I understand why Marxists are keen to attack anarchism, given that anarchists have had numerous aspects of our ideas confirmed in practice -- at the expense of Marxism.
This is particularly evident in the article on 1905 Russian Revolution (Weekly Worker no. 559). Yes, the "land of Bakunin's birth" not only "provided an unsurpassed example of how to make a revolution" but only by confirming anarchist ideas on the general strike and workers' councils! Marxists (who had previously quoted Engels to dismiss such things) found themselves repudiating aspect upon aspect of their dogma to remain relevant. When Rosa Luxemburg tried to learn the lessons of the revolt, her more orthodox opponents simply quoted Engels back (requiring her, like Engels, to distort anarchist ideas).
The Weekly Worker continues in this sad tradition. Rather than the September 1873 Geneva congress being of the (disbanded) Alliance of Social Democracy, it was (in fact) a meeting of the non-Marxist federations of the First International (i.e. the majority). Rather than admitting that the "general strike strategy" required "a perfect organisation of the working class and a full war chest" anarchists rejected the idea that it had "to break out everywhere at an appointed day and hour" with a resounding "No!" The Belgian libertarians had proposed the idea as "a means of bringing a movement onto the street and leading the workers to the barricades."
So, contra Engels, anarchists did not see the general strike as requiring all workers to be organised and then passively folding arms "one fine morning." In this they followed Bakunin, who saw it as a dynamic process for as "strikes spread from one place to another, they come close to turning into a general strike. And with the ideas of emancipation that now hold sway over the proletariat, a general strike can result only in a great cataclysm which forces society to shed its old skin.. . . each strike becomes the point of departure for the formation of new groups." As happened in 1905.
As for the soviets, these confirmed Bakunin's ideas. For him "the Alliance of all labour associations" would "constitute the Commune." The "Revolutionary Communal Council" would be made up of "delegates . . . invested will binding mandates and accountable and revocable at all times." These would federate by "delegat[ing] deputies to an agreed place of assembly (all . . . invested will binding mandated and accountable and subject to recall), in order to found the federation of insurgent associations, communes and provinces." Sound familiar? It's a system of workers' councils modelled on the Paris Commune created by the revolution itself.
And it is ironic to read praise for the Moscow uprising in the same article as an attack on anarchists in 1873 for being "drawn into useless, senseless and uncoordinated uprisings"! Needless to say, Bakunin always stressed the importance of federating "to organise a revolutionary force with the capacity of defeating the reaction" and for "the mutual defences of insurgent areas" as "no commune can defend itself in isolation." To " defend the revolution" a "communal militia" was required as well as "radiat[ing] revolution outward, to raise all of its neighbouring communes in revolt . . . and to federate with them for common defence."
Clearly, the "anarchist strategy of overthrowing the bourgeoisie with one big general strike" exists only in Marxist heads, nowhere else. And the claim that "Anarchism found itself completely marginalised, losing almost all the influence it once enjoyed" is similar nonsense. For example, France, Spain and Italy all had substantial anarchist movements throughout the period of the Second International. This influence was felt in the labour movement with the rise of syndicalism (which was extremely close to Bakunin's ideas).
Finally, it is significant that your article fails to mention that the Bolsheviks attacked the soviets in 1905. In St. Petersburg, they argued that "only a strong party along class lines can guide the proletarian political movement and preserve the integrity of its program, rather than a political mixture of this kind, an indeterminate and vacillating political organisation such as the workers council represents and cannot help but represent." Thus the soviets could not reflect workers' interests because they were elected by the workers!
The Bolshevik assault on the soviets occurred across the country. Lenin, to his credit, opposed this once he returned from exile. However, he did so only to gain influence for his party. In 1907 he concluded that while the party could "utilise" the soviets "for the purpose of developing the Social-Democratic movement," the party "must bear in mind that if Social-Democratic activities among the proletarian masses are properly, effectively and widely organised, such institutions may actually become superfluous."
And in 1918 the "strong party" did make the soviets "superfluous" -- after seizing state power it disbanded any soviet elected with a non-Bolshevik majority.
It's a shame that Weekly Worker simply regurgitates Engels' inaccurate diatribe without bothering to see what anarchism actually argues for. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that the 1905 revolution confirmed anarchist theory just as much as, say, the one in 1917 or the descent of Social Democracy into reformism. And perhaps it is the fact that the anarchist analysis has been confirmed time and again is why Marxists so regularly distort our ideas (see www.anarchistfaq.org for details)?
yours,
Iain McKay