ANARCHISM, MARXISM, AND THE IDEOLOGICAL COMPOSITION OF THE CHICAGO IDEA

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reexamine the ideological composition of the “Chicago Idea” movement of the Haymarket Martyrs. Following the “morphological” approach of Michael Freeden, I will argue that the evolution of the revolutionary labor movement in Chicago 1876–1886 exhibits conceptual features common to both the Marxist and anarchist traditions—which deeply impacted its radical praxis and outlook—in what might be regarded as an early “libertarian communist” formulation. The intellectual trajectory of the Chicago Idea will be contextualized with reference to key developments in the international and American socialist milieu, showing both similarities and differences with its state socialist, insurrectionary, and individualist contemporaries. The Chicago Idea remains an important ideological configuration, especially in light of more recent efforts to forge a common ground between social anarchisms and revolutionary marxisms. Viewed in this light, an analysis of what Grubacic and Lynd have recently called the “Haymarket Synthesis” and its legacy shows that an anarchist/Marxist synthesis has deeper historical roots than most left historians have previously acknowledged and might provide one point of departure on which to reconceptualize a contemporary anarchist/Marxist synthesis.