Free Noam Chomsky by Wolfgang B. Sperlich Page B

of the
Freie Arbeiter Stimme
, the Jewish anarcho-syndicalist news magazine in New York, yielded additional material. Although Chomsky did not know it then, Rudolf Rocker (1873–1958), an anarchist legend in his own time, was living in upstate New York and contributing articles to the
Freie Arbeiter Stimme
. Years later, an already politically informed Chomsky came across the writings of Rocker and cited him as an important source that informs his own political outlook.
    While Rocker is just one of many influences on Chomsky, it is instructive to use him as an example. For a start, while Rocker was well known among Jewish anarchists, almost no one outside this circle knew about him – nor is he known any better today. Had Chomsky turned out a Marxist, Trotskyite, Maoist or a follower of Rosa Luxemburg, the traditional Left might have understood better his political activism. But Rudolf Rocker and anarcho-syndicalism? Rocker, in fact, is just one of the thousands of little-known activists who wrote large tracts on political theory and praxis, being revered by a small band of followers. Reading Rocker one gets the feeling of a boundless optimism as to where anarchism might take us, were it not for those ever-present obstacles in the way. He enthuses about the anarchists of Spain and Barcelona:
    the Anarcho-Syndicalist workers of Spain not only knew how to fight, but that they were also filled with the constructive ideas which are so necessary in the time of a real crisis. It is to the great merit of Libertarian Socialism in Spain that since the time of the First International it has trained the workers in that spirit which treasures freedom above all else and regards the intellectual independence of its adherents as the basis of its existence. It was the passive and lifeless attitude of the organised workers in other countries, who put up with the policy of non-intervention of their governments, that led to the defeat of the Spanish workers and peasants after a heroic struggle of more than two and one half years. 3
    One feature present in the writings of Rocker, as of the radical Left in general, is however the ever-present tendency to declare as Enemy Number One the other groups of the Left, instead of coming up with a united front against the real enemy, the Centre and the Right: Theodore Roosevelt had after all declared that ‘anarchism is a crime against the whole human race’. 4 Instead Rocker rails against Marx and Engels, and against the perceived totalitarianism of the Russian soviet system saying that
    the idea of ‘soviets’ is a well defined expression of what we take to be social revolution, being an element belonging entirely to the constructive side of socialism. The origin of the notion of dictatorship is wholly bourgeois and, as such, has nothing to do with socialism. It is possible to harness the two terms together artificially, if it is so desired, but all one would get would be a very poor caricature of the original idea of soviets, amounting, as such, to a subversion of the basic notion of socialism. 5
    The end effect of such infighting seems to be that anyone outside the narrow spectrum of the anarchist position can be labelled a totalitarian. When, of course, the anarchists attack the centre in equal measures, the balance seems restored. When Chomsky does so, there is often utter disbelief and consternation from the centre and the left-of-centre liberals. How can he say that ‘the US is a leading terrorist state’? 6
    In an upside-down world we may well ask how Chomsky deals with some of the other assumed bogeys of anarchism that instil so much fear in the heart of the bourgeoisie, for example the call for violent revolution or even the use of terror. Given that governments, corporations, churches, capital and property rule by violence and terror, the anarchist has the right to self-defence and if necessary use the very methods of the enemy, hence engage in counter-terror. These topics are hotly