What is Solidarity?

Lucy Smith

26 Jan 2025 — 12 min read

From Classical Anarchist Theory

I want to take a moment here to address that there are terms found in the works of classical anarchist theory such as “pr-m-t-v-” and “s-v-g-” that were part of the common language for scientific communities of the day but are terms rooted in colonialism, white supremacy, and eugenics.

Kropotkin

Kropotkin wrote of solidarity that it is “the conscience — be it only at the stage of an instinct” (Mutual Aid, 1902) and that “in the long run the practice of solidarity proves much more advantageous to the species than the development of individuals endowed with predatory inclinations.” (ibid) He proposes this definition of solidarity, although he prefered to call it “sociability”:

“Love, sympathy and self-sacrifice certainly play an immense part in the progressive development of our moral feelings. But it is not love and not even sympathy upon which. Society is based in mankind. It is the conscience — be it only at the stage of an instinct — of human solidarity. It is the unconscious recognition of the force that is borrowed by each man from the practice of mutual aid; of the close dependency of every one’s happiness upon the happiness of all; and of the sense of justice, or equity, which brings the individual to consider the rights of every other individual as equal to his own.” (ibid)

Kropotkin views solidarity as more than a sentiment or a feeling because it grows out of a natural evolution of humans becoming social. For Kropotkin, solidarity is the

“development of the herd instinct, which evolves into the feeling of a “reciprocal bond,” of the solidarity or the mutual dependence of all upon every one, and of each upon all, is as much an inevitable result of social life, as the development of reason, the power of observation, sensibility to impressions, and other human faculties.” (Ethics: Origin and Development, 1922)

Kropotkin believed that co-operation born out of solidarity is necessary for humanity to survive and thrive. He based his theory in Ethics: Origin and Development on the arguments of Herbert Spencer (the precursor to Darwin) who wrote that the evolution of man is the result of co-operation, which is seen throughout all nature and human history. He was deeply invested in using science as a defense for anarchism, repeatedly writing responses and essays expounding on Spencer and Darwin’s work (both of which support the idea of co-operation as the natural law in nature; he also interacted with the works of many scientists and theorists) and identifying this co-operation as the innate solidarity found in humanity with one another and with nature and that this innate solidarity is the morality of man. “Thus it is unquestionable that the moral conceptions of man have been accumulating in the human race from the remotest time. Their rudiments manifested themselves among animals by virtue of their social life.” (ibid) This “moral conception” of solidarity is the immutable equality (equity) of man.

“And, I will add, no matter how often the principle of equity was violated inthe history of mankind, no matter how assiduously legislators up to the present day have made every effort to circumvent it, and moral philosophers to pass it over in silence — nevertheless, the recognition of equity lies at the basis of all moral conceptions and even of all moral teachings.” (ibid)

Kropokin argued that a society “that lacks cooperation for the common good, and in which no one is concerned about the public interests” is an “imperfect social system”. (ibid) To Kropotkin, a society built without the general good for all as the centerstone is unstable and unuseful, and even went so far as to say that societies built on privileges that pit people against each other results in “the stability of the social bond…weakened” (ibid).

“It is also obvious that the maintenance of society requires the mutual cooperation of men. And, what is more, if coöperation is not practiced for the defence of the group, it will not be forthcoming for the gratification of the most pressing needs: food, dwelling, hunting, etc. All consideration of the usefulness of society will be lost.” (ibid)

In Anarchism: It’s Philosophy and Ideal: Why the State Must be Abolished (1896) Kropotkin wrote that humanity has always existed in societies and that the state is simply another form of a society. He defines the state as “the mutual insurance company between military, judicial, landlord, and capitalist authority”, one that a “mortal blow” was “dealt to ideas of local independence, to free union and organization, to federation of all degrees among sovereign groups, possessing all functions now seized upon by the State.” (ibid) The state represses the natural law of solidarity in man through a series of invented privileges (class, race, gender, sex, etc) and individualism over mutual aid. For Kropotkin, the state has only one ending: a moral revival of equity becoming a revolution. This revolution against the isolation of the state will not just be about destruction, but also construction:

“But it is not enough to destroy. We must also know how to build, and it is owing to not having thought about it that the masses have always been led astray in all their revolutions. After having demolished they abandoned the care of reconstruction to the middle class people, who possessed a more or less precise conception of what they wished to realize, and who consequently reconstituted authority to their own advantage.

That is why Anarchy, when it works to destroy authority in all its aspects, when it demands the abrogation of laws and the abolition of the mechanism that serves to impose them, when it refuses all hierarchical organization and preaches free agreement-at the same time strives to maintain and enlarge the precious kernel of social customs without which no human or animal society can exist. Only, instead of demanding that those social customs should be maintained through the authority of a few, it demands it from the continued action of all.” (Anarchism: It’s Philosophy and Ideal: Constructive Anarchism, 1896)

Bakunin

Bakunin defined solidarity as both “natural law” and labor solidarity, or class solidarity and he describes solidarity as “The idea of humanity rests on the inevitable, natural solidarity of all men among themselves.” (ibid) He borrows from Hegel’s concept of mutual recognition (the idea that people can only achieve self-consciousness through a process of reciprocal recognition with others) and builds on it by theorizing that nature is entwined in relationship with itself that are “All this boundless multitude of particular actions and reactions, combined in one general movement, produces and constitutes what we call Life, Solidarity, Universal Causality, Nature” (The Political Philosophy of Bakunin, 1953). For Bakunin, solidarity was the natural result of nature interacting with itself to ensure its survival and mankind is an inextricable part of nature, therefore solidarity is natural to humanity.

“The inherent principles of human existence are summed up in the single law of solidarity. This is the golden rule of humanity, and may be formulated thus: no person can recognise or realise his or her own humanity except by recognising it in others and so co-operating for its realisation by each and all.” (Solidarity in Liberty, 1867)

Because solidarity is universally innate to our humanity, according to Bakunin, it only makes sense that this sense of solidarity be nurtured along class lines.

“My liberty is the liberty of everybody. I cannot be free in idea until I am free in fact. To be free in idea and not free in fact is to be revolt. To be free in fact is to have my liberty and my right, find their confirmation, and sanction in the liberty and right of all mankind. I am free only when all men are my equals. (first and foremost economically.)....The slavery of the common people make them the instruments of my oppression. For we to be free, they must be free. We must conquer bread and freedom in common. The true, human liberty of a single individual implies the emancipation of all: because, thanks to the law of solidarity, which is the natural basis of all human society, I cannot be, feel, and know myself really, completely free, if I am not surrounded by men as free as myself.” (ibid)

Bakunin warns us of the solidarity found among the capitalist class, a common drive for power and to protect that power unites the oppressors across all intersections, calling them a “formidable coalition of all the privileged classes, all the capitalists, and all the states”. (On the Policy of the International Workingmen's Association, 1869) He argues that the only way to overcome this class solidarity is a “universal, world-wide revolution” (Revolutionary Catechism, 1866) brought on by “the unified, common, and universal interest of the revolution, which alone can assure the freedom and independence of each nation by the solidarity of all.” (ibid)

Bakunin correctly theorizes that “isolated revolutions” are not enough to topple the capitalist class but that the only way to destroy the “formidable reactionary coalition” of “the holy alliance of the world counterrevolution and the conspiracy of kings, clergy, nobility, and the bourgeoisie” is a “worldwide program, as large, as profound, as true, as human, in short, as all-embracing as the interests of the whole world” (ibid).

This universal revolution would include:

“the abolition of the historic rights of states, the rights of conquest, and diplomatic rights. It aims at the full emancipation of individuals and associations from divine and human bondage; it seeks the absolute destruction of all compulsory unions, and all agglomerations of communes into provinces and conquered countries into the State. Finally, it requires the radical dissolution of the centralized, aggressive, authoritarian State, including its military, bureaucratic, governmental, administrative, judicial, and legislative institutions.” (ibid)

This program, a result of the natural law of solidarity, would create a new and better world after a revolution, a world based on “freedom for all, for individuals as well as collective bodies, associations, communes, provinces, regions, and nations, and the mutual guarantee of this freedom by federation” (ibid) and “it seeks the confirmation of political equality by economic equality. This is not the removal of natural individual differences, but equality in the social rights of every individual from birth” (ibid). Bakunin names this new society as Anarchy in his writing The Program of the International Brotherhood in 1869:

“For we are convinced that anarchy, meaning the unrestricted manifestation of the liberated life of the people, must spring from liberty, equality, the new social order, and the force of the revolution itself against the reaction. There is no doubt that this new life –the popular revolution – will in good time organize itself, but it will create its revolutionary organization from the bottom up, from the circumference to the center, in accordance with the principle of liberty, and not from the top down or from the center to the circumference in the manner of all authority. It matters little to us if that authority is called Church, Monarchy, constitutional State, bourgeois Republic, or even revolutionary Dictatorship. We detest and reject all of them equally as the unfailing sources of exploitation and despotism.”

Malatesta

Malatesta defines solidarity as “harmony of interests and sentiments, the sharing of each in the good of all, and of all in the good of each” (Anarchy, 1884) and “the condition in which man can attain the highest degree of security and of well-being.” (ibid) He also calls solidarity “the one great principle, capable of reconciling all present antagonisms in society, otherwise irreconcilable. It causes the liberty of each to find not its limits, but its complement, the necessary condition of its continual existence - in the liberty of all.” (ibid) Solidarity, for Malatesta, is the natural evolution of the socialization of man as a part of nature. As man became a more social creature, prone to being communal, solidarity was the driving force behind that innate need to socialize and through socialization, man became dependent on solidarity with each other and with nature to survive and thrive. Malatesta notes “There has always been association and co-operation, without which human life would be impossible; but it has been co-operation imposed and regulated by the few in their own particular interests” (ibid) and

“the establishment of the utility of co-operation, which ought to lead to the triumph of solidarity in all human concerns, has turned to the advantage of private property and of government; in other words, to the exploitation of the labor of the many, for the sake of the privileged few.” (ibid)

This innate principle, or “sentiment” of humanity - solidarity - has been distorted and misused by the capitalist class, by the people in power, to consolidate and build their power (capital); it is weaponized against all those who are not a part of their circles through exploitation and oppression. For Malatesta, the natural solidarity in humanity has been exploited and oppressed, but is not gone and can be awakened in people again: “the oppressed masses, never wholly resigned to oppression and misery…” (ibid) In the anarchist society Malatesta describes (no government and no private property, but free and voluntary human association), he theorized

“The social instinct and the sentiment of solidarity would develop to the highest degree; and every individual would do all in his power for the good of others, as much for the satisfaction of his own well understood interests as for the gratification of his sympathetic sentiments.” (ibid)

For Malatesta, solidarity was the natural evolution of mankind and anarchy was the embodiment of that evolution. This evolution into universal solidarity would create

“a social organization…through the spontaneous grouping[s] of men according to their needs and sympathies, from the low to the high, from the simple to the complex, starting from the more immediate to arrive at the more distant and general interests. This organization would have for its aim the greatest good and fullest liberty to all; it would embrace all humanity in one common brotherhood, and would be modified and improved as circumstances were modified and changed, according to the teachings of experience.

This society of free men, this society of friends would be Anarchy.” (ibid)

Summary

There are certainly pages upon pages that could be written regarding solidarity, and there definitely already has been. What has been written here is simply an interpretation and by no means comprehensive.

“As man seeks justice in equality, so society seeks order in anarchy….Equality of conditions is the law of society, and universal solidarity is the ratification of this law.” - Proudhon (What is Property, 1840)

While Proudhon was writing about solidarity, anarchism, and communism significantly earlier than Kropotkin, Bakunin, and Malatesta, I chose these three because I wanted to highlight the continuity of thought happening in classic anarcho-theorist circles. We can see a few common themes among their works regarding solidarity that help define some of the tenets of anarchism.

Solidarity is a vital aspect of nature, and therefore of humanity.

Anarchism recognizes the innate solidarity in nature as a reciprocal co-operation (socialism) and reaffirms humanity as a part of nature within the co-operation, but also within our species itself is a need for solidarity to survive and thrive. This universal solidarity is the basis for morality, that all individuals are equal. (The equality of the individual to all others is an immutable fact. You are equal because you are.) From this internalized morality evolved free association.

Solidarity evolves into free and voluntary association.

As humanity evolved, socialization grew out of this innate solidarity and as humans grew more social, they began to form affinities, based on common needs. These communal relationships formed as the result of a universal solidarity creating camaraderie among the species that was free of coercion or control.

Solidarity is the foundation of a free and equitable society, but it has been repressed.

Universal solidarity, that all individuals are equal, is the cornerstone of a society based on reciprocal co-operation (socialism). However, over time, that universal solidarity has been abused by those who realized they could hoard power and resources through exploitation and oppression.

Solidarity is inherent to liberation.

Only through a renewal of the moralness of universal solidarity can the oppressed and exploited unite against those in power. Solidarity is what drives liberation and only through solidarity will we achieve liberation and a better world.

It is my deep concern that much of what “The Left” understands solidarity to be is only through labor efforts and pithy sayings. We often hear and see the word solidarity thrown around in posts for boycotts, or on flyers, or in support of uprisings, or expressed as “no one is free until everyone is free” and “all of us or none of us”. There is absolutely nothing with those things but it seems like we have lost the depth of what solidarity truly means and what it requires us to do.

Committing to solidarity is a commitment to the inherent equalness of all. This is the principled struggle - the centering of the moral code of equity and choosing to order your life around that truth above all else. This requires the death of the individualist ego in all of us, over and over again. We are not individualist beings by nature. Communal, reciprocal co-operation is what makes us human and we have lost our humanity under oppression and exploitation. Solidarity is the practice of finding yourself whole as part of the whole where individualism tells you that you have to be whole on your own.

There are practical and actionable ways to engage in solidarity, and we will get there eventually, but for now, I want to encourage you to dwell on the innateness of solidarity inside yourself. You are the assurance of solidarity in your own body. You have solidarity built into every fiber of your being as the result of the co-operation of all nature. The atoms forming the molecules of your body are working in universal solidarity with each other right now as you are absorbing these words. Solidarity is written into our DNA and we can reclaim it as our right as equal against those who dare to repress it.

Our next reading will cover Solidarity from Black, Indigenous, and Global Majority perspectives.

Sources:

Bakunin:

The Principle of the State (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mikhail-bakunin-the-principle-of-the-state)

Solidarity in Liberty: The Workers Path to Free

(https://www.southchicagoabc.org/tal/mikhail-bakunin-solidarity-in-liberty.html)

The Political Philosophy of Bakunin (edited by GP Maximoff)

(https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/maximoff-the-political-philosophy-of-bakunin)

Bakunin on Anarchy (edited by Sam Dolgoff)

(https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/mikhail-bakunin-on-anarchy-en)

On the Policy of the International Workingman’s Association

(https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1869/policy-iwma.htm#:~:text=Do%20you%20understand%20that%20faced,only%20be%20achieved%20by%20a)