press black-out was literal; the coup SIXTEEN was heralded by a close-down in the PAGES power stations which effectively pre­ FREEDOM vented production of newspapers until such timo that they could be served anarchist fortnightly with legal notice of.censorship -- which they obeyed. , Vol. 36 Nos. 26-27 5 JULY 197 5 TEN PENCE

Idi Amin of Uganda, one-time British soldier, is a different kettle of fish. He POWER OF LIFE 0 DEATH has established his power over his own people with the help o f the British , he \VE HAVE SEEN in the past weeks and freedom of the press .are suspended succeeded Milton Obote in a coup d’etat; demonstrations of the power of rulers, and demonstrators have been clubbed another rival in rulership, 'King supposedly unchecked by democratic and arrested. The excuse given for Freddie1 of Buganda died in exile in procedures and virtually immature in this high-handed totalitarian lapse is Wandsworth, London, supposedly a vic­ their methods of crushing opposition that there was a plot against Mrs. tim of alcoholism but suspected of being , and governing by whims or decrees. Gandhi. a murder victim. Amin’s eccentricities Most Western developed countries take and excesses have long been notorious; pride in being Tnot as other countries True. She was found guilty of politi­ he expelled the Ugandan Asians to the are’ especially when, as in the present cal corruption (it was only a minor embarrassment of the British govern- instances, the offending countries are charge but when one gets to the position Continued on Page 2 ex-colonial territories. This adds a of Mxa. G. corruption gets other names soupcon of pride to the enjoyment of and the purely sordid rupee stuff of condemnation. minor politicians is not in her class). The conviction carried with it political Indira Gandhi of India and Idi Amin of suspension; so naturally she appealed. Uganda have by their abhorrent dictate Thread of conspiracy number two : ori&l assumptions incurred the displea­ Mrs. G•18 Congress party, which could sure of Western democracies (muted do no wrong, lost a bye-el ection. slightly In the case of Indira of India by Looks like a real plot. Behind the cor­ a more sophisticated justification on ruption charge, which had been going her part). through the courts for years, was a campaign by Jayaprakash Narayan As anarchists we cannot share in this whose tendency was towards anarchism colour-matching of paler shades of and a decentralist village-based society. black. In weeks which have seen reve­ He has now been imprisoned along with lations of American governmental sec­ some members of Congress Party, ret embroilment in assassination (not­ . army officers and leaders of one of the ably in Africa) and the coincidental Indian Communist parties (they are 4 slaughter of the alleged ’hit-man1 in blessed with two). One can bet it’ s the another project, we can only nod. In pro-Moscow C. P. which is supporting the weeks which saw a technologically Mrs. Gandhi but with the press black- supreme oil-state execute a royal ass­ ' out it is difficult to get even such truth assin* ~ by public beheading and than as the press allows. Incidentally, the drive the remains away in an ambulance we stand appalled. It would be hard to find a state in which human freedom was not invaded, human life was not Six Weeks’ Notice te Quit taken, human dignity was not insulted inflation, if unemployment and drastic in the sacred name of the State and, NOW THAT the Government has got the cynically enough, in the alleged cause political and economic issue of t}ie . 6uts in' social services are to be avoid­ ed. The railwaymen's settlement has of freedom, life and dignity. Common Market out of the way, they are beginning to come to grips with the heralded the end of the voluntary social Mr8 . Gandhi (daughter of Pandit cold economic facts of the state of Bri­ contract and it is very likely that the Nehru) has given a vivid illustration of tish capitalism. We are back, once government will act without the consent, political audacity in her clamping down again, to a Dunkirk situation as far as consensus and persuasion of the trade on the opposition. Up to now about 900 our economic survival is concerned. uni cars. people (officially) or 3,500 (unofficially) As with Dunkirk, a rescue operation have been imprisoned. Habeus corpus. has to be mounted and time is fast With the pound falling against other running out. currencies and share prices dropping the pressures are mounting on the gov­ iAmin In fact, we have, according to Mr. ernment to introduce a severe package Wilson, the Prime Minister, six weeks of tax increases and cuts in public ex­ to work out an agreement between penditure now. There 1b also the added employers, the trade unions and the crisis of how long the Arab oil states government. But as with all such will keep their money here if its value agreements, figures are already being is continually falling. 6et to be imposed on the people. The Treasury, that permanent non-elected It is not the task of an anarchist journ­ body of officials, has handed down its al to offer solutions to the problems decisions to the government ministers which are of the system's own making. on what our living standards should be From this writer’s experience the peo­ in the coming months and years. Their ple of this country have always been answer to Inflation is a £6 limit on all told that they must either "tighten their wage increases, which they say is a belts", "work harder", "export or die", 12% increase compared with the pres­ or that4t will be "blood, sweat and ent rate of 30%. The City says a £4 tears". The good life has always been limit. in the future, either for our children or our children’s children, but never here The trade unions for their part have and now. We in fact believe that the chums accepted that wage increases have to Continued on Page 2 tMV'THuA, F'lOVAj ; Call below that of the current rate of • * ... •••

O' 2

Power of Life aod DeathContlnuod from P j * • ment and the malicious joy of native at any time. IN BRIEF African shopkeepers. Like the Rever­ TWO BEAGLES reputedly used by ICI end Paisley and with the same hollow * * * in experiments to discover the effects ring he protests his loyalty to the Brit­ Historically, India and Uganda are at of smoking wore rescue-kidnapped by ish crown and his affection for the an earlier stage of development than animal-lovers who thought that exposure Queen. Britain and the Western powers and of dogs to cancer risks was cruel and hence their political philosophies are superfluous. ICI later claimed that the His odious dictatorship has been nearer those of Hobbes and Machiavelli dogs taken were in fact ’controls', wh moldy ignored except as a source of than those of the older, more complic­ which was later denied by on Animal mockery (Punch for a time ran a parody ated states whose covering-up of simi­ Rescue Home which temporarily took series on him) and his actions were lar situations is mote skilful and soph­ them in. It was pointed out that even if mainly internal affairs which as every isticated. The power of life and death they were ' controls1 they would have politician knows'is every country's own over its subjects (and anyone who falls been slaughtered on termination of the business. Now, in his posturings he is into its power) is a common preroga­ experiment in order to cross-check thought to have gone too far, He has con­ tive of all states. It is only when it is effects of smoking. ICI is reportedly demned to death a British writer * who exercised in its naked obscenity that trying to discover a harmless tobacco- • was imprudent enough to keep with him there is universal protest. But murder substitute. A student is on remand the manuscript of a book attacking Amin in moderation - or in war, and lack of charged with stealing the beagles. as a ’village tyrant1. This was treason, freedom for those who abuse it is nev­ vii 1111» i » 111 111»t»t»»i»111 1111111• punishable by death. Obviously the er criticised by other states. DESPITE INJUNCTIONS and contempt- more totalitarian the state, the more of-court imprisonments for Bill Dwyer • easily the charges of treason and espi­ Whilst the state has the power of life and Sid Rawle for publicising a hypothe­ onage can be levelled and punished. and death over the citizen, it is too tical Festival, it is assumed as a pos­ Amin must be feeling insecure, and like rarely emphasised that the citizen has sibility that a legal feast williake place a child playing with a captive animal he • the power of life and death over the on the same day and on the other side finds solace in the exhibition of power state. When will Amin and the world of the road from Windsor Great Park. and the appeals of his enemies of the powers recognise this? Windsor residents have obtained an moment. But land-locked Uganda in injunction against the Festival and are a fluid African situation is not a first- Jack Robinson. publicising it on Radio Luxemburg and class power despite Amin's exhibition­ Capital Radio by urging people not to go. ism , and Kenya and the O. A. S. could This is costing £1,500. The Sunday yet make Amin toe the line. Such cap­ * Since pardoned due to pressure from Mobuto of Zaire Times says "last year's free festival ricious behaviour is capable of reversal disintegrated into a pitched battle with the police". 'Disintegrated' is a neat * Continued from P. 1 euphemism for a dawn police raid on a Six Weeks9 Notice hitherto largely peaceful but messy pop good life cannot really be obtained under week. festival drawing to its close. Pop fans a system that produces goods and serv­ are dangerous ; they defend themselves ices for a profit and does not consider But real wealth lies not in money and (in pitched battles?) when attacked. the real needs of people. It is certain , stocks and shares, but in the ability and IIIIttlllllllfVllllfftflflTVIfllflllt that enough food, goods and services skills needed to grow and produce goods THE AMERICAN Prohibition Party is could be produced if the work and distri­ from raw materials. It is not the invest­ putting up a Baptist minister from bution was carried out in the spirit of ments and all the financial dealing that Maine as a 1976 presidential candidate. co-operation, solidarity and mutual aid. plants the seeds or manufactures goods Maine Watergate? At present, anything is produced so long * but the application of skills to these t i f i i i i i i i r i « i i i i i t t i i i t i r i i ti i t t i r i as it makes a profit, whether it serves a • essential jobs. A WARRANT has been issued against useful purpose or ^ indeed, as in. the case Maharj Ji, leader of the Divine Light of armaments, one of destruction, or That is why capitalism cannot be refor­ movement for jumping bail in India in a whether it is useless consumer junk. med by even the well-intentioned social case of defamation brought by a follower But at the moment the demand for goods democrats or Tribunite socialists. The of his eldest brother, who claims to be has fallen and continuing inflation is whole system of exploitation has to be the true spiritual head of the Divine pricing British exports out of the market destroyed and abolished once and for all. Light movement. Such a situation can only mean loss of While capitalism exists people will never I I I f f I I I I I I I l.t I.I.l.t.t.T.I.I J^t.l 1.1 I l..t II I It I jobs and rising unemployment. Cuts in be in control of their own lives and the JEREMY SANDFORD, the author, stat­ public spending will only increase this environment in which they live. Only by ed that gypsies in Britain were treated and higher taxation Will mean less money the means of a revolution in people’s as 'non-people’. He said that local to spend, resulting in further unemploy­ thinking and a desire to change the eco- . authorities were evading the law by pro­ ment. nomic, social and political nature of our viding only 125 gypsy campsites suitable society will the exploitation of man by for 1,850 caravans. Since, said Mr. Despite all the promises of the Labour man be ended. This revolution needs Sandford, "there are more than 20,000 Party we are faced with the hard fact* of to take place now in workers’ attitude ; gypsies in Britain, probably more than capitalist economics that goods are made towards unemployment. Drawing the 4,500 families, this means that no pro- and sold for a profit. The blood, sweat dole might solve the crisis for the em­ | vision has been made for nearly 3,000 and tears are given every day by those ployers, but if an injury to one worker gypsy families." who are exploited in return for wages is an injury to all workers then occu­ I 1 1 I I I 1 f 1 t f I I I I 1 I t I I I ! I I I t I « I I I I f I t I I . the value of which is dropping eve^y pation and work sharing should not be THE B. B. C. 's radio programme The demanded but taken. Workers would Positive World (Radio 3) has been re- then be in control of their work places . placed by "News from European News­ land could start to formulate, in co­ papers". YURY ANDROPOV, member of the pol­ • i i i i»11 11 11 i i i ♦ i * 11 i i»i i i * * t »* * * •f *1 itical bureau of the .Communist Party of operation with the community, decisi­ the Soviet Union and chairman, of the ons on what and how much should be ALEXANDER . EDEN from Wivenhoe, USSR Committee for State Security (tie •produced. Then we would have the Essex, threw up his job of telex and that 1), speaking at a Soviet election 'baginnings of a social revolution. I teleprinter salesman for the GPO and meeting where he was a candidate, said, left to live with gypsies in Lincoln. His according to Soviet News "Any Soviet ' P. T. successor in the job said, "We knew w * that Alexa was interested in Romany citizen whose interests coincide with • • • • those of society is well aware of all the £Thi8 article was written and set up ways and in country matters generally. broad scope of our democratic free­ • before the Chancellor'^ announcement Although to some extent he was a loner, of an intended 10% limit on wage _ this does seem out of character." doms". . . I iittifiviitiivtittivti'Shncho Panza. increases "and dividends"^^ 3 abria and (b) the desperate situation in the cities of tho Region. The riots of Reggio only happened in 1970 and too many pooplo can still vividly re­ ITALIAN ELECTIONS member those days. The June/July issue of Rivista An- archica made the most relevant com­ ON THE EVENING of 16th June the sequent reprisals, and the political ment on the elections. The covor cretinous BBC Radio 4 announced that manoeuvering of the parties leading up bears a cartoon of a toilet roll with huge crowds had gathered outside the to the June 15th elections, are all un­ the symbols of the various parties Communist Party headquarters inRome mistakably connected. The divorce printed on it. Nothing more need bo to celebrate the unheraided electoral referendum of May 13th, 1974 showed said! ’’triumph” . The announcer went on to that political opinion in Italy had shifted soberly declare that in addition to the towards a more liberal, rose-tinted What can we do, comrade^ ? The usual Communist strongholds of the position. Hence the central issue in the way the various anarchist groups are ’’Red Belt” , the cities of Venice, propaganda surrounding the election was shaping we'll spend our time arguing Turin, Rome and Naples had 11 fallen1'to that of ''public order” . The D. C. insis­ : for or against the organisational plat­ the Communists. The following day ted that the PCI was the party of disord­ form, then when the coup ultimately an idiot correspondent of the Economist er, the PCI (of course) denied this, and happens we'll form a "Solidarity Com­ (an authority on the subject of Italian so forth. mittee with Italian prisoners" and affairs, no less) was interviewed on have a peaceful march past the Italian Radio 4. He talked of NATO security. This form of politicking has been seen embassy. We're all too fucking cool Communist subversion in Southern before in more sinister circumstances. to do anything to organise a defence Europe (the soft underbelly of the NATO An excellent example is carried in the and an attack against big power imperi- alliance), and the fact that half the Ital­ latest issue of Liberation under the title alism and infiltration! ian Communists' funds come from the "CIA in Chile - Psychological Warfare". USSR. Oh, we can't have another Chile in Italy', Let's hope you all prove me wrong, Can we? but no doubt I'll see you all in the . About a week after these regional march and in the Solidarity Committee. elections, Berlinger (secretary of the The May 24th issue of U-manita Nova PCI) appeared in an article in Time carried an article under the title "The Here's hoping I magazine to "explain" the Italian Com­ Italian Army” , the coup and NATO”. munists' policies to a hostile American The author of this piece pointed out how VIVA L'ANARCHIA ruling clique. easy it has been over the past 5 years to throw the Italian army into confusion, Francesco. Since the elections the pressure on and how NATO activity has been increas­ Fanfani (secretary of the Christian ing in Southern Europe together with the NEWS BRIEFS FROM SWEDEN Democrats) to resign has been mount­ build-up of American bases in Italy. ing. He has been resisting with all The author further suggests that the un­ successful attempted coup in 1970 could Kenne Fant, director of the Swedish his might because he sees himself as Film Institute, has just made a film the country's guardian against the red have been merely a rehearsal under NATO supervision. called Monismanien State 1995. In many bogey. ways it gives a picture of the future after the ideas of George Orwell and Aldous Two days after the elections a con­ The nature and policies of the parties participating in the electoral spectacle Huxley. The film tells the story of a voy of cars in Naples celebrating the schoolteacher who is put on trial for Communist victory in the city was at- add a tragi-comic touch to the situation. The concern to stop the "Communist teaching his pupils to think as free indi­ racked by several MSI (neo-Fascist) viduals, thus falling foul of the Ideology thugs, resulting in the death of 20-year b ogey would be understandable if the parties involved were actually revolu­ law. Mr. Fant received so much criti­ old Jolanda Pa 11adino who was burned cism from the film critics that he says to death after a molotov cocktail was tionary in nature. The fact is that the PCI is similar in terms of types of poli­ this is the last film he will make. From thrown into the car she was in. For a a.social aspect this film is very import­ change, the police caught the culprit. cies to the centre of the Labour Party in Britain. So that just as the Labour ant and one hopes it will receive inter­ national distribution. One also hopes Why such fury? Why are the NATO Party is now "worried” about inflation and considering further attacks on the that Mr. Fant will make more films brutes worried about "subversion” via like this in spite of the derogatory atti­ the ballot box despite assurances from workers to deal with it, so the PCI was concerned to seem anxious to preserve tude of our nationalism. Mr. Fant is Berlinguer that his party is loyal to to be congratulated on a film which an­ order. Every time some violent incid­ NATO? The answer is that for the archists will enjoy and commend. first time in 30 years the power of the ent occurred involving the Brigate Rosse I Y I 1 I I Y I r I Y t Y t Y « I « t 1 I 1 I I I I 1 I r I I t Y ) I Y or the NAP in the run-up to the election, •Americans (the princip al perpetrators THE SECRETARY of the syndicalist of the cheapening of life) through Chris­ the front page of Unita would be dedica­ ted to denouncing these actions several newspaper Arbetaren who received a tian Democratic rule is being threaten­ £1000 journalistic prize gave half to ed via the much-vaunted ballot box. times on the same page. Further, one • • party only was emerging as the anti­ Amnesty International and half to the • • - International P. E. N. Club. The attempted coup of A970, the grow­ system party. In Calabria the MSI's t I 1 I I 1 I I I I 1 I 1 t I f I t I I t I Y I I Y < I T I Y I I I I 1 ing tide of fascist violence and the sub­ propaganda was based on criticism of the ruling D. C.'s and PSI's (Socialist ANARCHIST POET Bruno K. 6 ijer won Party) clientelism and corruption. a £400 scholarship awarded by a big A TWO-PAGE supplement to L'Osser- Hence we have all the establishment publishing company and gave the money vatore Romano , the Vatican newspap­ parties on the one side of the fence and away to the public in underground sta­ er, affirms the existence of the devil. the "revolutionary” MSI on the other tions all over the country. He felt the It comments that contemporary studies side. The MSI paid dearly in terms of money should be returned to the people, by scholars and theologians casting votes for taking this position. The des­ from whom it was taken. doubt on the existence of the devil perate urban poor in the South, however, ‘ « 1 I 1 I » I I I Y 1 I 1 I I I I 1 I 1 • Y 1 I Y I 1 I Y I I l'l 1 I i * 'could not but trouble people's soul^. is still supporting the MSI. Plain re- THE LAWYER Klaus Croissant in West i t t t i l i i t t t i i t t i i t i y i i i i r i I t i f t t i i r I . actionaries rallied to the aid of the DC Germany accuses the Swedish police of GERMAIN GREER said in Mexico City hence abandoning the MSI and showing inflicting wounds on the head of Siegfried that the International Women's Year the true nature of the DC party. Hausner (the Baader-Meinhof gang mem­ conference being held was not likely to ber) which led to his death. Hausner help repressed women in the world as Sadly, in Calabria the D. C. and MSI was removed from a Stockholm hospital the delegates were 'representative of actually slightly improved their posi­ to a prison hospital in Kbln against a governments, net of women*. Swedish doctor's wishes. tion. This is not surprising consider­ II IY |l II 11 II II II M il II II II M II Y1 II M M II II lit* II M ^ Y I I I 1 I » I I T I I f I t I Y Y I Y I Y I Y I I I I f I Y I I I V ing (a) the power of the Church in Cal­ • m mlBts, though they advocated a General ect; but, old-fashioned &s I may be, I Union of Anarchists, formal member­ still believe in EDUCATION, ORGANI­ ship, an executive committee and an SATION and EMANCIPATION. Do my all-embracing objective (anarchy and critics? And did Arshinov’s and libertarian communism), were opposed Makhno's ? LETTERS to all state authority and the capturing Yours fraternally, of the state machine and/or its replace­ Peter E. Newell. ment by a supposed Workers 1 State as a LIBERTARIAN STRUGGLES means of emancipation. N. W. has not Com rades, 3 1 contradicted my statements - and can­ not ! AWA’a recent apologists in FREE * Dear Comrades, N. W. then repeats his remarks ab­ DOM (and Wildcat) have a pretty slen­ out Arshinov returhing to Russia and der case. From both practical and I agree with D. Young that the "r e ­ rejoining the Bolsheviks, and adds that theoretical points of view, Peace News, view of the anarchist press" printed it is a fact that "some veterans of the and Undercurrents have greater rele­ in FREEDOM a few weeks ago contain­ Makhnovist movement" pointed out that vance - proven and potential - to an ed an unjustified smear against the An­ the Organisational Platform "advocated anarchist future, should we reach it, archist Workers Association* The the equivalent of a party organisation than Libertarian Struggle seems ever suggestion that because some people for the anarchist movement.. . " likely to have. Certainly so long as it left group A to join group B therefore I have already pointed out that Arshi­ remains semi-literate and based in a group A equals group B is, at best, il­ nov only "rejoined" the Bolsheviks in weird sort of 'populist eclectism*. logical, and at worst downright mali­ the sense that, after his arrest, he may Truth is that D. L. M. was not caustic cious* I am in a very good position to have been imprisoned with some Old enough about that particular issue of recognise this as a smear, since I Bolsheviks. And as to the "fact" that Libertarian Struggle. Particularly the helped to spread it in the first place. some veterans of the Makhnovschina self-congratulatory falsifications inclu­ (For instance in a letter to Black Flag opposed Arshinov, Makhno, Mett and ded in R. M. *s and D. Y. *s "What’ s a few months ago)* Being a logical others over the Platform, I can only happening in the AWA". person I was well aware at the time say that N. W. has been getting his If we are to assume that Libertarian that I was being unfair* Being also "facts" from different works than I Struggle contains written expression of only a moderately malicious person I have l My main sources are : Voline, 'viable class war alternatives', then have since acknowledged the unfairness Avrich and Victor Peters. And the the relation of some examples therein, of it and, indeed, have so altered my only fairly well-known anarchists who to anarchism, is tenuous at best:- . attitude towards the AW A that I am now spent any time at all with Makhno were just how much support should an anar­ a member of it. I suggest that it is at Arshinov, Voline and Aaron Baron. chist paper give to a political prog­ least possible that the "reviewer 11 fs Between March 1917 and July 1921, ramme that demands reformist parlia­ motives for attacking the AW A could no Arshinov appears to have been with mentary action to institutionalise and more stand up to honest examination Makhno for probably a couple of years, entrench further, the position of work­ (or honest self examination) than mine and Voline and Baron, owing to the fact ing women; could. The alternative is that the re­ that Voline became ill and both he and what are anarchists doing in support­ viewer is genuinely incapable of recog­ Baron were subsequently jailed by the ing every wretched factory struggle nising illogic, if that is the case then Cheka , spent no more than nine months that presents itself -- trade and prod­ , surely the editors of FREEDOM (who I with the Makhnovschina. And that was uct notwithstanding. Aren't we about am assuming can recognise something all. The anarchist "stars", Alexander abolishing as much of the current soci­ as blatantly illogical when it is pointed Berkman and Emma Goldman, who in al order as possible? It's not our job our to them) should acknowledge that l the words of Victor Peters, "set off a to bail out crisis-bound, and socially this "review" was not up to the standard bitter campaign against Arshinov", useless/harmful industries. One of we, their readers, are entitled to ex­ spent most of their time in Russia these days some blessed anarch will pect. "living it up" as guests of the Bolshe­ pass round the hat for redundant muni­ I am not suggesting that ALL criticism vik government (see Goldmanfs My tions factory workers and nuclear pow­ of the AWA is either illogical or down­ Disillusionment in Russia). er engineers -- demanding occupation right malicious. We in the AWA are As a last shot, N. W. repeats his and workers' control of their silent quite happy to listen to and where pos­ remarks that former members, inclu­ workplaces. sible act upon constructive criticism. ding founder-members, of the ORA/ If the several fistfuls of AWA mem­ We hope that comrades will take a clos­ AWA, went over to Trotskyism * So bers left off writing constitutions ; er look at the AWA and tell us what alt­ what! What has that got to do with the eased off on the interminable delegat­ ernatives they propose as an effective argument? Such "guilt by association",. ing (surely delegate conferences only way of organising towards our common I would have thought, has little in com ­ become necessary when an organisa­ goal of a society without a class system, tion is too large to meet in toto — without government, without police, in mon with rationalism or even "new" ) humanism. Nick Heath in Wildcat, haveing proved the organisational which people run their own lives as they desire in co-operation with each other. and Dave Young in FREEDOM, have point in its early stages); and let AWA both pointed out that many supposed live in the mid-1970s, then all the per­ Yours fraternally, anarchists - never associated with the sonal animosity might usefully be shed Dave Coull. ORA/AWA - have over the last ten along with most other barriers current­ years in this country gone over to ly preventing us even thinking about the Leninism. In some countries, such formation of a relevant 'movement*. as China, Italy and Spain, some "an­ And, should we achieve a relevant Dear Comrades, archists" went over to the Fascists. movement, it will only be when the 2 And, of course, over the years, not a 'class-war traditionalist' anarchists It is true that your correspondent, few Marxists and Leninists have em ­ have stopped sneering at the far more N. W. , has contributed to the corres­ braced anarchism. numerous libertarians actually involv­ pondence columns of Wildcat. It is a All of which proves absolutely noth­ ed with ongoing self-management pro­ pity, however, that he does not read ing regarding the correctness or in­ jects of one kind or another, unaffilia­ the paper. My letter (April, 1975 is­ correctness of the various arguments ' ted as so many are. What they also sue) w&6 obviously a waste of time as in the Organisation Platform, or the are, of course. Is in touch with the • far as he is concerned. I do not parti­ validity of the policy of the Anarchist actual 'toiling masses' -- a strata of I cularly like repeating myself, but will W orkers1 Association. society about which the AWA is much concerned, though hardly representa­ . have to. • I pointed out that a political party com- At least Tom Star (same issue of tive of. • prised a group of people who were org­ FREEDOM), some of whose arguments fraternally, anised for the conquest of the powers of I agree with and others I do not, argues Peter Cummings. government and control of the state ma­ a case instead of parroting dubious chine, either by "democratic" or "unde­ ."facts" 1 The workers are no angels, We hope this correspondence can now close. mocratic" means ; and that the Platfor- and no organisation will, ever be perf- EDS. • • m Ofcouno, they have to rely on world (cap­ other Is absurd. With a breakdown of the cap- ital istTIrnarEets - but until the capitalist system Itallstsystom and means of production, values Itself is defunct there's not much else they can will obviously change...fro envisage otherwise letters do. Is to exhibit an appalling lack of faith in human r Abortion What Meriden does show is the possibility that (social) nature..* workers can run their factories by themselves. At / Dear Ju lia, Anarchism is about life and Life. the moment they are in a transitional period • OT£iliOLxZI Anarchism is about present and future: unconsc­ when they have to employ a few management ious just fertilised eggs and the already consci­ ■’brainjT from outside at higher rates to help them Dear Freedom, ous clearly living personality. Stop knocking out. • .but they are aware of this anomaly and are I have Just read your review those of us who are pacifists as well as anarch­ already training men to take over these jobs; on Mellanby's "Can Britain Food itso/f". A l­ ists - we choose not to kill under any circum­ when this occurs everyone will be earning the though any books on the subject are to be wel­ stances. same rate and.. .everyone- will have an equal comed, the impression gained is that this one is Why as an anarchist, are you so involved share in the wealth of the factory. slightly sensationalist and the references to "in­ with M.P.sand Parliament, etc.,etc.? Stop Meriden is an important social experiment. creased yields" and "dark age ecologists" hove wasting your blood pressure, and Freedom1* The success of its - and other cooperatives1 - a familiar nasty ring about- them. I would sugg­ space, on so much chat about Acts and Reports. ventures will show workers the rotten myth that est to any readers interested in the subject They do not concern us. "management" knows best is a con. There is no (shouldn't we all be?) to contact the Soil Ass­ monopoly of talents and therefore should be no Will your medical friends perform abortions, ociation, Walnut Tree Manor, Haughley, Stow- monopoly of power. on demand? They won’t? Because they do not market, Suffolk, an organisation that has in ** \ want to, or because they need access to medi­ The workers' cooperative at Meriden is not fact been doing the "independent research into cal facilities? If it is the latter, then admit . an isolated "success-story" - even though the alternative farming techniques" as advocatedby that abortion is a medical problem, and should capitalist press will be only too pleased to de­ A.AIbon, for the last thirty years. take its place among other medical services scribe it as such. It is the beginning of increas­ Far more information could be got from them which our crumbling N .H .S . should provide. ed confidence among workers - confidence they , than by reading this book and some might geta Stop mixing up abortion on demand with have been robbed of in the capitalist wage mar­ pleasant surprise about the number of "ecolog­ womens freedom and enforced motherhood. ket. ist cranks" indulging in alternative farming ven- Start campaigning like the good Parliament*- Yours in love and Hope, . tures. arian you seem to be, for a better all-round R .D. Labour Party Socialist, Coventry. Perhaps a review by Freedom on the Soil Ass­ Health Service for all sexes on demand, or P.S. Suggest, if you haven't already done so, * ociation might encourage some more to join ini fl forget about the legalities and get on and prac­ you go down to Meriden and "see for yourseJf • Organically yours, tise anarchic free-choice free medicine. P.P.S. To envisage a world where hundreds of % Farmer Giles The individual is not deciding when he gets workers' cooperatives compete against each ' United Street Farmers. his varicose veins done, or when the plaster comes off his arm, so why should a female in the present N .H .S . set-up complain when she doesn't get her abortion when she wants it? I'm sorry Julia, we are anarchists first, women sec­ ANIMAL FARM ’ IN LISBON ? / ond, and we take out turn with the rest if we are fighting for power. Why? Because ; insist on relying on a STATE health service. SINCE JUNE 25th, Mozambique has been an independent country, after cen­ for the anarchists, ploughing for a cap­ Yours pacifically, italist is just the same as ploughing for Mary-Rose Bannon. turies of human exploitation and perma­ nent colonial robbery of raw materials. the State, if the peasants1 profits go to i MERIDEN The black slaves as weU as the white the army's guns, to the education of have been the gold of international poli­ parliamentarians' sons, to the wages Dear Freedom, of professional politicians, to all who The article in your June issue tical and financial interests, which sup­ ported the Portuguese army in killing know the interest of the people better (Vol.36 nos. 22-23), "Cars heading for a crash" than the people themselves. shows an astonishing degree of naivity and arr­ thousands of Africans throughout i3 ogance as regards the whole labour movement years. It was in Africa that a part of the Portuguese army developed its The army's dreams are never to in this country. make peace (still less love). The m il­ "wish" to liberate the colonies from While unions strike for better living standards, itary's wisdom is never to think as do Portugal and Portugal from fascism. they are quite aware of who is “running" the the civilians who fight for international If the former has become a reality (un­ system. While the capitalists could “deliver" it liberty. The interests of the wearers certain exception for Angola, the rich­ was alright. Today though, workers are faced of uniforms are always contrary to est colony), the latter is not yet clear - with mass redundancies and factory closures. those of the fishermen, peasants, or Such was the case at Triumph Meriden when instead of fascism, Stalinism appears on the near horizon. During last year factory workers. It is less tiring to nearly two years ago they took over their fact­ play at toy soldiers than to use collect­ the ruling classes in Portugal have ory. The act in itself wasn't enough. Money was ive tools and change what the labourers needed to get production going again. This took been replaced, one after the other^ by another clan of military and their oppor­ produce ; it is less dangerous for the the foTrri of a "loan" from the government. A Raison d.'Etat (the eternal excuse for "gift" you might say, would have been better - tunistic political power. The non-poli­ tical people remain outside governmen­ dictatorship) to think instead of the but you would have been forgetting the pride of people than to let the people choose by the men who v*o rk there. They themselves see tal events. For 50 years the people were exploited, kept under non-individ­ themselves,organised within co-opera­ no reason why the "state" should "give them" tives. As the people never know how money - it's their factory anyway. ual decisions and pushed away from control of their interests ; for 15 months to think alone, they have to vote for Our organisation recently had a talk from one their M. P. s. And so, the master can of the workers at Meriden - convenor Denis the people have still been living a long way from what the armed wishes of the be replaced, the slaves will still be the Johnson - and he described the situation there. same. At present there are about 250 men working ; army have stated: the economical libei> there - each man is part of the Cooperative: ation of the most exploited classes ( a • The debates for the new Constitution everyone is on fifty pounds a week. Terms like good reason for the military and the "shop floor" have been abolished. The factory politicians to get rich) . The living began two weeks ago. The M. P. s is run by a policy-making "advisory" board el­ conditions of the poor classes are even have wasted their time chatting about ected by the men, and a group of organisers worse : unemployment and inflation pro­ their own 11rights, privileges and hon­ (the term “management" has also been abolished) voked by the increasing hatred and riv­ ours11 as M. P. s One M. P . , by mis­ responsible for the day to day running of the alry among opportunist groups, the con­ take, re-read in Parliament his own plant. fusion of those who in fact retain the resignation speech made durin*g the Every man has a *ay in how the factory is run command of the country without caring ' Caetano fascist government in 19731 - in fact production is more "efficient" now - about social injustice and unequal dist­ A Communist M. P. proposed that without the men having to do more work and ribution of wealth. It was fighting ag- .they carry and use their own defence without them having to do time-wasting, soul- •ainst anarchism that fascists became weapons 1 And it was through absent- , 1 xnindedne8 S that another Communist destroying Jobs. They hope to take in more and the masters of the whole population; it • * - ♦ - • more workers when there are jobs for them to do. • is still against anarchism that Stalinists Continued on Pai 6 issue): "The land must have no master, basic needs. This has to be done, how- any more than the air and the light, or ovor, on a local basis by the poople ac­ the underground riches, or tho forests, quainted with local conditions, and by or all that is not the fruit of men's work." producing food not as a commodity but LAND as a noed. In a recent article* condemning the squandering of.food, water and energy Tho privileged may profit in the as scandalous, Cherchal Sarkar high­ short term from tho consequences of NOTES this disorderly consumption of resour­ lights this disorder with the following facts : ces, but just as the consequences of 1) One American baby consumes 50 nuclear war are universal so are the ANARCHY Is and always has been a times more of the world's resources results of myopic technology. Mere word very much misused by politicians than one Indian baby. increase in the amount of production and the mass media. It is of course an 2) The wheat needs of the people in by technological means does not solve epithet that is applied to existing orders Africa*6 Sahelian region could have the complex problem. In fact a recent which of course happen within the scope been met with a twentieth of the wheat book, similar to Rachel Carson's of the established order, or perhaps can that OECD countries use each year to Silent Spring , has been published in be described as the established order. feed cattle. In this respect, over Japan., where increased agricultural In fact government is everywhere and £ 1 million is to be currently spent on production has been achieved by the disorder is everywhere. persudding Us to eat more meetly use of a record amount of insecticides, 3) The entire foreign aid of the USA fertilisers and antibiotics. In the book. When one thinks about it, a state of only just exceeds what is spent on wel­ Compound Pollution , the author. Miss affairs supported by violence can only fare in New York City. Ariyoslii, claims that three quarters be disorderly. of the cattle and pigs slaughtered are The private ownership of such a basic sick, usually in the stomach and often This current disorder is of course no­ resource as the land has resulted in with cancer. where more evident than in that most perhaps the greatest of the disorders important sphere, food production and and problems that face man. Collective Food production needs order and distribution. For all the current talk needs are not being met by private pre­ planning, and in a market economy about the Community Land Bill, this judice and private interest. Collective this is not what it gets. Order and bill will probably only affect land for needs must be solved collectively, and planning are the result of a recognition development; it does not attempt to anarchism means the ability to distingu­ of a community of interests, which in look at the effects of the private owner­ ish between what is 'ours' and what is the opinion of this writer is what anar­ ship of land on the current world food 'mine*. chism is about. problem. We have of course had govern­ Alan Albon mental planning since the second world The land is ours - the world populat­ war, and in the context of basic private ion's, that is, and it is necessary to use ownership one would not have thought it in an orderly fashion to supply all our *in The Observer that most of the development has been very desirable.

As our Spanish comrades said, in a manifesto published in El Productor in AS OTHERS SAY IT 1887 (see Collectives in the Spanish Rev­ • olution , reviewed by Colin Ward in this TWO readers (neither of them anarch­ combated. We only see a process to­ ists as far as we know) ofThe Observer ward fewer active workers carrying article 22.6.75 f,How Britain could more bureaucrats. Increased food pro­ yognrHU(SAlL. . , continued from P, 5 feed itself41 followed this in The Qbser- duction is a social* wot merely a tech­ ver 29,6.75 with the following suggest­ nical, problem. M.P. defended strongly the same pro­ ions : John Sergeant (Ware. ) " positions as the fascist and conserva­ tive M.P.S did (MDP/CDE-CDS, and (1)". . .If we seriously desire to be PCP-PPD): It is George Orwell's more self-sufficient we cannot view Animal Farm translated into Parlia- food production as a technical problem • mentary reality. And the common - servicing a centralised urban popula­ (2) "Jeremy Bugler's suggestion last people, those who, meanwhile, are tion. Really high food output can be ach­ week of ploughing up golf courses for losing their faith in revolution, in ieved only by more labour-intensive more allotments shows a better grasp liberty, equality, fraternity during methods, and by putting more people on of the reality of inflation than any rec­ the arduous work on the land, on the their own land. One acre of fourteen ent political speech. Bristol has 1,880 sea, and in the mines? For them. houses and^gardens can produce more people waiting for allotments. Greater Parliament is a place for those who vegetable protein than one acre of agri­ London is estimated to have 20,000, like to bark (without biting). business. and very few councils have fewer than What is required is not a Luddite 100. Under the many Allotment Acts, In Mozambique, Frelimo has already back-to-the-land movement, but a de­ if six ratepayers apply for allotments, taught a lesson to Portugal on the eco­ centralised combination of industry their council has a statutory duty to nomical and educational level. Frelimo with gardening. Europe's most pro­ provide them for 'all suitable persons'. jusdged some ''traitors1', not by mili­ ductive car workers, in Brittany and May we therefore r.ppeal to public- tary court, but by peasants, semora southern Germany, work part-time in spirited readers to demand allotments, Machel said that in Mozambique there the factory and part-time on their own not only for themselves, but for their will be no gaols ; that the problem is smallholding. It Is possible to have not waiting neighbours? one of the political recuperation of men, just more food but a more satisfying life The Henry Doubleday Research that those who committed war crimes for millions. Association will be glad to send their will be recuperated by the education of Solutions to many inter-linked prob­ leaflet 'Land for Food' on how to make Mozambique's people ; and that there lems follow. Those of transport, water your council act, their 'Dig for Surviv­ are no administrative measures for supply, and waste disposal are exacer­ al' on basic crop rotations and veget­ prisoners. How long, in Portugal, bated by centralised cities. Food pro­ able-growing and a simple constitution must the 2,800 prisoners (political duced locally can be eaten locally. Waste for organic gardening clubs. Please police, fascists, bankers and their would not have to be washed copiously send a stamped addressed envelope. relatives, Maoists, etc.) wait for away with drinking water, and family sew­ trial? The majority of them have age could be composted. Houses and Lawrence D. Hills, collaborated no more than the military greenhouses could be warmed by the (Henry Doubleday R es.) during the fascist government. waste-heat of small-scale power stat­ 20 Convent Lane, F. J. M. ions. Needless to say, these changes Booking, Braintree, Essex14 are not envisaged by Government but are • • etc. , etc. on the 13th of Juno sacked without asking my consent, Tim O'Grady after the union had spent a year of attempting to come to torms I decided to rebuke the ghost of trade STRIKE with Calder and Boyars. unionism and visit the RHEU for some explanation. I found that going into Tim O'Grady claims that John Calder their offices was like being an archaeo­ has always and openly stated that the logist, for the man I spoke to'reacted lowly paid book publishing workers exactly like an ancient stone. The only t h e silent m in o r it y * should organise while "Marion Boyars thing that happened was that a whole has proclaimed on various occasions pile of forms fell off his desk, which he THE GREAT industrial strikes are as her socialism , while behind the scenes promptly gathered up exclaiming, MWe predestined as the set battle pieces of has said that she feels under no moral won't do it... we won't do it.. ." in reply mighty armies. Forces take their responsibility to pay her employees a to my request for a refund. stand, the standards are raised and the camp followers retire to the rear and to living wage," yet Tim O'Grady claims that they have repeatedly refused to Now, although I accept the trade uni­ the boardroom s and the TUC committee on as a bargaining power under capital­ rooms to await the results while the meet a union specifically designed to work out their idealist problems, job ism, I'm fully aware that this is one of press and the uncommitted militants the only ways the TU leadership can descend like jackals from the swamp­ and moneywise. Tim O'Grady who is the Father of the Chapel now holds that justify their existence to their members. lands to feast off the dead. 1920 we I also don't accept their adherence to lose, 1970 we win and beer and bread his sacking was victimisation for his union activities. John Calder is a pub­ political party so-called "socialism". continue to rise fermentation- and eco- Being a member of the Transport wor­ nomicallywise. Yet in these major lisher of manyavant garde and leftist books and pamphlets and I persoanlly kers' union with all its bureacratic strikes we the rank and file are no more like him as an individual and admire aches and pains is as much as.I can than private soldiers to be sacrificed to him as a publisher, but in his human cope with. The dockers have left the the winning of the battle, and though the relationships he has much to answer union and formed their own, the dust­ cause be just we have little say in the for. Shy, self-effacing, and one feels men seem dissatisfied, but to be fair planning and the strategy. with a built-in persecution complex, he the chairman has rattled a sabre on the lias soured too many Uve6 of too many members' behalf and resigned tempor­ A short walk on a summer day offers people who have worked for him in arily, hoping the dockers will return. three strikes for the examination of the Brewer Street and at Better Books. One informed and committed observer and stood in the warm sun of Soho among While I am writing this a Swedish one knows that one's heart and sympathy the fruit, the fish and the spaghetti radio journalist is interviewing a rest­ must lie with the sm all quartet of a discussing Tim O'Grady's plight with aurant worker, asking him how he came picket on the steps of a Brewer Street Tim O'Grady while above us Calder & to choose such a job, what kind of fam­ side street in Soho, for one feels, nay Boyars worked on and one felt that they ily background he had. The journalist knows, that this is what the working were completely indifferent to the five of has been talking down to him the whole class struggle against the employer is us filling their street step. Yet for time in a derogatory way, knowing that really about. John Calder's own reputation he should he didn't have the intellectual ability to come to terms with his smajl work deal with the questions. However, the In Aldwych there is a mass picket of force and stop rega'rding them as his interview ended up by the journalist the Ass. of Sci. Tech, and Managerial * built-in enemies, and the first step is asking him how he liked his job. "And Staff, and in jeans and neat managerial to descend the steps of Brewer Street how do you like your job?" the restaur­ suits they lean on their Official Dispute and come to a sensible and honourable ant worker retorted. After this remark banners with an air of cheerfulness in arrangement with Tim O'Grady the the interview was qujckly broken off. the conviction that they must win. Their Father of his Chapel. Its remarks like these that the profes­ . management has offered them £4. 75, sional journalists , prostitutes to the • which includes £2. 40 threshold already Lumpenproletarian system, can't stand. paid, and this amounts to only 22% for the quality boys and only 17% for higher Stockholm. • grades and their strike is solid. But as THE TASK of anarchists is to work to a young, jean clad smiling woman picket strengthen the revolutionary conscience said, and one should never quote out of SWEDEN: |t’s of organised workers and to remain in context, "These demonstrators that the Unions as anarchists. .come along to help us are a bloody pest," It is true that the Unions, for pressing so it was on to Wardour Street and the reasons, are often obliged to engage in picket of the NUJ chapel outside Marshall negotiations and accept compromises. I : Cavendish. the Same... do not criticise them for that, but it is > ------• • • - • • • • • for this very reason that I have to con­ There was not the college air of happy* LAST DECEMBER I worked for six or • sider the Unions as essentially reformist * time that one encountered in the Aid- seven days as a casual worker in the The Unions perform a function of bring­ * wych. The claims of the NUJ are more kitchens of one of Stockholm's 400 year ing together the proletarian masses and prosaic and nearer the working class old restaurants populw with. tourists. of eliminating conflicts which could knuckle for they are asking for one 3 Op My companions were two young male otherwise arise between worker and luncheon voucher each day as they have * students and a girl. Everything went w orker,. 9J revolutionaries go beyond no canteen, five weeks holiday over the very smoothly until I began giving im­ this. They struggle for the revolution year and an increase from £60 to £90 personations of the Minister of Justice. * which will expropriate capital and dest­ for the half-yearly bonus. But the gen­ J. made another parody about a TV pro­ roy the State, every State by whatever uine fear that has brought these men gramme of some years ago as to what name it is called. Since economic and women out onto the stones is the kind of cushion is the most attractive - slavery is the product of political servi­ knowledge that the sack is waiting in too putting this onto a background of a star* tude, to eliminate one it is necessary to many pay envelopes and they are deman­ ving world. I plunged into an argument eliminate the other, even if Marx said ding, hay requesting that they shall be with the two students as to whether otherwise... . consulted before being handed their Winston Churchill was a hero and super­ Just because I am convinced that the cards. Here is genuine fear in which man. As the eyes and ears of the Unions can and must play a most useful, job security now comes first and they Restaurant & Hotel employees union and perhaps necessary, role in the tran­ have a right to expect the support of were everywhere some of the waiting- sition from present society to the equali- • every and any member of the working staff fumed. tarian society, I would wish them to be class, for now we never know, little • When I went back to the restaurant a judged at their true worth and hy never comrade, whose job is next for the month later to collect the rest of my forgetting that they have a natural tend- chop. And sitting on the steps of a pay I discovered that they had (that is, 1 ency to become closed corporations lim­ small doorway in Soho's Brewer Street the employers and the trade union) de­ ited to making narrow, sectional dem­ is Tim O'Grady and three fellow pickets, ducted five pounds from my wages and ands, or worse still, for their members for John Calder, later of Better Books made me a member of their trade union . ' only... •* Errico Malatesta. MEETINGS GROUPS

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THE ESTABLISHMENT will accept any Infraction of the moral or soc­ ta, Nechayev, a Drake, a Philby Is that they are mon divorced from ial mores from those whom the world regards as their own people no their time, each a prototype that we can place within any situation matter what their positions within that social hierarchy. The bloody and, as in chess, feel that we know how they will react if certain and sweaty prize fighter, the nobility with a touch of the homicides, moves are made, Harris is the flash and vulgar breathing beery breath but never Jack the Ripper. And any and every sexual deviation given Into the spluttering embers of dilettante scandals, halting history for the literary accolade by Oscar and Algernon, from boys to bondage, a two hour conversation with Trotsky, the failed rogue, the good com­ but never the Clapham Common flasher. Drink, rape, forgery, a Philby panion, and If there is a hell, and I have a choice between sharing it betrayal of oountry and public school principles, but never the secret­ with Mortimer, Muggeridge or Frank Harris, then let me play Bardofph ary vho absoonds with the Christmas Club share-out money. to Harris's FalstafF. They will take Max Wall to their evening dress fronts, but never GUNNING FOR THE “MAN" Max Miller, the wide boy from the Brighton ghetto, for there Is one insurmountable barrier, and that is that the Establishment, social or Jeff Nuttall Is no vulgarian but the happy extrovert, and a spect- literary, will never accept the vulgarian. , ator, participant and recorder of the happier lunacies of the 1960s. When Raymond Mortimer of the Times complained that the book under • He Is one of those people of whom one can have only pleasant mem­ review was the sixth book about Frank Harris, he demanded to know: ories, and he has stretched hsi small talents as a painter and as a poet “why is there still not one about, for example, George Salntsbury, In to their utmost public commitment. my view more interesting both as a person and a writer? His histories His book, "BombCulture" was among the first and most important of of English and French literature, of criticism, of prosody remain valu­ the public records of the Sixties, and Nuttall wrote as one involved able; but- he v/rote no -pornography. Harris did. " I underline Mortim­ in that scene. He produced "My Own Mag", a tatty stencilled sheet er's answer to his own querulous complaint, for Frcnk Harris was as that sold for a halfpenny a copy, and is now a collector's item at £ 5 vulgar as a fart at a public house wake for one of McAlpine's soldiers. a copy. It is claimed he urinated on a painting within an art gallery The oiled hair, the scent, the loud clothes, the loud voice and the as a mark of approval of disapproval. His "thing" at the Tower of Lon­ overt obsession with other people's money and how to acquire it by don raised screams of protest from parents who believed it was a pant­ blackmail and less honest methods made Harris an embarassment to the omime and found it a strictly adult eye-brow raising show. He leftthe descendants of court ponces and palace-bedded whores, while Times underground paper, International Times, on a high moral note and a reviewers still make the sign of the inverted cross over their sherry public washing of linen, and where the scene was was Jeff Nuttall. glass before opening Book6 of the Harris canon, and seek salvation by I lean on a pub bar in Hampstead and see an announcement that chanting "Profanum vulgus, profanum vulgus." his music group was to play there. I wandered into the Institute of Malcolm Muggeridge, of the b u ilt-in sneer, arrived somewhere near Contemporary Art when the floor was covered with the discorded rub- the truth when he described Harris as an immortal comic, for Falstaff's • bish of some sad foiled exhibition and saw Nuttall, like unto a latter company and the Eastcheap womb of the Boar's Head tavern must always day Augustus John surrounded by slim beautiful women in long soiled be preferable to the carved sepulchre of Prince Henry's palace. Vet If skirts, some suckling their children, the whole straight out of a John Harris were no more than a roguish clown, he would have died and gypsy painting, and Nuttall stood among them with a trumpet hanging been long forgotten In that godly company. But Harris was an editor of limp in one hand and in that vast and almost empty building he pand­ the Evening News and the Fortnightly and the owner and editor of the ered to my low taste by raising the trumpet to his lips and playing Saturday Review,"and as a writer and as an editor his life become en- "Melancholy Baby", and each sweet and throbbing vulgar chord was

twined with the creative world of his time. Shallow men, all of small a beatitude in that house of the dead. % talent, but in that barren landscape they cast long shadows. When Bob Cobbing and I, posing as private detectives, attempted to It is so easy to sneer at Harris, bom in Galloway C ity a hundred and break down a bookshop door to rescue a Nuttall manuscript, we beli- twenty years ago, and many forgettable men have and w ill, but what leved, and 1 think rightly, that we were making some small and gen­ ' other editors of Evening News's and weekly magazines are worth more uine, though physical, contribution to contemporary literature. And I : than the single official hagiology ? Therefore, why is Frank Harris con­ like to believe that one of the seven published works preceding sidered a worthy subject for Phillipa Pullar's biography? It is because "Snipe's Spinster" exists beca use of our brute efforts in the cause of from the springboard of a small cluttered editorial office he Imposed art. ! himself personally, for heroic or comic reasons, on the events and men There are so many noble and worthy men and women who have been i of the hour, and old men and young gossips could not reminisce without responsible for important changes in their societies, so many great ed­ naming the Impresario of so many Edwardian scandals, so many failed itors whose unremembered photographs hang high and lost on editorial crimes, so many cliff-hanging rescues after the body had dropped. office walls, and yet the history of an age or of a period cannot be Harris's writing was third rate, his historical research was stolen written without reference to a Frank Harris, a Jeff Nuttall or an Alb­ from other more worthy men, and his pornography did not have the wit ert M eltzer. The purist may protest and rightly, but the irritant truth or the good clean filth of Eskimo N ell. And even his attempt to betray lies lost in all the papers and magazines produced within the last 20 his fast known address by writing anti-British propaganda for 1914 years, and one can state that not one single name can evoke a mental Americans was an economic disaster, and that single fact saved his re­ picture of the man or woman. They produced much that was of vital pute t! on. importance during and after the hour, but in themselves they were not Harris is usually remembered In realtion to Oscar Wilde and he a id - • newsworthy, and that, comrades, is what "Frank Harris" and Nuttall's ed and profited from his assoc id-ions with that talented and hysterical "Snipe's Spinster" are about, for without the news there is no news. Queen Mother, yet he had political involvements out of key with that The story of Snipe Is of a jazz musician and slightly jaded revolut­ sad company. Harris claimed that in 1894 he was sacked from the Fort­ ionary set on assassinating the Man. Nuttall writes in the first person nightly because of an article by Charles Malato praising the two anar­ and it is accepted that he is Snipe, and he gives us a romantic version chists Henry and Ravachol, who were guillotined for throwing bombs at of his part in the politics of the protesting sixties. Nuttall's prose is the houses of magistrates involved in the sentencing of people arrested curiously dated now for it is of the manner of William Burroughs'brok­ in the Paris riob of 1891. Chapman, the Tory publisher of the Fortnigh­ en disjointed sentences, and it aloaks the carnality, the brutality and tly, felt that to call Henry the sweetest and noblest of men after an the banality of the scene with a false air of mysticism. It is a style of anarchist thrown bomb had killed eight people, was not In the best in­ writing that belongs to Charing Cross Road Zen kulture, drugs and flo­ terest of a magazine propagating the oldfashioned solid Conservative wer power, and I think that It is no accident that it is used to excuse Ideals, and Harris left under his portdble cloud. • or gloss over the Manson slaughter of innocent people, and Nuttall • What Is Important about men such as Harris, Wilde, Byron, Malates- quotes much from Ed Sanders' book on Manson, a book that is quickly 10 ■■ ■■ ■ ■■ ■ - - 1 ■ ■ — become a cult document for foe intellectually rick and foe neurotic One of Snipe's claims, which I do not bollevo, Is that he discover­ and foe psychopathic. ed tho explosives that were to bo used by tho "Angry Brigade" but there are nor great cuases this weekend so we are all old soldiers pol­ "MELZER", "NUTL"I ishing our momorles and our modals, and toll me comrade, were you tn Jeff Nuttall writes of foe C N D marches as great mystical gatherings, Grosvonor Square, etc.? Philippa Pullar's Trank Harris" Is 1875 Fash­ and this is foir if that Is how ho remembers them, but I think of foe ioned In foo Imago of Frank Harris and Jeff Nuttall's "Snfpo's Spinster" hot country lanes and foe pubs who refused to sell us beer and tho gar­ Is 1975 fashioned In fho Image of Jeff N uttall. We did much march­ age owners who locked their lavatories. He writes of MacGregor, "an ing and much chanting, wo faced foe solid linos of police and wo ran Anarchist, a real one" who claimed to have been a childhood friend before their charging horses, wo woro brave and wo were frightened, of Stuart Christie and the scene is set in book form and history is being we defended each other and we denied oach other even to foe third fashioned. Nuttall writes "Ask Jimmy Reid about anarchism" "Ask crowing of foe oock. Wo condemned oach other by word and by print Stuart Christie about Jimmy Reid" "O r better still ask Stuart Christie because only we were right and the Establishment hated us because . about Albert Melzer" "I can tell you whit he'd say", and Albert Mel-\ we were all and always right, and our only fault was that we were tzer In foe pages of his magazine, Black Flag/ organ of the Anarchist never vulgar. Arthur Moyse. Black Cross states: "(I could forgive Nutl much but for the fact that, in a snide and palpably false reference to myself, he mis-spells my J^Frank Harris" by Philippa Pullar Hamish Hamilton £ 5.25 J nam e...foe libel itself is nothing, as Sarah Bernhardt could have ex­ J "Snipe's Spinster" by Jeff Nuttall Calder & Boyan £ 2.95 ~ plained to him )." ]},rThe Family" by Ed Sanders Hart-Davis £ 2.50 -

well • You now say that, "all we are offering is foe work of some working class or socialist FREEDOM PRESS photographers arid poets and novelists and song­ 84b WHITECHAPEL HIGH STREET writers, " yet your first and final introduction LONDON Ei Phone 01-247 9*49 LETTERS states that Tireweed is a quarterly magazine of CUBA working-class and socialist arts.1* Not SOME, in Angel Alley comrades 7^ Dear Freedom, My legitimate objection to foe mighty mouse names that you have mentioned in your We are collaborating with Sam Dolgoff letter is that they are all the borrowed work of Aldgote East underground station, White­ in producing and publishing a much- well-established writers and poets. Neruda's chapel Art Gallery exit, turn right for needed history and current analysis of poem comes from foe volume, PLENOS PODER- Angel Alley, next to Wimpy Bar. Cuban events from the point of view of ES, Achachalla's poem from "Canto General" BOOKSHOP open Tues.-Fri.2-6 p.m. the Cuban anarcho-syndicalists. (1950), Brecht's poems from "Svendborger Poems" (Thursdays until 8 p .m .) (1939) and from 1944 work. Saturdays 1 0 a .m . - 4 p . m . The book, to be called Revolution and And it is a myth to Counter-revolution in Cuba; the Anarch­ state that it is "hard for art created by or for foe ist Perspective, will include a sketch of underpriviIeged...to get the currency it deserv­ the Cuban labor movement and especial­ es." In an entrepreneur society there is always ly the anarcho-syndicalists (the most in­ a market for talent, irrespective of foe subject LESSONS OF THE SPANISH fluential tendency) before, during and af­ matter. REVOLUTION, V. Richards ter 1959 ; analytic articles, declarations That I favour foe "lunatic fringe", "foe 240pp. Cloth £ 1. 50 paper 75p and other documents by Cuban particip­ mystic and the lover" was never a secret as you ANARCHY, Errico Malatesta ants, translated by Sam Dolgoff; articles suggest. The mere fact that you can quote me on 54pp. 25p dealing with the present situation in Cuba . it reveals my public guilt, but in foe matter of ABOUT ANARCHISM, Nicolas from the libertarian point of view; a the lunatic fringe, may I quote from Campbell's Walter, 32pp 15p glossary; an index. "The Great Caper", part of Act 2, in your mag­ A B C of ANARCHISM, Alex­ azine: "Eugene Grimley is afflicted with an ob­ ander Berkman, 86 pp 25p We have felt for a long time that such a session to find his perfect woman. The prophet ANARCHISM & ANARCHO- book should be produced. We wish to W ill, abetted by his side-kick Stu, teaches him SYNDICALISM, Rudolf Rocker break the virtual monopoly of informa­ that sensible people are up a tree, and follow 48pp 20p tion and analysis held by the authoritari­ the signs, lead him to Crumpetstrasse, Tel A v iv . THE STATE, Its Historic Role an 11 socialists" on the left with respect Part of Act 2 . Twisting pathway to foe Moon- P. Kropotkin, 56pp 2Op to Cuban affairs, and to demonstrate and Wolves, whales and foe Pimply Flunkey". Wor­ BAKUNIN AND NECHAEV, document that there has been a living al­ thy of foe fringe? Paul Avrich, 32pp 2Op ternative to both capitalist and commun­ On a final and serious note NEITHER EAST NOR WEST, ist ideology—embodied In the traditions .. .how does a magazine given over to some sel. writings 1939-48, of of the libertarian labor movement. working class and socialist art explain away foe M .-L. Berneri , 192pp 35p publication of three photographs of a small ANARCHY, 1961-1970, edited The book is a totally non-commercial, group of male and female alcoholics photograph­ by Colin Ward. Over 50 nos. non-profit venture on the part of sincere­ ed in foe last stages of human degradation and still in print. each \ 5p ly concerned rebels. We ourselves are foe funny funny captions quote, "I used to be The complete 118 issues are donating the time and energy to make working class meself, but some bugger took foe available only in the ten bound this work a reality, but we have very . ladder away." volumes. £45 ($H5)theset little cash. All those who would like to . . Arthur Moyse., SELECTIONS FROM 'FREE- assist in this project should write checks DOMr - volumes issued annu­ to "Robert Barnes—book fund" and ad­ LENIN ON THE COMMON MARKET ally collecting together some dress : Charlatan Stew / P. O. Box 781 / • of the most important articles Cooper Station / New York City 10003 / ^Socialisti/ must therefore unequivocal­ which appeared during the USA. ly demand that the Social-Democrats of year. (1954-1964) Yours for a New World, the oppressing countries (of the so-cal­ cloth 55p paper 35p led 'great' nations in particular) should Sylvia Kashdan recognize and defend the right of the Robert Barnes oppressed nations to self-determination P. O. Box 781, in the political sense of the word, i. e. Cooper Station, the right to political separation. A New York City 10003 emments and unions of governments - Socialist of a great nation or a nation a phenomena more advantageous for the possessing colonies who does not defend masses and more in accord with econo­ FI REWEED this right is a chauvinist. To defend mic development. • • . «• this right does in no way mean to en­ * . Dear Mr Craig & Mr Gray, courage the formation of small states, --from The Imperialist War, 1915 - I stand by every but on the contrary it leads to a freer, Socialism and War . Originally word of my review of your worthwhile magazine, more fearless and therefore wider and accredited joint authorship with G. ■ FIREWEED, yea even to sincerely wishing it more universal formation of larger gov- * . ••• • • * • — "ft -••• r • Zinoviev (liquidated 1937). . • • 1 • • • Our o f Gaston COLLECTIVES THE SPANISH REVOLUTION fcnj*redone* funaAmenuun u«« qultmo y por otro loa titer*#** y _ AinlriCA y SudAmlrlc*. oopodAlmtnt*. pirsdwte* Go loo hombres quo por> La crtfto ho oootoGo ml rmindo mucho tonecea o oortoo pATtiGo#, pero quo ua- ml* quo U futrr* pa«*dA. Gcodo #1 THE veponen a 1a ldiodncrulA Go loo mlt* pun to do vUU ocondmlco. Ha oootA-

COLLECTIVES IN THE SPANISH REVOLUTION, by Gaston Leval. Translated by Vernon Richards. (Freedom Press. £4.00 cloth, £2.00 paperback).

*% GASTON LEVAL is a French anarchist who fled to Spain In I the first world war to avoid military service, became involved in revolutionary politics, and was a member of the Spanish delegation to the 1921 Congress of the Red International of Trade Unions in Moscow. During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in the twenties he left for Argentina, returning to t •Spain after the revolution of 1936. Ultimately he was re­ admitted to France, and now in his eighties, lives in Paris where he produces a journal called Cablers de l’Humanisme Libertaire. He is thus an archetypal ^child of our time" of * the first half of this century (there are plenty in the second i half too), the political wanderer whose life and lifestyle have been determined by one act which severed his connection with home, family and familiar ways. This is specifically a twen­ tieth century phenomenon, for apart from the Catholic church or the Tsarist regime, few in the past had the manpower to keep a check of and catch up with their dissidents. The perso­ liilitiiU ______nal history of people like Victor Serge or of anarchists like ,GASTON LEVAL delivering a lecture on l,Our Pro­ Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman illustrate this en­ gramme for Reconstruction*' at the Coliseum Cine- • ma, Barcelona, on January 10, 1937, as seen by forced vocation of exile. * • Solidaridad Qbrera'e cartoonist. In introducing the talk which was reproduced in full, Solidaridad For Leval, the years in Spain provided an opportunity to come to terms with that intangible thing, the Spanish charac­ Obrera refers to Leval as 'one of the best informed comrades in our .movements______ter. It is evident that he learned to admire the dignity and austerity as well as the humanity and the capacity for mutual collection of bibliographical notes by the translator, who aid that we associate with the Spaniards, and to take note of must, as the author of Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, the regional variations of these characteristics. It may seem have exercised considerable self-restraint in refraining from, anachronistic to raise these matters , thinking of the Spain of .adding his comment on some of Level’s views. the mid-seventies, but in Leval's assessment of the success I of the Spanish collectives of 1936-7 they are important. Simi­ WORKER-MANAGED ECONOMY ^ — — m m larly in a historically decentralised country like Spain where m « - • there has always been tension between autocracy based on Madrid and autonomy based on regional, municipal and com­ The book thus presents the distilled essence of its author’s munal independence, it is important to take this history into experience of the Spanish revolution, recollected in tranquil­ account in discussing the success of collectivisation. Leval lity and with the advantage of familiarity with the subsequent had the opportunity in the early years of his exile, to discover literature including the voluminous historical material on the the historical validity and the then current viability of these period which in the last decade has been published in Spain it­ traditions. In hi6 testimony from revolutionary Spain he has self. He is a good witness: he tells us what he learned for consequently had the advantage of a profound appreciation of ; himself on the spot, what he was told about at the time, and the traditional modes of thinking of Spanish workers and pea­ what he has subsequently gleaned. Consequently apart from sants as well as of the way in which the Spanish revolution its value as firsthand testimony, his book invites our specula­ was made. It is consequently all the more interesting that tion about his interpretation. Why is he so keen on giving us he records instances where the very old communal or muni­ •the texts of constitutions, rule books and so on? Why is he so cipal traditions did not apply but where nevertheless, the interested in the details of book-keeping and accountancy, and collectivisation of the means of livelihood was successfully why do the minutiae of organisation interest him so? Is it just achieved. because he is an organisation man, or because experience tells him that if you don’t get the details right you lay the ent­ The Spanish social revolution, whose implications have erprise wide open to failure? Or simply because he glories been neglected by the political chroniclers of the left be­ in the fact that "simple" peasants and workers can work these cause the drama of the civil war as part of the international things out for themselves and that the management of an effici­ power game was for them more important, was obviously the ent and productive enterprise is not a mystery for accountants most significant experience of Leval1 s long life. Veteran and lawyers? readers of this journal will recall his pamphlet Social Recon­ struction in Spain published by Freedom Press as long ago Leval is one of those who, like D. A. de Santillan, had at­ as 1938. A book-length version of his study of the Spanish tempted to find out long before the revolution, how, in terms collectives appeared In Italian in 1952 (Ne Franco ne Stalin), of resources and markets and manpower, Spain could become a longer version in French in 1971 (Espagne Libertaire 1936" a worker-managed economy. He is interested in the dynamics 1939), and innumerable snippets of his account have been of production and of the satisfaction of human needs. He knows printed in anarchist journals throughout the world. The pre­ that on the day after the revolution people need breakfast. Way sent volume is a translation of his French text "with a few ad­ back in 1931 he had written a book called Problemas Economi- ditional explanatory notes and a very ^interesting preface and coa de la Revolucion Espanola. Leval wants us to know that in ft ABA DO, 91 DU AGOATO 0 9 lti9 M f t o 4 fOUDAJtlDAD OBKSftA HACIA UNA NUEVA ECONOMIA SOCIAL LA FORD MOTOR IBERICA, BAJO EL CONTROL OBRERO Por CARLOS DE SfRVAL

ordinary producer-consumer terms, the revolution can work, riculture : "10% bare rock, 40% really bad land, 40% medi­ just because it releases untapped or hitherto frustrated sources ocre land and 10% land which gives us the impression of living of human energy and Inventiveness. For, in the chaos of war. in a paradise. " He attempts to link the background of physic­ Communist sabotage and the so-called Fifth Column, many al poverty with the particular psychological characteristics of economic resources came out of the period of worker-control the Spanish people: "this capital of human dignity which al­ in a better state than they were in In 1936. British anarchists lows them to accept under duress authoritarian interference used to cite examples of this from the reports to shareholders and to rebel against it when they can: and then also with a of foreign-owned enterprises returned to their "rightful" own­ sense of solidarity and equality which leaves its mark as ers by the victorious Fascists. Similarly it is with a certain much on the morale of the Barcelona worker as on that of the pride that Leval cite6 in a footnote to his account of the collect­ Andalusian peasant. These two factors, social poverty and ive of Mira lea mpo in central Spain, the information from a individual dignity, linked to collective solidarity, predisposed book published in Madrid in 1968 (Hlstoria del Anarco-Sindlcal- a large section of the population to accept libertarian Ideas." lsmo Espanol by Juan Gomez Casas) that when the landowner Count Romanones reclaimed his possessions at the end of the The attempted military coup d'etat in July 1936 was faced by Civil War, he was amazed at the improvements which had several governments in a single day, each of them ready to been made to the estates by the peasant expropriators : "The come to terms with the fascists, "in fact, there was no offici­ peasants completely transformed the whole physiognomy of al resistance for, the government had broken down. Ministers these regions, they diverted the course of a river in order to made energetic speeches on the radio, made gestures in a irrigate the land, greatly increased the area under cultivation, vacuum, ran round in circles for they no longer had any orga­ built farms, a mill, schools, communal refectories, homes nised forces, or military machinery at their disposal, not for the collectivists and enormously increased production." even a bureaucratic organisation in working condition... Yes, jbIsewhere he has cited the account by Gomez Casas to the ef­ resistance was in the streets, and for that very reason the fect that "The Count was told that work was performed by the government was not in command of it. Political power had peasants in line with plans drawn up by a member of the CNT been shifted... " Building Workers1 Union, Gomez Abril, an excellent organiser chosen by the Regional Peasant Federation. As soon as Abril Popular initiative had stepped into the power vacuum to re­ finished his work he left and the peasants continued to manage sist the fascists, and since the machinery of the state was no the collective. Learning that Gomez Abril was jailed in Guad­ alajara and that he was in a very precarious situation, the Count succeeded in securing his release from jail and offered to appoint him manager of all his properties. Gomez declined, explaining that a page of history had been written and his work finished. ”

It is doubtful whether Leval considers his work finished, but he too has produced some essential pages which are one of the Indispensable sources for any conclusions about the construct­ ive achievements of the Spanish revolution. His translator has performed a labour of love on these 368 pages of history (which at present publishing costB are certainly a bargain for the pur­ chaser). In his opening chapter Leval describes the organisational his­ tory of Spanish anarchism, its relationship to the federalism of Proudhon*s Spanish translator Pi y Margall, and to Bakunin* e collectivism, brought to Barcelona, as a well-known anecdote of anarchist history records, by Giuseppe Fanelli. He shows longer able to enforce the rights of property over land and in­ how the demands and programmes of 19th century anarchist dustry in those parts of Spain where the generals had not manifestos were reflected in 20th century practice, and follows seized control, popular initiative took over the means of .this with an account of anarchist struggles and governmental production. repression in agrarian Spain. AGRARIAN SOCIALISATION He follows this with an overview of the geographical back­ ground against which the drama of the revolution was played: PART TWO of Level's work describes agrarian sociali­ -the particular difftouliies and advantages faced by Spanish ag­ sation, with a chqp ter describing the Aragon Federation of Collectives, another on collectives In the Levante, and a fur­ ther one on collectives in the two Castiles, where of course (Top) A topical and interesting headline from Solidaridad Ob- there were quite different social and political traditions. He rera (Barcelona C. N. T. daily) 22 August, 1936 (bearing in then devotes a chapter to the theme of "collectivist book­ mind that it happened in 1936): ’’Towards a New Social Econ­ keeping", describing the different schemes of accountancy and omy" "Spanish Ford Motors, Under Worker's Control". recording which he encountered, and follows this with a discus- (Upper Right) A railway carriage used as a poster to remind * don of "libertarian democracy", discussing what is nowadays the land workers that "The land is yours: WORK IT". called the decision-making process — the meetings, assemb­ (Bottom Right) Outdoor meetings organised by the CNT-FAI lies and discussion which of course are in such a system vital, and attended by 15,000 people were not uncommon. This one not merely to ascertain people’s views, but to ensure that in Barcelona is being addressed by Federica Montseny, one everyone knows what is going on. (The late Richard Cross- of the movement's ablest orators. man called secrecy the real English disease and his executors (Far Right) The caption to this photo reads "One of the are finding how right he was, but in a system which depends on churches In Alcaniz is now the warehouse for the collective's: popular initiative, the people must be informed.) Finally in foodstuffs". this section Leval has a chapter on "The Charters", meaning • t • • • • • • the constitutions# rule-books* etc. drawn up by the collectives. them had been roalisod today it would arouse the interest of He devotes a lot of attention to these* both in this and other 'reformers on an international scale". chapters, because he believes that "in order to study and know about this phase in human history tills has for us the same im­ It is obvious that for Loval the agrarian collectives repre­ portance as have the charters of the communes and the town sent the supreme achievement of the Spanish revolution, and of the Middle A ges". The reference is to one of the great he describes their organisation in detail. books of Spanish history* Joaquin C o s ta l El Colectlvismo Ag- rario en Espana * which he remarks "could well have borne At the Constitutive Congress of the Aragon Federation of Kropotkin’s name, and would be a suitable sequel to Mutual Collectives in February 1937, one of the resolutions adopted Aid". Certainly we can add that Leval’s book is a very suit­ sought to protect the right of the smallholder to romain out­ able sequel to Costal. side the Collective, so long as he retained only that land which he could cultivate by his own efforts ; "the employment of workers is absolutely forbidden". This is an important issue in the land reforms adopted by revolutionary regimes The third part of the book is about industry and public ser­ - one has only to think of the disasters inflicted on the Rus­ vices. He remarks that he would prefer to use the word sians by soviet agricultural policy. Leval comments that ,,syndicalisationsM (a dreadful word to have to use in English) rather than "collectivisations'’ for the constructive achieve­ ments in the towns . His explanation is important: "As we have demonstrated* collectives and collectivisa­ tions included the interdependent whole of the inhabitants of each village, of each commune, or each fragmented collective organised by those who identified themselves with it. In them one did not come across different mate­ rial standards of life or rewards* no conflicting interests of more or less separate groups . The over-riding law was that of equality and fraternity* in fact and for the benefit of all equally. "But in what have been called the industrial collectives* especially in the large towns* matters proceeded differ­ ently as a consequence of contradictory factors and of opposition created by the co-existence of social currents emanating from different social classes. Too often in Barcelona and Valencia* workers in each undertaking took over the factory, the works* or the workshop* the machines, raw materials* and taking advantage of the continuation of the money system and normal capitalist commercial relations* organised production on their own account* selling for their own benefit the produce of their labour. The decree of October 1936 legalising collectiv­ isations did not allow them to do more* and this distorted U p * t In igleaias de Alcaftk «■ hoy el der^aHo dc vlv*rca de It coleeilvidtd

everything right from the start. " # — the measure adopted by the Aragon Federation of Collectives He goes on to say* "There was not* therefore* true social­ is ’’reminiscent of the procedure suggested by Bakunin re­ isation* but a workers* neo-capitalism* a self-management garding the attitude to be adopted by the revolution towards straddling capitalism and socialism* which we maintain small landowners. One had to avoid a violent expropria­ would not have occurred had the revolution been able to ex­ tion, and the solution of the problem seemed to him to lie tend itself fully under the direction of our syndicates. " This in ’the suppression of the right of inheritance’ ... And in sound like a description of experiments in worker co-opera­ The Conquest of Bread Kropotkin wrote that not only would tives in contemporary Britain - Kirkby* Meriden and so on* the revolution not dispossess the small landowners ^10 but in fact of course the differences are enormous. Here slaved to cultivate land that had been acquired by such ef­ they exist as an effort of the workers to save their jobs in forts, but would send its young people to help them reap ailing and economically marginal industries. There they the com and bring home the harvest... As one will be embraced huge sections of the economy. seeing on many occasions, not only was the right of small landowners respected but in practice conciliatory and even He gives an account of the water* gas* electricity and trans fraternal feelings were shown to them". portation industries and the socialisation of medicine in Catalonia. Finally he gives us a chapter on town collectivi­ This Congress had also to formulate a policy about the rela­ sations and of various isolated achievements which couldn’t tions between the collectives and the municipalities. It goes be gathered together under other headings. They may be without saying, Leval remarks, that the Valencia government isolated achievements but as he points out "if just one of could not tolerate the existence of an autonomous administra­ tion. "Thus it published a first decree according to which municipal councils had to be set up everywhere in accordance with established legal norms, since the collectives had often replaced the municipalities, or had, as it were, merged with them, these reconstituted organisms encroached on those which the revolution had set up. " The tactic adopted by the Congress was a resolution which declared among other things that

"Considering that the municipal councils perform a differ­ ent role from that of the collectives; That these councils are legally constituted organisms in which all the anti­ fascist organisations collaborate and of which the highest representation is the Council of Aragon ; That the ad­ ministrative committees of the collectives exercise a different function from that of the municipal councils ; and That the syndicates are called upon to nominate and control the comrades who will represent the CNT in those two kinds of organisms ; That there cannot exiat any opposition be­ tween the management of the collectives and that of the municipal councils ; That the one and the other cure inter­ dependent with the eyndical organisation* so long as the • • latter takes part in the constitution of the councils of the nearly throe years and without which Franco would have collectives, the municipal councils will maintain fraternal triumphed in a matter of wcoks, was tho achievement of relations through the spokesmen of the CNT. " thoso who created, organised without concerning them­ selves with ministers and ministries. " An important This rather opaque resolution was of course introduced as ~ chapter on tho Internal Count or-Revolution describes defensive measure for the collectives, but it is interesting the systematic sabotage and ultimate destruction of the terms of anarchist organisational theory. It implies three of the collectives, not by the Fascists but by the Commun­ different local organisations : the collective as the agricultu­ ist Party, and in his Epilogue Loval attempts some final ral or industrial unit to which families belong, the municip­ reflections. A whole book could be written about the first ; ality or commune as the territorial unit to which they belong, of these, which'ts about the nature and effectiveness of and the syndicate "or union to which they belong. It is inter­ revolutionary activism and the extent to which it invites esting to compare the resulting networks of interconnection the "preventive counter-revolution" of fascism. Next he with the theory of local organisation in, say, Jugoslavia or turns to the many sidedness of the Spanish Revolution and China. its "surprisingly diversified federalism".

In different places, not only in the differences between "In a very short time, in the agrarian regions and esp­ Aragon and Castile, but in adjoining towns and villages in the ecially in Aragon, a new organism appeared: The Col­ same region, the organisational structure of the social revolu­ lective. Nobody had spoken about it before. The three tion took different forms. Of Fraga he remarks that instruments of social reconstruction foreseen among those libertarians who had expressed themselves on a 'Undoubtedly a communal tradition Inspired the organisa­ possible future were firstly the byndicate, then the Co­ tional structure in Fraga where the municipality played an operative, which did not win many supporters, and fin­ important role. The local council was the continuation of ally, on a rather large scale, the commune, or com­ the revolutionary Comity in action from the first weeks fol­ munal organisation, borne foreshadowed - and this lowing the July uprising . It was this Comity that took over writer was among them - that a new and complementary the management of all aspects of daily life, based on the organism could and should appear, especially in the normal tasks undertaken: agriculture, livestock, industry, countryside, seeing that the byndicate had not assumed distribution, health, social assistance, public works, school the importance it had in the towns, and the kind of life, organisations. There was one councillor for each. All of work and production, did not fit into an organic mono­ were nominated by the workers concerned, with the except­ lithic structure which was contrary to the multiformity ion of the councillor for provisioning and distribution who # of daily life. " • • • - was designated by a gathering of representatives of all the • • # • local activities, for it involved problems concerning all the He elaborates on the difference in the characteristics of • inhabitants, both collectivists and non-collectivists without the collective and those of either the syndicate or the com­ distinction. But whilst being linked to this coordinated mune, and on two flirther deep impressions remaining with whole, each trade had its own organisation, corresponding to him from the Spanish experience. One is that of a different its tasks, needs and preferences. Being responsible for its concept of liberty. When he travelled around asking quest­ work each trade organised it in its own way.. . " ions, people "did not speak of 'liberty1 as though they were libertarians, but, and they did so with deep joy, of the re­ Binefar evolved differently. There, he says, _ sults of their work, experiments, and research on which * "It is clear that the collective embraces the whole of they were engaged, on the increase in production. No, they * social life. For its task extends, as we shall soon were no longer thinking of liberty in the way workers in see, to education, health and all public services. capitalist factories or day workers on the land of the owner- • Practically speaking the syndicate plays no role at all. employer think". The other impression was to do with the ‘ It has prepared the new order, but the latter estab­ nature of initiative. "The theoreticians and partisans of the lishes itself and extends beyond the syndicate. Neither liberal economy affirm that competition stimulates initiative is there a municipal organisation in the traditional and, consequently, the creative spirit and invention without • sense, even if we go back to the communes of the which it remains dormant. Numerous observations made by Middle Ages. The syndicate is inadequate and the the writer in the collectives, factories and socialised work­ municipality has been left behind. The collective is shops permit him to take quite the opposite view." the most typical organ of the Spanish peasant revolu­ tion which embraces all aspects of life," Leval makes some telling comparisons between the econo­ mic effects of the Russian and Spanish revolutions, and then Discussing the experience of Graus in Aragon, Leval considers the failures of the latter. "It is true," he says, concludes, "that no social - nor even political - revolution has ever been prepared beforehand in every detail so far as the posi­ "One can say that in general the standard of living tive achievements are concerned and we can in the circum­ rose from 50 to 100 per cent in a few months, that the stances feel proud of the bases that were established before productive capital increased in an astonishing manner 1936. Nevertheless we have the right and even the duty to during a war and when a part of the labour force, judge ourselves with severity, and to recognise our weaknes­ mainly the youngest and most active, was at the Front. ses, our errors or failings. We would have been more suc­ The miracle was made possible not only because the cessful if our movement had done more towards that econo­ work was carried out with a collective enthusiasm that mic and technical preparation. That others did much less was praiseworthy, but also thanks to economy in the or nothing at all and still do not in this age when so many use of labour and the means of production. One must intellectuals, lacking intelligence and with utter irresponsi­ bear in mind that some 40 per cent of the popul ation bility, publicly lay claim to a revolution about which they had previously been engaged in commerce, and realise haven't the slightest constructive thought, does nothing to that a better distribution of activities made it possible help. Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin, the greatest there, as elsewhere, to free a labour force until then theoreticians of libertarian socialism, always recommended, virtually parasitic and employ it on work which benefit­ especially Proudhon and Bakunin, that this preparation of ed everybody.11 revolutionary construction should be as advanced as possible. This was in violent contrast to the inexplicable Marxist in­ Leval concludes his book with some general reflections, comprehension, as evidence dnot only in the writings of Marx; in a section called Parties and Government. A chapter but also of Kautsky and even Rosa Luxemburg, which always, discusses "Political Collaboration", and the collaboration in the name of so-called 'scientific1 socialism, combated all referred to is that of several militants of the CNT and the anticipation concerning the post-revolutionary society. One FAI, first in the Catalan government or Generalitat and •can now see where it has led those countries euphemistically subsequently in the central government. He regards this called 'popular democracies’." collaboration as having been totally useless and adds that "The only constructive, valid. Important achievement His book is full of this kind of provocative challenge to during the Civil War was in fact that of the Revolution, on contemporary anarchist thinking, it is rich in detail of the the fringe of power. The industrial collectivisation, the achievements he witnessed, and warm in his affection and socialisation of agriculture, the syndicalisations of social respect for the people who accomplished so much in so services, all that, which made it possible to hold out for short a time. Colin Ward. 15 ducors) thieves.

For example, the little honest house­ Yon Can’t Beat the System.... wife (who unlike the well-heeled guest * in Lanky's article brazenly displays jjj THE TRAVEL section of the New his car up to the motel, opened the room her stolon trophios in her sumptuous Vork Timee (January 27, 1974) an ; rooms, and stole 37 colour TV sets. home), goes to the beautiful department article by Michael S. Lasky described This stunt was repeated again and again store to buy her toiwols, sheets and bedspreads with her husband's hard- the trials and tribulations of the hotel within a radius of 50 miles before he earned wages. When she gets home ow n ers1 industry. The article is en­ was finally caught." titled ’t>NE IN THREE is a towel thief, she may find a tag on her purchases marked "Made in Taiwan" (or Korea bible pincher, or worse", and is illus­ Since ingenuity and daring are admir­ trated with an amusing cartoon depict­ or Hong Kong or other places where able human traits, this confuses our the conditions of labour are appalling ing guests absconding with towels, bed­ sentimentalists still fir ther. The young and the wages very low). Further­ clothes, television sets, mirrors, jthief becomes a sort of folk hero. The dishes, and the like. The article says more, these commodities successfully •more sophisticated rationalize that he compete with American-made products that the hotel owners are reluctant to supplies the black market. The poor and undermine jobs and wages for woj> discuss their countermeasures for pro­ man in the streets, if he learns where tecting their property - such as riveting to go, can now buy a colour TV set kers here. lamps onto tables, putting chains and which he could never afford otherwise. alarms on TV 6ets, and posting hall One need not travel so far across the and corridor patrols. We are not trying to belittle the ef­ oceans. , for behind the affluent high- forts of the social scientists and schol­ rise buildings, behind the glamorous • The greatest losses are cuased by ars who try to analyse the evils of our facades, in almost every city and in » lordinary guests w .. ;n print. ThIs whom hotel owners also have to contend: ed m this volume together w.th an .nhoduct.on ;s by far Hle ^ jmportant shjdy of ^is-very "A young man came to the motel and re­ served a block of rooms for an alleged e°, rowDn' °f * ^ P* P°s*)* important and often cynically neglected part of i l nfU. ^ L ^ ^ e_reCr f y ‘“ Ued.M twentieth century history to appear to date in wedding party* On the appointed day, tbology of Anarchist Ideas, Essays, Poetry and he came dressed in a formal suit and tmy view . Orders - for both editions - please. Commentaries from the magazine, M A N , edit­ iconned the clerk into giving him the keys . J .H . ed by Marcus Graham from 1932-40, containing to the rooms, saying he was meeting the a wealth of material by E. Armand, Bakunin, FREEDOM PRESS guests to take them directly to their «4b WHITECHAPEL HIGH STREET Voltairine de Cl eyre, Emerson, Faure, Kropot- , rooms. Afterwards he brazenly drove LONDON Ei Phone 01*147 9349 THROUGH THE ANARCHIST PRESS _ >

ation in France of a book by an arch-stalinist THE M OTTO of the American weekly maga­ In his roviow Bongiovanni criticises Rubol for comparing Hie two nineteenth century revolut­ zine, W IN , is "Peace and freedom thru non­ not seoing that tho later devolopmonts of "marx­ violent action", and this gives a fair indicat­ ionaries in a light somewhat unfavourable to ism" turned It into a "Theory of Capitalist De­ Bakunin, aroused furious replies in the French ion of its position, viz. anti-militarism, gay velopment" (os Swoezy's 1942 book was called), and women's liberation, alternative culture anarchist press, notably in "Le Monde Libert- which could bo used as an instrument for the de­ and information. While it is not overtly anar- j aire" and "Cahiers de I'Huraanisme Libertaire". velopment of productive forces and tho increase A more detached review of the book by Mari­ chist it is sympathetic to anarchism, as is evi- J of the power of the state, which we have seen anne Enckell appeared in the first number of denced by its May 15th issue, which has a p ic -j only too well in the U.S.S.R. The question Is "interrogations". One of the more salient fea- j. ture of Bakunin looking startled on the front whether anarchists can still make use of Marx's tures of It was a call for an end to the sterile j cover, an article by Murray Bookchin on the early writings as a part of their critique of pre- debate between rigid adherents of Marx and genesis of "propaganda by the deed" (an excer­ sentday society, or whether the transformations Bakunin, and fora recognition of the useful p t from his book on the heroic period of Span- » In social conditions since the 1840s have thrown parts of their respective analyses of nineteenth ’ish anarchism, to be published next year), "The] his concepts out of court. •IWW rolls on" by Craig Ledford, and a very in­ century society. teresting article by Mildred Loomis on "Amer­ (For a more jaundiced anarchist view of Marx This lessening of hostility to Marx (not to ica's decentrolist dean", Ralph Borsodi. one could do no better than read Max Nomad's Marxism) pops up again In the latest bulletin article on "Karl Marx - anti-bourgeois or neo­ ORGANIC BORSODI t from CIRA (International Centre for Research bourgeois" reprinted in the February and March into Anarchism, Geneva), in a review by Br­ Borsodi was years ahead of his time in reject-; 1975 issues of the Sydney Libertarians1 "Broad­ uno Bongiovanni of a book by Maximilien Rub- ing the main line of development of American ' sheet". Nomad argues against Marx from what el, called "Marx, critique du Marxisme." Ru- capitalism, relentless urbanization and mechan­ seems to be a fairly close knowledge of the bel Is a well known Marx scholar, and this la-: ization, in favour of "homesteading and decen­ texts, and is quite a zappy writer.) test book of his contains an artlclo entitled, tralisation". He came to these opinions through "Marx, the theoretician of anarchism". His This latest CIRA bulletin (no.29) has chang- j his life experiences, firstly in advertising, the , basis for this interpretation of the Big Daddy ed from being a duplicated foolscap affair to bod side of which he exposed in his book, "N a H of all the Leninist parties is the notorious photolithoed pamphlet size. It still retains its ional Advertising vs. Prosperity" and then in "early writings" of Marx, which were not pub­ basic function of listing the latest acquisitions putting through a big land deal for his father, lished until this century, and over which con­ to the CIRA library, but more and more of its which made him doubt the morality of the whole troversy between Marxologists and party ideo­ space is being devoted to reviews of books of property/rent basis of his society. Like Tolstoy: logues as to how they fit into the canon still interest to anarchists, and surveys of anarchist he came under the influence of the ideas of rages. publishing all over the world. The problem is Henry George (but via his friend, Bolton Hall).j that it Is in five languages, something of a pr­ From then on he experimented with, and wrote I According to Bongiovanni's review, Rubel oblem for the non-linguist. Probably this is not . about, the possibilities of self-sufficiency in sees the anarchist dimension of Marx's thought a disadvantage in the CIRA bulletin as it is, food, homesteading, organic fanning, commun­ in his early elaboration of the concept of pol­ presumably, aimed at the more scholarly among ity farming, "economics where people matter", itical (not economic) alienation, which dem­ anarchists, but it is a problem with "Interrogat­ stable currency, and so on. Borsodi is over 90 ands the immediate destruction of the state, ions", and one that the editors themselves rec­ but still going strong in America. There is no with no transitional period. The problem for the ognise in the latest issue: "One of the weaknes­ doubt that the many books he has written over Marxologists and the ideologues is whether to the years will be of interest to all proponents ' say that there is a continuity between Marx's ses of the review is that it is in four languages, of alternative economy in this country. early writings and those writings of his which which is another reason why the good texts were available in the nineteenth century (on should be translated without delay and distribut­ ANARCHIC MARX? I the interpretation of which the edifice of "mar­ ed in brochure form, in those areas where anar­ Borsodi's anarchism (he would probably not xism" has been built), or whether there is a chist thought comes up against the big propag­ recognise it as such) stands at the opposite pole radical break between them. There is certainly anda machinery." to that of the European tradition, in its prag­ a case to be made for the idea that "marxism" This would indeed be ueful with the latest is­ matic basis and unconcern for Ideology. It in should be renamed "engelsism", as many of the sue as it contains two articles of immediate in­ no way could be thought of as arising from a early "marxists" based their theories on Engels's terest, one on the Argentinian guerrillas, which debate between Marxism and Bakuninism. That interpretations of Marx which were heavily bi­ reveals the right-wing, neo-fascist background debate, however, is still a concern of contem- assed by his determinist/Darwinian/evoIutionary to the Monteneros, who hit the headlines so dr­ •porary European anarchists. The recent public­ /"progressivist" formulations. amatically the other week, another one expla­ ining the background to the political scene in THE SYSTEM. . . cont'd from Page 15 ' ing to do with quality or price.. . Huge Italy, the resvrgence of the Communists and the : Our little honest housewife, on her expensive advertising raising the price cynical use of the "fascist menace" by all the way home from the department store of food... Government-assisted land­ parties. The first article is in Spanish and the with her purchases, steps into the grabbing in the West permitting mono­ second in Italian. There is another interesting supermarket to buy things for supper polies of some products. IT one on Chile, by Santiage Parane, in French, for her family. But according to a explaining that it was the internal contradict­ review by Gerald Gold of a book by Unless some good men and true face ions in the Allende government that brought William Robbins, The Great American up to the fact that our society is dest­ them down, even if the military coup was pre­ Food Scandal (New York Times, 23rd ructive and must be changed in the dir­ pared with extensive aid from the C IA ( the February, 1974), our honest housewife ection of co-operation and respect for latest, March/April, issue of Liberation, the is entering "a minefield sown with life and the resources of the world, this American libertarian magazine gives a good greed, immorality, and illegality... If planet may very well spin in space life­ coverage of the CIA's involvement in Chile), you have been wondering about basic less and desolate sooner than we know. one in Spanish on immigrant workers in Europe, reasons behind high prices, tasteless When the scientists realize that there and, at last, an article in English by Sam Dol- tomatoes, chemically loaded foods, can be no patching up of the system, goff on American workers' revolt against their then be prepared to be enraged after they will no longer expect the Govern­ bureaucratic unions. you read this book.. . ,f. ment to remedy social evils through the But the author of this carefully docu­ The magazine does at last seem to be follow­ enactment of still more laws. Their ing its own editorial line of only publishing mented work does not seem to ascribe investigations will then take a new dir­ these atrocities to the profit system. articles on contemporary themes, but it is diff­ ection. They will discover the volunt- , icult to think of who, in England at least, has Gold writes that "Gigantism in Mr. ary organizations, the revolutionary Robbins1 well documented view lies at unions and co-operatives now struggling . the facilities for quick translation and speedy the root of many evils that he finds ram­ publishing of 30 or 40 page articles. It would be under great hardship against assaults a good thing if the anarchist press produced more pant in the food industry... Giant cong­ from within and without by the exploitive lomerates that non huge monopolistic contemporary pamphlets rather than reprints of the institutions destructive of human values. classics, but how many people are really interest­ parts of the growing industry. Huge If they cannot do this they are of no real ed? processors have brainwashed the Amert value to the workers. B J D = 5 cans into desiring foods that have noth­ D .l .M .