Selections from Acf in the Tradition.Pdf
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year University,but particularly high school, students were involved in struggleswhich echoed those of the Frenchstu- Theevents in Francein 1968(see In the Traditionpt.3) had given anarchist and other revolutionary movements both a dentsmobilisations. bigsurprise and a greatdeal of attent'lon.In the periodof theearly 1970s anarchist, libertarian Marxist, council and left communistgroup ernerged across Europe in a waveof interestamongst young workers and students for methodsof argundthem. The anarchist movement at thistime had been ata particularlylow Thiswave of strugglegave birth to manyorganisations, both at the levelof thefactories and in the broadersocial milieu, understandingand changing the world fromthe eclipse of the movementduring the 1930s-1 940s. Certainly small curents still themost notable being Lotta Continua (The Continuing Struggle) and Autonomia Operaia (Vvorkers Autonomy). The ebb,having never recovered (see pt, someot thesehad attempted to renovateand bring forward new ideas. However, anti-unionnature of he strugglesalso gave rlse to whatbecame the theory and activity of 'workersautonomy' (not syn- existed In the TEdition 3) and passed wasfirmly embedded in a happierpast and found it difftcultto relateto the 'youth withthe organisation of thesame name), which $e neworganisations attempted to relateto- Workers were muchof what br a movement onymous oi'68 the 'official'anarchists had played an essentiallymarginal role. takingtheir struggles on to the streets,usihg imaginative direct actions. Occupations of citycentres and sieges of mu- revolt'of the late6Os. ln the Frenchevents nicipalbuildings continued throughout the 1970s. So,much re-inventing of thewheel took place in the early'1970s Restructuring BritishPlatformism Strugglesin ltalyalso took place around the prisons,which from the early 1970s were increasingly home to revolution- arymilitants, often culminating in massivedemonstrations and prisonriots. The period of heightenedclass struggles 1970saw Britain's first Platformist Eroup, with the formingof the Organisationof RevolutionaryAnarchists (ORA). Al- heraldedin 1968underwent a transformationas a newemployers offensive, based upon the desire to avoidthe emerg- thoughthis organisation signified a breakwith the chaotic synthesist approach to anarchismhitherto employed in post- ingeconbmic crisis, involved a technologicalrestructuring of industryand the endof the lworkersfortresses' of themas- war Britain,much of its polit'rcsseemed to echothe Trotskyist left. Eventually a largepart of theorganisation ended up siveplants. On a politicallevel, the Communist Party was increasingly integrated into the state structures in returnfor its joiningthe Trotskyist camp itself. Subsequent Platformist-orientated anarcho-communist groups, such as theAnarchist complicityin this restructuring.This integration of the CommunistParty was in partresponsible for the emergenceof WorkersAssociation (AWA) and the short-lived Libertarian Communist Group also displayed Leninist and reformist ten- urbanarmed struggle in the mid-7Os. denciesthat would eventually see their abandoning libertarian politics But the legacyof thesegroups was important for two reasons.One, they'had, prior to theirdegeneration, established a bridgeheadagainst the dominant tendencies individualismand anti-organisationalism. And secondly they showed later militants how Amed struggle withinBritish anarchism, notably notto createconsistently revolutionary organisations (a lessonunfortunately lost upon the AnarchistWorkers Group of the1980s/90s.) lndeed,in ltaly,the 1970swere detined by two aspects.Firstly, a levelof militancyamongst a largenumber of workers bothemployed and unemployedwhich manifested itseF in autonomousstuggle both in thefactories and on a territolial period to emerge,notably from an unlikely basisand which arguably reached its hBh pointin the 'movementof '77'.Secondly, the "armed struggle for comrnunism' fuoundthe same of lhe midto late1970s other tendencies also began source- theSocialist PaO of GreatBritain (SPGB). This party, celebrating its centenaryin 2004,defends a particular, carriedout by severalLeninist groups which, when not actually state sponsored contributed nothing to the actualclass 'reformism' 'lead'. latter,which left the working class as spectatorsto and indeedconsistent, version of Marxismthat refuses any compromise with or strugglesaround bread and struggleswhich they claimed to somehow Theactivities of the 'make younger own'llberation', tend to overshadowthe actual content of theclass struggles that took place and any revolutionary butterissues, instead organising to socialists'through propaganda and to contestelections. Some mem- their party, ootential. berswithin the SPGBhad began to questionthe timelessorthodoxies of the Thesecritical elements began to cometogether in a discussioncircle which quickly realised that the way foruard did not liewithin the monolithicatmos- phereof the party. Andin'socialist' Poland. In the midseventies this faction itselfoutside the party.Calling itself 'Libertarian Communism' it attempted to re- were in the proletarian in Polandin 1970-1,when workers responded to found Thestrikes and occupations echoed insurgency assessmuch of the politicsoutlined in ln TheTradition parts 1-3 whilst remaining in theframework of a Marxistanalysis. 'socialist' '68 (onlyin andJanuary!) buming down the rulingSta- austeritymeasures with theh very own May December Afterchanging it's name to SocialRevolution this group joined the libertariansocialist group Solidarity (see In thetradi- party workingclass was effectively mas- linist headquartersto thetune of the Internationale.In areasof thecountry the pt.2),before embracing an unorthodoxcouncilism in theearly 1980s as thegroup Wildcat. Wildcat, based mainly in 'going need tion ter of the situation-As in France,and indeedltaly, the working class balked at thewhole hog' but exhibited a the NorthWest of England,was amongst a veryfew currents that actually aftempted to creativelyadvance communist if go formsof representationand to an autonomousacfivity. And all anddesire to, onlytemporarily, beyondall develop politicaltheory in the1980s thiswithout the leadershipof theself-proclaimed vanguards.... Democracy TheMay-June events in Francewere the clearest confirmation that only a masssocial revorution which stretched to everysector of exploitedhumanity could end the chaas of capitalism. Peopleinvolved with Wildcat and Workers Playtime, a leftcommunist journal in London,amongst others, were involved in discussionson the natureof democracyand the fetishizationof decision-makingprocesses. Of course,communists New Left, Platformism,Wildcat haveatways rejected representiative democracy iR its classicalliberal democratic-parliamentiarian form, but now the con- tent,not just theform of democracywas being questioned. Sometimes this took a consciouslyvanguardist tone, but be- The NewLeft sidesthe rhetoricthere were serious questions raised about the needfor workingclass militants to pushahead with ac- tion,regardless of the outcomeof ballots,shows of handsetc. These questions were, partially at least,emerging be- The 'New Lefi'which emerged in the 1960sattempted to distinguishitself from the old leftof the establishedCommunist causeof the practicalstruggles that were taking place in the Britishcoalfields during the 1984-85 miners strike. The parties,social democracy, Labourism and Stalinised socialism in general.lt embracedthe so-called'Second wave' of capitalistmedia and sections of the leftand far leftwere insisting that the NationalUnion of Mineworkersshould have feminism,sexual liberation and homosexual equality. Alongside antiracism, all theseideas seem mainstream today but helda ballotin orderto havebrought into the strikethousands of scabbingNottinghamshire miners. to theold lefteven 40 yearsago they were new and startling ideas. Certainly the notionof women's'liberation and of racialequality had been present since the birthof socialism,but rarely were they seen as centralto the revolutionary Communistsbegan to talkof a needfor the revolutionaryminorities of theworking class to, when necessary, to ignore project.Superficially, much of the NewLeft appeared genuinely libertarian, genuinely interested in a trulysocial revolu- 'majoritydecisions and to findways of organisingin an egalitiarianway without fetishising the atomisingnature of de- tion In reality,much of the NewLeft was tied closely toeither Leninism (quite often Maoist or Trotskyist)or to more mocraticdecision-making. These ideas were really a reflectionof howworkers in struggle(particularly the HitSquads of openlyreformist currents of thought.The NewLeft may have rejected the worst excesses of Stalinismbut generally fell the MinersSkike) have to operatein orderto be effective shortof makingany critique of topiown versionsof socialismand in manyways copied the failed politics of the past, notleast in theirwillingness to supportanything that moved including every 'national liberation' racket that emerged. Part 5: Miners'Strike,Glass War, Social Ecology& Greens,COBAS It is of littlesurprise then that many of the leadinglights of the NewLeft were to re. appearin the last35 yearsas thor- partFour with a brieflook at MinersStrike of 1984-1985and the impactthis brutal struggle had upon the oughlyestablishment figures, academics and media-gurus We finished the revolutionarymovement. The strike showed the combatitivity,the flerceintelligence and the practicalcapability of an historicsection of theworking class, the