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 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 - 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 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 , 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 '' '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 ' 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.... TheMay-June events in Francewere the clearest confirmation that only a masssocial revorution which stretched to everysector of exploitedhumanity could end the chaas of . Peopleinvolved with Wildcat and Workers Playtime, a leftcommunist journal in ,amongst others, were involved in discussionson the natureof democracyand the fetishizationof decision-makingprocesses. Of course,communists , ,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,, Labourism and Stalinised in general.lt embracedthe so-called'Second wave' of capitalistmedia and sections of the leftand far leftwere insisting that the NationalUnion of Mineworkersshould have ,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 (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 mineworkersand their friends and families. lt alsoshowed the severe limitiations So,a balancesheet of the effectof the NewLeft shows that although it managedto bringup crucialquestions, about of tradeunionism and of thelefi andthe weakness of therevolutionary libertarian movement whatliberation must involve, which had remained marginal for manyyears, it wasunable to giveany answers. Demandingthe impossible? So whatof the libertarians? fhe leadershipof the NationalUnion of Mineworkersrepeatedly called for solidarityaction from other union leaderships, o, inevitably,no avail iectionsof the Leninistleft either called for increasesin masspicketing (SWP) or for theTrades Union Congress to call I GeneralStrike (Militant, WRP). The former'tacticrwas shown to be,on its own,a deadend at Orgreavewhere the nassedminers were battered and dispersed in cossackstylo by mountedpolice. The second tactic was merely reflec- iveof the bankruptcyof ,most of whosepartisans could think no furtherthan calling upon the bureaucrats to ihowa lead,or to workersto "comethrough the experience" of demandingthe impossible from that bureaucracy.

Vleanwhile,rank and file NUMmembers, their families, friends and supporters were organising Hit Squadsto target ;cabsand their supporters and to defendtheir communities. The traditions of TradeUnion prac{ice still held most miners )ackftom attempting to reachout to othersectors of theworking class directly, not via the bureaucraciesof theofficial rnionstructures. This widening of the strugglewould not have guaranteed victory, but its failureto emergemndemned he struggleto defeat, fhe anarchistresponse fhe anarchistand libertariancommunist movement responded to the strikein fracturedway, reflecting the fractured na- ureof that movement.

\lthoughlibertarians added to the numberson picketlines, at demonstrationsand in generalsupport work, there was iftleco- ordinatedactivity and a verylimited amount of seriousanalysis. Small collecb'ves such as the LondonWorkers Sroup(an open group of councillists,anarchists, autonomists etc.) the Wildcat group in Manchesterand Careless Talk lroupin Staffordshirewere amongst a minoritywho attempted to addressthe issues(such as the needto criticisethe tlUMand the needfor thestruggle to be spreadby workers themsefues) that were being ignored elsewhere.

)lassWar

)ne group,which emerged during the MinersStrike, and which was to subsequentlyhave a considerableimpact upon he libertarianmovement in Britainand beyond,was . The ClassWar group and its eponymoustabloid-sgle rcwspaperhad its origin amongst working class anarchists living in SouthWales and London. Annoyed and frustrated vithwhat they saw as theclear lack of dynamismand general inelevance of theanarchist 'scene' in Britainat the pe- iod,they adopted a populistand highly activist approach. The emergence of thisgroup, which developed a nominally rationalfederal structure in 1986,sent a shockwave through the anarchist'scene', which at thattime, with rare excep ion,was under the influenceof pacifism,moralistic exclusivist lifesgle 'politics'and/or .

]lassWar, not surprisingly, emphasised a populistversion of classstruggle anarchism, promoting working class com- rativity,focussing on communityrather than workplace struggles. Their practical activity in the firstyears of theirexis- ence,other than the productionand distribution of the newspaper,involved headlinegrabbing heckling and public har- rssmentof various(highly deserving)left figures After a periodof inventive,but inevitablyless than successful 'stunts' iuchas the 'Bashthe Rich'events, the newfederation looked more seriously at theirpolitical development fhis periodof intensediscussion culminated in the productionof a booktitled 'Unfinished Business: the politicsof Class A/a/(1992) which attempted to outlinea newand distinct politics that distanced itself if notftom the anarchist tradition, henat leastfrom the presentanarchist milieu. Simultianeously the book,somewhat unconvincingly, embraced a libertar- an tiakeon Maixism.Although a considerablesection of ClassWar rejectedmuch of the UnfinishedBusiness thesis, the )ookitself was at leasta seriousattempt to bothrenovate libertarian thought and to addressthe issueof classat the :nd of the20th century. In doingso it borrowedheavily ftom the politicsof theOrganisational Platform of the Libertarian ]ommunists(see part 2 of In theTradition). legardlessof the book,the actualClass War Federation,however, continued to be a synthesisof Platforrnistanar- rhism,autonomist , and various other tendencies, all paintedin populistcolours. This cre- lted an ongoingtension in theorganisation, which, though it containeda certaindynamic, inevitably led to an inconsis- €ncyin politicalline with regard to fundamentalssuch as the natureof thetrade unions and nationalliberation struggles

\fter a decadeof tryingto extricateitself from what it describedas the"anarchist ghetto" the ClassWar Federation :ventuallydissolved itself after a finaledition of the paperstyled 'An openletter to the revolutionarymovement' where lheystated that "After almost 15 years of sometimesintense and frantic activity, Class War is stilltiny in numberand, as iaras manyin theorganisatbn are concemed, going nowhere". A smallrump of militiantscontinued the organisation, ,vhichdecided to describeibelf as explicitlyanarchist communist, though maintaining a populistand increasingly :ounter-culturalperspective.

Butno discussionof intemationallibertarian thought in the last20 yearscan ignorethe legacyof ClassWar. Class War, in partat leastwas inspired by the experienceof punkin the 1970s, breathed new life into the anarchist body- n^lifi^^rhich an.l hr r rdhl a fra

A differentdirection?

lf a grouplike Class War distinguished itself in its emphasison class,then other libertarian currents were developing ideaswhich appeared to be movingin a differentdirection, that of prioritisingthe struggleagainst the environmental de- structionof the olanet.

Althoughlibertarians such as PeterKropotkin, and Wiltiam Morris, were amongst the first people any- whereto addressissues of environmentand hurnanscale economics, much of the productivismand technophilia of capitalistideology was sharedby earlysocialists, anarchists included

Thisfailure to addressthe alienating and environment destroying nature of unfetteredeconomic 'progress'was evident in the brutalindustrialisation of the so- called socialist nations The supporters of the SovietUnion and its satellitessang the praisesof thelatest super{am or the newesttractor production figures. But it wasreflective of the lackof environ- mentalawareness generally, that many of thosewho sa\il the 'existingsocialisf nations for whatthey were, namely state capitalistdictatorships, failed to recognisethe grotesque nature of the productivistideology they reflected.

Socialecology

A revolutionaryanti-capitalist understranding of green politics was slow in developing.'Ecology' was equated with the 'conservationism'of the pastwhich more often than not, hankered after a pre-industrial golden age and hid a reaction- aryagenda. lt wasnot until the work of MunayBookchin, and his book'Our SyntheticEnvitonment' (1962) that a social ecologywould begin to emergebased upon a revolutionaryhumanism. This perspective was most forcefully argued in the1982 work'The Ecology of Freedom'.

At thecentre of socialecology was the realisationthat the productivistnature of capitalismwas wrapped up in hierarchi- cal socialrelations as muchas in the needfor capitalto constantlyexpand. So this productivismand the desire to domi- natethe earthare contained also within socialist ideologies, particularly Marxism which also defend hierarchical social relations.Even before the emergence of Primitivismor DeepEcology, Bookchin realised the danger of an ecological understandingthat was based upon a misanthropic,anti- humanist ideology.

"ln utopiaman no more retumsto his ancestralimmediacy with naturethan anarcho-communismretums to pimitive communism.Wether now or in thefuturc, human ralatbnshipswith naturearc mediatedby scienca,technology and knowledge.But whetherscience, technolqy and knowledgewill improvenature to its own benefilwill dependupon man'sability to imprcve hissocialcondition. Either revolution will createan ecologicalsociety, with new ecotechnologies and ecocommunities,or humanw and the naturalworld as we knowit todaywill peish " (Post-scarcityanarchism, 1970.

Bookchin'svision of a massivelydecentralised, stateless and which rationally utilises technology in orderto bothsave the planetand to savehumanity remains a minoritycunent within mainstream green thoughl and or- ganisation.On the on hand,reformist green parties and pressure groups remain entirely within the camp of a kinder, gentlercapitalism, whilst on theother Primitivist and post-primitivist groups prefer to rageagainst civilisation itself whilst followingan equallyreformist trajectory.

Thereis muchto criticisein Bookchin'sarguments. His rejection of theworking class as motorforce of revolutionary transformation,his support for a 'libertarianmunicipalism'which tends to equateto electoralismetc. But his arguments on the needfor a liberatorytechnology and an anti-hierarchicalpraxis have certainly influenced the Anarchist Federation andeven some of hisostensible critics in theecological resistance.

) Greenrevolution Inthe early 1990s, much of thecross fertilization between libertarian communist and green thought found organisational I formin Britainwith the journal Green Revolution: a revolutionarynewspaper working for ecologicalsurvival, human lib- erationand . Though short-lived, Green Revolution aftempted an eclectic,but coherent approach, embrac- ing"...an unbroken tradition of struggle".This tradition included the Diggers of theEnglish Civil War, and the MarxistRosa Luxemburg lt calledfor a "Greenand libertarian critique of Maxism"and understood that "The war againstthe planetis a classwa/'. GreenRevolution was caught revolutionary potential in socialecology.

Thecollapse of 'communism'

Thc end af 'eviqlino qmialism' with the .lrefh 6f the Sovict I lnion and the 6ther state mnitalist dicialorshins was wel- comedby libertariancommunists, not least those few who lived in thosecountries. Hopes were artificially high that the pitched battles between coal miners and police,the occupationof public buildings and barricadesrising in towns and possibilityof a newworking class movement for a self-managed socialism would emerge, somehow, from the wreckage cities across the country Eventually,with union help, the most active groups of workers, such as the rail workers,were of thesesocieties. But, although a blossomingof libertarianand anti-capitalist groups, newspapers etc wasalmost im- isolatedand the strugglespetered out. mediate"the realitywas that, instability, ethnic conflict and massive attacl(s upon working class living conditions were the normacross the former'Socialist' states as privatecaBitalism arrived. What such events point to is that even in a period where the ruling class seems to have odinguished the spirit of revolt 'collapse and any vision of a better world, the basic contradbtions of capitalismcreate resistance.Likewise, the strangleholdof Forthe Stalinist left across the world the of communism'created crisis and deepened schisms But the Trot- bureaucratsand officials is challengedby the innate creativityof the mass of working people, time and time again. skyistleft also felt the effects.The Vuorkers States, however degenerated or deformed,were for themstill examples of non-capitalistsocieties. Their collapse lefi themin an awkwardsituation ln the tradition? vadants however,their demise Forthose who considered these so-called Workers States as of capitalistsocieties, also people had negativeimpact. Cedainly we hadno illusionthat our had failed, but the relentlesstrumpeting of the The In the Tradition series has atempted to draw the very briefestoutline of the ideas, and events that have in- a strangely insights 'End by extension,of collectivesplutions the problemsposed by capitalism,by the bourgeoi- fluenced the developmentof the modern libertariancommunist movement Most of the events have allowed us of Communism'and all to people practically problems inspirational siewas demoralising. at whathappens when you have a revolutionDictatorship and unfreedom inevitably fol- into how attempt to solve the of organisationand struggle. Many have been and "Look we have learned most (exha)ordinarypeople trying to understandand change their world lows!"harped the rulingclass, "Give up nowl" As no waveof resistanceto the newreign of freemarket economics from the activity of seemedto beforthcoming from the working class of theformer Soviet Bloc, the earlynineties looked bleak The Anarchist Federationaccepts no guru, no theoreticalGod or master. We think no libertariangroup or individual far amongst Thereturn of \florkingclass self-organisation should. But we r€ject anti-intellectualismand ahistoricalapproaches, both of which are too common anar- chists. Neither do we favour an eclecticismthat simply bonows from here and there without critical appreciation.We hope that readers will seek out for themselvesthe thinkers,groups and movements that we have talked about. We hope Thedefeat of theminers strike was an enormousblow to workingclass confidence. The subsequent unsuccessful strug- that readers will take the time to contact us, demandingto know why we haven't covered x, y and z! So many important glesin Britishindustry such as thoseof the printworkers at Warringtonand Wapping, along with the generalrun-down events and theories haven't made it into the parts, perhaps we should have sbrted work on a book several years ago! of manufacturing,left many feeling despondent. The community based struggle against the PollTax in the late1980s- 1990s,whilst inspiring, did notsignal the beginningsof a newworking class combativity. By 1996,the Liverpool early But, in a period such as our when libertarianrevolutionary movements are growing in areas where they had never Dockers'fight appeared like a strugglefrom another era. And, despite the o the Dockersto internationalisethe own, efforts existed until the last 20 years, then the need for an engagementwith where we have been is central to any understand- struggleand to seeknew allies in thedirect orientedmovements such as Reclaimthe Streets,the deadhand of action ing of where we are going in the future. We hope that In the Tradition has made a small contributionto making that en- theTransoort and General Workers Union ensured defeat. gagement possible.

Autonomousstruggle? THE END (for now!) In partsof Europeduring the period of 1986until the mid-nineties, new developments in the class struggle were taking place.As everywhere,working cla6s living conditions were under attack and as everywhere,the Trade Unions were desperatelytrying to maintaintheir negotiating positions and to controlany autonomous struggle AnarchistCommunism in Britain particularly ln ltaly,self-organised co-ordinat'rons of workers began to emergeduring 1985, amongstteachers, railway In thisarticle we takea lookat the developmentof AnarchistCommunism in Britainsince the late1gth century. In the workersand metalworkers.These co- ordinationswere outside the existing union and, where the traditionalunions ex- firstsection we dealwith the earlydays of theSocialist League and of WilliamMorris. In the secondpart we lookat the quickly isted, enteredinto conflict with them. Although different names were used in differentindustries and regions, the groupingaround and at theAnti-Parliamentary Communist Federation and . In the thirdpart (ftom movementbecame known as the COBASmovement Committeesof the Base)and used mass assemblies, recall- we lookat thegroupings of the 70s,the Organisationof RevolutionaryAnarchists, the Anarchist Workers Association, political abledelegates and militant tactics to conducttheir struggles The complexionof the movementwas diverse and theAnarchist Communist Association and the LibertarianCommunist Group. An articleon thefirst ten yearsof theAnar- includedvarious elements from the oldWorkers Autonomy movement of the 1970s,as wellas Trotskyists,anarchists chistCommunist Federation, appearing in thisissue of Organise!,ties in withthis series. andothers. Mostly its strength lay in mobilisingthose workers who were fed-up with the responseof theestablished un- ionsto aftacksuDon their sectors. PART1. THE FOUNDING YEARS Althoughthe GOBASmovement was a positiveexample of self-organisation,it suffered from sectionalism and the de- sireo someof itsactivisbto become a newtrade union, a littlemore left and a littleless bureaucratic than the traditional The working class activists Frank Kitz and Joe Lane provided a link between the old Chartist movement, , the ones.In February1991 the COBAS,alongside the anarcho-syndicalistunion, the USl,organised a self-managedgen- Britishsection of the First International,the free speech fights of the 1870s and the newly emergent socialism of the people. eralstrike against the Gulf War, which involved 200,000 Thisinitiative brought more people out far more than 1880s Lane developed anti-state ideas early on, even before he came to call himself a socialist in 1881. A real power- the combinedmembership of thecommittees and USI put together. house of an activist, he set up the Homerton Social DemocraticClub in that year and attended the intemationalSocial Revolutionaryand Anarchist Congress as its delegate. Kitz also aftended as delegate from the Rose Street Club. Kitz A yearlater a formalorganisation, the CUB(United rank and file confederation) was established, uniting workers across met the German AnarchistsJohann Most and there and was deeply influencedby them. With the help of varioussectors This 'ahernative' union is todayone of severalin ltaly,including the Unicobas,which has an explicitly Ambrose Barker,who was based in Stratford in east London, Lane and Kitz launched the Labour EmancipationLeague libertarianperspective. These organisations have developed their own bureaucratic practices and operate somewhere The LEL was in many ways an organisationthat representedthe transitionof radical ideas from Chartism to revolution- betweena politicalgroup, a tradeunion and their original role as a toolof liaisonand co- ordinated struggle. ary socialism.The demands for universaladult suffrage,freedom of speech, free administrationofjustice, etc, sat along- side the demand for the expropriationof the capitalistclass The main role of the LEL was that it was to offer a forum for France:echoes of 1968? discussionand educationamongst advanced workers in London,with 7 branchesin East Londonand regularopen-air meetings in Millwall,Clerkenwell, Stratford and on the Mile End Waste Nevertheless,anti-parliamentarism was already InFrance during the early 1990s a similardevelopment took place as workers in thehealth service, transport workers, developingin the LEL posties,workers in thecar industry,the airports and elsewhere began to self-organise.They established independent LiaisonCommittees wh'ch attempted to co-ordinateactivity in theirsectors. These Committees were constantly having The LEL succeeded in moving the Democratic Federationof Hyndman over to more radical positions.The intellectual to out manoeuvrethe various established trade unions, themselves competing for recognitionand advantage. Wildcat and artist William Morris had recentlyjoined this group and Lane was to have an important influenceon him for several strikesinvolving lorry drivers, nurses and care workers, brought thousands of self{rganisedworkers out. When these years- The organisationchanged its name to the Social DemocraticFederation.The autocracy and authoritarianismof strugglesdied down, some following more success than others, the independentCommittees tended not to establish Hyndmanrepulsed many membersand a splittook placein 1884 Monis, BelfortBax, EleanorMan (KarlMax's daugh- themselves,as in ltaly,as permanentstructures. Many of thoseinvolved in thesestrikes in 1990-1992wete subse. ter) Edward Aveling and most of the LEL left to form the Socialist League The League itself contained both anti- quentlyinvolved in the massstrike wave of the HotAutumn of 1995.Public sector workers responded to proposedat- parliamentariansand supportersof parliamentaryaction, who had been unitedby theiropposition to Hyndman.A draft tacksupon social security, pensions and the publicbudget with a seriesof strikes,mass demonstrations and occupa- parliamentaristconstitution inspired by Engels was rejected,but the divisions continued One of the results of this was I ana'a A nti alaticr tamm, rni.+ lr6hif6ar^ rr,hi^h h6d ha6^ 6la+^m^^l +h6l h-l h6ah r6i6^t6l hr, lh^ ^ri^i^dlh, - ^^li^r,