Anarchism and Socialism

Within the pages of this work, George Plechanoff shows not only the counter-revolutionary character of anarchism, but he exposes its class bias and its empty philosophic idealism and vacuous utopian program. He exposes anarchism to be just the opposite of scientific socialism or communism. It aims at a society dominated by individualism, which most essentially a capitalist ideal. Such ideals as "liberty," "equality," "fraternity," first sprang from the ranks of the petty property owners of early capitalism, as Plechanoff shows. He also points out that while Proudhon is usually credited with being "the father of anarchism" that actually Max Stirner comes closer to being its "father." Stirner's "League of Egoists," he says, "is only the utopia of a petty-bourgeois in revolt. In this sense, one may say he has spoken the last word of bourgeois individualism."

"As to the book itself. There are those who think that the precious time of so remarkable a writer, and profound a thinker as George Plechanoff is simply wasted in pricking Anarchist wind-bags. But, unfortunately, there are many of the younger, or of the more ignorant sort, who are inclined to take words for deeds, high-sounding phrases for acts, mere sound and fury for revolutionary activity, and who are too young or too ignorant to know that such sound and fury signify nothing. It is for the sake of these younger, or for the sake of the more ignorant, folk, that men like Plechanoff deal seriously with this matter of Anarchism, and do not feel their time lost if they can, as this work must, help readers to see the true meaning of what is called Anarchism." - Eleanor Marx Aveling