The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays.

Nestor Makhno.

Edited by Alexandre Skirda. 114 pages. AK Press. £7.95.

"Organisational responsibility and discipline should not be controversial: they are the travelling companions of the practice of social anarchism".

THIS COLLECTION OF articles was mainly published in Dielo Trouda, the excellent anarchist communist review produced in exile in Paris by Makhno, Piotr Arshinov and Ida Mett. Many of the articles address themselves to the problems of the Russian Revolution, and above all, the insurrectionary movement in the Ukraine, the Makhnovschina, inspired by Makhno himself. Others address themselves to the false accusation that Makhno and the movement were anti-Semitic and carried out pogroms against Jews. The Dielo Trouda group correctly analysed the role of the Bolsheviks and the nature of Soviet society. As Makhno remarks: "It has come to pass in History that the workers have defeated Capital, but the victory then slipped from their grasp, because some State power emerged, amalgamating the interests of private capital and those of State capitalism for the sake of success over the toilers".

Also of great value are Makhno's reflections on the Spanish Revolution of 1931. He notes with uncanny foresight that: "The FAI and the CNT (Reviewer's note: The Iberian Anarchist Federation and the mass anarcho-syndicalist union the General Confederation of Labour) ...must not be afraid to assume the reins of the strategic, organisational and theoretical revolutionary leadership of the toilers' movement. Obviously they will have to steer clear here of unity with the political parties generally and with the Bolshevik-communists in particular, for I imagine that their Spanish counterparts will be worthy imitators of their Russian mentors...So they will inevitably betray their allies and the very cause of the revolution". If only the Spanish libertarian movement had heeded these words in 1936! Indeed Makhno has sharp criticism