A-Infos (en) The Utopian #3 - Socialism from Above or Below - By WAYNE PRICE

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"Socialism's crisis today is a crisis in the meaning
of socialism.... Throughout the history of social-
ist movements and ideas, the fundamental divide
is between Socialism-from-Above and Socialism-
from-Below.... The history of socialism can be
read as a continual but largely unsuccessful effort
to free itself from the old tradition...of emanci-
pation-from-above." (Draper, 1992, pp. 3 & 4)


"the two souls of socialism" revisited
The quotation at the right is from the beginning of "The Two
Souls of Socialism," by Hal Draper (1992), published as a
pamphlet in 1966. Draper's editor notes, "Its political impact
on a generation of socialists in the United States and Great
Britain has been considerable." (Haberkern, 1992, p. xvii) It
influenced that wing of Trotskyism which rejected Trotsky's
belief that the Soviet Union under Stalin (and after) was
some sort of "workers' state." Instead, these semi-Trotskyists
held (correctly) that the U.S.S.R. had developed a bureau-
cratic ruling class which collectively exploited the workers.
Draper's pamphlet was rewritten as the first half of a  work by
David McNally, "Socialism from Below" (1984). This has been
circulated by the International Socialist Organization, which
remains a major part of this international semi-Trotskyist
tendency. McNally rewrote "Socialism from Below" in 1997;
this version has been circulated by the New Socialist Group in
Canada. He has recently rethought and rewritten his social-
ism-from-below perspective in a new book (2002). Draper
himself went on to publish four volumes on Karl Marx's
Theory of Revolution, elaborating on his arguments.
I was one of many of this broad tendency who were
inspired by Draper's conception of two "souls" of social-
ism. My friends and I felt then, and I feel now, that it gave a
profound insight into the relationship between socialism and
freedom. In the '60s and '70s, it inspired us to keep on strug-
gling for a libertarian-democratic vision of socialism. At that
time most self-admitted revolutionaries were admirers of
Mao, Ho Chi Minh, or Fidel Castro: left Stalinists. There were
many decent activists who were unhappy with the nature of
such regimes--the one-party states, banning of strikes, sup-
pression of dissent, etc. But they often felt that this was what
socialism appeared to be, and therefore had to be supported
against U.S. imperialism. Draper pointed to an alternate tradi-
tion within socialism, one rooted in popular, radically 
democratic resistance, which was counterposed to both capi-
talist imperialism and to any new bureaucratic ruling class. In
its essentials, this remains the center of my political views.
Today such state-Communism has been relatively discredit-
ed with the fall of the Soviet Union and the turn of the
Chinese state to open capitalism. As a consequence, the
concept of socialism-from-below has become widely attrac-
tive to many radicals. However, the concept of socialism-
from-below, at least as raised by Draper and by McNally 
(at least until his most recent book), has been used
ambiguously. Contrary to the views of the anarchists, these
writers claim that Marxism is most consistent with revolu-
tionary socialism-from-below, and that anarchism is an
example of authoritarian socialism. I will argue instead that
the divide between authoritarian and libertarian-democrat-
ic tendencies runs through (inside) Marxism as well as
through anarchism. However, I believe that, while there is
value in Marxism, overall, anarchism is most consistent
with the development of a liberating socialism-from-below.

S    ocial Change from Above or Below
To rephrase the core of Draper's argument, which I still
see as valid:
From time immemorial, the oppressed and exploited have
looked to someone in authority to help them, to some strong
leader or some faction of the ruling class. The unhappy peas-
ants looked to kings to protect them from aristocrats and
aristocrats to protect them from kings. People vote for liberal
politicians to save them from conservatives, for "lesser evils"
to shield them from "greater evils." Oppressed people inter-
nalize their society's view of themselves as weak and unwor-
thy, and instead hope for some messiah, some man on a
white horse, to come and lead them to the promised land.

Periodically the wretched of the earth rise up against their
rulers and strike blows for freedom. But again and again,
they have ended up only replacing one ruling group with
another. Real gains were made over time--such as when
the aristocracy was replaced by capitalist-ruled semi-
democracy. In the course of revolutions, organs of popular
self-management have repeatedly been created, such as
councils, soviets, factory committees, neighborhood
assemblies. But a free, cooperative, society was never won.
The ideals of freedom, equality, solidarity, and self-govern-
ment, have never died out, but neither have they ever been
achieved for more than brief moments in history.
The desire for freedom is rooted in the class struggle, and
ultimately in the nature of humanity. But there is also a
felt need for authority, which is socially rooted in the lay-
ers of petty privileges within the system (privileges based
on race, gender, education, craft, and so on). Everyone is
taught to "get ahead" and "make something of yourself " by
climbing up the hierarchy, by getting a little more (or a lot
more) than those below you. Success, as measured in capi-
talism, is to rise to the top of the hierarchy, to be a boss.
Socialism-from-below challenges all that in the name of
solidarity and equality.
Socialism from below is not simply a matter of supporting
the majority against the minority. For most of the time, in
nonrevolutionary conditions, most people accept the existing
system of rule by elites (this acceptance is what makes condi-
tions nonrevolutionary, by definition). Popular "acceptance"
may be given with ignorant enthusiasm or with bitter resig-
nation or something in between. Only a small group may
continue to advocate that people rely on themselves. This
revolutionary minority may participate in the smaller strug-
gles and day-to-day conflicts of the oppressed, while still
advocating popular struggle for total emancipation.
At the same time, there are mass struggles in which elites try
to use the people as a battering ram. These leaders wish to
use popular mass movements in order to force their way
into the ruling stratum, gaining some benefits for their fol-
lowers. They may use the aroused people to overthrow the
old rulers and to become the new bosses. Thus the U.S. and
French revolutions, which put the capitalist class into
power. Thus the Communist Party-led revolutions, which
put a bureaucratic class into power. These were all mass 
revolutions, but (in the end) led from above.

_____________________________________________
Cover of Hal Draper's "Two Souls" pamphlet,
1966. The "socialists from above" (downward
arrow) are, from the top: Henri de Saint-Simon
(1760-1825), French socialist theorist; Karl
Kautsky (1854-1938), major theorist of the
Second International; Pierre Joseph Proudhon
(1809-1865), French socialist-anarchist; Edward
Bellamy (1850-1898), U.S. author whose utopian
novel Looking Backward, 2000-1887 (1888) sold
over a million copies; Sidney Webb (1859-1947),
British reform socialist who admired Stalin;
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864), German social-
ist opposed by Marx; Joseph Stalin (1879-1953),
Soviet dictator. The "socialists from below" are
Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926), U.S. socialist;
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), Marx's collabora-
tor; Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), Stalin's 
opponent; Karl Marx (1818-1883); William
Morris (1834-1896), British socialist activist,
poet and artist whose designs are used elsewhere
in this article; Rosa Luxemburg (1870-1919),
German socialist revolutionary murdered by
"reform" socialists; V.I. Lenin (1870-1924),
Soviet dictator, who seems a little uncomfortable
at the company he's keeping. Artist Lisa Lyons'
placement of the "from below" figures accurately
reflects Draper's analysis.
-------------------------------------------

This pattern of reliance on good leaders (rulers) has been
the dominant tendency in all previous struggles and, natu-
rally, also in the history of the socialist movement. Infinite
forms of socialist reformism have flourished, all relying on
accommodation with some faction of the existing capitalist
class and its state. A variety of more-or-less revolutionary
tendencies has advocated the overthrow of this state and its
replacement with a new state--a state-capitalist dictatorship.
But also in the socialist movement, another tendency has
come to fruition, from time to time. This is the tendency of
working people to rely on themselves and to boldly stand
in opposition to ruling elites (existing rulers or would-be
new rulers). Working people have organized themselves to
stand outside of and against the powers that be. They may
use the resources of leading individuals, but these are cho-
sen by the people, controlled by them, and removable by
them. Even limited reforms are won by pressuring the
rulers from outside, not by seeking access to power. This is
the true, revolutionary, libertarian-democratic, tradition of
socialism-from-below. It was expressed in the great sen-
tence at the beginning of the Provisional Rules of the First
International (written by Marx but loved by anarchists),
"The emancipation of the working classes must be con-
quered by the working classes themselves." Or as William
Morris put it, "Change for the better can only be realized
by the efforts of the workers themselves. `By us and not for
us' must be their motto." (1986, pp. 144-145)
It has been argued by Marxists that it is only now, with
industrial capitalism, that it becomes possible for this
approach to consistently exist and even to win. Now there
exists, on a worldwide scale, a type of working class which
is capable of organizing itself, and of cooperatively manag-
ing society. Now technology exists which makes possible
creation of a new society of plenty for all and the integra-
tion of work and creative play. (Also, this technology is
now so dangerous that it must be taken away from all
minorities if humans are to be sure of surviving.) Whether
this argument is correct is not a matter of abstract theory
but something to be proven in practice, if we can.
Means must be consistent with ends. Anarchists argue that
a self-managing, self-organizing, society of free, coopera-
tive individuals, can only be created by a popular move-
ment which is itself self-managing and self-organizing. It
is not possible to create a new society in which the work-
ing people would be set free once led there by a wise and
benevolent set of ("temporary") masters. Shepherds do not
take care of sheep for the health of the sheep.
Enemies of the working class often point out the workers'
weaknesses: their racism, sexism, nationalism, superstition,
and so on. All of these exist, to a greater or lesser extent. How
will they overcome these weaknesses? Draper answers, "How
does a people or a class become fit to rule in their own name?
Only by fighting to do so..... Only by fighting for democratic
power do they educate themselves and raise themselves up to
the level of being able to wield that power. There has never
been any other way for any class." (1992, p. 33)

S    omething Went Wrong with Marxism
These basic arguments, I think, remain essentially correct.
However, alongside them, Draper makes a more specific
argument in favor of Marxism. He places Marx and Marxism
at the center of his vision of socialism-from-below. It is true
that Marx's goals were socialist democracy, the end of the
state, the emancipation of the working class, and the end of
alienation in work and life (all goals consistent with anar-
chism). But something went terribly wrong with Marxism.
Marxism first produced the bureaucratic-reformist social
democratic parties. They supported their imperialist states
in World War I, sabotaged the German and Russian revolu-
tions afterwards, failed to fight fascism, and supported
Western imperialism in the Cold War. Today these so-called
socialist or labor parties have completely given up any pre-
tense of advocating a different social system than capitalism.
In 1917, an attempt to revive revolutionary Marxism was
made by Lenin and Trotsky. It resulted in the totalitarian
nightmare of Stalinist state-capitalism. Since 1989, state-
capitalism has mostly collapsed into Western-style private
capitalism, with mass misery its result.
Trotsky's attempt to revive early Leninism was also a dismal
failure. The various Trotskyist tendencies generally capitu-
lated to forms of Stalinism or to U.S. imperialism, or both.
Draper, at least, knows all this, and says so. Furthermore,
he criticizes authoritarianism in almost every leading
member of the Marxist movement outside of Marx and
Engels themselves. In various works, Draper (1992, 1990,
1987) attacks the authoritarianism of the founders of the
German Social Democratic Party, especially Ferdinand
Lassalle; the developer of Marxist revisionism, Eduard
Bernstein (protege of Engels), as well as the "pope" of
Marxist orthodoxy, Karl Kautsky; leaders of early
French Marxism, Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue; the
leader of British Marxism, H.M. Hyndman; and the
founder of Russian Marxism, George Plekhanov.
In Draper's "Two Souls" essay, he makes brief but
favorable comments about Lenin. He quotes Max
Eastman as calling Lenin a "rebel" whose "pas-
sion was to set men free." (1992, p. 26) The orig-
inal pamphlet had a picture on the cover with
Lenin plainly in the "Socialism from Below"
arrow. But Draper does not spend time trying to
defend Lenin as a revolutionary-democratic
socialist, which would be difficult. In a later work
(1987), he details how Lenin, Trotsky, and all the
Bolsheviks used the concept of the "dictatorship of
the proletariat" as a justification for the dictatorship
of their party over the proletariat.
The only historical Marxists whom Draper (1987) cites as 
on the side of socialism-from-below are Rosa Luxemburg and
William Morris. While Luxemburg saw herself as an orthodox 
Marxist, her heritage has never been integrated into 
either social democracy (which she crit-
icized all her life), Stalinism (which never 
had any use for her), or even any of the
Trotskyisms. Similarly British socialists have 
regarded Morris as either an icon or an eccentric
craftsman, ignoring his anarchist-influenced 
utopianism. That is, Luxemburg and Morris are 
the exceptions which prove the rule. It is precisely 
the revolutionary-democratic aspects of their
socialism which keep them outside of the main 
tendencies of Marxism. (Draper also admires
Eugene Debs, who was not clearly a Marxist. In 
any case, he also fits the category of someone who
was not taken into any of the Marxist traditions.)

The Two Souls of Marxism
What Draper regards as the key to socialism-
from-below is the Marxism of Marx and Engels
and really no one else. Marx was, as Draper 
notes, a leader of the most extreme German
democrats in the fight against the Prussian 
feudal state. He came to socialism already
a believer in democracy-from-below. Marx 
integrated radical democracy and
collectivist-socialism. This synthesis 
of revolutionary socialism and
revolutionary democracy is the 
greatest of Marx's contributions,
Draper claims, more important 
even than his Capital.
Draper's four fat volumes on Marx's politics are an elabo-
rate effort to demonstrate this.

I do not intend to argue this point here. At the very least,
it is easy to show that Marx would have been appalled by
Stalinist totalitarianism. He and Engels would probably not
have even accepted the bureaucratic statism of the social
democratic parties. They had a belief in democracy as inte-
gral to their socialism. But this does not settle the question.
Even if we accept Marx's democratism, we have to ask, What
about all these other guys? How did all of these followers 
of Marx end up as toadies to the imperialists or totalitarian
mass murderers (or both)? From Marx's time to quite
recently, tens of millions of working people have died at 
the hands of Marxists. Draper claims that this was due to
the ideas of emancipation-from-above being regenerated
within Marxism by the realities of capitalism. Marxists, like
all socialists, are affected by the elitist social psychology all
around them. In their politics and their day-to-day lives
they have to deal with the reality of a hierarchical society.
All this is morally corrupting. No doubt this is a factor. But
is there anything in Marxism itself (in Marx's Marxism, that
is) that lends itself to this authoritarianism? Does socialism-
from-above have any roots in Marx's work? Given this his-
tory, it is hard to believe that it does not.
For example, most radical German democrats, such as Marx,
were centralists. They hated the division of Germany into
many feudal kingdoms. Instead, they wanted to unite the
nation under a central parliament, replacing the king by an
elected body but even more centralized than the Prussian
monarchy. They confused the need for unification with 
centralization. They were influenced by the centralist her-
itage of the Jacobins of the French revolution. (By contrast,
in the U.S. revolution, it was the more conservative of the
revolutionaries who were centralizers, while the more radical
Jeffersonians were decentralist-federalizers.) Centralization
requires the rule of the few (at the center) over the many--
however "democratically" the few are chosen. There is no
contradiction in seeing Marx as both a radical democrat and
a centralizer. He believed that they went together. In a 
backhanded way, Draper admits this. "...Marx advocated 
neither what was called `centralization' nor `decentralization,'
but rather a course hostile to both; the construction of a
central government from below." (1990, p. 172) How this is
different from advocating centralization is not clear.

Marx saw movement toward centralization as a progressive
aspect of capitalism. He supported capitalism's tendency to
create big factories, big industries, big cities, and big nations.
(Therefore he supported large nations when they absorbed
smaller, weaker ones, such as in eastern Europe or when the
U.S. seized half of Mexico.) His program was the centraliza-
tion of all industry into the control of a centralized associa-
tion of the workers. As stated in the Communist Manifesto,
"The proletariat will...centralize all production in the hands
of the state.... All production [will be] concentrated in the
hands of a vast association of the whole nation...." (Marx,
1974, pp. 86 and 87) He never changed this program.
Marx did not see that centralization under capitalism was
often inefficient in terms of productivity, done only for the
sake of financial reasons or for greater control over the
workers. Today centralization is monstrously overdone in
most areas of politics, economics, urbanism, and industry,
resulting in a stifling giganticism.
Draper buys into this centralizing orientation. In "Two Souls"
he argues against the anarchists, "The great problem of our
age is the achievement of democratic control from below over
the vast powers of modern social authority." (1992, p. 13). But
democratic control from below is only possible if we break up
these "vast powers." Existing "social authority" needs to be
replaced with a federation of associations which are rooted in
directly democratic workplaces and communities.
This advocacy of centralism in social, economic, and politi-
cal areas was an important part of Marx's Marxism. Later
Marxists supported their capitalist national states and their
empires, justifying themselves with Marx's centralism.
Similarly, Lenin always regarded himself as a centralist. He
aimed to create a centralized party, ruling a centralized
state, directing a centralized economy. For all that Lenin did
not intend to create the brutality of Stalinism, this program
certainly laid its foundation. Trotsky held this vision of cen-
tralism in all areas. Carried to its logical conclusion, Marxist
centralism leads to a totalitarian state capitalism.
Marx's centralism was supported by his view of history as
marching on, essentially automatically, from capitalism
into socialism. He saw centralization as the wave of the
future. Draper rejects the claim that Marx
thought that "socialism is inevitable." But his
own writings show that Marx's strategy relied
on an expected tendency of the system to
move automatically in a progressive (and
centralist) direction.
Anarchists see historical movement
as much more open-ended and inde-
terminate than do Marxists. They
may agree with Marx, as I do, that
there are social tendencies within capi-
talism which push toward socialism,
specifically the class struggle as well as
all other struggles against oppression. But
we cannot say what the outcome will be.
Socialism is a commitment, not a pre-
diction. If socialism is to win, it must
be supported for reasons of morality
and values, not because some social
forces tend in that direction (among
others).
In sum, a major weakness of Draper's view
of socialism-from-below is the belief that
Marxism as a worldview--even the Marxism of
Marx and Engels--is "from below" in some essen-
tial sense. This mistake is abetted by his blindness to
the anti-democratic nature of economic and political
centralism.
The Two Souls of Anarchism
Draper really hates anarchism: "Of all ideologies, anarchism
is the one most fundamentally antidemocratic in ideolo-
gy...." (1990, p. 132) More anti-democratic than Nazism or
Stalinism? The very extremism of the statement shows that
political prejudice is operative here. Nevertheless, this does
not mean that Draper cannot have useful insights.
While it seems counterintuitive to use socialism-from-
below to attack the anarchist movement, Draper seeks to
support this with historical evidence. Proudhon, the first
person to call himself an anarchist, is shown by Draper
(1992, 1990, 1969) to have had all sorts of unpleasant
traits. Proudhon was a white supremacist (who supported
the South in the U.S. Civil War), an anti-semite, an
extreme misogynist, pro-French imperialism, pro-strike
breaking, and pro-dictatorship, aside from advocating a
reformist strategy. Bakunin was the one who really initiat-
ed the revolutionary anarchist movement. Draper (1990)
cites the facts of Bakunin's repeated super-vanguardist
secret conspiracies by which he hoped to control mass
movements from behind the scenes. Bakunin's anarchist
editor, Sam Dolgoff, says that Bakunin's "...closest associ-
ates...considered his schemes for elaborate, centralized
secret societies incompatible with libertarian principles."
(1980, p. 182) The anarchist-terrorists of the late nine-
teenth century sought to substitute for the working people
by individual heroism (the same sort of individual bomb-
ings was to be done in the 1970s by overt Stalinists)
The fundamental flaw of anarchism, according to Draper,
is that it is opposed to democracy. It is true that many
prominent anarchists can be quoted as opposing "democ-
racy," from Proudhon to Malatesta to Woodcock. Often
this is meant primarily as a rejection of the phony democ-
racy of the capitalist state, which hides the rule of its capi-
talist minority. At other times it has been used to oppose
the domination of a majority in areas where individual
choice should be primary. For example, the majority has
no right to impose its views of religion on minorities, nor
to impose popular views of voluntary sexual practices.
And even when majority decisions are made, the opposing
minority must have a right to to defend its opinions, and
to try to become a majority in the future. (If this is not
allowed, then the majority cannot be said to really be the
majority, that is, for individuals to have heard all sides and
freely made up their minds.) New ideas begin as minority
opinions before they win their way.
However, as I have argued (Price, 2000), some anarchists
have made the mistake of opposing the whole concept of
"democracy." Draper is correct to point out that there are
decisions which must be made, affecting whole communi-
ties (no matter how decentralized). To oppose any form of
collective, democratic decision-making only leads to some
minority making the decisions (as in the "tyranny of struc-
turelessness"). If no one can tell me what to do, then I
must be the king. I think Draper is right to point to this
error as the base of the authoritarian trends in anarchism.
On the other hand, there are many anarchists (e.g., Tucker,
Chomsky, Bookchin) who have seen themselves as contin-
uing the radical democratic tradition which goes back to
the capitalist democratic revolutions of the U.S. and
France. Anarchism as a conception of extreme, direct,
participatory democracy is widely recognized. (In his 
centralism, Draper rejects the concept of "participatory
democracy.") Included in anarchist programs of voluntary
association is the "self-management" and "self-organiza-
tion" of all industries and communities--which are just
other ways of saying "democracy."
In any case, the relationship between the anarchist move-
ment and its founders is very different than that between
Marxism and its founders. Marxism is named after its
founder. His works are sacred books. His words are quoted
in arguments. The same is true for the followers of Lenin, of
Mao, and of Trotsky. But unlike Marxism-Leninism, anar-
chism is not named after Proudhon, Bakunin, or Kropotkin.
We are not Malatestians or Emma Goldmanites. Few read
their books. This situation creates weaknesses, of course, in
the limitations of anarchist theoretical work and the lack of
homogeneity among anarchists (although the Marxists are
also pretty heterogeneous and often ignorant of what Marx
really said). The errors of Proudhon and Bakunin are their
errors, long abandoned by the movement they initiated.
Over time new errors are created, often preventable if the
anarchist movement were more theoretical and historically-
minded. But at least we are not bound by orthodox 
tradition, in its insights and its errors.
In short, anarchism also has its authoritarian, from-above,
side, which is--as Draper says--rooted in an ambiguity
about democracy. But at its heart, anarchism is open to a
libertarian-democratic socialism-from-below.

R    evolution from Below
Draper begins his pamphlet by saying there is a crisis in
what we mean by socialism. "For the first time in the 
history of the world, very likely a majority of its people
label themselves `socialist' in one sense or another; but
there has never been a time when the label was less
informative." (1992, p. 2) He was referring to all those who
regarded themselves as Communists, Social Democrats,
Democratic Socialists, Laborites, Arab Socialists, African
Socialists, and so on. Today the term Socialism has become
vague to the point of nullity. Even its anti-capitalist 
meaning has often been abandoned.
But it is no longer true that socialism of some kind is 
supported on a world-wide mass basis. After 1989,
Marxism has been largely discredited. Social Democracy
and state-Communism no longer pretend to offer an 
alternative to capitalism. Opposition forces often do not
even claim to be socialist. For example, in a large part of
the world, anti-imperialism has taken the reactionary form
of Islamic authoritarianism.
In this context, there has been an international revival of
anarchism, for the first time in over eighty years. The
movement has spread throughout the U.S. and Western
Europe, but also to Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union, to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It represents the
desire for a new, humanistic, order, which is neither overt-
ly capitalist nor any sort of bureaucratic so-called 
socialism (really state capitalism). It is a new birth of
libertarian-democratic socialism-from-below.
Naturally, the Marxists have not given up. In particular, there
has been a growth of that wing of Marxism which is least
associated with either state-Communism or the Social
Democrats. There is an interest in the autonomist or libertari-
an Marxists, whose politics are very similar to anarchism.
More dangerous is the growth of the anti-state-capitalist 
wing of Trotskyism previously mentioned, which remains
Marxist-Leninist. It broadens its appeal by referring to the
concept of Socialism-from-Below, taught by Draper. It uses
this concept to support Marxism, not only the Marxism of
Marx, but also of Lenin and Trotsky. It uses it to attack "the
myth of anarchist libertarianism." (Draper, 1992, p. 11;
McNally, 1984)
Given the reality of Marx's centralism, and the actual prac-
tice of Lenin and Trotsky, this tendency has in effect been
using the concept of Socialsm-from-Below to justify social-
ism-from-above. They have used it to make Marxism-
Leninism look good to to activists otherwise attracted to
anarchism. They do not explain how they would avoid the
fate of the earlier Marxists who led to reformism or totali-
tarianism. They add  all sorts of irrelevant arguments about
anarchism's  class basis. (Irrelevant, since  Marx, Engels,
Lenin, and Trotsky came from bourgeois-aristocratic back-
grounds, while, for example, anarcho-syndicalism was thor-
oughly a working class movement.)
However, there has also been another tendency. Individuals
and groups previously influenced by Marxism have used
the concept of Socialism-from-Below as a bridge to anar-
chism. They have either abandoned Marxism or are open
to some sort of synthesis between Marxism and anarchism
(this is true of McNally's latest [2002] effort to rethink the
concept of socialism-from-below). In either case they
reject Marxism-Leninism in favor of a revolutionary liber-
tarian-democratic socialism.
Draper divided the types of socialisms into those promis-
ing liberation from above and from below. If he made mis-
takes in applying this concept, we anarchists can still
appreciate the value of his insights.

References
Draper, Hal (1969). "Notes on the Father of Anarchism." New
Politics, VIII, 1, pp. 79-93.
Draper, Hal (1987). The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" from Marx
to Lenin. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Draper, Hal (1990). Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, Vol. IV:
Critique of Other Socialisms. New York: Monthly Review Press.
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