Book Reviews: Interface Volume 3(1) Reviews Editor: Aileen O’Carroll
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Rebel Alliances
Rebel Alliances The means and ends 01 contemporary British anarchisms Benjamin Franks AK Pressand Dark Star 2006 Rebel Alliances The means and ends of contemporary British anarchisms Rebel Alliances ISBN: 1904859402 ISBN13: 9781904859406 The means amiemls 01 contemllOranr British anarchisms First published 2006 by: Benjamin Franks AK Press AK Press PO Box 12766 674-A 23rd Street Edinburgh Oakland Scotland CA 94612-1163 EH8 9YE www.akuk.com www.akpress.org [email protected] [email protected] Catalogue records for this book are available from the British Library and from the Library of Congress Design and layout by Euan Sutherland Printed in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd., Glasgow To my parents, Susan and David Franks, with much love. Contents 2. Lenini8t Model of Class 165 3. Gorz and the Non-Class 172 4. The Processed World 175 Acknowledgements 8 5. Extension of Class: The social factory 177 6. Ethnicity, Gender and.sexuality 182 Introduction 10 7. Antagonisms and Solidarity 192 Chapter One: Histories of British Anarchism Chapter Four: Organisation Foreword 25 Introduction 196 1. Problems in Writing Anarchist Histories 26 1. Anti-Organisation 200 2. Origins 29 2. Formal Structures: Leninist organisation 212 3. The Heroic Period: A history of British anarchism up to 1914 30 3. Contemporary Anarchist Structures 219 4. Anarchism During the First World War, 1914 - 1918 45 4. Workplace Organisation 234 5. The Decline of Anarchism and the Rise of the 5. Community Organisation 247 Leninist Model, 1918 1936 46 6. Summation 258 6. Decay of Working Class Organisations: The Spani8h Civil War to the Hungarian Revolution, 1936 - 1956 49 Chapter Five: Anarchist Tactics Spring and Fall of the New Left, 7. -
SUBVERSION' Is Published by a Small Group of Revolutionaries Based ,In the North of Groups Like the C.W.0
2'”! '" ('1 !.»=e- l-‘ii ‘Hi’ -=--Z1 FREE. 1 If you thought Nelson Mandela was a great There have been major strikes by both coal heroic leader of the oppressed masses of and gold niners, in the hospitals and on South Africa who, now risen like Christ the railways. This in addition to the after 27 years in the underworld and poised resistance in the squatter camps, the rent to lead said masses, if not to life strikes and school boycotts. All of everlasting, at least to freedom in the these struggles are a shining example to here and now, you might be a little workers everywhere and show that the puzzled. workers in South Africa are among the most anvanced in the world in combativity. Surely that can't be right. Mandela However, trey face a serious threat from condemning the schools boycott and the ANC. ‘ordering’ students back to school. Mandela THE CLASS NATURE OF THE ANC supporting the use of South African state forces to suppress riots. Mandela and de The ANC is one of many similar groups Klerk singing each others praises. Etc.etc. around the world, such as the PLO, IRA, What's going on? SWAPO, Sancinistas etc. who claim to be fighting against oppression and for, If you were surprised by all this, it's usually, ‘national liberation’. All because you didn't realize what the ANC was of these organisations are simply the all about. The ANC has always been a capit- latter-day equivalents of the nationalist, alist organisation. bourgeois democratic movements of the historical period following the French THE STRUGGLE IN SOUTH AFRICA Revolution. -
Anarchist Lives and Books Double Issue Free Commune and Billy
Number 70•71 one pound or two dollars July 2012 Free Commune and Billy MacQueen We are beginning to think about scanning some of the prominent Tolstoyan Christian anarchist (he visited material we hold in the KSL archives. What we want to Tolstoy in Russia in 1895) and helped found the do though is put what we scan into some kind of context Croydon Brotherhood Church and, in 1896, the and not just leave it floating around aimlessly on the Purleigh Brotherhood Church. Both were based on the “world wide web”. Anyhow – here’s a paper that inter• principles of voluntary co•operation and non•violence. ests us, The Free Commune from Leeds. It appears to We can see, then, that there is a lot going on in have been published during 1898 and it re•invented this little four•page newspaper and a wide range of itself as The Free Commune: A Quarterly Magazine in ideas and anarchist practice are represented, including a January 1899. KSL holds No. 3 ofThe Free Commune scornful comment on the horrified reaction of “reform• and No. 1 of theThe Free Commune Magazine. (If you ers” to the assassination of the Empress Elisabeth of can send us other copies that would be a treat!!!) Austria by the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni .The Both of these titles were put together by William editors would like to see a similar reaction whenever a “Billy” MacQueen (1875•1908) and Alf Barton (1868• working woman is killed by “the profit•mongering 1933). MacQueen was based in Leeds, Barton in system.” The attitude of the editors to the killing of the Manchester. -
Class War - Not Race War! Racism Is the Ideology of the Rich Affected and Dispossessed
Class War - not Race War! Racism is the Ideology of the Rich affected and dispossessed. These youths actually have more in com- Racism plays a powerful role in dividing the working class. The ide- mon both materially and socially with the Blacks, Latinos, or Asians in ology of race is used to justify imperialism, wars, and the racial divi- their communities, whom they claim they hate so much, than with their sion of labour. Racism promotes nationalism on the basis of ethnic rich "Anglo-Saxon" Ruling Class role models. The violent racism and identity. This only strengthens enthusiasm for participation in national vehement super-patriotism of these dupes helps to legitimise the armies. Those people within the Working Class who hold racist views Ruling Class's suppression of our class. are puppets of the rich. Why is racism so strong in many sections of our class? It is Contrary to popular belief, racist ideology is actually derived from because the rich need it there. Well-placed racist filth distorts and the Middle and Upper Classes where the real power to split and weak- counters a truly unified class-consciousness. It has been in the best en the lower classes lies. This division occurs through discrimination interest of our rulers to distort the development of class identity, pride in social services, education, immigration, and working conditions. and solidarity with their own racist/nationalist version of these notions. The crucial part the Middle Class plays is to mimic mass culture that then becomes the "official" way of seeing the World. Within the "cul- The Historical Origins of Racism ture" specific racist and nationalistic ideas are promoted through the Racism/Nationalism began with the development of capitalist socie- schools, media, church, etc. -
Anarchism in Siberia Prison Gates
Number 52 50 pence or one dollar October 2007 Prison Gates The gates of the Modelo Prison in Barcelona were set workers from the Calcetería Hispania Tapices, Vidal y alight during a prison riot and put out of commission. Vda de Enrique Escapa firm are CNT personnel. So not The Barcelona Woodworkers’ Union imposed a an inch! (...) And the affiliation of the comrades on strike boycott on repair work. Faced with the impossibility of at Frau Brothers? CNT. So, not an inch!” (Cultura having repairs done there, the authorities decided to Obrera, 21 November 1931) ship the gates out to Majorca. Soldiers loaded the gates On 17 October Cultura Obrera saw fit to denounce on board the ship for delivery as the Barcelona dockers Rafael Mercadal, the president of the UGT•affiliated refused to do so. “Desarrollo y Arte” association as an active participant In September 1931 the gates arrived in Palma but the in the repair job on the gates. Is this, it asked, what the dockworkers there, most of them CNT personnel like UGT is all about … strike•breaking? However, Rafael their colleagues on the mainland, refused to unload them. Mercader was a familiar name to the anarcho• The scene in Barcelona was replayed: troops from the syndicalists; he had settled in Palma but came from a nearby garrison had to unload the gates under Civil nearby town, moving after breaking a strike at the Can Guard protection. Pieras plant. When socialist councillors Miguel Bisbal The Balearic Islands CNT Woodworkers’ Union (son of Llorenç Bisbal, the ‘founding father’ of socialism imposed a boycott and asked workers to refuse to do the on the island) and Miguel Porcel acted in favour of the repair work as an act of solidarity. -
Nihilist Communism for Use by Others in Various Critical Events, for Which We Claim No Intellectual Property Rights
the most extreme gestures in the parade of gestures that are Monsieur Dupont political demonstrations); we see one of our tasks as to inhibit those who would lead the revolution, especially those who are closest to us and claim not to want to lead; other tasks we have set ourselves are the creation of tools, tactics and perspectives Nihilist Communism for use by others in various critical events, for which we claim no intellectual property rights. 3. Our concept of the revolution involves the working class en- gaging in a struggle that goes no further than maintaining its own interest. We advocate the struggle of self-interest because it cannot fail, we think if it is followed through to its end it will in itself bring capital down because this struggle is situated within production and the ownership of production is the basis of capitalist existence; if this direct struggle is not side-tracked by political mediations it will discover everything Monsieur Dupont has attempted to articulate over months and years in five min- utes and many times over in many places of the world. The proletariat is organised by capital, in every place, its situation is always, everywhere, the same; in direct struggle it will always un- cover the same truths, therefore any further organisation would be superfluous and potentially exploitative. 4. Our mechanical schemes are not nineteenth century as some have argued, they are much older than that. We think the revo- lution will be in two stages, the first will involve the destruction of the capitalist system by the working class as it seizes produc- tion (which it might do without even formulating a desire to do so. -
Anarchists in the Gulag, Prison and Exile Special Double Issue Trouble in Moscow the Club Is Now Moving to the New Quarters, While Couldn’T Ask Anybody Either
Number 55•56 one pound or two dollars Oct. 2008 Trouble in Moscow: From the life of the “Liesma” [“Flame”] Group [This account covers the Latvian anarchists’ activities from its prescribed path and topple the theory laid out in in Moscow, up to the Cheka raids of April 1918, when the thick volumes of Marx’s Capital. the Bolsheviks attacked anarchists in the city in the All this made comrades think that there was no time name of “Law and Order”] to wait until capital would “concentrate” in their cash The group was founded in August 1917 and from box in order to rent quarters; quarters had to be the beginning worked in the syndicalist direction. acquired now, in the nearest future, irrespective of how Before its foundation comrades worked independ• and by what means. As social expropriations were ently, as well as together with existing Russian groups. already happening in other cities, where private houses, Later, in view of much greater efficiency if comrades shops, factories and other private property were being could communicate in Latvian, working with Latvian nationalised, our comrades considered this a justified workers, comrades decided to unite in a permanent and important step in continuing the revolution, and group and found quarters which could be open at any decided to look out for an appropriate building where time to interested workers, where existing anarchist we could start our club. literature would be available for their use, where on In the end such a house was found in Presnensk certain days comrades would be able to come together, Pereulok number 3. -
No. 179, Winter, 2001-2002
Newspaper of the Spartacist League US/British/UN/NATO troops out of Afghanistan and Central Asia now! Independent Royal Marine commandos (above) will be sent to Afghanistan as part of imperialist "stabilisation" force, following devastation of Afghanistan through US/British bombing (left). Shah Maral DECEMBER 22-We reprint on page At home, the Labour government on civil liberties, meant to regiment and of the British National Party (BNP). On 6 a leaflet issued by the Spartacist continues to ratchet up the level of racist intimidate the entire population and to the BBC World at One programme, Nick League for distribution at the 100,000- state repression. On 19 December, eight severely restrict the right and means to Griffin, leader of the BNP, said of strong anti-war demonstration in London people, of mainly Arab origin were protest. It is so draconian that even the Blunkett: "he's .trying to shore up the on 18 November. Since then the military arrested under the Anti-terrorism, Crime archaic House of Lords rejected the Bill white working-<,:lass vote. He is using the onslaught led by the US imperialists has and Security Act, which came into law a several times before the government got things that we've been saying for the last led to the destruction of the Taliban week earlier. Labour had declared a it through. In the first instance it is aimed few years and he is now jumping on the regime throughout Mghanistan. Now the "state of public emergency" and rushed at immigrants and minorities, but ulti bandwagon". Blair government, which has been a the law through Parliament at breakneck matelyat all opponents of British imperi In case anyone missed the point, the front-runner in raining devastation on speed. -
Nihilist Communism a Critique of Optimism (The Religious Dogma That States There Will Be an Ultimate Triumph of Good Over Evil) in the Far Left
Nihilist Communism A critique of optimism (the religious dogma that states there will be an ultimate triumph of good over evil) in the far left by Monsieur Dupont Nihilist Communism Monsieur Dupont Ardent Press 2009 Nihilist Communism by Monsieur Dupont Ardent Press, 2009 No copyright Ardent Press is a group engaged in research, publishing, and local projects. For more information, please visit ardentpress.com This book is set in Book Antigua (body text), Gentium (TOC), ITC Clearface, Adobe Caslon, Aldus Roman, Bookman Old Style, Christiana (headings), and Sovereign (page numbers). Cover title is MEgalopolis Extra. CONTENTS Introduction to 2009 edition iii Preface vii Preamble: This is the definition of class hatred 1 Introduction to 2003 edition 3 This is the fable of the thirsty crow 4 Introducing Monsieur Dupont 5 We start, as we end, in simplicity 7 Basic statement 11 On consciousness 12 A qualification 16 Working class consciousness? 21 Further thoughts and explanations 34 Summary and counter-interpretation 37 Dictatorship of the proletariat 38 Groups 38 Is Lenin on sale again? 39 Identity politics 50 Militants and otherness 52 Political priorities and consciousness 53 On economic determinism and autonomism 56 The revolutionary subject 61 A recap of our perspective 63 No way out 64 Appendices: The optimism of revolutionaries 66 Language and consciousness 74 Recent Interventions: May Days, Palestine, and the material base 88 The ticklish matter 104 Reply to “the real movement” 119 To get over the wall, we first have to get to the wall 129 Some notes concerning future proletarian insurgency 136 Only we can prevent mythology 143 Anarchists must say what only anarchists can say 154 More on anti-imperialism 173 We’re all Claire Short now 176 Something on political activism 180 2009 Appendix: Seminar 4 188 Glossary 194 Cruelty - or - the inclusion of the distributive sphere Feint 219 Thrust 223 Parry 225 The inescapable condition 228 How many of you are there? 266 Stop thinking expressivity start thinking transcendence 270 introduction ...Nihilist Communism.. -
Introduction to the WOMBLES
J 1 : '_,--- 847 introdutnon to the Email: [email protected] eeiebsite: eaction.mrnice.net Newswire:www.womb reaction.mtrnice.netlnewswire Tojoin uremail listp ease send a blank emaii to: i emaydaa» aihiteoveralls-subscribe@yaho0groupsxom -.___..--_ \ = e have weekly open meetings every wednesday, 8pm at: Sebon Street fiommunity Centre, ebbon 4"“---__-I---|---.+___ Street, elsiington, Lorndrl N1 [nearest tube Highbury -I-“-—‘-4--L-._._____ & lslington] -—..-..,_- i' _| *3‘: —:*-— "" 0 '4. —n---...,__,_,.___ . '-|. ,_ A _ __ _ " -_. -- -._4:. - >-_. -- .. -I.--.1—_;-._.. - , _ ' - ;'_—“;-.; '- __ _. " I .| _ I ? I "‘ ll.“-1--__-. ' - I ' . ?- ch ' '-".1-=-'".' ;.. -.,', J. 0- . ___, ' '.i-_..-.'-' - _ - ei? é. fix “ii fig?” -5 »4;_,i___ -—-—..-|_ . .1’ - , Q‘ ". 1 "‘ * 7;-'1' ., *.\'=,..-I .1}. - '- ___ J .fl.ib- I'M ¢- I ' . _ ~| -' "r _ 1--.' . ---=.- ._ ¢_ ' ' -c .- * * '-"*"""'i€'*l-wt-11* =|--:- - ' - ".- "E --.-1 . , '5:-v - 4 - " .. _' '. ' I" Z‘- ~— -It ' “ ' I‘ .. ; ' - \ .' '- u mi‘-' _ - ‘:-: :5:-:5-___ .:._.\ -"~:. 1-"I .,,-2» _: I». u _, _-,,. -J ‘5'-- $ E.‘ $1‘ 5“ I ' .. \ I i If. It '- - r I Ie -‘:5-',-, - 2.... ----. -3,.‘ -'-.4.3!/%3.g'.-. I"\ I-1'\ 4'“. ii‘ g "1 tee ._._-__ _,-Lari; ,_ -1 '1 ‘ E -H - -' - -'.'_--. '1' *1!‘ "1 1' ,_ .J_.|‘I _|‘" ‘,_._ __\_. _-_ H’ I I I _ - . _-\_!:i I "trek ' ..-. -_- "\'--'-- ¢~=.=--c. 1..-.-'-"‘1 ~ '_:-- %i-_ .-..-'. -1_.- _ . _ .' 1 ""-"-"""_* '-r--" -' .- '5 m '_': ".-'F--- ' --- - --. -.--.- ' -I.‘--' -.7‘; -l-—"- - *-"-1-. -.».-' ' "' ' " -' =- ‘-~.-J--‘ - "7-"""'-"-1' '5""—'_" .. J‘ .*' * """' White Overa I ls Movement --.+--5,-. -
The-Black-Bloc-Papers.Pdf
Copyright 2010 Project Editor: Chuck Munson First Online Printing, January 2010 Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data The Black Bloc Papers: An Anthology of Primary Texts From The North American Anar- chist Black Bloc 1999-2001 The Battle of Seattle (N30) Through Quebec City (A20) ISBN 0-9791671-0-8 Breaking Glass Press Alternative Media Project PO Box 7171 Shawnee Mission, KS 66207 USA Breaking Glass Press is an imprint of the Alternative Media Project and Infoshop.org. Front cover art by Bree Johnson ([email protected]). Back cover art by Mike Flugennock (http://sinkers.org/) Book layout and design by Chuck Munson. Body text set in Bembo with Univers Con- densed for headings. The Black Bloc Papers is dedicated to the revolutionary memory of Carlo Giuliani, who lost his life battling the forces of capital in the streets of Genoa, Italy, in 2001. His memory lives in our hearts and our fists. The Black Bloc Papers An Anthology of Primary Texts From The North American Anarchist Black Bloc 1988-2005 The Battle of Seattle Through The Anti-War Movement Edited and compiled by David Van Deusen and Xaviar Massot of The Green Mountain Anarchist Collective Breaking Glass Press Shawnee Mission, Kansas The Black Bloc Papers Table of Contents Forward ...................................................... 1 by Xavier Massot of The Green Mountain Anarchist Collective Introduction .................................................. 3 Bad Attitudes and Dirty Money by Xavier Massot of The Green Mountain Anarchist Collective Chapter I ........................................................... 9 The Emergence of The Black Bloc and The Movement Towards Anarchism: “Get Busy Living, Or Get Busy Dying” by David Van Deusen of The Green Mountain Anarchist Collective The Emergence of The Black Bloc: History, Employed Tactics and General Constituency; The New Capitalism and Its System of Radical Commodifica- tion and Consumerism Counterculture As Social Revolution Chapter II ........................................................ -
How Are We to Establish a Truly Free and Egalitarian Society?
Number 35 July 2003 How are we to establish a truly free and egalitarian society? These days these words “freedom and equality” are part of can see that the “freedom and equality” of which we have the vocabulary of each and every one of us. But make a few just been speaking are alien to the people! Indeed, can one inquiries and ask: What is freedom? and you will be told speak here of “freedom” and “equality”? I refuse to credit “Freedom means freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, that there can be any freedom of that sort! Any equality freedom of association and assembly, the freedom of of that stripe! But what then are real freedom and real secrecy of correspondence”. equality? Ask: What is equality? and you will be told: “All Here comes my answer: Anarchy. That is the real citizens are equal before the law, with no difference freedom. And communism is the real equality. Only a between the high•born and the yokel.” Now, such narrow social revolution can allow us to build a really free and definitions have nothing to do with true freedom, true really egalitarian society. equality. Don’t believe me? Then have a read of the But what is Anarchy? following. Anarchy is the placing of the State and its accessory The blight upon the people’s freedom is the State. Ever institutions upon the Index and collective ownership of the since the State came into existence, we have stopped being means of production and goods produced. Every individual free. No matter what we do or say, the State sticks its nose contributing in accordance with his ability and receiving in in.