Call for Papers
“Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should ever again the Black and Red unite!”
—Otto Von Bismark, upon hearing of the split in the First International
What is the political relevance of the ideological labels “anarchist” and “Marxist” in the contemporary geo-political climate? Despite recurrent crisis, the costs typically borne by the people, neoliberal capitalism continues to colonize the globe in a never ending quest for profit and new enclosures. Meanwhile, an effective political response from the left to the wars, ecological destruction, financial collapse and social problems created by capital and state has so far failed to garner ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Conference Report
Compiled by Alex Prichard
17/09/09
Since its foundation the ASN has had as its primary aim to foster institutional and interpersonal links between those working in the broad area of anarchist studies. The success of our first conference at Loughborough University in September 2008 was the product of three years of hard work to build this area of research. At the meeting that followed this first conference, it was suggested that a conference be held on the intersections between Marxism and anarchism. One year later, this conference is the idea made real. Our primary aim as a research network was to reach out to Marxist scholars and begin a new dialogue between the two traditions of thought. The secondary aim... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Convergence Through Practice 1: The New Left
(New) New Left?: radical considerations in Canada and Quebec from the post-1968 moment to today
Mike Mowbray
Introduction
This paper begins with so-called ‘New Left’ in the particular context of Canada and of Quebec — as seen through the lens of some radical publications. I will begin with a note on the notions of the ‘New Left’ itself, and with a thumbnail sketch of the local socio-political developments and prominent aspects of radical contention relevant to the Quebec-Canada context. Subsequently, I examine some ideas and expressions of the New Left, as emerged in the pages of the twin Montreal publications Our Generation and Noir et Rouge in t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Councilist anarchism and carnival anarchism during the 1970s: a case study
Toby Boraman
Abstract
After 1968, many groupings emerged across the world who were influenced by a melange of anarchism, left communism and council communism (including the Situationist International). Few have endeavored to document or analyze this attempted crossover between anarchism and Marxism. I attempt to do this through a case study of the anarchist and libertarian Marxist milieu primarily in New Zealand, but also Australia, in the 1970s. Based upon interviews and other primary research, I found that the councilist ideas of Solidarity (UK) and the Situationists were highly influential in the anarchist milieu. However, there was also much tens... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Post-Left Anarchism, Open Marxism and ‘New’ Autonomist Social Movements in Latin America: Convergence through the praxis of rebel subjects
Sara C. Motta
This paper addresses the question of the convergence between the anarchist and Marxist traditions arguing that the practices of Latin America’s autonomist social movements demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of Post left autonomy and Open Marxism offering the possibility of a productive convergence through praxis. It argues that many autonomist Latin American social movements are overcoming this dualism and in the process practicing ‘creative destruction’[169] of reified conceptual and political categories in order to create an emapncipatory... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Politics, Ideology Revolution
The (Anti-) Politics of Autonomy: Between Marxism and Anarchism
Christian Garland
Abstract
Marx famously said that the emancipation of the proletariat must be the work of the proletariat itself; almost ever since, there has been a persistent current of Marxism — that has, in common with anarchism and in antagonism toward its own dominant orthodox tradition, stressed the need for autonomy.
This emphasis on ‘autonomy’ can be seen two fold: both in terms of the action of the exploited and oppressed themselves as an anti-political, self-valorizing agency for achieving revolutionary social change, and as prefiguring new non- hierarchical social relations beyond the world... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
ABOLISH CAPITAL!: Beyond the Marxist/Anarchist divide
Christopher Wellbrook
Alternate title: Pick up a brick and throw it at a cop: Beyond the anarchist/Marxist divide
Where would we be today without those ‘defeats,’ from which we draw historical experience, understanding, power and idealism ... There is but one condition. The question of why each defeat occurred must be answered. R. Luxemburg (1919)
It is no coincidence that the Paris commune of 1871, the split in the First International, Russia 1917 and Spain 1936 are all key reference points for modern Marxist and anarchist theory. Similarly, the historical conflicts between anarchists and Marxists cannot be understood in isolation from the... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Can Marxist and Anarchist explanations of the class struggle between Capitalists and workers be reconciled?
Peter Kennedy
Not available. (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
On the origins of the collapse of the First International
Paul B. Smith
What caused the Collapse of the First International?
Workers worldwide have the potential to form a class that can abolish capitalism and the state. However, there are certain necessary conditions for this to happen. First of all, workers need a theory capable of understanding the present. Secondly, they need an organizational form or forms that will provide them with the ability to take power (Ticktin, 2006, p25).
Prior to the founding of the First International, socialist groups were separated theoretically and organizationally from the labor movement. The First International was the first organizational form that combined theories of the natur... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The Psychology, Political Economy and Theology of A Schism
And never the twain shall meet: The psychological foundations of political ideology
Dana Ward
Not available. (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Red and Black Christians: Some Similarities and Differences between Liberation Theology and Christian Anarchism
Alex Christoyannopoulos
Not available. (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Ideology and Politics: Overcoming the divide between red and black
George Sotiropoulos
‘A Bedouin, perhaps, a Citizen, never’ (?)[179]: Overcoming the Red and Black divide
‘What, then, is Bauer’s solution to the Jewish question and what is the result? To formulate a question is already to solve it. The critique of the Jewish question is the answer to it. Here is a resume: We must emancipate ourselves before we can emancipate others.’
— Karl Marx, ‘On the Jewish Question’[180]
What relevance does a discussion of the divide between anarchism and Marxism can possibly have nowadays? Slavoj Zizek has expressed the problem pertinently: ‘Things look bad fo... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Black and red: an historical-philosophical inquiry into their convergence
Chiara Bottici
Alternate title: Black and Red: The Freedom of Equals.
“Oggi lo sviluppo immenso che ha preso la produzione, il crescere di quei bisogni che non possono soddisfarsi se non col concorso di gran numero di uomini di tutti i paesi, i mezzi di comunicazione, l’abitudine dei viaggi, la scienza, la letteratura, i commerci, le guerre stesse, hanno stretto e vanno semper piu stringendo l’umanita in un corpo solo, le cui parti, solidali tra loro, possono solo trovare pienezza e le liberta di sviluppo nella salute delle altre parti e del tutto”
(Malatesta, E. 2001, L’anarchia, p. 24).
In 1967... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Anarcho-Communism
Beyond black and red: Situationists and the legacy of the workers movement
Jean-Cristophe Angaut
Situationnists have often been reduced to a mere group of artists criticizing everyday life, far away from social struggles.[272] The common description of their contribution to the events of 1968 in France is symptomatic of this reduction: either the so-called cultural orientation of these events is attributed to them, or it is said that, because the role of the situationnists has been too much emphasized, these events are reduced in the collective memory to their cultural part.[273] Nevertheless, this tendency tends to weaken, since one begins to actually read the situationnists’ text, instead of just t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Constructing an alternative to Marxism-Leninism: British Communists and prefigurative politics
Jérémy Tranmer
I’d like to begin with a quotation from an article written by a former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain:
The marxist and post-marxist left has an established view of anarchist politics. We half remember reading about the splits in the International between Marx and Bakunin, in which the self-centered anarchists, with their utopian and unrealistic proposals, were defeated by a combination of hard-hitting polemic and hard-nosed — and sometimes underhand — tactical maneuvering. More recently, anarchism has been associated with ultra-leftist politics — adventur... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Black and Red — The Italian Experience
Collegamenti Wobbly: Beyond the anarchist/Marxist dichotomy?’
Steve Wright and Saku Pinta
Not available. (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Fabbri and the Marxists: A comparative analysis of Fabbri, Gramsci and Bordiga on the question of revolutionary organization
Oisin Gilmore
Not available. (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Antonio Gramsci, Anarchism, Syndicalism and Sovversivismo
Carl Levy
Abstract
Throughout his career Antonio Gramsci forged a complex relationship with strands of libertarian socialism. This chapter will disentangle this relationship. First it sets out an overview of Gramsci’s unique form of socialism (Sorel, Gentile, Antonio Labriola) before and during the Biennio Rosso and the factory council movement. His early flirtation with syndicalism and Mussolinianism left marks, which positively and negatively affected a later engagement with the libertarian Left. Thus the key term sovversivismo, found in the Quaderni, is crucial to his discussions. In the conclusion, this paper examines the effects of Gramsci’s assessme... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The Philosophy of a Schism
When Anarchism meets Critical Marxism: Paths and Paradoxes of “Socialisme ou Barbarie” (and of Trotskyism)
Benoît Challand
1. Introduction
This paper deals with the intersections between anarchism and a specific strand of Marxism, namely Trotskyism in the middle of last century in France. It presents a brief overview of the trajectory of Socialisme ou Barbarie (S ou B) under the influence of political theorist/economist/psychoanalyst Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997). It also deals with previous work done on what were then unexplored archives of a small Trotskyite party in Switzerland (Ligue Marxiste Revolutionnaire) in the period 19691980, combined with oral history co... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Bakunin and Marx on the Paris Commune: Grounds for a synthesis between Anarchism and Marxism?
Philip O’Sullivan
Introduction
In this paper I will examine one critical element of the contested relationship between anarchism and Marxism. Among others, I am chiefly concerned with arguments by two writers, Paul Thomas and Daniel Guerin, who have focused specifically on this topic and whose work in this area presents a clear axis from which to examine again these historically hostile ideologies (Thomas, 1980; Guerin, 1970, 1988 and 1989). Thomas critiqued anarchism from Marx’s perspective and denies that anarchism and Marxism merge and while he produces an extremely thorough analysis of their relationship, he comes d... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Individual Reconciliations 1: The Anglo-Americans
C.L.R. James’ Black Bloc: The Anti-Racist Roots of Contemporary Anarchism
Andrew Cornell
Not available. (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
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