This article is based on a talk give at the Radical Routes Conference, “Practical Economics: Radical alternatives to a failed economic system,” held on May 23, 2009.
To quote someone who sums up the intellectual times in which we live, Sarah Palin: “Now is not the time to experiment with socialism.” This, during the worse crisis since the 1930s! Anarchists would say that is precisely the time – but only as long as we are talking about libertarian socialism!
Capitalism in crisis (again!), and the failure of state socialism could not be more clear. Social democracy has become neo-liberal (New Labor? New Thatcherites!) while this year also marks the 20th anniversary of the collapse of Stalinism in Ea... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) To quote someone who sums up the intellectual times in which we live, Sarah Palin: “now is not the time to experiment with socialism” This, during the worse crisis since the 1930s! Anarchists would say that is precisely the time – but only as long as we are talking about libertarian socialism!
Capitalism in crisis (again!) and the failure of state socialism could not be more clear. Social democracy has become neo-liberal (New Labor? New Thatcherites!) while this year also marks the 20th anniversary of the collapse of Stalinism in Eastern Europe. With its state capitalism and party dictatorship, Stalinism made the disease (capitalism) more appealing than the cure (socialism)! In this anarchists should be feel vindica... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) First Letter
Dear FRFI
It seems doubly ironic that you entitled your rant against anarchism “the anarchist school of falsification” (issue no. 174). Firstly, this rant was falsely presented as a review of an anarchist pamphlet and, secondly, the article was itself riddled with falsehoods.
It claims that “most anarchists have little knowledge” of their own history, then talks about Kropotkin and the syndicalist Jouhaux supporting the allies in the First World War. Both these facts are contained in the pamphlet you claim to be reviewing! Kropotkin is on page 19 and page 12 talks about the betrayal of the French CGT leadership. Presumably the pamphlet “falsifies” history by informing its... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The election of Donald Trump came as a surprise to many, given the obvious demagogery, incoherence and authoritarianism he exhibited as a candidate. It matters little that he lost the popular vote, the fact is that enough people in specific states were willing to vote for him – and now we all have to live with the outcome. The result of decades of right-wing glorification of the wealthy, calls to run the state as a business (i.e., as a dictatorship), and the like can now be seen in all their glory. A better argument for anarchism would be hard to find.
That does not mean, of course, passively awaiting the next election as the myth of democracy would have us believe. It means resisting – and there have been promising signs... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) “We have seen how the Revolution began with popular risings ever since the first months of 1789. To make a revolution it is not, however, enough that there should be such risings — more or less successful. It is necessary that after the risings there should be left something new in the institutions, would permit new forms of life to be elaborated and established.” Kropotkin, The Great French Revolution
Anarchism is often portrayed by historians and others as somewhat utopian, having no real idea of how to get from capitalism to a free society. Lenin, for example, asserted that anarchists “while advocating the destruction of the state machine, have absolutely no idea of what the proletariat will put in its ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Richard Dawkins, Britain’s leading evolutionary theorists, has been presenting an extremely interesting and informative series on Darwinism (“The Genius of Charles Darwin”, Channel 4). It is a three part series to commemorate the 150th anniversary of discovery of natural selection (next year marks the same anniversary of the publication of “On Origin of Species”).
The first part was informative, although Dawkins did simply state, in passing, how Darwin was influenced in developing his ideas by economics, namely Malthus’s infamous essay on population. No mention of how that essay, refuted in practice since it was written, became popular in ruling class circles to counter attempts at social reform (i... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Part 1
George Monbiot, the green activist and writer, has never let his ignorance of anarchism stop him from commenting on it. It takes a willfully ignorant person to write the nonsense about anarchism contained in his self-contradictory book, “The Age of Consent.” Sadly, many of those reading and reviewing that book were equally ignorant (Johann Harri, please take a bow) and so he had little to worry about.
One thing seems sure, like many a liberal and Marxist he dislikes our ideas and seeks to smear us by means of “guilt by association.” This he did recently in The Guardian when discussing neo-liberalism. As he put it, the neo-liberal “project was assisted by ideas which arose in a very differen... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) This year is the centenary of George Orwell’s birth. To mark this event, BBC2 showed an innovative documentary about his life and work called “George Orwell: A Life in Pictures.” To get round the fact that there are no known recordings of Orwell’s voice or film of him, the BBC recreated key aspects of his life by means of pseudo-authentic documentaries and interviews. An actor voiced Orwell’s words to illustrate aspects of his ideas and life. Thus we have a 1930s style movie-news clip of him on the Aragon front explaining the way to make a great cup of tea and a particularly stiff-upper lip round table discussion between him and two pacifists (one of which was Alex Comfort) to allow Orwell’s position on t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) My Disillusionment in Russia by Emma Goldman
Anarchism by Peter Kropotkin
As in the 1960s, the upsurge in anarchist activitism has resulted in a similar upsurge in classic anarchist titles being produced by mainstream publishers. A new generation of radicals are becoming interested in anarchism and a new generation of capitalists want to make money from them! This is a positive side-effect of the prominence we have achieved in the news reporting of the anti-capitalist movement. Hopefully these new radicals will take the opportunity to learn from some old ones, particularly as these books are so good.
After a few decades of being out of print, Emma Goldman’s classic account of her experiences in Lenin’s Russi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Part I
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. While the Bolshevik Myth appears to be on the decline, some radicals are some infatuated with it and so, unfortunately, anarchists still need to explain why Leninism lead to Stalinism. An effective way of doing so is to contrast the claims of Leninists with reality. Chris Harman’s “How the Revolution was Lost” is an attempt by the British SWP to explain the rise of Stalinism while exonerating the politics of Bolshevism at the same time.[1] First published in 1967 to mark the 50th anniversary of the revolution, this essay is still used by the party and contains all the basic themes they, and other Leninists, use to defend the Bolsheviks. Therefore... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The strikes in November, 2007, in France against Sarkozy’s so-called reforms were inspiring. In Britain, we are so used to people grumbling but ultimately accepting any crap imposed by the government and bosses that it is refreshing to see so many people talking direct action and showing solidarity.
The attempt to “reform” the pension system is, of course, Sarkozy’s first attempt to “do a Thatcher” and try to break French working class militancy. He has staked his self-proclaimed “reformist” credentials on facing down the protests, aiming to stand firm on an issue which created three weeks of strikes in 1995 and led to a U-turn and then collapse of Chirac’s government. One of Sark... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci once wrote that “to tell the truth is a communist and revolutionary act.” If we apply this maxim to most of the left, we would draw the obvious conclusion that it is neither communist nor revolutionary.
The Socialist Workers Party is a classic example of this mentality, rewriting history to suit the recruitment needs of the organization. One of the ironies of history is that the Trotskyists who spent so much time combating the “Stalin school of falsification” have created their own.
I
The SWP is notorious, of course, for its inaccurate diatribes on anarchism. Pat Stack’s laughably bad “Anarchy in the UK?” (Socialist Review, no. 246) is just the la... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Resistible Rise of Benito Mussolini, Tom Behan, Bookmarks, 2003, £8
“If the anarchists are not careful, their enemies will write their history” (Gaetano Salvemini) [1]
The rise of fascism in Italy is a subject that should be of interest to anarchists. This is because Mussolini’s rise cannot be detached from the biennio rosso, the two red years of 1919 and 1920. This reached its peak with the factory occupations of 1920, when hundreds of thousands of workers took over their workplaces and peasants squatted the land they used but did not own. Italy was on the verge of social revolution. Fascism was a response to this, a tool by the ruling class to crush working class organization, resistance a... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) April 29th saw the death of economist John Kenneth Galbraith at the grand old age of 97. While his books were popular in the 1950s and 1960s, his influence and ideas grew out of fashion in the 1980s with the rise of neo-liberalism. This is understandable, as his analysis was far too realistic to be usable by the ruling elite to justify their power, profits or policies.
Galbraith firmly saw the role that economics played in justifying capitalism and elite rule. In Galbraith’s vision, economic power was a fact which could not and should not be ignored and any form of economics which did was just apologetics for injustice and inequality. As he put it, “the most damaging feature” of mainstream economics “is the ar... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) March 17th 2006 marked the 85th anniversary of the crushing of the Kronstadt rebellion by the Bolsheviks. The saga of Kronstadt is a microcosm of the Russian Revolution. It had been an early supporter and practitioner of soviet power, forming a free commune in 1917 which was relatively independent of the authorities. The Kronstadt sailors had been in the vanguard of the revolutionary events of 1905 and 1917. In 1917, Trotsky called them the “pride and glory of the Russian Revolution.” In 1921 he and Lenin crushed their revolt.
For anarchists, Kronstadt exposes the myth that Bolshevism was a genuine form of socialism. It marked the death of the Russian Revolution.
The revolt
The revolt of February/March 1921 cann... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The question of how we get to a primitivist utopia
Dear Freedom
Karen Goaman’s summary of my ideas (issue 10/1/04) is at such odds to what I actually wrote I don’t know where to begin. Perhaps it is just me, but it often seems that supporters of primitivism speak a different language to the rest of us. After all, I said in my first reply that I doubted that people who went to the trouble of having a revolution would leave everything pretty much the same as before (as asserted in the first “Green and Black Bulletin”). But, no, apparently by this I meant the opposite! So when she labels me a lover of “modern industrial society” she is distorting my position slightly.
Then there is the w... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) First Letter
Dear Weekly Worker
I read Joe Wills letter in reply to Richard Griffin with interest. Wills dismisses Richard’s comments on liberal electoral democracy as a “nihilist world outlook” that suggests “the working class have not improved their lives one iota since the dark days of feudalism.” I was under the impression that working class direct action had improved our lives, not paternalistic actions by liberal parliaments. Obviously I was wrong to think that reforms were a product of working class self-activity (and the fear it provoked in ruling circles). Thanks for clarifying that — I now know where the real power to change society lies.
Looking at “democratic central... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) First letter
Dear Freedom
It seems to me that Tavis Reddick (Freedom 6th April) totally misses the point in his comments on class struggle. I will ignore the comments on “those who would divide ... may be seeking to rule” as the slanderous nonsense they are and concentrate on the key issue, namely the importance of class analysis and struggle.
Travis simply does not understand the nature of the society he lives in. He argues that “capitalism can’t really be said to exist for the benefit of anyone, can it?” The fact that the capitalist class seems intent on maintaining both the system and its position in it suggests otherwise. Simply put, capitalism benefits capitalists. “Capitalists a... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) My half of an exchange of letters in Freedom from 1999 discussing whether communist-anarchism can be a form of anarchism and how its ideas relate to those of Proudhon’s. They show the continuity of communist-anarchists ideas with those of Proudhon’s, indicating the voluntary nature of communist-anarchism and why consistent anarchists need to be against private property. As they cover common fallacies about communist-anarchism, property and Proudhon, I hope they will be of a wider interest. I should note that, sadly, Richard Garner subsequently rejected individualist anarchism and became a right-wing “libertarian” (of the “anarcho”-capitalist type).
First letter on Property and Anarchist Communism
... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Letter on “group issues” in a free society
Dear Freedom
Richard Garner’s letter (Freedom, 21st April) raised some interesting questions.
He states that under his system there would be no “group issues” and so the “problem ... lies not with anarchism but with communism.” Taken literally, of course, this implies that Garner’s version of “anarchy” there would be no forms of association at all. No groups, no families, no clubs: nothing bar the isolated individual. It implies no economic activity bar peasant farming and one-person artisan workplaces. Why? Simply because any form of organization implies “group issues.” Two people deciding to live together... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) First Letter to Anarchy
Dear Anarchy
I was deeply disappointed by the last issue of Anarchy. The reason is simple. While denouncing what it considers the “repeated pronouncements of contempt for many (often even most) anarchists” and those who present “no hint ... that the people denounced might have genuinely radical and intelligent reasons for thinking and acting as they do,” we were subjected to exactly this as regards “Platformism.”
In the various articles bashing the Platform, at no time was there any attempt to explain why some anarchists have felt an affinity to that document and the tradition is created (and, yes, it does have a tradition and influence even if some contributor... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Critique of Green and Black Bulletin no. 1
Dear Freedom
I was disappointed in the first the “Green and Black Bulletin.” This is not because I am against Freedom covering ecological issues. No, far from it. A regular column on green issues would benefit Freedom immensely. I know that anarchism and ecology are intertwined and that any relevant and decent form of anarchism must be rooted in an ecological perspective.
No, the reason I have reservations about this Bulletin is two fold. Firstly, it proclaims it will be a “primitivist” column, thus excluding most forms of ecological anarchism. To suggest that anarcho-primitivism is ”’green anarchism” is blinkered, not to mention sectar... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) A while back I wrote an article for Freedom on anarchism and trade unions called “There is Power in a Union.” It was a basic introduction to anarchist ideas on the subject and an edited version of it was published in that paper. It was produced to complement a leafleting of a trade union activist meeting in London by the Anarchist Workers Network (AWN). The AWN is now defunct, having failed to produce enough activity or people to take the burden from its founders. Which was, it should be mentioned, the fate of its immediate precursor, the Anarchist Trade-Union Network (ATUN).
The key issues were raised at the end of the article:
“We need to think about how we can work within the labor movement (at the ran... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Louise Michel, Nic Maclellan (ed.) Rebel Lives Series, Ocean Press (ISBN: 1876175761)
January 9th marked the 100th anniversary of Louise Michel’s death. Michel was simply amazing, revolution personified. Known as “The Red Virgin,” she played an important role in the creation of the Paris Commune by leading the people of Montmontre to stop the government seizing the guns of the National Guard. She fought on the barricades during the final days of revolt when not tending the wounded. Escaping the mass slaughter of 35,000 Parisians after the Commune was defeated, she was arrested, tried and exiled to New Caledonia along with thousands of other rebels. There, she supported the indigenous people in their revolt against F... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) In January 1920, G. ZINOVIEV, President of the Central Executive Committee of the Third International, sent a letter to the Industrial Workers of the World. It appeared in a 1920 issue of One Big Union Monthly, a regular publication of the IWW that appeared up until about World War 2.
It is an interesting document. Given what Zinoviev wrote in the letter and the actual conditions that existed in Russia at the time, we can safely say that Stalinism did not invent doublethink or systematic lying as a political principle. As we will prove, the arguments and descriptions of Zinoviev amount to little more than a deliberate distortion. In plain words, lies pure and simple.
It may be argued that Zinoviev lied because of the dire situ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) (This is, more or less, the speech given at a debate organized by the Leninist Party “Alliance for Workers Liberty” in November, 2003. The debate was entitled “Marxism or Anarchism?” although it would have been better called “Leninism or Anarchism?” I’ve made a few clarification to the text at a few points in light of the subsequent contributions at the meeting, but the text is approximately 95% the same. I’ve also taken the liberty of adding footnotes so that interested readers can investigate the issues further. These reference “An Anarchist FAQ”. Given how badly the AWL came across at the meeting I doubt I will be invited back any time soon!).
Introduction
Before start... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Maurice Brinton was the pseudnum under which Christopher Pallis (1923–2005) wrote and translated for the British libertarian socialist group Solidarity from 1960 until the early 1990s. He was its leading and most influential member, unsurprisingly given the quality and insightfulness of his work, and his ideas still influence many today across the world.
Brinton’s translations of libertarian socialist Cornelius Castoriadis work (under the pseudonym “Paul Cardan”) contributed immensely to enriching libertarian politics in the English speaking world. Indeed, many of his translations were used as the basis of the essential three volume collection of Castoriadis’ work entitled “Political and Social Wri... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) This talk was given in January and February 2018 at the Five Leaves bookshop in Nottingham. As the name suggests, it discusses what anarchism is via the ideas and lives of twelve libertarians. The first part covered six male anarchists and the second six female ones.
The decision to split the talks into two based on “Founding Fathers and Mothers” was not mine’s and perhaps not the best as it creates some duplication and, of course, somewhat obscures that male and female libertarians interacted and influenced each other. Still, I think it went well and helped bring out some issues which are often forgotten in introductory talks. Both presentations can be found here and both included a few slides in appendices which w... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Milton Friedman, one of the economics guru who inspired Thatcherism has died at the age of 94. Needless to say, the praise for this supporter of capitalism was flowing. As would be expected – if your dogma favors the ruling class, being proven wrong is no hindrance.
Friedman produced more than his fair share of pain and suffering in the world. His ideas inspired the policies of Reagan as well as Thatcher. His personal invention in Chili ensured that Pinochet placed his ideological followers into leading economic positions where they imposed his ideas onto a terrorized Chilean people. The ironic thing was, wherever his dogmas were applied the exact opposite occurred.
For example, his asserted in “Capitalism and Free... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid is usually, and rightly, called his masterpiece. While the high quality of all his work makes it hard to say whether this classic can be considered his best, it is fair to say that it is probably his most famous and one of his most widely read. Suffice to say, that it is rarely out of print testifies to its importance as well as the quality and timelessness of its message.
It is often called an anarchist classic. This is not entirely accurate. Yes, it is a classic and it was written by an anarchist, indeed the leading anarchist thinker of the time. However, it is not a book about anarchism. It is, first and foremost, a work of popular science, a “best-selling work,” which made cooperation &ldq... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)