o_195qg5dto17o4rbc85q1ge61i84a.pdf

anarchist rejections of the state 61
into a system. All ‘the vices, all the evil qualities of mankind’ were
‘countenanced and cultivated to insure the triumph of law’. 39
For anarchists like Kropotkin, the power of the state was something
that could be seen in its institutions – police stations, law
courts and prisons – and in the observable behaviour of those ruled
by them. Developing a slightly different approach, some anarchists
have defined the power of the state as the ability to manipulate.
These anarchists do not deny that power changes the way in which
people behave, but find power located in invisible sources. For
example, writing in the inter-war period Rudolf Rocker identified
nationalism as a source of manipulation. He traced the roots of
nationalism to the early-nineteenth-century patriotism and, in
particular, to Guiseppe Mazzini’s romantic aspirations for Italian
unity. Patriotism was inspired by a ‘sincere love of the people’ and
sprang from a genuine desire to achieve social unity through
emancipation. But it was undermined by the patriots’ misconception
that the state was the proper vehicle for the achievement of solidarity.
As a result it gave way to late or modern nationalism, which was
entirely manipulative, ‘wholly lacking in … love’ and ‘genuine
feeling’. Nationalism was a vehicle for a particular philosophy of the
state that Rocker identified with the Italian Hegelian, Giovanni
Gentile. Gentile’s idea was that the state had an ethical character. It
was the instrument through which humanity realized its potential,
bringing disparate individuals together in community, and it was an
expression of human reason. And it achieved this end by imposing
uniformity and legitimizing the state’s domination of every field of
human activity: the arts, religion, philosophy and morality.
Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin eagerly applied Gentile’s ideas.
Modern nationalism is only will-toward-the-state-at-any-price and
complete absorption of man in the higher ends of power … modern
nationalism has its roots in the ambitious plans of a minority lusting
for dictatorship and determined to impose upon the people a
certain form of state … 40
Fredy Perlman’s critique of nationalism picks up some of
Rocker’s themes. In his view nationalism is a dynamic process of state
formation which has its roots in the American and French revolutions.
Like Rocker, Perlman associated nationalism with militarism
and argued that both fascism and Bolshevism were exemplars of
nationalist ideology. The heirs of Lenin, Perlman argued, were people