ABSTRACT
This article reconsiders the possibilities for augmentation in the long-standing tensions between Marxism and Anarchism. In proposing a ‘Libertarian Marxism’ (in the European sense, as including Anarchism, Anarcho-syndicalism and other forms of anti-authoritarian socialism), the authors emphasize the affinities between political and intellectual initiatives which share the common will to ‘get rid’, through revolutionary means, of the dictatorship of Capital and to build a harmonious society, equal and free from the authoritarian shackles of the State. By highlighting several figures in the history of the left who represent different ways of combining an Anarchist notion of ‘radical freedom’ with Marxist conceptions of revolution (including Rosa Luxemburg, Walter Benjamin, André Breton and Daniel Guérin) alongside several issues that have been the object of polemics and controversies between Marxists and Anarchists (such as the relationship between autonomy and federalism, consciousness and coordination, revolution and violence, and direct and representative democracies), the authors offer an augmentation of the Marxist tradition through the lessons of Anarchist theory and practice. In emphasizing different moments when Anarchists and Marxists successfully combined forces, the article offers new insights.
