Chapter 5 : Georges Sorel’s Anarcho-Marxism

When one considers the tragic history of the international working-class movement since 1914, one is inclined to regard the doctrine of revolutionary syndicalism advocated … by the ‘new school’ of Georges Sorel, Edouard Berth, and Arturo Labriola as one of the most interesting and promising forms in which Marxian thought has experienced a renaissance.

Maximilien Rubel[318]

Introduction: Sorel’s uncertain legacy

Georges Sorel (1847–1922) was an important figure in the development of radical left-wing theory during the early decades of the twentieth century, and his ideas strongly influenced the work of some major Marxist thinkers, including Antonio Gramsci,[319] Georg Lukács,[320] José Carlos Mariátegui[321] and Antonio Labriola.[322] Today, however, the Left shows very little interest in Sorel’s writings. This lack of interest is regrettable, for Sorel’s works address many of the central themes in emancipatory social theory: the permissible use of violence in political struggles; the possibilities and limits of parliamentarism; the role of intellectuals in revolutionary movements; the advantages and disadvantages of various revolutionary strategies and organizational structures; the contrast between reform and revolution; the relationship between left-wing political parties and those whose interests they claim to represent; the transformation of the bourgeois state; and the moral aims of socialism.

At the same time, the contemporary tendency to ignore Sorel is perhaps not so surprising after all, considering the great divergence of opinion regarding the value of Sorel’s contribution to political thought. On the one hand, there are the views of scholars and thinkers such as Eugene Kamenka, John Gray and José Carlos Mariátegui. Kamenka, a philosopher and Marx scholar, ranks Sorel among the ‘most perceptive exponents’ of socialism,[323] while Gray endorses Croce’s description of Sorel as ‘the most original and important Marxist theorist after Marx himself.’[324] For his part, Mariategui, Latin America’s greatest Marxist writer, considers Sorel ‘Marx’s most vigorous follower [continuador] in… [a] period of social-democratic parliamentarism.’[325] On the other hand, George Lichtheim, a historian of Marxism, calls Sorel an ‘irresponsible chatterbox’ and a ‘romantic litterateur,’[326] and Lenin himself dismisses Sorel as a ‘notorious muddler.’[327]

These highly divergent judgments regarding Sorel have arisen not only in connection with the caliber and value of his writings; there is also considerable disagreement when it comes to the basic political orientation of his texts: Does Sorel belong to the Left or to the Right? If his place is with the theorists of the left, should we include him among the Marxists or among the anarchists? With respect to the first question, I think it is clear, in light of Sorel’s most significant political writings, that we ought to situate him on the Left, and for our present purposes I will simply assume that those who depict Sorel as a right-wing thinker are fundamentally mistaken.[328] How, then, to respond to the second question? Which label best describes Sorel — ‘Marxist’ or ‘anarchist’?

To be sure, in Reflections on Violence, his most important work as a political theorist (first published in 1908), Sorel unequivocally identifies his enterprise with Marxism, and most works in political philosophy tend to classify Sorel as a Marxist of sorts.[329] Yet it is also true that Sorel has, as Jeremy Jennings puts it, ‘traditionally been regarded as one of the most controversial figures in the history of Marxism.’[330] While there are many factors that account for Sorel’s controversial status in the history of Marxism, one reason is undoubtedly his debt to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, whose works had a profound and lasting influence on Sorel’s thought. In fact, as Sorel scholar John Stanley points out, ‘it is Proudhon who is cited most frequently in his [Sorel’s] early writings,’ and Stanley goes on to claim that ‘the thinker who is closest to Sorel is … Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.’[331] It is partly owing to this affinity that some commentators, such as Lichtheim, tend to consider Sorel a ‘Proudhonist,’[332] while others view him as an outright anarchist. Indeed, Irving Louis Horowitz not only includes a selection from Reflections on Violence in his 1964 anthology of anarchist texts, but actually refers to Sorel, along with Bakunin, Malatesta and Kropotkin, as one of ‘the classical anarchists,’[333] and James Joll’s well-known study of anarchism also devotes several pages to Sorel’s thought.[334]

What is one to make of so much disagreement in interpreting Sorel? In my view, the disagreement and uncertainty stem from the fact that the theoretical basis for the position developed in Reflections on Violence is in essence neither Marxism nor anarchism, but rather a fairly coherent, if idiosyncratic, variety of anarcho-Marxism. Accordingly, I would propose the term ‘anarcho-Marxism’ to describe Sorel’s perspective, as this term is more accurate than either ‘Marxism’ or ‘anarchism’ and, on the other hand, much more illuminating, theoretically speaking, than ‘anarcho-syndicalism,’ the customary label for his views.

Before discussing the anarcho-Marxist features of Sorel’s thought in the Reflections (and elsewhere), I should perhaps explain that I shall be using this term to designate (non-evaluatively) any theoretical perspective that combines fundamental elements of anarchist doctrine with fundamental elements of Marxism. In the case of Sorel’s anarcho-Marxism, this blend involves, in essence, a commitment to Marxist social and historical analysis (including Marx’s philosophy of history, with the theoretical justification for socialism that it entails) coupled with an espousal of what is, in effect, an anarchist political practice. In short, the political profile I have in mind in labeling Sorel an ‘anarcho-Marxist’ is not unlike that which Donald Clark Hodges evokes in claiming that Bakunin was ‘the first anarcho-Marxist,’ Bakunin being an anarchist ‘who accepted his [Marx’s] theories but rejected his politics as authoritarian.’[335] Whether or not Hodges is correct in characterizing Bakunin as an anarcho-Marxist, a careful examination of Reflections on Violence and other texts reveals the aptness of this description as applied to Sorel, as we shall see.

My aim in the remainder of this chapter is to sketch the justification for construing Sorel’s theoretical outlook, as articulated in Reflections on Violence, as first and foremost a form of anarcho-Marxism. To this end, my essay focuses on four themes, or rather positions, that figure prominently in the Reflections: anti-statism; the condemnation of parliamentary socialism; the advocacy of revolutionary syndicalism; and defense of the revolutionary general strike. Starting from the premise that these four positions are characteristically anarchist views, I argue that Sorel’s adherence to them entails an acceptance of some important components of anarchism. I also argue, however, that many Marxists could endorse these same views, provided that they attach as much importance as Sorel does to workers’ self-emancipation as a fundamental Marxist commitment. Since it turns out, therefore, that Marxists could endorse the Reflections’ anarchist views and, as I also contend, anarchists could adopt the Reflections’ Marxist views, we may safely say that Reflections on Violence both combines Marxist and anarchist theses and does so in a way that makes each group’s theses acceptable to the other group. To the extent that this is the case, Reflections on Violence proves successful as a statement of anarcho-Marxist doctrine. The final part of the chapter briefly discusses some ways in which Marxists might benefit by revisiting Sorel’s anarcho-Marxism.

Reflections on Violence

Before turning to each of the themes mentioned above, it will be useful to review briefly the main argument in Reflections on Violence. As the book’s title indicates, Sorel’s central topic is violence, but the violence that interests Sorel is a specific manifestation of political violence, namely the violence that workers use or administer in doing battle with the bourgeoisie in strikes and militant labor actions. Sorel’s central claim holds that this kind of ‘proletarian violence’– an absolutely indispensable element of class struggle in his view — is the most effective method for establishing socialism.

His reasoning is as follows. Following Marx, Sorel assumes that capitalism must produce the maximal development of the forces of production before socialism becomes possible; in other words, capitalism will give way to socialism only when capitalist relations of production become a fetter on the forces of production and an impediment to their further development. Capitalism, in short, must exhaust the possibilities for development and expansion of the productive forces within the framework of capitalist relations of production before we can undertake the transition to socialism. According to Sorel, capitalists, or the bourgeoisie, will be effective in developing the forces of production, and hence in achieving the complete development of capitalism, to the extent that they focus single-mindedly on maximizing profit. An exclusive focus on profit maximation entails, in turn, a refusal to grant any concessions to the workers (for example, higher wages, a reduced working day, measures to improve conditions in the workplace, expansion of employee benefits, or establishment of worker rights requiring new expenditures or investments) which might hamper or retard the utmost development of the forces of production.

What does this have to do with violence? In Sorel’s view, proletarian violence facilitates the bourgeoisie’s pursuit of profit — and thus contributes to and hastens the creation of socialism — by dissuading capitalists (and others) from making concessions to the workers. For if workers unfailingly ‘repay with black ingratitude the benevolence of those who wish to protect the workers,’[336] that is to say, if they respond to welfare-enhancing concessions from the bourgeoisie with heightened militancy (with new strikes and more violent resistance), the capitalists will conclude that nothing is to be gained by making such concessions and they will cease to offer them. Consequently, instead of squandering their time, energy and resources on measures designed to enhance the workers’ well-being, capitalists will devote themselves single-mindedly to the pursuit of profit and the development of the forces of production. In short, proletarian violence, and consistently militant opposition from labor more generally, helps to sustain the bourgeoisie’s spirit or ethic of capitalist ruthlessness and antagonism; thanks to this attitude on the part of the workers, capitalists remain capitalists, and are prevented from succumbing to any of the impulses that might distract them from the business of producing surplus value. To put the same point a bit differently: acts of proletarian violence and the workers’ disposition to meet concessions with ingratitude serve to ‘reawaken’ the bourgeoisie ‘to a sense of their own class interests,’ thereby reinvigorating the bourgeoisie and ‘reestablish[ing] the division into classes.’[337] As Sorel explains:

… proletarian violence comes upon the scene at the very moment when the conception of social peace claims to moderate disputes; proletarian violence confines employers to their role as producers and tends to restore the class structure just when they seemed on the point of intermingling in the democratic morass…. This violence compels capitalism to restrict its attentions solely to its material role and tends to restore to it the warlike qualities it formerly possessed. A growing and solidly organized working class can force the capitalist class to remain ardent in the industrial struggle; if a united and revolutionary proletariat confronts a rich bourgeoisie eager for conquest, capitalist society will reach its historical perfection.[338]

In short, violence promotes the optimal development of capitalism, thereby helping to establish the material preconditions for, and accelerating society’s advance towards, socialism. It is precisely for this reason that proletarian violence ‘may save the world from barbarism.’[339]

In summarizing Sorel’s argument it is important to emphasize that his concept of ‘proletarian violence’ refers to acts of violence flowing from the resistance that forms a part of militant strikes and other labor struggles involving intransigent opposition on the workers’ part. For Sorel, moreover, such acts of violence, and strikes in particular, are ‘acts of war,’[340] the war in question being the class war (if revolutionary strikes are inherently violent, it is precisely because they constitute acts of war). Sorel is careful to distinguish this type of violence from acts of violence committed by the state: whereas the purpose of the latter is to preserve and strengthen the state, proletarian or ‘syndicalist’ violence consists in acts of violence ‘perpetrated in the course of strikes by proletarians who desire the overthrow of the State.’[341] In other words, the workers’ violence does not aim at replacing one (authoritarian) state structure with another, but rather at doing away with the state altogether, along with the domination and exploitation which the state makes possible.

It is also worth emphasizing that Sorel defends proletarian violence not only on account of its role in the consummation of capitalism, but also because of its beneficial effect on the workers themselves. In preparing and executing acts of violence in strikes, proletarians develop self-confidence, acquire political independence, develop skills and abilities necessary for self-management, and of course gain greater class consciousness.[342] And to the extent that acts of proletarian violence achieve one of their primary purposes, namely to ‘mark the separation of classes,’[343] these acts are likely to heighten workers’ militancy and combativeness (which will of course encourage capitalists to devote their energies exclusively to developing the forces of production … which should provoke, in turn, even more proletarian violence).

Yet the greatest benefit of all from acts of violence has to do with their role in preparing workers for a revolutionary (or ‘syndicalist’) general strike, an idea which, in Sorel’s opinion, ‘contains within itself the whole of proletarian socialism.’[344] Unlike mere political strikes (or even a political general strike), a proletarian general strike does not produce a mere change of government, but the destruction of the state as such: as Sorel succinctly puts it in one of the appendices (‘Apology for Violence’) to Reflections on Violence, the revolutionary or proletarian general strike involves ‘an overthrow in the course of which both employers and the State will be removed by the organized producers.’[345] Besides being the event that puts an end to capitalism, the general strike is important insofar as it functions as a myth for revolutionary workers. For Sorel, myths are ‘expressions of a will to act,’[346] compelling images and conceptions of a (future) collective enterprise that serve to inspire, motivate and mobilize the actors who will be engaged in this enterprise.[347] Sorel maintains that only those who embrace some such myth will prove capable of great endeavors,[348] and it is the ‘myth’ of the general strike, the very idea of which ‘produces an entirely epic state of mind,’[349] which serves as an indispensable inspiration and motivation for the revolutionary worker.

Marxist and anarchist themes in Sorel

Reflections on Violence is a somewhat eccentric and highly uneven work. While it contains incisive analyzes of trends and developments in fin-desiècle socialism and many provocative arguments concerning the struggle for a socialist society, Sorel’s text often appears rather disjointed, and his reasoning can be exasperatingly quirky. Moreover, some of his principal theses are undeniably unsettling. For example, Sorel’s approach to the emancipation of the working class is, as we have seen, an incomparably robust version of the worse, the better, albeit cast in the form of the better, the worse: themore welfare-enhancing concessions the workers exact from capital, the poorer the prospects for their emancipation. (Sorel’s defense of this viewpoint is, I would suggest, one of the chief reasons that the Reflections ‘remains a profoundly disturbing book,’ as Jennings says in his introduction to the text.[350])

In any event, while Sorel’s Reflections raises numerous questions, I would like to focus on the book’s fundamental political orientation, which, as I shall try to demonstrate, is best interpreted as a variety of anarcho-Marxism. My remarks will deal mainly with the anarchist dimension of Reflections on Violence, for two reasons. First, as I indicate below, I believe it is more difficult for Marxists to assume Sorel’s properly ‘anarchist’ commitments than it is for anarchists to assume his essentially ‘Marxist’ views. Second, as noted earlier, the fact is that Sorel is most often classified as, if anything, a Marxist of sorts, however idiosyncratic his interpretation of Marxism may turn out to be. In other words, the identification of Sorel with Marxism is somewhat less controversial than his assimilation to anarchism. Since my discussion centers mainly on the ‘anarchist Sorel,’ let me first summarize very briefly the grounds for regarding Sorel as a Marxist.

To begin with, one can hardly ignore the various passages in Reflections on Violence and other texts in which Sorel expressly affirms the Marxist affiliation of the ‘new school’ of theorists to which he belongs.[351] The ‘new school’ (‘nouvelle ecole’) was a name used by the group that included, along with Sorel himself, Edouard Berth and Hubert Lagardelle, and was associated with Le Mouvement socialiste, a journal founded by Lagardelle in 1899. According to Sorel, the new school ‘rejected all the formulas which came from either utopianism or Blanquism; it thus purged Marxism of all that was not specifically Marxist and it intended to preserve only what, according to it, was the core of the doctrine.’[352] Furthermore, it does ‘not in the least feel itself bound to admire the illusions, the faults and the errors of the man [Marx] who did so much to work out revolutionary ideas,’[353] but rather seeks ‘to remain faithful to Marx’s spirit’ and to ‘what is really true in Marxism.’[354] For Sorel, what is ‘really true’ in Marxism is above all the notion that class struggle comprises ‘the alpha and omega of socialism.’[355] Sorel and the ‘new school’ identify class struggle with a principled opposition to ‘social peace’ — Sorel himself tends to conflate ‘class struggle’ and ‘class war’[356] — and advance an uncompromisingly anti-reformist, anti-parliamentarist theoretical orientation and, in positive terms, a commitment to revolutionary syndicalism and a political strategy aimed at producing the conditions necessary for a successful revolutionary general strike (the culmination of revolutionary praxis in the present era, according to Sorel).[357] Sorel’s allegiance to these core ideas sets him apart from ‘the official [i.e. parliamentary] socialists,’ who, he remarks, ‘wish to admire in Marx that which is not Marxist.’[358] If Sorel’s Marxism appears heretical, it is, he suggests, because the prevailing schools of socialism have distorted the essential elements of Marxist doctrine, which he and the other members of the ‘new school’ seek to recover and renew in a Marxist fashion.[359]

In addition to providing this self-identification, and perhaps even more important, Sorel explicitly endorses many Marxist theses and assumptions (a few of which have already been noted) over the course of his Reflections. For example, Sorel accepts many of Marx’s central assumptions regarding the material preconditions for socialism and the philosophy of history; he agrees, as just noted, with Marx’s emphasis on the centrality of class struggle in social life and social development, and its role in the fight for socialism; like Marx, Sorel views the state as an instrument of class domination and advocates its abolition; he rejects utopias and utopian socialism; Sorel acknowledges, like Marx, the primacy of production, as this notion is understood in historical materialism; he, too, affirms the desirability of a cataclysmic socialist revolution that abolishes capitalism once and for all, and the importance of helping workers to bring it about; as with Marx, Sorel envisions socialist society as a classless social order in which the forces of production are collectively owned, and managed by the workers themselves; and, finally, Sorel, like Marx, steadfastly adheres to the principle of proletarian self-emancipation.[360] As a matter of fact, it is precisely because of Sorel’s commitment to Marx’s essential views and doctrines — or rather what Sorel takes them to be — that he denounces ‘the anti-Marxist transformation which contemporary socialism is undergoing,’[361] and it is also for this reason that the Reflections is in part a polemic against distortions or (neutralizing) corruptions of Marx’s thought attributable to figures who claim to champion socialism.

But what about anarchism? As it turns out, in addition to his enthusiastic endorsement of numerous Marxist views, Sorel also defends some essentially and indisputably anarchist positions in the pages of Reflections on Violence. I will mention four of them.

The first plainly anarchist position to note is Sorel’s uncompromising anti-statism. He advocates the abolition of the state, and he regards the abolition of the state as a condition of the revolution, or rather as a measure that coincides with the overthrow of capitalism, and not as a more or less distant occurrence resulting from a process of ‘withering away.’ Indeed, the goal of the general strike, and hence the ultimate end of proletarian violence, is nothing other than the suppression or destruction of the state, or as Sorel writes in one passage, the elimination of ‘both employers and the State.’[362]

Significantly, this uncompromising stance vis-à-vis the state leads Sorel to reject ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat’ — a principle which, according to Lenin, constitutes ‘the very essence of Marx’s doctrine.’[363] The dictatorship of the proletariat would, Sorel maintains, perpetuate a division between ‘masters’ and ‘servants,’[364] and is therefore unacceptable.

A second essentially anarchist position advanced in the Reflections is the condemnation of parliamentary socialism. Sorel stresses time and again in this work the inherently anti-revolutionary, conservative nature of parliamentary institutions, and their baneful effect on socialists willing to serve these institutions. He acknowledges that the anarchists were correct in warning that participation in bourgeois institutions, with its exposure to bourgeois influences, would lead to a political embourgeoisement of revolutionaries.[365] The ‘official socialists’ (Sorel’s term for parliamentary socialists) ‘boast to the government and to the rich bourgeoisie of their ability to moderate revolution,’ for parliamentary socialism basically ‘sells peace of mind to the conservatives.’[366] A revolution that brought official socialists to power would change little,[367] since parliamentary socialists desire above all to preserve, and if possible expand, their own power and that of the parties they represent, and this objective presupposes the preservation and fortification of the state. Proletarian violence, carried out in the proper fashion, will put an end to parliamentary socialism, which is plainly one of the reasons that the parliamentary socialists themselves condemn it.[368]

A third anarchist position can be found in Sorel’s espousal of revolutionary syndicalism. According to the doctrine of revolutionary syndicalism, autonomous trade unions, acting independently of political parties and institutions, must be both the agent of revolution and the fundamental organizational components of the future socialist society, understood as an arrangement in which these units will control production. Unlike parliamentary socialism, revolutionary syndicalism is resolutely opposed to the state, which it aims to destroy.[369]

The final important anarchist position that Sorel champions in Reflections on Violence is a commitment to the revolutionary or syndicalist (or proletarian) general strike. This form of strike is, Sorel insists, very different from a merely ‘political strike’ (whether or not it is a ‘political general strike’). The latter does not presuppose, as does the proletarian general strike, an absolute class confrontation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.[370] Nor do merely ‘political’ strikes pose any fundamental threat to politicians,[371] since such actions aim at reforms and improvements within the existing socio-political order, whose fundamental legitimacy remains unquestioned by those who organize and carry out ‘political’ strikes. The revolutionary or proletarian general strike, on the other hand, ‘entails the conception of an irrevocable overthrow,’ followed by the creation of a new civilization.[372] Since the concept of the revolutionary general strike also includes the definitive defeat of the bourgeoisie and the destruction of the state, it is an ‘idea … [which] contains within itself the whole of proletarian socialism.’[373]

Each of the four positions that I have mentioned constitutes either an essential anarchist commitment (anti-statism, the rejection of parliamentarism), or a position that has been defended and embraced mainly by anarchists (revolutionary syndicalism, the general strike),[374] or both (anti-statism and the rejection of parliamentarism). Indeed, some major anarchists, such as Rudolph Rocker and Emma Goldman, hold all four positions.[375] At any rate, even those anarchists who reject revolutionary syndicalism and the general strike would surely acknowledge that these positions are not fundamentally at odds with essential anarchist values.[376] Accordingly, just as few Marxists would dismiss as essentially un- or anti-Marxist any of the ‘Marxist’ positions (listed above) that Sorel defends, few anarchists would dismiss as un- or anti-anarchist any of the ‘anarchist’ positions that he defends.

An anarcho-Marxist synthesis?

So, in Reflections on Violence we find a number of standard Marxist positions alongside a number of standard anarchist positions. One might be inclined to conclude, on the basis of my remarks and given the differences between Marxism and anarchism, that the result is a rather incoherent amalgam, or at best a very unstable synthesis of two political doctrines widely believed to be grossly incompatible with each other. As it turns out, however, Reflections on Violence is actually fairly successful as a model of anarcho-Marxism, owing to the fact that anarchists could embrace Sorel’s Marxist commitments, while Marxists could embrace his anarchist commitments.

Let me begin with first of these last two claims. It is, I believe, the case that most anarchists could subscribe to all of the theses and views that make Reflections on Violence a ‘Marxist’ text, or at least to those mentioned earlier. Recall that these were: i) Marx’s view of the material preconditions for socialism; ii) his perspective on the role of class struggle in social evolution and the struggle for socialism; iii) Marx’s concept of the state as an instrument of class domination, and his belief that it must, therefore, be abolished; iv) Marx’s rejection of utopian socialism; v) Marx’s emphasis on the ‘primacy of production’; vi) Marx’s support for a cataclysmic socialist revolution, which one should help the workers to bring about; vii) Marx’s conception of socialist society as a classless social order in which the forces of production are collectively owned, and managed by the workers themselves; and viii) Marx’s commitment to proletarian self-emancipation. If I am correct in claiming that anarchists could endorse all of these views, and hence both the anarchist and Marxist commitments present in Reflections on Violence, it is difficult to understand how they could reject, in general terms, Sorel’s anarcho-Marxism.

What about Marxists? Could they subscribe to Sorel’s anarchist theses and views, or at least to those discussed above? This is, in my view, the main issue in assessing the ‘success’ of Sorel’s anarcho-Marxism. One might naturally approach this issue by examining the works of more mainstream Marxist theorists and thinkers, thereby determining whether or not many other Marxists have endorsed the anarchist views defended by Sorel. I will, however, follow a different approach, which consists in considering Sorel’s stated rationale for defending positions that are almost invariably associated with anarchists. This approach seems especially appropriate, considering that Sorel himself conceives of the Reflections as a non-dogmatic development and updating of Marx’s theories, but one that recovers, and draws its inspiration from, the most essential and authentic elements in Marx’s thought.[377]

Let us begin with Sorel’s commitment to revolutionary syndicalism, which he claims is ‘on the true Marxist track.’[378] Can one make a plausible Marxist case for revolutionary syndicalism, a doctrine that is usually synonymous with anarcho-syndicalism?

For many Marxists, revolutionary syndicalism appears suspect, and impossible to embrace, owing to its decidedly anti-political character: revolutionary syndicalism rejects political parties, condemns participation in parliament or collaboration with governmental authorities, denies political institutions any role in the post-revolutionary period and so on. This stance, which gives economic struggle absolute priority over political activity, is anathema to most Marxists, who typically accord primacy to political activity.[379]

Sorel, like the anarchists, insists on the primacy of economic struggle (for example, militant initiatives in the workplace, strikes, industrial mobilizations, direct challenges to employers’ domination), but he suggests, in effect, that this is in reality the more authentically Marxist view. For Sorel attaches extreme importance to proletarian self-emancipation, and this principle, so central to the Marxist outlook,[380] can plausibly be construed as providing warrant for privileging economic struggle over political struggle. After all, if one adheres to the principle that the emancipation of the working class must take the form of self -emancipation, and the sphere in which workers enjoy the best prospects for exercising their collective agency is in the economic realm (that is, in the world of production), then it is hardly unreasonable to embrace something like revolutionary syndicalism, with its emphasis on industrial agitation, direct action, and mobilization of the rank and file. Furthermore, self-emancipation requires a certain degree or level of worker militancy, a point that Marx insists on, according to Sorel: ‘Marx wishes us to understand,’ writes Sorel, ‘that the whole preparation of the proletariat depends solely upon the organization of a stubborn, increasing and passionate resistance to the present order of things.’[381] If this spirit of resistance is as decisive as Sorel says, and revolutionary syndicalism promotes and sustains this spirit (or morale) better than rival doctrines, then perhaps it really is the case that revolutionary syndicalism affords workers a ‘truly proletarian ideology.’[382]

Let us turn now to Sorel’s impassioned defense of the revolutionary general strike. While it is true that Rosa Luxemburg once wrote that the strike is ‘the external form of struggle for socialism,’[383] Marxists have generally attached considerably less importance to strikes, and the notion of the revolutionary general strike, first popularized by Bakuninites, has almost invariably been associated with anarchist doctrines and movements.[384] Indeed, the German trade union leaders of Sorel’s day, whose views were shaped to one degree or another by the ‘Marxism’ upheld by German social democracy, were given to saying that ‘General Strike is General Nonsense.’[385] Yet Sorel holds that ‘the fundamental principles of Marxism are perfectly intelligible only with the aid of the picture of the general strike and, on the other hand, the full significance of this picture … is only apparent to those deeply versed in Marxist doctrine.’[386] Moreover, in several passages in the Reflections he underscores alleged similarities and affinities between Marxism’s general theoretical framework and that which justifies the revolutionary general strike.[387] What are these alleged similarities and affinities?

First of all, the revolutionary general strike, like Marx’s revolution, is a ‘catastrophic’ occurrence — Sorel uses ‘catastrophe’ or ‘catastrophic’ many times in connection with the general strike[388] — which evokes and symbolizes, but also precipitates the passage from capitalism to socialism, and thus from oppression to liberation. Owing to the awesome, epic images that it conjures up, the ‘catastrophic’ notion of the revolutionary general strike serves, much like Marx’s concept of socialist revolution, to inspire and motivate workers (which is why Sorel regards both the general strike and ‘Marx’s catastrophic revolution’ as ‘myths,’ in the sense noted above).[389] What is more, ‘It is through strikes [including the general strike] that the proletariat asserts its existence’[390]: the strike is the method or strategy of struggle most readily available to the workers, and so they naturally use strikes in order to emerge from invisibility, establish their social presence, and express their needs and demands. (Furthermore, to the extent that these actions are accompanied by, or rather give rise to, a new class consciousness among the workers, it may also be said that strikes help the proletariat to become a ‘class for itself.’) In this sense, an insistence of the supreme political value of the revolutionary general strike, and strikes more generally, seems to follow quite straightforwardly from an unqualified commitment to proletarian self-emancipation. If Marx himself does not appreciate this, it is, Sorel suggests, partly because Marx gave little thought to the actual organization of workers for revolutionary struggle,[391] and partly because he could not possibly have foreseen developments that occurred after his death, developments which make it clear that adoption of the revolutionary general strike as a political strategy represents a correct adaptation of Marxist thought to contemporary realities.[392]

As for anti-parliamentarism, it would also seem clear that Sorel can derive his position from a bedrock commitment to proletarian self-emancipation, in that parliamentarism substitutes mediation and representation for the workers’ own activity and initiatives, and also fosters passivity among them. For these reasons, the acceptance of parliamentarism seems be at odds with the principle of self-emancipation. What is more, parliamentarism is, on Sorel’s view, inherently de-radicalizing and corrupting; in a word, an obstacle to class struggle and revolution. As noted above, Sorel contends that revolutionaries and radicals who participate in parliament inevitably end up devoting themselves to ‘preserv[ing] the old cult of the state,’ from which they benefit, and limit themselves to ‘attack[ing] the men in power rather than power itself.’[393] If ‘official socialists’ are unable to understand proletarian violence, it is precisely because the perpetrators of this violence wish not to take over the state, but rather to eliminate it.[394]

This brings us, lastly, to Sorel’s radical anti-statism, which represents an essentially anarchist perspective on the abolition of the state: the suppression of the state is to coincide with the advent of the revolution, and constitutes a necessary condition of its success. ‘[T]here is an absolute opposition between revolutionary syndicalism and the State,’[395] writes Sorel, making it clear that he departs from Marxist orthodoxy when it comes to the fate of the state following the revolution. Sorel seems to assume, however, that to insist on the abolition of the state as a condition of the revolution is in fact more consistent with Marx’s basic outlook, inasmuch as Marx held that ‘the socialist revolution ought not to culminate in the replacement of one governing minority by another.’[396] (Recall that Sorel rejects the dictatorship of the proletariat because it would perpetuate a division between ‘masters’ and ‘servants’).[397] Yet whether or not it is true that one can find in ‘authentic’ Marxism this type of justification for a position that is in essence the anarchist view on the state, one could presumably also appeal to the principle of workers’ self-emancipation in order to justify the same position. After all, the main impediment to self -emancipation (as well as self emancipation) is the state, insofar as it upholds the employers’ interests and serves as their instrument of domination (that is, it is the ‘central nucleus’ of the bourgeoisie).[398]

These are, it seems to me, the arguments available to Sorel if pressed to explain how he can endorse his four anarchisant, or outright anarchist, positions without departing from Marxism.[399] As I have tried to show, it turns out that the key commitment in making a Marxist case for each of the positions is the thesis of proletarian self-emancipation. To the extent that Marxists’ commitment to proletarian self-emancipation would in fact enable them to endorse the four positions examined here (with some important qualifications, perhaps, in the case of Sorel’s ‘radical anti-statism’) and assuming, on the other hand, that most anarchists could embrace Sorel’s indisputably Marxist convictions, it is fair to say that Sorel’s theory furnishes a fairly coherent model of anarcho-Marxism.[400]

Learning from Sorel

Sorel’s anarcho-Marxism has, I believe, much to recommend it to Marxists; but even if they do not find his theory wholly satisfactory, Marxists can still profit from a careful consideration of Sorel’s reasons for advocating such a theory. Consider, for example, a problem that bedeviled Marxists throughout the twentieth century and that continues to provoke debate among Marxists and others to this day: the failure of workers in industrialized nations to become the agent of socialist revolution. Whatever other factors may have contributed to this failure, it was certainly due in part to a lack of ‘class consciousness’ among the workers, who were, for whatever reason(s), largely unaware of their collective capacities and true class interests, and were consequently disinclined to engage in militant forms of class struggle to defend these interests. Although Sorel himself could hardly have foreseen the extent to which the working class would fail to assume the role of ‘revolutionary subject,’ he was acutely aware of the challenges to the development of a ‘revolutionary’ orientation among workers. Indeed, one of the reasons that Sorel advocates revolutionary syndicalism arises from his belief that this is the only approach to political action that can succeed in fostering the necessary kind and degree of ‘consciousness’ among the workers themselves. Sorel thus represents and articulates a view that is in some sense the very antithesis of Lenin’s influential position. Whereas Lenin famously claims that ‘class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is, only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers,’[401] Sorel maintains that ‘class political consciousness’ can only arise from within, as it were, and that acceptance of this thesis implies a commitment to something like revolutionary syndicalism. Indeed, if revolutionary syndicalism is, for Sorel, a ‘great educative force,’[402] it is precisely because it teaches workers to combat capitalism by asserting themselves and developing class solidarity, while at the same time preparing them for their role in the socialist future, with its worker-managed system of production. In any event, whether or not Sorel’s overall estimation of revolutionary syndicalism ultimately proves justified, it should be clear that he has good Marxist reasons for granting the ‘economic struggle’ priority vis-à-vis the ‘political struggle,’[403] and that Marxists would therefore be well-advised to reflect on these reasons.

Of course, as should be clear from my earlier remarks, Marxists are not the only ones who would benefit from (re-)acquainting themselves with Sorel’s Reflections on Violence: anarchists can also learn a great deal from re-reading Sorel, if only because his work reveals that the ‘spirit of Marx’[404] may in many ways be much closer to ‘the spirit of anarchism’ than most anarchists (and Marxists) tend to realize. If Marxists and anarchists alike do reexamine Sorel’s contribution to socialist theory, we shall surely find ourselves one step closer to a much-needed reconciliation of these two formidable political movements.