Maia Ramnath - Decolonizing Anarchism.pdf - Libcom

160 I Ramnalh
a Marxist-Leninist influenced document. Singh stated
un.:quivocally that workers' revolutionary aim must be to
achi.:ve power, snatching "the state, th.: government machinery"
away from its use as "a weapon in the hands of
the ruling class to further and safeguard its interest;' and
toward "utilis[ ing] it for the consummation orour ideal,
i.e., the social reconstruction on new, i.e., Marxist, basis."
What fo rms would the new dispensation take ? He posed
some sharp questions without venturing to give definitive
answers, though he did caution against institutions of topdown,
centralized power. In calling fo r a dedicated cadre
ofprofcssional parry workers, Singh urged them to "crush
your individuality first" in the total dedication to the cause.
Ihe question is how this hard line fits within the context of
all his other writings.--
On freedom and a just society, he drew inspiration
from -among others-W illiam Wordsworth, Whitman,
'Ihomas Paine, James Russell Lowell ("If there breathe
on earth a slave, / Are ye truly free and brave ?"), Fyodor
Dostoevsky, Hugo, Eugene Debs ("While there is a lower
class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it.
While there 1S a soul in jail, I am not free."), Charles Fourier,
Spencer, Wat Tyler, Maxim Gorky, London, and Ibsen
("Away with the State ! Undermine the whole conception of
a state, declare free choice and spiritual kinship to be the only
all important conditions of any union, and you will have the
commencement of a liberty that is worth something").78
Singh included this Sinclair quotation: "The
Anarchists and the apostles of insurrection are also represented;
and if some of the things seem to the reader the