed that world revolution was knocking at the door. Who could claim today that the industrial countries are at the doorstep of a new revolution? The aims of the workers' movement in the next decade are the following: the six hour work day, six weeks vacation, a pension age of sixty, joint control and possibly even workers' control of profit growth, etc. As the twentieth century has reconfirmed, long lasting periods of evolution replace short phases of revolution. This is the alternating evolution/revolution cycle.
E I : When you stopped in Moscow in 1920 you asked Lenin what the Communist Party's attitude was toward the anarchists. Lenin's answer was, "In the first phase of the revolution the anarchists are useful, in fact invaluable. If, however, in the second phase they do not respect the revolutionary state power, they must be seen as counterrevolutionaries." Would you say that this Leninist strategy, which of course applies not only to anarchists, is still the fundamental strategy of the Communist movement?
A S : Lenin's followers walk the path of their master. His spirit hovered over the Red Army as it marched into Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Whoever deviates from the true belief must be converted by force. A familiar saying applies to Lenin's strategy, which his followers still adhere to today: Und willst du nicht mein Bruder sein, dann schlag ich dir den Schadel ein. (If you won't be my brother, I'll beat your brains in.)
E I : One hears talk of "syndicalism" and "anarcho-syndicalism" in relation to anarchism. What is the principal difference between syndicalism and anarchism?
A S : The word, syndicalisme, which is French, simply means "trade unionism." Elsewhere it means a special trade union tendency related to anarchism. The relation between the two can be defined by Schiller's phrase, "It is the spirit that builds its own body," with syndicalism understood as the body. Anarchism is the ideal, the abstract, the content, while syndicalism is the concrete, the organization, the form. Syndicalism had its beginnings in the Bakuninist wing of the First International (1866-1872). It was especially popular in France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Latin America. In the syndicalist view the trade unions should not only lead the fight for social improvement of the working class in capitalist societies, but also be the germ cell of a libertarian socialist order. Anarcho-syndicalism is then, if you will, a third choice after social democracy and Communism. The anarcho-syndicalist principles, the result of which is seen in the Spanish Collectividades or the Israeli kibbutzim, are not utopian. In a libertarian collectivism philosophical anarchism and economic syndicalism are united in an harmonious symbiosis.
E I : The Yugoslavian experiment in self-government is also heavily inspired by anarchist ideas. To what to do you attribute the difficult crisis which the Yugoslavian government is increasingly facing?
A S : The kibbutzim were founded voluntarily by Jewish immigrants. The collectives during the Spanish Civil War also owed their existence to the free initiative of the energetic populace in the city and countryside. In both cases there was no regulation from above, no orders. They were libertarian, anarchist, had no rulers and were not ruled. The Yugoslavian self-government decree was issued by a Marxist, that is, authoritarian, regime. Of the three self-ruling economies I know very well, the Israeli, the Spanish, and the Yugoslavian, the latter is the most insufficient.
E I : How do you judge, from an anarchist standpoint, the popular initiatives cropping up everywhere today?
A S : Well, the anarcho-syndicalists were already propagating popular initiatives at the beginning of the century under the name direct action. After the Second World War, the pacifist youth movement organized peace marches first in England and then in Germany. Later the socialist youth even considered extraparliamentary action. Today popular initiatives are in vogue. The names have changed but the initiatives remain the same. It is a matter of the right to joint and self-determination of all social groups in public affairs and above all the right to question mankind's fate. Through popular initiatives the national conscience is awakened. They are a constant reminder against bureaucratization and corruption. They are the impulse to regenerate institutions. They fill a formal democracy with libertarian spirit and new social content.
I first took part in a popular initiative in 1911. The Socialist League in Berlin circulated a brochure, "The Abolition of War Through People's Self-determination." Fate took its course. In 1914 World War I, which our initiative tried in vain to prevent, broke out. And then dictatorship, 1939, World War II. If popular initiatives do not intervene, then World War III is imminent. No Kremlin, no Pentagon, no Soviets, no White House, no Parliament should have the right to declare war in the future. The final decision on such questions must be made by the people themselves. The single level of justice which can decide on war should be an internationally regulated plebiscite, accompanied by a campaign explaining the issues. This is the most important popular initiative today, for which I plead. Utopia? Was not the 40 hour week a Utopia in 1900? One day it must begin. Nations must finally show their leaders the way. It is time, high time!
E I : On one of the first pages of your book there is a noteworthy comment. "Freedom for all can be attained only when it is based on the self-consciousness of every individual." What does "self-consciousness of every individual" mean today? Is freedom in this sense even attainable given conditions in the industrial-technological world?
A S : Among Marxists the words "class consciousness" are writ large and refer to the spiritual preparation for proletarian class rule. The anarchists deny rule by anyone and prefer the word "self-consciousness." Without self-consciousness there can be no impulses for freedom. An historical example in point: In the ancient Incan Empire the Indians lacked self-consciousness. They were completely alienated from all individual livelihoods. Forced to sing memorized songs of praise to their god rulers, they cultivated the fields and acreage for the upper classes. The feeling of personal human worth, however, was foreign to them, and the spirit of rebellion did not exist in their consciousness.
In Europe things took a different course. There were and are struggles for freedom. Time and again confrontations arise between social institutions and the desire for freedom, between legal fixtures and human variability. Freedom manifests itself in many ways. Freedom for what? What is freedom? A feeling, an idea, an ideal, a political postulate, a social category? There is discomfort and pain when one does without it, peace and happiness if one possesses it. Philosophers have interpreted freedom differently. Thomas Hobbes, the theoretician of absolutism, who thought man was wolf-like (homo homini lupus) understood freedom to be the absence of hindrance. William Godwin, the English anarchist theoretician at the time of the Great French Revolution, equated freedom with independent judgment. Goethe's words, "In the tightest bond there is freedom," may hold for the personal relationship between two souls but does not apply to social relationships in an autocracy or a dictatorship. The French Encyclopaedists defined freedom to mean respect for the freedom of others. Free action for autocrats and dictators means oppression of those being ruled. Practice of one's own freedom meets its limit when it damages others' freedom. This is aptly expressed by the libertarian poet J.H. Mackay who, if I may paraphrase, wrote, "Freedom for others is freedom for the self, and freedom kisses all or none."
The struggle of the individual for freedom beyond what is allowed by law exists today as it did in the past. We know our current freedoms. The degree of freedom in the future depends on our self-consciousness and on the battles which we are ready to fight for freedom.
E I : Your conviction that "the worst democracy is preferable to the best dictatorship" stands in direct opposition to the saying of the Marxist philosopher Georg Lukacs that "the worst socialism is better than the best capitalism."
A S : Each sentence typifies the respective author's way of thinking. The Marxist thinks in a dogmatic framework, the anarchist in a libertarian one. On that I have nothing else to say.