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At the same time, the different periods and conditions of each example are not xlii Introduction distinguished or compared as against wider changes in the global context, ideological shifts or concrete reforms. It is impossible —due to space restrictions—for this volume to offer consistent comparative analysis of each historic period, the general contradictory features of past experiments of Real Socialism, or the nuances and unique conditions of each movement in question. Specific analysis of the historical contexts of each example is, of course, much needed but must await further research and more appropriate forums.

33 For Bakunin, it was only through the self-activity of the masses that an anarchist society could be achieved. Introduction xliii The tragedy of the Paris Commune brought these issues to a head. The tide of reaction that swept across Europe strengthened Marx’s resolve regarding the need for distinct working-class political parties; for the anarchists, it affirmed the need for militant trade union organization. Yet from the mid-1870s to the early 1880s, there was a convergence between some anarchist and Marxist currents toward libertarian or anarchist communism that resulted (on the anarchist side) from an internal critique of its earlier expressions of anarchist socialism.

The type of individual produced under such conditions is, of necessity, “deformed by these continuing defects” that will enter all social relations. Lebowitz makes clear that this inherited defect of the self-interest of owners in socialism is the opposite of solidarity, community, and association envisaged by Marx and must be actively subordinated if the new society of communism is to develop as an organic system. Yet rather than calling for a struggle to subordinate this defect, Lebowitz finds those whom Introduction xxxvii he calls “two-stagers”—like Lenin—seek to transform it into a socialist principle to be enforced by the state.