ONCE TOO OFTEN we’ve been subjected to the accusation that being on the dole is an ‘easy life’. This has even been translated into various MP’s trading places for a week with someone who’s unemployed, in a feeble attempt to show just how easy life on the dole is. The video diary of a MP’s week on the dole, patronizing in the least, fails to offer the opportunity to see exactly what a fortnightly visit to the dole office entails.
The experience of a fortnightly visit to your local dole office, generally humiliating and intimidating, can vary dependent upon local office policy. For example the ‘16/21 hour rule’, which relates to the number of hours that you can study and still sign on, which un... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Mahatma Gandhi is often cited by pacifists as the shining example of how nonviolent civil disobedience works successfully. Unfortunately, these peans of praise leave out a close study of Gandhi’s role in the Indian struggle for ‘independence’, and just as importantly, who were his class allies in that struggle.
By 1919 the Indian capitalist class had decided they wanted independence from the British rulers. However, as can be imagined, the British were reluctant to agree to this and a propaganda campaign for withdrawal had no effect. Indian workers and peasants also resented the yoke of British domination. In response to a mass rally at Amritsar in the Punjab, General Dyer ordered the machine-gunning of the crowd, r... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Mahatma Gandhi is often cited by pacifists as the shining example of how nonviolent civil disobedience works successfully. Unfortunately, these peans of praise leave out a close study of Gandhi’s role in the Indian struggle for ‘independence’, and just as importantly, who were his class allies in that struggle.
By 1919 the Indian capitalist class had decided they wanted independence from the British rulers. However, as can be imagined, the British were reluctant to agree to this and a propaganda campaign for withdrawal had no effect. Indian workers and peasants also resented the yoke of British domination. In response to a mass rally at Amritsar in the Punjab, General Dyer ordered the machine-gunning of the crowd, resulti... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) In the 1920s prices quadrupled but wages did not. Revolt against foreign domination swept China but the arrogant merchant houses held on in Hong Kong. In January 1922 the bosses refused to concede a 40% wage rise and closed shop, so the Seamen’s Union (SU) went on strike.
As ships arrived in Hong Kong their crews deserted and joined the strike. The Union had an armed militia that enforced the strike and blockaded all food by rail or sea. Tens of thousands of strikers and their families left Hong Kong for Canton where the local government housed, fed and paid them a wage. The bosses had to negotiate with the strike committee by telegraph!
The government declared the SU and three others illegal and brought in scab labor from China. Th... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) “¡Ya Basta!” (“Enough is Enough!”) declared the EZLN (Zapatista National Liberation Army — named after the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata), as they burst to international attention on New Years day 1994.
The rebellion started in San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico in the tradition of all peasant armies: ransacking town halls and burning land deeds! Destroying 10 government offices, freeing 179 prisoners, then attacking an army garrison, and in one town shooting down an army helicopter, and torching the town hall before quietly slipping back into the jungle. The timing for the international “audience” was crucial, coinciding with the controversial introduction of the North Ameri... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) As we enter 1996, some signs are pointing to a change in the tempo of struggle. Could the wildcat strikes that have happened, and are happening , in particular in the Post and the car industry, be signs that workplace militancy is once again on the increase? And this despite the ‘wisdom’ pushed by the media, the Conservatives and New Labor that strikes are a thing of the past. Certainly the number of wildcat strikes outside the control of the unions backs up our asssertions and analysis that workplace struggles must break with the unions. Similarly, social discontent is shown through riots that broke out in 1995 in Leeds, Luton and Brixton.
The promising signs in Britain are outshone by the scale of social unrest in France and ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The uprising that took Albania to the brink of revolution in 1997 was not supposed to happen – the Albanians, we were told, had shaken off their Stalinist masters and were now enjoying their new found capitalist freedom.
The true picture was a little different however – millions of jobs lost, social security and pensions cut and the countries infrastructure was nearing collapse, all as a result of plans to open the country up to western investment.
The real spark for the uprising was the IMF pressure which forced the state to abolish guarantees on bank deposits, and liberalize the banking and financial sector allowing pyramid schemes offering monthly interest rates of up to 100% to become legally possible – many people d... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) THE SHIPWRECK OF anarchist communism in the late 70s meant that there was no anarchist communist organization, not even a skeletal one, that could relate to the riots of 1981 and to the miners strike of 1984–5 as well as to mobilizations like the Stop the City actions of 1984. But in autumn 1984 two comrades, one a veteran of the ORA/AWA/LCG, had returned from France where they had been living and working and where they had been involved in the libertarian communist movement. A decision was made to set up the Libertarian Communist Discussion Group (LCDG) with the aim of creating a specific organization. Copies of the Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, left over from the AWA/LCG days, were distributed to bookshops, ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Preface
This pamphlet has its origins in a particular time and place, with the impetus behind it coming from the Israeli state’s military campaign in the Gaza strip in late 2008 and early 2009. As the record of atrocities and the death toll mounted, coming to a final stop at around 1,500 dead, large protests took place around the world, with a significant protest movement developing in Britain. This movement took the form of regular street protests in cities, a wave of 28 university occupations around the country and occasional attacks against companies supposedly implicated in the war. There were also, depressingly, actions with clear anti-Semitic overtones. [1]
Anarchist Federation members were involved in a range of w... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) INTRODUCTION: Why Anarchists Oppose Parliament
We are constantly told that we live in a free society. The guarantee of this “freedom” is said to be the parliamentary system. This allows us to elect representatives who govern the country in our name, and who are answerable to us. That, at least, is the theory.
This system had its beginnings in a body which only represented feudal nobles, and evolved into one which represented land-owning and agricultural interests more generally. There was no pretense that it was democratic, i.e. representing the will of all the people. By the 19th century, with the development of industrial capitalism, the newly-rich owners of factories and mills lacked political power to match their economi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 1.
The Anarchist Federation is an organization of revolutionary class struggle anarchists. We aim for the abolition of all hierarchy, and work for the creation of a world-wide classless society: anarchist communism.
2.
Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class by the ruling class. But inequality and exploitation are also expressed in terms of race, gender, sexuality, health, ability and age, and in these ways one section of the working class oppresses another. This divides us, causing a lack of class unity in struggle that benefits the ruling class. Oppressed groups are strengthened by autonomous action which challenges social and economic power relationships. To achieve our goal we must relinquish power over each othe... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The people of Albania have been duped on a massive scale; they swallowed the lie of democracy and the confidence trick of the free market. Now people who had next to nothing, have absolutely nothing. Albania is one of Europe’s poorest countries despite having natural resources that could be the envy of other peoples: petroleum, mineral ores, temperate climate and fertile land. The new ‘democratic’ rulers have used the state apparatus in order to get as rich as possible as quick as possible. As the poorest ruling elite in Europe they had to be the least scrupulous.
Instead of the legal drugs (alcohol and nicotine) and legitimate trade they are happy to team up with Mafiosi in selling heroin and smuggling desperate migrants... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Introduction
The world we live in makes no sense. Millions of people starve in the Third World while the Economic Community stockpiles unsaleable food. World leaders use violence to promote peace. Tiny nations fight against their neighbors for patches of territory. Governments place short term gains before the preservation of the planets resources. The great majority of the world toils for a bare existence while a tiny few live in immeasurable luxury. The poor are oppressed the world over, women and black people face extra oppression and hardship.
It is in the face of this insanity that the Anarchist Federation proposes a world of a totally different kind. In place of plunder we argue for cooperation. Artificial want must be replaced by... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Anarchist views on sex can range from the idea that ‘anything goes’ between consenting adults, to the more traditional approaches of what constitutes free love between individuals. One thing these diverse opinions do have in common, however, is the idea of sexual freedom and the opposition to sexual exploitation. Nevertheless, being pro sexual freedom and anti sexual exploitation is open to wide interpretation and can encompass diverse, and sometimes conflicting, analyzes from one anarchist to the next.
Within certain historic anarchist traditions (as well as within the left), there has often been a significant strand of ‘puritanism’ towards sex and any activities deemed generally frivolous.
We all know the story a... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) In the following article, as part of our regular ongoing series on culture we look at the links between Surrealism and Anarchism. It’s noticeable how bourgeois writers writing about Surrealism play down the politics. For example in the massive book on Breton, Revolution and the Mind: The Life of Andre Breton the author Mark Polizzotti passes over the links beween Surrealism and Anarchism in a couple of sentences . This despite the signal devotion of Breton in showing solidarity, as one of a few intellectuals to support the libertarian movement in a period of repression. and despite the fact that the Surrealists wrote a weekly column for Le Libertaire, a paper with not an inconsiderable readership.
“It was in the black mirror of... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) In this article we take a look at the development of Anarchist Communism in Britain since the late 19th century. In the first section we deal with the early days of the Socialist League and of William Morris. In the second part we look at the grouping around Sylvia Pankhurst and at the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation and Guy Aldred. In the third part we look at the groupings of the 70s, the Organization of Revolutionary Anarchists, the Anarchist Workers Association, the Anarchist Communist Association and the Libertarian Communist Group. An article on the first ten years of the Anarchist Communist Federation, appearing in this issue of Organize!, ties in with this series.
PART 1. THE FOUNDING YEARS
The working class activists Fr... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Organize! takes a look at the European anarchist movement, with special mention of the recent conference of the International of Anarchist Federations in Lyon, France attended by observers from the ACF. It has to be noted that in some European countries there has been a noticeable resurgence of the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movements. Contrary to what our anarcho-primitivist friends might say, this growth is a product of the escalation of class struggle and is more and more based on recognition of that struggle. We take a look at some countries where there is a fairly sizable movement, and give thumb-nail sketches of the groups represented.
France
In France the principal specific anarchist organization is the Federation Anarchis... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Anarchist revolutionaries world-wide who seek to maximize the impact of their practical, agitational and theoretical work by associating together in organizations such as the ACF have been despondent in recent years about the wide-spread anti-organizational malaise in the British anarchist movement. Criticism of the pitfalls of ‘the Organization’ are important, and we debate within the ACF and with other comrades, groups and organizations about such issues as the ‘leadership of ideas’ and the problem of whether ‘form’ sometimes takes priority over ‘content’. For example: does being in an organization with a coherent program make us crypto- Leninists?; how much time does internal bureaucracy ta... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) During the first twenty years of the 20th century Mexico was engulfed in revolutionary turmoil. Various ‘constitutionalist’ (i.e. democratic) capitalist factions vied for power whilst attempting to overthrow the dictatorship of General Porfirio Diaz . Meanwhile the Agrarian (landless peasant) movement of Emiliano Zapata and the emerging urban working class attempted to defend their own interests amid the chaos. The Agrarians engaged in guerrilla activity against the various ‘revolutionary’ governments with the aim of reclaiming and defending the land of the indigenous population from the landowners. During the years 1906 to 1915 the Partido Liberal Mexicano (P.L.M.) played a leading in role in attempting to bring tog... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) What anarchists do instead of voting
The general election is here, and once again the parties are all over us like a rash, promising that they will fix things. But you don’t have to be an anarchist to know that nothing changes, whoever gets in. This is why politicians are keen on new methods such as postal voting. Labor, Tory, Liberal Democrat, nationalist (Plaid Cymru, SNP, Sinn Fein), ‘principled’ or ‘radical’ (Green Party, or leftists in some alliance), or nationalist-racist (UKIP etc), the fundamentals of the system are the same.
Whether we have the present electoral system or proportional representation, or however many people vote or don’t vote in an election or referendum, as we have ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Through the latter half of of September there was a wave of protests in Lebanon starting from Beirut’s Martyr’s Square and heading to the Parliament building at Nejmeh Square with the intent to break through the security barriers and kick the corrupt government out.
These protests follow a vast economic crisis proceeded over by a minority governments lining it’s own pockets. Lebanon has been governed by a sect-based political system that has stood unchanged since the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1991 and despite the waves of action during the Arab Spring in 2011, the government remains in control with an iron grip and a black heart.
Whether Christians, Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites or Druze, the working class Lebanese al... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Part 1
THE CONCEPT OF counter-culture is essential to any understanding of anarchism as a movement of total opposition to authoritarian society. Not simply because anarchists reject the cruder forms of economic determinism, but also because anarchists want to extend the social struggle into all those areas of life in which capital is dominant. By “counter-culture” anarchists do not just mean an “alternative” culture, but one which challenges and confronts capitalism and authoritarianism in a way in which purely political and economic movements are unable to do.
Art is one of the many cultural forms in which it is possible to identify a distinctly anarchist approach. The way in which people see society, the way in... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) ANARCHIST COMMUNISM
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM is a distinct body of revolutionary social and political ideas. It offers a radical alternative to the statist belief systems which have proved their bankruptcy in the twentieth century.
Marxism, in both its Bolshevik and social democratic varieties, has proved a disastrous failure. Socialism, and the other ideologies based upon capitalism such as fascism and liberal democracy have proved overtly murderous or hypocritically so. Only anarchist communism remains to be tested as a fully coherent approach to organizing the world. As the second millennium passed, its last century saw the almost unrestrained rise of the State and with it virtually continuous warfare ‑ plunder dressed up as the &ld... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) All over Europe anarchists and other radical left activists are being persecuted and criminalized by state authorities. In countries like Germany this sort of repression already has traditional status (RAF, Revolutionäre Zellen, Bewegung 2. Juni, radikal...).Recently other countries started using invented criminal acts in order to shine through the anarchist movement and structures (Italy, Spain, Greece...), imprison comrades and intimidate others.
What a lot of comrades don’t know is the fact that such repression have also been going on in Austria for the last 2 years. Every day people without European Union passports are being expelled, every day left activists and projects get attacked by fascists and every day people get vis... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) This edition is dedicated to Colin Parker, one of the founding members of the Anarchist Communist Federation (later shortened to the Anarchist Federation) who drafted the first edition and has provided invaluable insight into each revision, helping to keep the revolutionary flame alive.
Introduction
This pamphlet will examine the anarchist ideas of Mikhail Bakunin. Despite having often been reviled, distorted or ignored since, these ideas were a huge influence upon the 19th century socialist movement. On reading this pamphlet, we hope that it will become apparent that Bakunin has a lot to offer us today, that his ideas make up a coherent and well-argued body of thought, and show that there is good reason for him to be described as ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) ‘As a socialist, I have no time for tax-dodgers’
Eric Milligan, head of Lothian region Labor council’s Finance Department (April 1989)
‘Such is the scale of the nonpayment movement in our region that we may have to write-off large sums of outsanding poll tax’
Eric Milligan (December 1989)
MASS NONPAYMENT is now a reality in Scotland. Councils describe the numbers refusing to pay their ‘community charge’ as ‘frighteningly high’. Nearly a year after the first bills were sent out, hundreds of thousands of working class people have not paid a single penny of their bills. Millions more are massively in arrears. Councils are despairing of ever recovering their money.
Dole of... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Beyond Resistance is the Anarchist Federation’s analysis of the capitalist world in crisis, suggestions about what the alternative anarchist communist society could be like, and evaluation of social and organizational forces which play a part in the revolutionary process.
We aim to do three things through this manifesto:
To convincingly make the case for a revolutionary social transformation into a libertarian society.
To challenge those who are already convinced of this, that a revolution can be best brought about by the creation of organizational structures and a globally united anarchist communist movement.
To explain the role we see the AF playing in this process.
Preface to the third edition
... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) “Through its well-publicized stands against sleaze and corruption (Labor) will hope to head off disillusion, even though its reputation for corruption in particular in municipal councils is notorious” (Organize! 46)
Our comments on the Labor victory have been overtaken by recent events. Labor’s long-standing reputation for corruption has been highlighted by the ‘money for influence’ revelations concerning Formula One and Sainsbury’s. Labor’s attempts to restore confidence in democracy through its anti-corruption campaigns and postures have been severely damaged by these lightning revelations. In fact, these events have increased the growing cynicism and disillusion with parliamentary democracy,... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Whilst the ACF defend the editors of Green Anarchist imprisoned for merely reporting on direct action, this does not mean that we can extend that defense to the politics of Green Anarchist. The last Green Anarchist had an article applauding the actions of among others, the Unabomber, the Japanese Aum cult and their sarin gas attack on the Tokyo tube, and the Oklahoma bombings. Now, we know that the Unabomber has been defended in the past by Green Anarchist, and now has the support of others, like John Zerzan in the USA and the Fire Thief group in Turkey, but we feel it would be foolish to describe him as an anarchist. Neither can we support the actions of someone whose bombings caused grievous injury and death to those who did not deserve i... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) In previous issues of Organize! we have reported on the aftermath of the dissolving of Class War Federation, and possible initiatives for growth of anarchist organization since then. We now report on the exciting MayDay98 “Struggles for social change — New ideas, new approaches” conference which took place in Bradford on 2–4 May alongside the 1in12 Club’s second Reclaim Mayday weekend. In the run up to the Mayday weekend, regular meetings had taken place to organize the event which were attended by a mix of individuals, some from anarchist organizations (ACF and Solidarity Federation), some anarchists around Anti-Fascist Action, but mostly nonaligned anarchists and libertarian communists, including ex-CWF. Out ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)