ORGANISE! FOR REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM

Enduring freedom

Price £1.50/Free to prisoners ISSUE 58 MAGAZINE OF THE ANARCHIST FEDERATION ANARCHIST FEDERATION

Oil in troubled waters 3 Then and now: Class war in Organise! Argentina 6 ADD: The craze for speed 11 Organise! is the magazine of the Anarchist Federation (AF). Organise! is published What’s wrong with civilisation: in order to develop anarchist communist ideas. It aims to provide a clear Primitivism and deep anarchist viewpoint on contemporary issues and initiate debate on ideas not ecology 14 normally covered by agitational papers. Did you give Santa the From this issue, Organise! will be produced three times a year. On top of sack? 18 producing our monthly newssheet, Resistance, this will involve a major effort on Supporting prisoners 19 our behalf. We therefore positively solicit your contributions. We aim to print any Book review 21 article that furthers the objectives of anarchist communism. If you’d like to write Anarchist song in France and something for us, but are unsure whether to do so, why not get in touch first. Italy 22 Even articles that are 100% in agreement with our Aims and Principles can Revolution on the net 24 leave much open to debate. As always, the articles in this issue do not necessarily Letters 25 represent the collective viewpoint of the AF. We hope that their publication will Revolutionary portraits 28 INSIDE produce responses from readers and spur the debate on. The next issue of Organise! will be out for Mayday 2002. All contributions for Organise! should be sent to: AF, c/o 84b Whitechapel High Organise! back issues Street, London E1 7QX. It would help if all articles could be either typed or on Back issues of Organise! are still available disc (PC or MAC format). Alternatively, articles can be emailed directly to the from the London address. They cost 20p each editors at: [email protected] plus SAE. Issue 19: The Poll Tax Rebellion What goes in Organise! Issue 27: LA riots, Yugoslavia, Malcolm X Issue 29: Debate on the unions, Italian Organise! hopes to open up debate in many areas of life. As we have stated workers organise before, unless signed by the Anarchist Federation as a whole or by a local AF Issue 37: Pornography, booze, cigs and dope, group, articles in Organise! reflect the views of the person who has signed the Moral panics articles and nobody else. Issue 46: Lorenzo Kom’Boa Ervin, If the contents of one of the articles in this issue provokes thought, makes you Syndicalism angry, compels a response then let us know. Revolutionary ideas develop from Issue 48: French unemployed, Haile Selassie, debate, they do not merely drop out of the air! Revolutionary unions? Issue 51: GM foods, Who owns the land?, War in Kosovo, Ireland – the ‘peace’ process Anarchist Federation contacts: Issue 52: War in Kosovo, Roots of our London: AF, c/o 84b Whitechapel High St, London E1 7QX movement, Land and freedom, East Timor Birmingham: AF, PO Box 3241, Saltley, Birmingham B8 Issue 53: Mass direct action, East Timor, 3DP Youth resistance to the Nazis, Workplace Manchester: PO Box 127, Oldham OL4 3FE notes Merseyside: AF, PO Box 350, Liverpool L69 6EE Issue 54: Civil war in Colombia, Humans and animals, Giving up activism, Dissent South East and all other areas: AF, PO Box 375, Issue 56: Land and ecology, Kropotkin and Knaphill, Woking, Surrey GU21 2XL tribal society, Mental health Tyneside: PO Box 1TA, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE99 Issue 57: Anti-capitalism, Riots in Oldham, 1TA8 Anarchist culture Wales/Cymru: PO Box 7, Pontypool, Gwent NP4 8YB Alternatively send us a fiver and we’ll send Holland: Postbus 93515, 1090 EA, Amsterdam, Netherlands you one of everything plus whatever else we Scotland/Alba, AF, PO Box 248, Aberdeen AB25 1JE, Scotland/Alba can find lying around. Subscribe Organise! Name ...... Address...... on the net ❒ I enclose £4 for a two-issue sub or £6 for a two-issue supporting sub. Articles from Organise! can be found (Add £25% for overseas subs or institutions) on the internet at: ❒ I enclose £6 to pay for a prisoner’s subscription. http://www.afed.org.uk ❒ I enclose £8 to pay for a joint subscription to Organise! and Resistance. You can also E-mail us at: Return form to: AF, c/o 84b Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. [email protected]

2 FEATURE Oil in troubled waters

Afghanistan – The oil behind Bush and the other Son’s campaigns factors By Ranjit Devraj This article is in two parts. The first NEW DELHI – Just as the Gulf War in 1991 was all about oil, the new conflict in was posted on the a-infos web site. South and Central Asia is no less about access to the region’s abundant petroleum The second, written by an AF resources, according to Indian analysts. member. “US influence and military presence in Afghanistan and the Central Asian states, not unlike that over the oil-rich Gulf states, would be a major strategic gain”, said V R Raghavan, a strategic analyst and former general in the Indian army. Raghavan believes that the prospect of a western military presence in a region extending from Turkey to Tajikistan could not have escaped strategists who are now readying a military campaign aimed at changing the political order in Afghanistan, accused by the United States of harbouring Osama bin Laden. Where the ‘great game’ in Afghanistan was once about czars and commissars seeking access to the warm water ports of the Persian Gulf, today it is about laying oil and gas pipelines to the untapped petroleum reserves of Central Asia. According to testimony before the US House of Representatives in March 1999 by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan together have 15 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. The same countries also have proven gas deposits totalling not less than nine trillion cubic meters. Another study by the Institute for Afghan Studies placed the total worth of oil and gas reserves in the Central Asian republics at around US $3 trillion at last year’s prices. Not only can Afghanistan play a role in hosting pipelines connecting Central Asia to international markets, but the country itself has significant oil and gas deposits. During the Soviets’ decade-long occupation of Afghanistan, Moscow estimated Afghanistan’s proven and probable natural gas reserves at around five trillion cubic feet and production reached 275 million cubic feet per day in the mid-1970s. But sabotage by anti-Soviet mujahadeen (freedom fighters) and by rival groups in the civil war that followed Soviet withdrawal in 1989 virtually closed down gas production and ended deals for the supply of gas to several European countries. Major Afghan natural gas fields awaiting exploitation include Jorqaduq, Khowaja, Gogerdak, and Yatimtaq, all of which are located within nine kilometres of the town of Sheberghan in northern Jowzjan province. Natural gas production and distribution under Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers is the responsibility of the Afghan Gas Enterprise which, in 1999, began repair of a pipeline to Mazar-i-Sharif city. Afghanistan’s proven and probable oil and condensate reserves were placed at 95 million

3 FEATURE barrels by the Soviets. So far, attempts retaliation for the bombing of its The ‘coalition against terrorism’ to exploit Afghanistan’s petroleum embassies in Africa. UNOCAL then that US President George W Bush is reserves or take advantage of its stated that the project would have to building now, is the first opportunity unique geographical location as a wait until Afghanistan achieved the that has any chance of making crossroads to markets in Europe and “peace and stability necessary to UNOCAL’s wish come true. If the South Asia have been thwarted by the obtain financing from international coalition succeeds, Raghavan said, it continuing civil strife. agencies and a government that is has the potential of “reconfiguring In 1998, the California-based recognised by the United States and substantially the energy scenarios for UNOCAL, which held 46.5% stakes in the United Nations”. the 21st century”. Central Asia Gas (CentGas), a consortium that planned an ambitious gas pipeline across Afghanistan, withdrew in frustration after several Oil and the Afghan war fruitless years. The pipeline was to stretch 1,271km from Turkmenistan’s The article reprinted above provides Russian and Indian interests Dauletabad fields to Multan in one very compelling reason behind Russia was obviously keen to recover Pakistan, at an estimated cost of $1.9 the USA’s decision to launch a war some influence in the region. Not only billion. An additional $600 million against Afghanistan in the wake of would this allow them to utilise the oil would have brought the pipeline to the attack on the Twin Towers. and gas reserves in its client states energy-hungry India. Energy experts in along the Afghan border, but it would India, such as R K Pachauri, who heads Since the Gulf War, US foreign policy also put to rest the turmoil caused by the Tata Energy Research Institute has been based around a number of Islamic fundamentalism in those same (TERI), have long been urging the simple premises. Firstly, find the oil regions. It was notable that, when the country’s planners to ensure access to fields, gain access to them and if Northern Alliance began their push on petroleum products from the Central necessary go to war to defend them – Kabul, that the soldiers who appeared Asian republics, with which New Delhi this accounted not only for the Gulf on our TV screens were in new has traditionally maintained good War, but also for their adventure in uniforms and driving newly-acquired relations. Somalia, which sat astride major oil tanks. Likewise, the Russian Special shipping routes. Secondly, any attack Forces were quick to take up positions Attempts to exploit on the US or its interests will result in in Kabul after its capture. What is less massive retaliation against anyone well known is that Russian Special Afghanistan’s who can be implicated. Forces were involved in the original petroleum reserves In the case of Afghanistan, Northern Alliance push as the war however, the volume of oil and gas at entered its new phase. Some reports have been thwarted stake is relatively small in its own suggest that they suffered quite heavy right. Fifteen billion barrels of oil casualties spearheading the offensive by continuing civil would last about seven months at (possibly up to 300). strife. current usage and the gas would India has long been on the verge of provide around 22 months of global hostilities against Pakistan. India Other partners in CentGas included supply. These are useful quantities, controls 2/3 of Kashmir, the other 1/3 the Saudi Arabian Delta Oil Company, but will not be the saviours of the being in Pakistan. Control of the the Government of Turkmenistan, western economies in the way that Indian part is hotly contested, with the Indonesia Petroleum (INPEX), the some are predicting. Finding the Pakistani secret state sponsoring Japanese ITOCHU, Korean Hyundai causes of the war requires us to look military operations by guerrillas on and Pakistan’s Crescent Group. into other, regional factors. the one hand and the Indian state According to observers, one Since the departure of the Soviet actively repressing Kashmiris under its problem is the uncertainty over who army, Afghanistan has been wracked own control, often with appalling the beneficiaries in Afghanistan would by civil war. As is well documented, brutality. Deaths in the region have be – the opposition Northern Alliance, the Taliban regime was created and numbered up to 90,000 over the past the Taliban, the Afghan people or, then supported by the Pakistani decade. indeed, whether any of these would government. The Pakistani state is The success of the Taliban regime benefit at all. But the immediate itself a key ally of the USA in the threatened to destabilise the region reason for UNOCAL’s withdrawal was region. What is less well appreciated is further by providing moral and undoubtedly the US cruise missile who supported and armed the physical support for Kashmiri attacks on Osama bin Laden’s Northern Alliance. They received separatists. Sources in the Delhi Times terrorism training camps in arms, training and other support from saw the war as an opportunity to get Afghanistan in August 1998, done in the Russian and the Indian states. rid of this ‘local difficulty’. India,

4 FEATURE although formally allied to the west, forgotten in reports and analysis of the has long seen its future linked with war. that of the Russians. Thus they also After the attack on the Twin Resistance! had links with the Northern Alliance Towers, the Chinese secret service, Resistance is our monthly news and were more than happy to provide the MSS, reported that the US was sheet. Our widespread distribution them with support. This had the about to sign an agreement with of Resistance means more and added bonus of getting India firmly on Russia to enable it to launch the war. more people are coming into side with the Americans, and India in They saw this, rightly, as the most contact with revolutionary return expected US support in its significant change in the international anarchist ideas. This is at a time conflict with Pakistan. situation since China and Russia fell when the Labour Party, the This in part helps explain why out in 1962. There is some evidence Trotskyist and Stalinist left are Pakistan was prepared to ditch the that this led to China either spiralling rapidly downwards into Taliban and join the coalition. If India supporting or increasing support for decline. There is a real chance of expected US support, Pakistan was the Taliban regime. Certainly, 15 dead building a credible anarchist desperate to retain it. Moreover, for Chinese soldiers were found at movement in this country – with the military government of Pakistan, Kandahar where they had been escorts consistent and dogged hard work. the Taliban had become an for one of bin Laden’s senior If you would like the next 12 embarrassment and a source of unrest lieutenants, Basir al Masri. Chinese issues of Resistance, then send in Pakistan itself. Pakistan is a soldiers also fought alongside Taliban POs, cheques for £4 payable to regionally divided country with some and al Qaeda forces in the battles of ‘AF’ to: AF, PO Box 375, Knaphill, parts barely under the control of any Konduz and Kandahar. When the Tora Woking, Surrey GU21 2XL. Better formal state. Regions bordering Bora caves were captured, the US still, take a bundle to distribute! Afghanistan and further south, Azad found large quantities of Chinese Kashmir, were key areas of support for arms. the fundamentalists who are at such In the 19th century, the British and an ideology. US history proves that it odds with the modernising central Russians fought over Afghanistan to will cosy up to any vile regime if it state. The war provided an excuse to control access to the warm water sees its own interests as benefiting station government troops along the ports of Pakistan. Now it looks like a from such a course of action. We are border in regions that had never seen new alliance is playing a very similar confident that even without the attack one before. game. Currently, Russia is weak in on the Twin Towers the USA would The USA was not only interested in terms of international power. It is have eventually found an excuse to punishing the attackers of September willing to side with the USA (and also intervene in Afghanistan. 11 and, in fact, has never bothered to India – long in conflict with China), to More worryingly still, the ‘War on offer conclusive proof they originated secure its own southern borders and Terrorism’ makes a lot of sense if it in Afghanistan. Not only did it provide control over client states from its heralds a concerted US campaign to access to a useful, if not enormous increasingly strong Chinese neighbour. gain control of as many sources of supply of natural resources, but it also For the USA, a potentially powerful energy as possible. If the oil fields prevented the civil war letting rival is kept hemmed in and its own around Afghanistan do not offer Afghanistan fall under the control of a influence in Pakistan is increased. sufficient hope of staving off the oil joint Russo-Indian regional bloc. From our perspective, this new crisis for long, they do if combined alliance shows that the US is planning with control of other minor sources. Chinese interests for the long term future, as well as We can expect the USA to meddle in A further compelling reason for the securing access to raw materials that other countries under the guise of war was the growing influence of should come online around 2010, just attacking al Qaeda. Targets already China in the region. Pakistan is as demand is expected to peak. It also identified include Iraq, Yemen and already becoming a huge market for presages future potential conflict Somalia, all important for the oil Chinese products. Moreover, China is a between the existing Superpower and industry. We can predict a rising of major competitor of the US for the what is sure to become its major international tensions and a move into support of Pakistan. China provides regional rival in future years. more general open warfare. Pakistan with arms, including the The only reasons for the scale of As anarchists, we see once again design of its nuclear capable missile, this war have been economic and that war, for all its flowery rhetoric, is the Shaheen. On New Year’s Day, it geopolitical. Clearly, ideology has had fought in the interests of capital. was announced that China is now the little to do with it. Attacking the Those who suffer are overwhelmingly sixth largest economy in the world. It excesses of Taliban Islamic fascism working class and peasants. That is expects to grow even more over the provides an apparently acceptable why we have no hesitation in coming decade. China is the country justification for going to war, but condemning these wars and in taking bordering Afghanistan that has been states never go to war or the sake of no side but that of our class.

5 FEATURE Then and now: Class war in Argentina

The economy has gone into freefall with IMF-inspired restrictions on the How should we movement of capital (even down to ordinary withdrawals from bank accounts). Sections of the middle and working classes are threatened with immediate view recent impoverishment. Loans on a whole range of things have been taken out in dollars but must now be repaid in heavily devalued pesos. High utility bills and taxes and ongoing forced upon Argentina by foreign capital and corporations hit the waged. Diminished spending power has reduced the income of people in the informal events in economy far below the poverty line. A range of largely passive actions designed to gain a bare subsistence in the form of hand-outs (a traditional practice in Argentina? Argentina) have been met with armed force, both private and state-sponsored. The government owes $150bn to external banks and lenders, money that will need to be squeezed from the working classes through retrenchment and cuts in welfare. The chronic 20% unemployment rate is bound to increase despite the untold social misery this will create. A Radical Party president and government have resigned. The ruling class, fearing military intervention, invite a corrupt Peronist politician to take his place. His period in government is short as a moderate populism is deemed insufficient by provincial power-brokers and those who see political advantage from paralysis; the working class pay the price in arrests, injury and death on the streets. The economic situation of Argentina has been aptly summed up as follows: “The attempt to push through expanded industrialisation... led to a deepening balance of payments deficit which could be met in the short term by foreign loans while awaiting a hoped-for expansion of exports of the new industrial products. This foreign exchange bottleneck had inevitable inflationary results. As the deficit worsened, Argentine governments were forced to turn to traditional agricultural exports in order to pay interest on foreign debt and maintain industrial inputs. To increase the value of these exports at a time when world market prices for them were generally declining, Argentina resorted to successive devaluations [which] helped fuel an inflationary spiral.”

Then and now But this was Argentina of the 1960s, not today. The government’s solution, the same as today, was: “an emergency, IMF-sponsored stabilisation plan…to restrict industrial production by limiting credit and squeezing the home market by salary limits and increases in public tariffs… The result for the working class was immediate and drastic: an industrial recession which saw unemployment rise dramatically… and continuing high levels of inflation which inevitably adversely affected real wages”. If social relations and the prospects for revolutionary change are at least partially dictated by economic forces, what can those battling on the streets today learn from this period in Argentina’s history? In 1955, the charismatic populist, Peron, was overthrown in a military coup. Peron had created a social and political power-base focused on the large industrial unions and their federation, the CGT. His power initially came from the strength of the organised working class, which had adopted the syndicalist and increasingly anarcho-syndicalist method of organisation. But the CGT allowed itself to be absorbed within a corporatist state and a corrupt union bureaucracy

Photo from www.indymedia.org developed.

6 FEATURE

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s a militants and those genuinely engaged politicians and union leaders of the left series of social contracts had been in the class struggle. in Argentina today, and an explanation forged in which a Peronist government After Peron’s overthrow, the period of the total contempt for them held by mediated between antagonistic social 1955-58 saw intense resistance to the workers there. classes and forces. Argentina was government attempts to re-shape the The struggle continued and highly industrialised, with an economy social contract by dissolving or intensified, led by grass-roots activists larger in value that almost the rest of South America put together. Argentine workers had long enjoyed time wages based on hourly rates, with standard contracts protected in a variety of institutional ways. This period led imperceptibly to the Photo from www.indymedia.org creation of a political culture in which reconstituting factory committees, trade unions were an accepted, regional sindicals and indeed whole and clandestine groups of militants normal, even valued partner in unions. Mass sackings and arrests who replaced those who had been managing society. The Argentine provoked serious strikes, wildcat arrested or who gave up, defending working class began to see themselves actions, sabotage, the formation of sacked workers and articulating as an authentic part of national life, clandestine cells in unions and practical grievances. As today, socially and politically, and with a factories. As today, the city of Rosario neighbourhood resistance groups were positive role to play in shaping the and its environs was a centre of radical formed to give focus and direction to nation’s fortunes. resistance which the army had to working class solidarity. Slogan- But this role and sense of self, crush during September 1955. The painting, arson and attacks on food which developed and intensified, had aim of the ruling class was not to merchants, sabotage of the unfortunate consequence of destroy the Peronist unions or their communications, power stations, obscuring the self-interest of the federation, the CGT, but to tame them: Radical Party buildings and factories working class, of confusing it with the “[I]f the unions recognised the need to where slow-downs and poor production interests of the ruling classes, often stay within their own sphere, and if went hand-in-hand with actual articulated by the union leaders and the corrupt demagoguery of those sabotage convinced the military that bureaucrats. most closely compromised with Peron some compromise was needed if their Peronist ideology was essentially could be erased, then the Peronist-led long-term aims were to be achieved. corporatist, and through hundreds of unions had an important role to play in Exiled in Madrid, Peron tried to decrees and laws, an attempt was post-Peron Argentina as organs of organise an insurrection in terms we made to thoroughly integrate the social control and channels of would understand today: working class and its institutions with expression of the working masses.” “All attempts at confronting the the state. Peronist union leaders military regime where it was strongest, depended on their relationship with a Peronist ideology on the purely military level, were to be (Peronist) government to deliver their was essentially avoided. Far more effective, said side of the social contract but “this Peron, were the thousands of small relationship implied a commitment on corporatist. actions which would gradually wear the part of the union leadership to the down the military and undermine its notion of controlling and limiting Working class resistance was, will to continue in power. In the social working class activity within limits however, almost entirely defensive: arena, the resistance should keep the established by the state; this implied… “one had no idea in what way an workers in a constant state of upheaval working class passivity”. insurrection could have been carried with strikes, go-slows, low Peronist opposition to periodic out, since there was not even a hint of productivity. On a more individual attempts to worsen terms and organisation, nor could one glimpse level, thousands of both passive and conditions was often couched in terms the existence of any group with… active actions should be undertaken…. of the justicia social, in liberal authority”, as one militant said. All these myriad acts of resistance bourgeois terms, not the class The union leaders hesitated and a would eventually make the struggle, nor did it have the general strike in November 1955 was government ungovernable and prepare revolutionary idea of (for instance) defeated. Why? As one union leader, the ground for the revolutionary proposing worker’s control of factories: Miguel Gazzera admitted, “We were general strike which, Peron considered, workers and bosses were one. This satisfied with what we had already would be the signal for the national cultural feature of Argentina made it lived through, tasted and enjoyed. We insurrection.” relatively easy for the military and were inexorably finished, totally But no political programme capable their puppet governments to isolate exhausted” – an apt description of of unifying the working class or

7 FEATURE

creating a mood for total civil The long-term solution to the business, with laws passed to make resistance emerged from Madrid. Nor problem of class conflict, once profits workers pay union dues, to contribute were local union leaders, under had been safe-guarded, was also a to the unions’ social and welfare intense pressure to recuperate the political one – to allow for such programmes and unions getting a working class and by now hopelessly conflict but to define and constrain it share of any wage increase negotiated. compromised, capable of articulating within the boundaries of a national Union leaders were also rewarded one. Divided, exhausted, incapable of consensus in which the working class with laws that made it very difficult creating the objective conditions would be forced to see itself not as for opposition candidates or lists to under which an insurrection could antagonistic but merely a competitor win elections, which effectively succeed, they hesitated. The militants for a share of national wealth, secured their power. too were themselves divided: some alongside all other forces in society. Inevitably this could not last. In favoured the route of the clandestine Frequent cyclical downturns in the 1969, an authoritarian president with commandos, others (the majority) economy in the 1960s made it easy for an agenda to rationalise the Argentine moderate union leaders like Augusto economy and modernise the Argentine Vandor to gain tight control of state took power. The union leaders organised labour and crush dissent were immediately forced to respond to through the burocracia sindical in the a wholly unlooked-for series of threats name of protecting workers and their and into crisis. As in Argentina today: institutions; so long as they did the “the crisis of leadership was bidding of the military or the Ministry characterised by a number of features: of Labour, they were safe. a growing problem vis-à-vis their rank Rejecting revolutionary and file at a time of radicalised social Photo from www.indymedia.org syndicalism, leaders like Vandor conflict; the emergence of a vigorous argued that reconstituting the unions increasingly made use of the electoral opposition movement within the and recapturing them from state- power of Peronism, mobilising the unions; a growing problem of internal appointed leaders and officials was the working classes to vote for union divisions amongst themselves; and an only way to confront the ruling class candidates, a strategy that brought increasing danger of isolation as their on more equal terms. important gains but only for the traditional domination within the Defeat at the national level – and, leaders themselves. The leaders movement was challenged by new gradually, at the factory level, as gained power by threatening pro- actors”. strikes were declared illegal, strike Peronist mobilisations and electing Political activity was banned and leaders hunted down, working class Peronist slates of candidates (and with it the unions’ main source of areas patrolled by tanks and armoured often won concessions from the ruling legitimacy. An authoritarian economic cars and with defeat mass sackings – class). Their mistake (inevitable given plan to stimulate the economy through led to the rise of more pragmatic the nature of Peronism) was to believe shifting wealth from wage earners and leaders. that policies necessary to effect agriculture towards urban employers, Over time, exhaustion and changes in the Argentine economy alongside wage controls and massive demoralisation set in, coupled with could be implemented within a cuts to the public sector, was imposed fragmentation, with thousands of context of class consensus. – solutions also designed to reduce militants on the run or blacklisted; inflation (which stimulates wage activists were increasingly isolated Compromise demands and cuts into the purchasing and alienated from the ‘base’. The A historic compromise throughout the power of the middle classes) and defeat of the Resistance enabled the 1960s resulted. The union leaders reward foreign capital. Strikes and bosses to introduce those measures to would control their militants and in protests were made illegal again and increase labour productivity (especially return were allowed to rebuild their the army and paramilitaries used to piece-rates and incentives for power base on the back of large defeat labour action. Police powers performance) that a confident and welfare programmes. The state would were greatly extended. Under this combative working class had managed pass laws giving it the right to control blanket authoritarianism, reform of to resist. The inevitable decline in union affairs and in return union the economy was pushed through, but living standards which followed was leaders would get access to at a price of solidifying opposition, “the result of political defeat, the government and an understanding of uniting previously competing parts of overthrow of Peron, not an economic their difficulties. Now controlling vast society and suppressing social forces one….The government and employers areas of patronage via the political previously harmlessly channelled by imposed by legal means and the spoils system, corruption began to run social institutions like the unions. power of the state what they could not uncontrollably through the institutions Once again, revolt broke out in impose through the discipline of the of labour and its parallel political those industries and regions most labour market”. formations. Unions became big affected by ‘structural readjustment’,

8 FEATURE in particular Cordoba, led by mostly classes would march and vote for and and their young leaders were young militants opposed to burocracia did, forcing the junta to dismantle the abandoned after Peron regained sindical and the too-close relationship worst aspects of its Revoluccion power. of military junta, employers and Argentina and reintroduce civilian The new Pacto Social froze wages unions. What distinguished the government. But the factory and prices, recreating the historic ideology of clasismo and its opposition’s consciousness-raising alliance of unions and employers. organisational form, sindicalismo de could carry them only so far. Failure to National reconstruction would liberacion was the frequent use of carry through a revolutionary commence but at a price the workers direct action, plant occupations, taking programme in August 1971 allowed would have to pay. Business and management hostage, and paros the Peronist unions to swing the unions were re-integrated into the activos, unofficial and direct strikes workers back behind their leadership – formal institutions of the state, which included demonstrations aimed a more moderate regime allowed alliances made with rival parties to at taking the conflict to the wider political activity to get under way and take the heat out of politics. New laws community. Years of repression, paved the way for Peron’s return (in against terrorism were used to crush attacks on working conditions and 1973). the clasista opposition, who were first poverty led to massive social The events of 1971-73 are being removed from office in the unions, mobilisation, given initial focus played out once again. First, economic then sacked, then declared to be (largely because political activity was crisis, then social unrest and uprisings outlaws. banned in Argentina or else heavily- which the police and army cannot What lessons have been learned? controlled) through action in the quell. The fall of a president, an Firstly, there are few limits to the workplace. interim president installed (the combativeness of the working class in Peronist Duhalde), elections promised times of social upheaval or class Years of repression which will solve everything, two years mobilisation as we witnessed over the led to massive social of economic and social paralysis, then last few months. Secondly, without a an electoral fix that solves nothing. unified set of demands that are mobilisation. The cycle begins again. achievable and organisational forms Back then the opposition could not and methods that cannot be reclaimed This new militancy was intensely go beyond strikes and protests. The (for instance, not just factory anti-bureaucratic and challenged threat of more militant actors, Marxist occupations but requisitions and existing models of leadership, offering urban guerilla groups who unleashed a expropriations), revolutionary forces personal honesty in contrast to corrupt campaign of murders, attacks on will either be used, then isolated and or co-opted union leaders, based on military installations, kidnappings and crushed or will be recuperated. democracy and accountability, bank robberies in the early 1970s, The left parties and groups played constant consultation and the ability forced the ruling class and its allies, their historic role of putting forward to recall delegates. Its strength was its church, parties, unions, to close ranks. easily mediated demands in order to questioning of capitalism but it aimed Out-manoeuvered, the working classes build support for an “independent, only to create a socialist society via nationalisation of production and workers’ control of industry – more partial solutions which left capitalism intact. Clasismo, because of its ability to spread social unrest and action beyond the factory gate, threatened not only the social contract between unions and employers but also the military state itself. The initial unrest, the Cordobazo, had led to the resignation of President Ongania. A second uprising, the Viborazo, Photo from www.indymedia.org removed another. However, as in Italy in the 1970s, the militant leadership could not persuade the rank-and-file to embrace their revolutionary aims. Democracy, overthrow of the dictators, a revised social contract, progress – these the workers and impoverished middle

9 FEATURE self-directed organisation of the consciousness and fighting spirit institutions of reaction – parliament, working class with the aim of which alone gives people the feeling courts, political parties, all forms of establishing a government formed by that there is an alternative and it is media, local bureaucracies, churches the workers and the people” (the achievable now. and so on – to be declared abolished, Trotskyist MAS group) – as if These territorial organisations must at an end, dissolved, their power governments solved anything! This not be of defence only. In each of the ended, the offices emptied, their was the role of the socialists in the territories (neighbourhood, township, resources appropriated. And at this 1970s too. But MAS has learned some county and province) the Asambleas moment new ways of organising of the lessons of history too, and Populares will need to do more than society would need be developed (as called for “popular assemblies, agree resolutions and pass decrees but did not happen previously), using plenaries, co-coordinating bodies, physically expropriate the ruling provincial and national “popular congresses and any other means that classes. By quickly forging territorial constituent assemblies” only to permit us to decide freely from alliances around common demands declare the power of the ruling class below”. (for instance via the comisiones de abolished and to decree its The Asambleas Populares that have enlace), holding conventions of the expropriation everywhere throughout sprung up have begun to develop as dispossessed, entering those places Argentina (and, if necessary, to order a revolutionary organisations, putting (whether factory or barrio) where national insurrection against the forward radical demands. But will they people await a spark, the workers of remains of the armed forces) before go further? They demand things (the Argentina could go on the political standing aside in favour of the local abolition of the Supreme Court, the offensive, taking power where it exists Asambleas. freeing of political prisoners) but also (in people’s minds and on the streets) Obviously, for this to happen a need to carry these things through, by and abolishing it, through mass action situation of dual power must develop, declaring the Court at an end, against the institutions of the but the decisive struggle will not be prisoners free to go and enforcing capitalist state – banks, shops, state- won if the working class waits for these demands. These popular controlled media, loan sharks, police orders or for the ruling class to step assemblies call for those in power to stations, courts – by abolishing or aside. Only when the working class step down or aside but have not (at expropriating them. moves to take and abolish power can the time of writing) posed the ultimate First the means to live: food shops we call the situation truly question of power, not who controls it and all places preparing food taken revolutionary. If the people of but its abolition, by undertaking over and production and distribution Argentina have waited to be led, the actions that directly confront the organised on an egalitarian basis. revolution will not have occurred – not ruling class with the mass power of Debts (eg local taxes, to the utilities the siren song of the workers’ state or the working class. Any recuperation of and so on) cancelled, the records government but of freely federated the revolutionary forces is far more destroyed. Power stations occupied assemblies and councils, a commune likely if institutional actors, in this and power lines strung to all who of communes, must be the call. case political parties and unions, have need them. The police stations not been dissolved, creating (as it emptied or blockaded, only those who Quotes in italics are from Resistance & were) an open field where the working throw away their uniforms and hand Integration: Peronism and the Argentine class and ruling class directly confront over their weapons to be fed. Working Class, Daniel James, Cambridge each other. It is clear that for this to Next, political and social University Press, 1988. happen there must be the capacity to organise both inside and outside the factory, or to form strategic alliances AF pamphlets in languages with political and community groups that share the revolutionary agenda. other than English The revolutionary group As We See It is available in Welsh, Serbo-Croat, Greek and now, thanks to Organizacion Socialista Libertaria our Austrian comrades, in German. They are each available for 70p including posted the following on the internet: postage and packaging from our London address. “we were up until the late hours of The Role of the Revolutionary Organisation is also available in Serbo-Croat the morning in each street, each for 70p including p&p. militant discussing in his or her If anybody you know in Britain speaks Serbo-Croat or if you have contacts in neighbourhood the best way to the countries of former Yugoslavia where Serbo-Croat is understood, then establish a minimal territorial why not send them copies? organisation with the aim of defeating German, Greek, Portuguese, French, Italian, Esperanto and Spanish the state of siege”. This geographic translations of our Aims and Principles are also available for 20p plus and political ‘spread’ creates the postage. Write to the London address for orders and bulk orders. necessary critical mass of

10 FEATURE

assets (such as money). Goods and services can also be sold online increasing people’s access to goods ADD and the rate of consumption, minimising labour costs and eliminating the need for shops. The faster people are transported, The craze for speed the faster they can generate profits through working and/consuming. Over two million American children, and thousands of adults, are diagnosed Rapid transport such as cars, high as suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and speed trains and planes is essential for prescribed the drug stimulant Ritalin (a street drug banned in Sweden in the business people and politicians to have late 1960s). more time for their profit making and power games – “tell me how fast you America has the highest number of capitalism and its ideology of progress, go, and tell me who you are” (Illich). ADHD children, with adult numbers and speed. Capitalism as a system has The next development is ‘the 24-hour also large and increasing fast. Drug to constantly expand in order to society’ (which has already started, eg companies and medical ‘experts’ survive. It does this by finding and 24-hour shops). People ‘will be able’ maintain that ADHD has biological and creating new markets, and by (ie expected to) work or shop at any medical causes (despite a lack of increasing the rate of exploitation. time, to prevent the wasted non- evidence), and suggest that 7% of the Time is money and profit (the measure profitable time when people sleep. world’s population (400 million people) of levels of exploitation) can be There are strong links between are sufferers. maximised where production, speed, the technology that facilitates Studies show that while distribution and consumption occurs at it, militarism and totalitarian states of ‘hyperactive’ children become ’normal’ high speed. both left and right (both fascist and under sensory-rich conditions, they The time that working class people Bolshevik). The futurist Marinetti (a begin to fall apart when the sensory spend labouring for others (whether supporter of the fascist Mussolini), stream starts to fade. Under sub- waged, or unwaged such as wrote of “the beauty of speed... a new optimal conditions, children are housework) creates profit for bosses. good... We want to exalt aggressive calmed by Ritalin, showing that for Speed is one of the main ways in action, the racing foot, the fatal leap, many using it the problem is not an which the rate of exploitation can be the smack and the punch”. The Nazis innate brain dysfunction (there is no intensified, raising profits. The faster put money into land speed record scientific evidence of one), but goods are produced (production lines, attempts, and awarded Henry Ford a developmental, the rise of a rapid-fire automation), the faster they can be medal for his car making, mono- culture in the 20th and 21st centuries, sold. The quicker they are moved, the production, and anti-semitic politics. which has transformed human quicker they can be sold (road Hitler’s great autobahn (motorway) consciousness, creating a nation transport, the ‘just in time’ system project was an expression of the new hooked on speed and stimulant drugs which minimises the time they are in god, speed. The Bolsheviks under that simulate speed’s mind altering warehouses/shops). Computers speed Lenin and Trotsky happily embraced effects – coffee, crack cocaine, up production and communication, the new capitalist science of time and methamphetamines, and ecstasy. enabling virtual meetings (eliminating motion studies (Taylorism, time and the time and cost of travel), and the motion studies) in the 1920s to SPEED – What we cannot control electronic transfer of maximise worker exploitation. makes slaves of us all PROGRESS – The future is not America possesses a culture free of speed, the fastest on earth, as befits the most The mind sees the future as the place advanced capitalist of imagination, thought and dreams: country. This progress appeals to this future culture is the orientation. It is intrinsically an enemy result of of place, dislocating itself from mud and dirt, and of the present, which it seeks to escape, for a future which cannot be attained – tomorrow never comes. This is its appeal, even though people are surrounded by the negative effects: the polluted air, unsafe streets

11 FEATURE and gridlock of car-based transit; world is seconds away by phone and the electronic age of film, video games Brazil and Indonesia ablaze (the fires electronic highway, and hours away by and MTV. visible from space); a working week as high-speed train or plane. Despite this Children naturally experience time long as ever – in the 21st century (!); human mastery of ‘time-saving’ differently, they live in an everlasting global warming and climate change. technology, and the prevailing idea NOW which is present-absorbed, The appeal of new technologies, that time is fixed and objective spontaneous and elastic; they have not virtual reality, space research, ‘pure’ (incapable of being affected by human yet learned linear, capitalist clock science (GM foods, cloning) is the actions), technological and social time. The younger the child, the appeal of change, flame and practices accelerate time, making it longer a wait will seem: their life incandescence. The ‘change’ is often scarcer. A future-directed society experiences are smaller – an hour is illusory, minimal, as speed has the accelerates time, leading to the much longer for a child of four years effect of making everything the same: compression of time day-to-day and old than an eight-year-old. Children’s plant mono-cultures such as the under-valuing and under- problems with attention, impulsivity coniferous forests for agri-business, experiencing of daily life. People lose and hyperactivity appear mass produced mono-job cars on the ability to relax and appreciate the developmental: they do not appear at production lines, same-every-time fast moment, and so use technology such birth and it is difficult to identify food (preferably drive-through), roads- as cameras and camcorders to record symptoms in those under four to five to-somewhere-else where the their experiences (themselves years’ old. Long-term research into differences have been (largely) ironed distorted by this process) for the child development shows that the out by fast transit. future, when they hope to appreciate quality of care-giving more powerfully Time is an historical fact rather them. predicts distractibility (an early than a natural one. Christianity broke precursor of hyperactivity) than early the cyclical worldview of time, Children and speed biological or temperamental factors. substituting a linear, irreversible one There is growing evidence that much Factors such as single parenting and (towards Judgment Day and the end of of a child’s brain development occurs poor external support are affected all). In Europe there was a shift from after birth. There are one billion directly and indirectly by rapid-fire the extended family in an agrarian neural connections in a brain space culture and create the conditions for a society with (largely) public lives, to the size of a large match head: restless and sensory-laden lifestyle for the nuclear family, living private lives consciousness and the human mind children. Some are over-stimulated in cities. In 1800, 1% of the world’s are emergent products of a brain with during infancy and early childhood by population lived in cities; by 1990 the an almost unimaginable complexity parents unintentionally imposing their figure was 33%. In England, the and an enormous flexibility. In the sense of timing on them, interrupting comparable figures are 10% and 90%. newborn child’s brain, about 4.7 their pacing and interests. These Urbanisation and the division of labour million branches grow out from the family circumstances are likely to have fragmented and de-personalised neurones every minute, making correlate with other distractions such social life. People no longer experience connections to other neurone as the pacing of the day’s activities, time as something they live IN, but as branches. Development must occur and reliance on plugged in pastimes something they live alongside (and after birth because the brain needs life such as television. which is passing them by). Time is experiences to steer its growth. ADHD symptoms are best treated as an obstacle between the described as sensory addictions, unsatisfactory present and the future Children live in an similar to drug addictions. Studies of promise of happiness. So we anxiously drug addiction show that it is perfectly await the weekend and pine away the everlasting NOW. normal for psychoactive drugs to years waiting for an end to create experiences that encourage and childhood/school/work. Children gradually adapt to simple maintain their self-administration, Speed aims to collapse the gap sensory pleasures, creating a growing especially where other desirable between now and the future: it demand for stimuli with a greater activities (such as social interaction) represents the two dimensions of time sensory impact. The brain has a great are unavailable. Drug-seeking and space fused into one. The essence capacity to adapt to stimuli, mainly behaviour is therefore normal rather of both is as much psychological as deriving from evolution: it focuses on than pathological. As we have seen, physical – 10 minutes can feel like an important stimuli and ignores the human consciousness adapts to hour and vice versa. Similarly, the ‘’irrelevant’ ones. Historically, there stimuli, focusing on the important and world of the newborn child is so large was a natural constraint on the ignoring the ‘irrelevant’. This is an that she has no conscious awareness ‘loudness’ of stimuli, so the brain’s inflationary spiral, as the excitement of anything larger than her immediate adaptability was not a problem; now of new stimuli wears off and new ones surroundings. Cutting-edge the constraint has been shattered by are sought, which in turn become technologies mean that the rest of the technological changes in transport and boring. Adaptation level theory says

12 FEATURE that the satisfaction gained is relative 66% for children under six years of on) enable us to reclaim the streets for rather than absolute, because it age. simultaneous transit – as both travel, depends on the individual’s play (for both young and old) and the expectations (the product of GO SLOW – Or why the boy chance to socialise. The journey to a upbringing, self, and the effects of threw the clock out of the destination, particularly over medium advertising). Research suggests that window and long journeys, should be chronic exposure to rapid fire culture We have seen how capitalist society something enjoyed, not endured. during development can produce a has transformed human Mass, high-speed transport (cars, high chronic state of human consciousness consciousness, resulting in millions of speed trains and planes) has the effect that is highly adapted to a rapid fire people hooked on speed and stimulant of destroying the environment and world, creating a protracted sense of drugs that mimic its effects. How can making exotic destinations more and time and a restless pursuit of constant we counter speed, to make life more more like the towns and cities we are stimulation. tolerable and move toward a human ‘getting away from’ ADHD is also developmental rather scale and human speed, an anarchist – not something to than biological or medical, because its communist society? One of the major be reached, merely prevalence has varied historically and attractions of progress and visited. Human cross-culturally. Only since the 1970s technologies that collapse consciousness is has there been an exponential rise in the present into the not expanding, it is children medicated with Ritalin, future, for the being damaged, although stimulants have been packaged and accepted as treatment for controlled. The hyperactivity since the 1950s. The disorientating effects of speed rising numbers of adults open the doors, but what steps receiving the drug is even through is not freedom, it is more remarkable. working mental illness and human bondage. European countries class, is that have far less ADHD ordinary people than the US, for have no control at present and Stormy Petrel example Britain often feel that there is no prospect (although the for improvement in the present; the pamphlets incidence was 24 future offers the mirage of escape and Towards a Fresh Revolution by times higher in 1997, than in 1990). a better society, for example the The Friends of Durruti, writings Children are 10 times as likely to be ‘leisure society’, created by computers from the much misunderstood diagnosed as having ADHD in America and automations. People also often feel group who attempted to defend than they are in Britain or France. that society is too complex now for and extend the Spanish Revolution Europeans tend to view these them to understand and control – of 1936. 75p plus postage. behavioural problems as revolutionaries need to explain that Malatesta’s Anarchism and developmental and psychological, they we don’t want to control and run this Violence, an important document are also less common in Western society but to radically change it along in the history of anarchist theory Europe than America. In contrast to human-friendly lines. refutes the common child advocates and developmental We need to promote slow(er) misrepresentation of anarchism as studies, psychiatrists (particularly in activities, not as worthy, hair-shirt mindless destruction while the US) ignore significant changes in things we should do but because they restating the need for revolution children’s lives. are enjoyable and satisfying. Slow to create a free and equal society. A 1989 study examining children activities include reading, sewing, 50p plus postage. and adolescents over 13 years found a embroidery and weaving, cooking, A Brief Flowering of Freedom: The significant increase in problems baking and brewing, art, gardening, Hungarian Revolution 1956. An including attention, sociability, anxiety, self-directed play. Resistance to speed exciting account of one of the first delinquency and aggression. Another (and the ideology of progress) is part post-war uprisings against the published in 1993 found that up to of current struggles, such as anti-road Stalinist monolith. Also includes a 25% of schoolchildren experienced and air travel protests (the Twyford history of the Hungarian anarchist physical symptoms that were largely Down road scheme saved a huge three movement. 60p plus postage. psychosomatic. In America the divorce minutes from travel times) and the All Stormy Petrel pamphlets are rate is 50% higher than in Europe, wildcat strikes of postal workers. We available from AF (London), c/o 25% of children under six years live in need to expose the ideology of speed 84b Whitechapel High St, London poverty, 45% of children below the age as ‘progress’. Slower forms of travel E1 7QX. of a year are in daycare, the figure is (walking, cycling, trams, buses and so

13 FEATURE What’s wrong with civilisation? Primitivism & deep ecology

The threat to humanity of modern First some definitions. Primitivism is a set of views and perspectives based on the industrial civilisation has led to the idea of a natural and spiritual humanity in harmony with nature that began to development of complex disappear as civilisation developed from Neolithic times, to the extent that today ecophilosophies which seek to create humanity is alienated and desensitised, rapacious, and increasingly in thrall to conditions where a more spiritual modern industrial society’s conditioning and control. Its more extreme and natural humanity can develop. proponents (like John Zerzan) propose a radical regression of social organisation Two of the most important are the and technology to the level of the hunter/gatherer. A sub-set of primitivism is primitivist and deep ecology anarcho-primitivism, a libertarian and anti-statist form of primitivism. The deep movements. This article seeks to ecology movement comprises a group of ecosophies that are deeply spiritual, seek briefly explore the areas of a balance between human needs and nature and propose a deconstruction of civilisation to achieve a harmonious existence. In this case, ‘deep’ refers to the agreement and disagreement extent to which the fundamental basis of existence is questioned; ‘shallow’ anarchist communists have with ecology is transformative but only in terms of systems and process – them and explain why we oppose environmentalism is a form of ‘shallow’ ecology. certain aspects. There is much in the primitivist analysis that anarchist-communists would agree with – try substituting the word ‘capitalism’ for ‘civilisation’ in any primitivist text. Environmental impacts, the diseases of affluence and poverty, alienation, the subjugation and domestication of much of humanity, the damaging effects of power, hierarchy, authority – all problems we can agree on. With primitivists we agree that, “Never has civilisation manufactured so many means for its own disappearance. To stop this path to suicide, change the world order and invent a new way of organising social life becomes each day more urgent because at the end of that road lies, perhaps, the end of humanity”. We agree with anarcho-primitivists who say, “Only widespread refusal of this system and its various forms of control, revolt against power itself, can abolish civilisation and pose a radical alternative”. But what do anarchist communists and primitivists disagree about, and is it important?

Population A radical reduction in human population is a fundamental principle and aim of all primitivists and deep ecologists. An essential ‘platform principle’ of deep ecology reads: “The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of human population. The flourishing of nonhuman life requires such a decrease”. Extreme primitivists believe that the total destruction of civilisation is a necessity and the inevitable rapid reduction in human population appears to be a price worth paying. We would argue that we would not like to live in the urban dystopia of 20 billion ravaged souls that primitivists portray but nor would we want to live in a rural arcadia of only five hundred million sturdy individualists. How is this reduction to be achieved? Anarcho-primitivists at least put forward compelling arguments for a natural and beneficial fall in the rate of procreation and by reasserting their opposition

14 FEATURE to power relations, organisation and administrative systems, deny the possibility of (for instance) mass die- Anarchist Communist Editions ACE pamphlets are available from c/o 84b Whitechapel offs or death camps. ACE High Street, London E1 7QX. But, by rejecting all forms of social anarchism, organisation and planning, Anarchism — As We See It. A new revised edition of our very popular they deny the possibility of pamphlet. Describes the basic ideas of anarchist communism in easy-to-read re-engineering of our social ecology in form. 60p & SAE. any rational way. The combination of Manifesto of Libertarian Communism by Georges Fontenis. A key text of extreme ideology, rampant anarchist communism. Though flawed, the best features need to be individualism and the irrationalism of incorporated into modern revolutionary theory and practice. 60p & SAE. 6th many primitivist groups and currents printing now available. could easily lead to wholesale Role of the Revolutionary Organisation. Anarchist communists reject the destruction or paralysis of technologies Leninist model of a ‘vanguard’ party as counter-revolutionary. What then is and systems of production and the role of a revolutionary organisation? This pamphlet sets out to explain. distribution, preceding and during the All libertarian revolutionaries should read this fundamental text. 60p & SAE. revolution – it is already happening on a small scale today. In such a situation, Basic Bakunin. 60p plus SAE. millions could die of pandemics, The Anarchist Movement in Japan. The fascinating account of Japanese starvation, war and reaction. Without Anarchism in the 20th century. Japan had an Anarchist-Communist primitivists and deep ecologists movement that numbered tens of thousands. This pamphlet tells its story. accepting that common sense must £1.80 plus SAE. govern this process and that we must Beyond Resistance. A Revolutionary Manifesto for the Millennium. engineer a social ecology generally The AF’s analysis of the capitalist world in crisis, suggestions about what the acceptable to the whole of humanity alternative society could be like and evaluation of social and organisational and not just its extremist fringe, the forces which play a part in the revolutionary process. £2 plus SAE. nightmare vision of civil war between anarchists and libertarians to destroy age. It alienates and creates ‘alien’ The abolition of money, wage or preserve technologies and the emotions (longing, greed, self-love) relations, the socialisation of possible victory of the counter- which express themselves in conflict, production and consumption with all revolution will continue to haunt and possessiveness, the desire to goods free to use, an end to all forms divide the movement. Without wishing accumulate and defeat. Most illness of ownership and hierarchy, the end of to prejudge this process of building and disease, including mental illness, democracy and all other changes unity and consensus, we know that are direct products of civilisation. needed to bring about an anarchist there are many analyses that suggest Modern medicine offers only communist society are not ‘reforms’ ecological impacts can be radically palliatives or a further alienating and but truly revolutionary. The concept of minimised and a fulfilling life (by controlling hi-tech solution. Hierarchy, Progress is itself a social construct of global standards) guaranteed to all, division of labour and the subjugation capitalism and would need to be including much leisure, without of women, states, priests, kings and rigorously re-evaluated. If production destroying the planet or massively armies are all products of a civilisation and consumption are to be brought reducing its population – let’s look at primitivists would like to unbuild. into harmony on the basis of human them together and not let ideology Anarchist communists agree with need and ecological sustainability, then drive out reason. the problems identified but not the all things involved in satisfying human solutions. Anarcho-primitivists offer a need (knowledge, science, technology, Civilisation less than honest critique, claiming that production, distribution and Primitivists believe that humanity has ‘classical anarchists’ would do no more propagation, exchange, communication a natural condition but now exists in than radically reform society: and so on) will need to be an unnatural state which is rapidly “Although there might be some deconstructed and changed in truly heading towards spiritual and possibly changes in socio-economic relations… revolutionary ways. Civilisation should physical extinction. Most blame the basic patterns would remain not be abolished, rather transformed development of civilisation which, by unchanged. The Western model of into the revolutionary society. inventing certain processes (for progress would merely be amended…. instance mathematics) and systems Mass society would essentially Technology (for instance trade), objectified and continue, with most people working Primitivists hate technology and seek a commodified Nature and alienated and living in artificial, technologised regression to levels of technology humankind from it. Civilisation environments and subject to forms of which would not be able to support domesticates individuals from an early coercion and control.” current world levels of population nor

15 FEATURE give access to many things beneficial to humans. Deep ecologists advocate an ‘ecological wisdom’ which grows out of specific places and contexts as guiding the use of technology and technics and reject the modern industrial monoculture currently being globalised. The Fifth Estate, a leading anarcho-primitivist project, “oppose technology or the technological system but not the use of tools and implements… discussions about the future should be predicated on what we desire socially and from that determine what technology is possible. All of us desire central heating, flush toilets etc, but not at the expense of our humanity”. Anarchist communists action as alienating and advocate a right, it seems! Anarchist communists would agree that the extent to which reversion to a ‘society’ of self- would dissolve the illusion of money. our essential humanity can develop is sufficient hunter-gatherers, self- The evils of accumulation, important. Where we disagree is that a realising individuals, natural expropriation, property and ownership society with a high level of technology humanity. Anarchist communists in would be ended by the socialisation of is necessarily evil and self-destructive, contrast, see society as the truly consumption and production – take viewing this as a consequence of liberating and liberatory environment what you want but only what other capitalism’s misuse of technology. in which humanity may find its people are prepared to provide or Primitivism and deep ecology greatest expression. Anarchist (more usually) to each according to criticise modern corporations and the communists are often accused, with need, from each according to ability. industrial method but rarely address other anarchists, of being ideologues. Primitivism, in contrast, awards the role capitalism plays in creating Yet while agreeing with many that ownership to the man who builds and, and maintaining these monsters. The ‘technology’ is not neutral and that presumably, power and wealth to the simplification of society we seek is the civilisation must be radically-reformed man who builds most – as if no master abolition of things like the advertising, in ways that are sustainable and of guilds ever got wealthy from the fashion and sex industries, media maximise both human individuality work of dozens or even hundreds of whores, sporting heroes, education and sociability (both freedom and individual craftspeople and shops, gurus, churches and cults and the society therefore), we are completely provided materials by the master, institutions that allow technology to be neutral in our approach to what renting tools and machinery from the misused to create them. technology, which tools, used how and master, and selling what they What is also missing from the when. Technology is not a matter of produced to the master at the prices primitivist critique is the role all morals but what works, within the he set (in agreement with all other people would play in deciding what is context of sustainability and humanity. masters). humanity, what are the essential Because primitivism, as a system, aspects of their humanity and how and can never offer human beings what in what ways technology and technics Primitivism and capitalism they might want or need, it will can be changed to preserve and Strangely, for all their radical inevitably involve trade, exchange and augment this humanity without credentials, primitivists, deep money, the means of exchange, and unnecessary harm to other life or the ecologists and anarcho-primitivists are quickly regress into a capitalist society environment. We believe that it is here not necessarily anti-capitalist and a renewed statism. While that syndicates, co-operatives, councils (although they do not like modern, spiritually radical, the deep ecology and communes, despised by extreme global corporate capitalism). At least movement is also profoundly primitivists as assemblies that one website has links to a natural reformist: “In order to start the ‘mediate’ aspirations and alienate capitalism which “explores the process of lessening our impacts, people, would play a vital role as the lucrative opportunities for businesses diverse strategies are vital, in the area forums within which ideas are in an area of approaching of business, for example [including] exchanged, costs and benefits weighed environmental limits”, particularly back and forth play between workers and decisions made. through “increased productivity”. and leaders” – the class struggle can Some, for instance Zerzan, see all Wealth in the hands of the wealthy wait, it seems, while workers and forms of organisation and collective (environmental) entrepreneur is all bosses play, from the bottom-up.

16 FEATURE

Spirituality & ecology Power would be transformed but We profoundly disagree with preserved. If this were true of Friends and primitivists on the question of anarchist communists, we would be on humanity and spirituality. Firstly, we their side – unfortunately, it isn’t. neighbours reject the notions of a ‘natural We have no interest in capturing humanity’ that can be rediscovered Power, but seek to abolish it – no If you like what you read in and its more subtle idea that a ‘good’ state, no government, no bureaucracy, Organise!, you might be interested humanity can only be achieved by no hierarchy, no hidden knowledge, no in these: secret meetings, no memberships, no regression to either a hunter-gatherer Black Flag. £1.50 per issue/£6 clubs or cliques, no family, no priests, existence or an extremely purified and sub. BM Hurricane, London WC1N no pundits, no heroines, no simplified individualism. 3XX. Modern humanity is a social scapegoats. And, we agree, no politics construct, something that can be – just “a politics of desire, pleasure, SchNEWS. Weekly direct action uncreated and redefined in the mutuality and radical freedom”. To news-sheet. Send stamps to PO direction of autonomy, mutual aid and which we would add a social-organic Box 2600, Brighton BN2 2DX. conscience or ethic shared by all solidarity without any need to bow to Direct Action, anarcho-syndicalist humanity. the unreal. Many deep ecologists, magazine produced by the Anarcho-primitivism agrees with us worshippers of the self, seek to extend Solidarity Federation.£1.50 per on the need to build a “community of their individuality via mystical issue/£5 subs PO Box 29, SWPDO, resistance”, to equip people with the constructs – Gaia, the Tao, Buddha, M15 5HW. animal spirits, Christ, pagan and skills to bring about a revolution and Earth First! Action Update, esoteric forms and so on. Human live it afterwards, “the bases for direct monthly news from Earth First! beings become nothing – mere action and [sites for] new ways of £5 for 12 issue sub. PO Box 487, particles in some vast, cosmic life. thinking, behaving, communicating, being”. Norwich NR2 3AL. We disagree with the primitivist Collective Action Notes. Bulletin We have no interest project and its casual approval of produced by CAN. Information on in capturing Power, irrationalist and chaotic attacks on struggles worldwide. Contact PO civilisation, its random un-building of Box 22962 Baltimore, MD 212, but seek to society – this is not the revolution. Nor USA. do we agree with the profoundly abolish it individualist project of the deep Do or Die! c/o Prior House, ecologists who see the radical 6 Tilbury Place, Brighton BN2 2GY. £5 for an issue. It only comes Surrendering perception, ethics and transformation of society as either a out once a year and covers a will to something essentially personal religious obligation or an whole range of environmentally unknowable and, in our view, non- opportunity to develop karmically. related issues, including news and existent, is fantastically shortsighted We disagree with the anarcho- discussion on the anticapitalist and socially dangerous. As primitivist critique of organisations movement. We don’t agree with revolutionaries, we accept that no because we suspect they mean ‘leftist everything in it and they future society can be built without the parties’ and agree totally that “the sometimes say unpleasant things ethical development of millions of kind of world envisaged… is about us, but it’s a must anyway. people, the development of awareness unprecedented in terms of the degree and understanding, their free and and types of freedom anticipated…. So NEFAC, the Northeastern conscious adherence to its principles there can’t be any limits on the forms Federation of Anarcho- and modes of action. But if faith and of resistance and insurgency that Communists. Probably the group religious fakery underpins it, what might develop” except that such closest to us politically. Write to results? Cults, fashions, orthodoxy and resistance must not be recuperable (as either NEFAC (English speaking), heresy, mass consciousness without deep ecology and environmentalism Roundhouse Collective, c/o Black individual responsibility, the death of can), nor purely irrational (as with Planet Radical Books, 1621 Fleet solidarity, the end of society. primitivism) nor place freedom on a St., Baltimore MD 21231, USA or pinnacle ahead of co-operation and NEFAC (Francophone), Groupe Deep ecology, primitivism and sociability as the anarcho-primitivists Anarchiste Émile-Henry, C.P. the revolution do. 55051, 138 St-Valliers O., Quebec Primitivists, including anarcho- It must contain within it the seeds G1K 1JO, Canada. Alternatively, primitivists, accuse classical anarchists of a sustainable, fulfilling social link to them through our website. and the left generally as being ecology, a free society, anarchist reformists, proposing societies where communism.

17 FEATURE Did you give Santa the sack?

The arguments against Old Nick can be used as an analogy for shared secret, the notion of other non-real phenomena and poses progression up through a hierarchy of the modern consumer us two questions: would they have a secret knowledge (replicated in Santa, the red-coated role in the free society and if so what religious and spiritual cults, schools, would it be? political sects, gangs and liar promising bounty One of the interesting things about bureaucracies) all wrapped up in one or the solace of Santa is that people of all kinds, but harmless, laughing old man. most importantly those responsible for spending for people the care and upbringing of children, The ladder of understanding actively participate in maintaining When a child asks “Will Father too busy to find out falsehood. They do it too with the Christmas bring me a present?” what why they are sad or bogeyman, that all-purpose persuader- prompts us to say, “Yes. If you are from-fear, and others like him. Some good”. What do we learn from Father desperate, are well parents invent imaginary angels and Christmas? I have no doubt that when known. devils to persuade, bribe, intimidate or young we benefit from the notion that coerce children into obedience and there is a benevolent entity who gives conformity. Or they perpetuate an without expecting a reward or external myth offered them by society exchange, who can be relied on each to achieve these ends: Father year to bring us pleasure and release. Christmas. Humans need a sense of security to When asked by a child, “Is aid in their socialisation, a sense that Spiderman real?” we have no in a baffling world there are forces hesitation saying no. We tell the child that are altruistically benevolent, that that the character is made up, that he do not overlook even the poorest home exists in comic books, cartoon or most frightened child. This and films and in our stimulates ‘reaching-out’, ‘curiosity’, imaginations too, but we do testing of boundaries. Unconditional not say he is real. We do love has become the bedrock of much not tell lies about Thomas bourgeois parenting for this very the Tank Engine, reason. But as we grow we learn too Shakespeare’s Macbeth, that one day that entity will turn his Jack and Jill, Fungus the back on us, that we will no longer be Bogeyman or the Great the object of his love and benevolence. Pumpkin, but we do We become unworthy, simply by about Old Nick. It has growing up. been said, ad nauseam, Father Christmas also teaches about that this is because we the hierarchy of worth. Why do some want to perpetuate our own children get splendid presents while childhoods, that we connect others do not? Given that few children with our parents by who do not have to work for it perpetuating this hoary understand the value or meaning of tradition of deceit, that money, the unequal distribution of some part of us dies a presents must have more to do with little when our the recipient than the giver. If our children see parents loved us more, wouldn’t they through the myth. make Santa bring us the presents we Self-lies on more than one really wanted, no matter the cost? level, the power to be derived from a Poverty is my stigma, and I am

18 FEATURE/PRISONERS branded inside and out with shame change creates uncertainty, confusion, child will learn and low self-worth. And this has a conflict. The unreal disappoints when how to create social aspect as well. Low self-esteem, it is discovered to be unreal. There is and control shame, guilt about the presents we no fanatic like an apostate, it is said. unreality. can’t afford to buy or never received, When we lie to each other, whether There may be envy of those who shop so carelessly, on the petty level of a parent and child tales of heroes all of these emotions and others suck or on the grand level of a society that and villains, told us in to the rat race of competition or wants to believe in lies rather than in pictures, words bury the natural urge to kindness, face the truth, great evils arise: wars, and songs. But which is a biological as well as cultural pogroms, injustice, intolerance, great art will be a imperative, making our society mean rage and great sadness, mental illness. participatory and grudging and filled with deep self- Is there anything to be said in Santa’s thing; all will loathing, barely admitted. Or is mental defense and, by analogy, in the have had their chance to create the illness declining? willingness of humans to lie to their unreal and so will understand its children and others (and to create, power and its limitations. Co- Tell me a story disseminate and defend entirely non- operation and mutuality is hard-wired This is the thing about stories, the real phenomena) in order to alter their into our genes, say the scientists. unreal made real in pictures, words behaviour or perception of themselves We will learn that (when all is ours and music: that if we believe in them on a mass scale? Nothing. to use) the act of giving is a simple too much they take hold of us and our but by no means uncommon event. societies (en masse, because of the Myths & the free society When all we have to do to receive (a power of the media and the efforts of The free society will still create the thing we need, a helping hand, social institutions to exploit the unreal through the arts and the mass whatever) is to ask, all become equal. phenomena), rather than us using media. But no-one will lie to another When mutual aid and solidarity with them – which explains God, of course. or deceive through their silence. If we each other is universal and eternal, The unreal will always bring harm have stories at bedtime, they will be not conditional or provisional, will we to someone if we are made to believe. co-operative acts, tales told by adult need a smiling liar to open a sack or The unreal can be changed and this and child together – in this way a the doors of the church? Supporting prisoners Ali Khalid Abdullah PPWC are still active and anyone can confirm this can they let us know? & the PPWC Similarly, if you too have been met Since referring to US anarchist with a wall of silence. prisoner Ali Khalid Abdullah in the There is an urgent need to previous two issues of Organise!, a establish whether PPWC/Ms Ritsher number of people have contacted us to are still doing the business, ask if we have any knowledge of the particularly in Ali’s case, as he is due group Ali himself founded some time a parole hearing early in 2002 and ago – the Political Prisoners of War needs all the support he can muster. If Coalition (PPWC). anyone out there knows anything help support comrades through PPWC. The reason they’re asking is that, about this situation can they advise us Maybe they are not even receiving like some of us, they have written to asap please, so that we in turn can let mail? We don’t know. Either way, the PPWC without getting a reply, which both prisoners and enquirers know people who matter the most are obviously sets alarm bells ringing. where they stand as regards PPWC. entitled to know what is going on on The contact address for PPWC is: Suspended in limbo is no place for their behalf. Get in touch please if you PPWC Information Center, c/o Cynthia anyone, inside or out, to be. Comrades know anything. Ritsher, PO Box 554, Lincoln, MA inside either deserve our 01773,USA. Understandably, the wholehearted support and solidarity or Christopher Lee silence emanating from what should we may as well not bother at all. be a lifeline for Ali and other US There could be very genuine reasons Plummer prisoners is of no small concern to a for Cynthia Ritsher and her team not Chris Plummer is due to be paroled lot of folk, not least the prisoners responding to what we know amount any time soon, after eight years. This themselves. If Ms Ritsher and the to many requests for information to is great news and we wish him well.

19 PRISONERS

However, this is not the end of the story. It is vital we maintain support From one shithouse to another for him. A tale of everyday madness in Britain’s We know that returning to the outside can be a difficult and traumatic prison system time, added to which the slightest parole violation can send you straight Sitting here in my allotted 5ft by 7ft to do all my sentence due to the back to prison looking at an even space in the 16-man dormitory that backlog), I’m now in the position of longer sentence, as all previous good will be my home for the foreseeable not knowing what the fuck is going on behaviour and other credits are future, I cannot help but laugh at the – again! Although I do know that I’ll cancelled out. And there are plenty of thinking that goes into some of the have to work here, making some people within the law and order decisions the powers that be make, fucker a profit from my labour for £7 establishment looking to send ex- not to mention the pettiness and total per week, yippee! prisoners right back to jail. absurdity of some of the rules and The screws here are keen to point Chris is well aware of the hoops he regulations. out the error of your ways, if you step will have to jump through! Chris’s With only two weeks until I was parole attorney is set to cost him due to be tagged and sent home with The regime here $5,000 in addition to all of the above, a new ‘fashion accessory’ on my ankle, resembles a bizarre a not insignificant sum for anyone, let the wisdom of the system deemed it alone someone who has just got out of right and proper that I be removed Butlin’s meets Boy prison. We are therefore asking anyone from my single cell (with colour TV who can contribute a little money, and panoramic views – of the next Scouts meets the however small an amount, towards block!), uprooted from within spitting Teletubbies! these costs, to send their donation to distance of my friends and family, and the AF address and we will forward sent on a jaunt to the south coast. out of line. The problem with this (as any donations on. Also, we would be Having been a model prisoner in Wandsworth and, no doubt, many interested to hear from anyone who (though avoiding any arse-licking I other penal palaces) is that they don’t could perhaps put on a benefit gig or might add) I now find myself in the tell you were the line is! I can honestly such like to help raise funds. A quick ‘open’ Ford prison having been, until say that these trained ‘amoeba’ have whip-round at meetings would also be yesterday, in the dark depths of absolutely no interest in conveying much appreciated. Please ensure that Wandsworth (scene of the last hanging what it is that they want you to do. you mark any donations clearly for in Britain… arrghh!). Now you may be The cons here are a bit more helpful Chris Plummer, but make them payable thinking, dear reader, “Shut the fuck though. In Wandsworth, if you ask a to the AF. up, you ungrateful bastard”, and in screw a question, the cons think Chris can be contacted at: some respects you would be right. you’re brown-nosing. If you ask a con Christopher Lee Plummer, 677345, PO There are few other things about you’d be lucky to get a sneer, a grunt Box 4500, TN Colony, TX 75886, USA. prison that upset the mellow at best. A no-win situation! Basically, experience for the passenger. I you were left to work it out for personally find the whole moving yourself which, in that environment, scenario a major pain in the arse. It can be a rather daunting task. can be a very unsettling, Here at Ford, if it wasn’t for my disorientating and worrying comrades in incarceration, I’d know experience. I’m sure even the big- jack-shit about the running of the mouthed wide-boys get a tad stressed category ‘D’ second world war at the prospect of being taken from a airstrip-turned-nick (1960). The settled routine, from a wing you have regime here resembles a bizarre grown accustomed to, and then having Butlin’s meets Boy Scouts meets the to undergo the whole process again, Teletubbies! with a new set of faces and rules. We all live in these bunker type For me personally, the move from a dorms surrounded by fences a young 23-hour lockdown in one of England’s lad could climb in seconds. The dorms more unpleasant establishments to the are left unlocked all night and they relative freedom of ‘Ford’ has been a trust that inmates will adhere to the bit of a culture shock. Apart from the nightly checks and stay snuggly in obvious distance problems and the fact their pits. With such amazing rules as that I’ll have to reapply for ‘tagging’ ‘stand by your bed for inspection’ (which may end up meaning I’ll have (very Borstal, very ‘Scum’). You can’t

20 PRISONERS/REVIEWS

afternoon) is that you can have your circle. Is it me? or would these t-shirt off, but only if you are not masters of mind control not be better sunbathing. The authorities fear putting their collective genius together prisoners may sue if they contract skin to do a crossword or something? cancer! Anyway folks, just fancied a rant at I mean, for fuck’s sake, it’s no the machinations of the prison system! wonder 15 tormented souls had it Just shows that being a model away on their toes last week alone! All prisoner doesn’t necessarily mean I’m saying is, you wonder who sits you’ll get what you want. So was around making this shit up! moving me to Ford a good move for lay on your bed if you’re not working! Like in Wandsworth, you have a me? Personally, I’d sooner have stayed What? If you haven’t got green work central hall, with all the wings leading in Wandsworth, rather than relive my trousers on from Monday to Friday, off like wheel spokes. I came back Army Cadet days, but I suppose things you’ll be reported, charged and from exercise one day (this entails an could be worse, a lot worse. Keep on confined to your dorm (the only way to hour in a yard with several hundred kicking. check this would be to make sure a other bods, walking around in a screw sat outside from dawn ’til dusk circle), I go to walk to my wing and Sean – totally unenforceable!). My favourite I’m stopped, shouted at and told I’m PS Thanx to those who bothered to so far (and I’ve only been here one walking the wrong way round the write.

The 43 Group with most recruitment on a personal wealth of the lunatic fringes of the by Morris Beckman basis, in cells but with access to the aristocracy and bourgeoisie for money A Centerprise Publication resources of the whole organisation, and influence. But the constant pressure ISBN: 0 903738 75 9 which grew quickly: taxi drivers of the 43 Group and its supporters and provided transport and a quick getaway, allies, notably the Communist party, paid The 43 Group describes how Jewish ex- people with fighting skills organised in off. Fascist groups found they could not servicemen and women formed a direct flying wedges to drive in and break up organise and were under constant action organisation to combat the re- fascist street demos and meetings, surveillance and attack, meetings were emergence of Britain’s fascists after others worked in intelligence and constantly disrupted, local newspapers WWII, firstly on the streets of London counter-intelligence (some even joining began to openly scorn the fascists and and later throughout the country. It is a fascist indignantly call on the government to fascinating account of a hidden history act against them, and the town halls, of working class resistance and a manual now aware of the depth of local feelings, of modern-day direct action began to deny them access to the school campaigning, offering many useful halls and meeting rooms that gave them insights into organisational methods. an air of respectability. By the early After WWII, Jews were alarmed at 1950s, after years of struggle, the fascist the resurgence of Britain’s fascists, aided menace was largely defeated – still and abetted by the Labour present, they were not likely to pose a Government’s complacency and often serious threat and did not again until connivance of the police, town halls, the 1970s. watch committees and local magistrates, who defended the Attacked fascist’s right to free speech but cracked An encouraging account marred only by down hard on counter-protests (sound the fact that the Jewish establishment, familiar?). Fascist groups and parties like many bourgeois liberals, attacked re-formed, newspapers and ‘book clubs’ the 43 Group (which had, at its height, flourished, candidates stood and thousands of members and supporters) hectored. groups), for being ‘thugs’, ‘heavies’ who After bitter and frustrating security (looking for moles, moving delighted in violence – a sorry experiences directly confronting the equipment). Contact was made with accusation levelled at Class War in the fascists, only to be met with police sympathetic policemen and journalists, 1980s and 1990s and the Black Bloc strong-arm tactics and court and local communities mobilised against even today. appearances, 43 Jewish ex-servicemen fascist groups and activities. Any activity the middle classes and women met to form a group aimed It was a tough job. Fascism was still cannot control frightens them to death. at destroying the growing fascist an international movement, thuggish A good read that repays careful study – movement. The group organised from Nazi prisoners-of-war had remained the film, I am told, is also one to watch the bottom up and by word-of-mouth behind in Britain, it could call on the out for.

21 CULTURE Anarchist Song in France and Italy Part 2: Italy “Nostra patria e il Italy has a strong and vibrant tradition emerging worker’s movement, and the of song springing from the people and socialist and anarchist currents within mondo intero” industrialisation has not completely it to develop their own repertoire of succeeded in destroying these musical songs. Just as the anarchists broke (Our country is the entire traditions. In the central regions of with old imagery of the bourgeois world). Lazio, Tuscany and the Abruzzo, for Republican songs in France, so it was Line from a song by Pietro Gori. example, the tradition of ottava rima, with Italian anarchists and the dating from the Middle Ages was nationalist repertoire. strong among the peasants. It can use poetry from Homer or Dante, can be Gori completely improvised, or can deal One of the most committed anarchists with political and social issues. was Pietro Gori (1865-1911), who Whilst Italy did not have the devoted most of his life to the flowering of political and social song anarchist movement. A lawyer by that came with the Revolution in profession, he also held many others jobs, for example an ordinary seaman. Italy has a strong He had an important role in spreading anarchist ideas in both North and and vibrant tradition South America whilst in exile. of song springing An anarchist communist like Malatesta, he ceaselessly struggled for from the people. the free society. He penned his first anarchist poems between 1892-3, Alla France, the struggle for national unity Conquista dell’Avvenire (To the and against the Habsburg Austro- Conquest of the Future) and his three Hungarian occupiers produced a volume Prigioni e Battaglie (Prisons number of songs. Among these were and Battles). Camicia Rossa (Red Shirt) which sang When the Italian anarchist Sante with rapture of the red shirt worn by Caserio assassinated the French Garibaldi’s volunteers. When General President Sadi Carnot in 1894, in Cialdini ordered his troops to fire on response to the execution of several Pietro Gori Garibaldi’s Red Shirts at Aspromonte French anarchists, Gori was falsely in 1862, this led to the composing of accused by the Crispi government in the song Rondinella d’ Aspromonte, Italy of being involved. Gori had which sings of Garibaldi’s heroism and indeed written a song about him and magnanimity. Garibaldi got two bullet his subsequent execution, A Caserio, wounds as a result of this incident and with a beautiful and sad tune and another song which is still recited by lyrics, but Caserio had acted children was also created:Garibaldi fu completely on his own. Gori was ferito (Garibaldi was wounded in the forced to leave Italy for exile in the leg). Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. Supporters of Mazzini and of There, another campaign of false Garibaldi during this period used accusation was launched against him songs to get their ideas of national and other Italian anarchists instigated unity over to the broadly illiterate by the police in his home country. A masses as well as reading out botched attempt on his life was speeches in the great squares. This followed by pressure being put on the awareness of the valuable role of song Swiss government. He and 15 other as an instrument of propaganda that anarchists were imprisoned, and developed with the nationalist finally expelled from the country. movement made it easy for the It was while he was waiting in

22 CULTURE prison at Lugano to be deported that workers in Northern Italy in the years and released. A large number of Gori wrote probably the most beautiful 1918-21 also led to a flowering of songs, many based on other tunes Italian anarchist song of all Addio anarchist song. One of the finest is were created almost spontaneously Bella Lugano (Farewell Beautiful Figli del’officina (Sons of the during demonstrations and rallies. Lugano). Factories), by Raffaeli De Feo. It Some dealt with the murder of Pinelli, Farewell beautiful Lugano, farewell counterposes class war to the Giustizia di classe (Class Justice), my sweet land, murderous World War that had just Lamento per la morte di Giuseppe Driven away guiltlessly, the ended. Pinelli (Lament for the death of anarchists are leaving. Proletarian war, War without Giuseppe Pinelli) and Ballata per And they set off singing, with hope borders, We’ll our red and black l’anarchico Pinelli (Ballad for the in their hearts flags with the wind. anarchist Pinelli) […] The organisation of workers There’s a coffin and 3,000 Ceaselessly banished, we will go defence squads – the Arditi del Popolo comrades from land to land which were started first in Rome in We were all clasping our flags Promoting peace and declaring war, June 1921, gave birth to the song, Il And we swore that night, Peace among the oppressed, war to Popolo degli arditi: “We are the arditi That it won’t end this way the oppressors of the people, peasants and Povero Pinelli (Poor Pinelli), This song was first sung as the workers…Construct a proletarian front Anonymous and innocent anarchists boarded a train to take against fascism.” But the fascist You loved anarchy them into exile. It was recently sung movement against which the arditi Other songs dealt with the frame- at the funeral of an Italian anarchist had mobilised triumphed and with its up of Valpreda, E a te Petro Valpreda who had settled in Australia. triumph came massive repression (And to you Pietro Valpreda) and Gori also composed songs like Il against the workers’ movement and Valpreda e innocente (Valpreda is canto dei lavatori del mare (Song of the anarchist movement. Many innocent). There was even a sarcastic the workers of the sea) and Il canto anarchists fled into exile, many were one about Superintendent Calabrese, dei lavatori della terra (Song of the imprisoned and any activity was generally held responsible for Pinelli’s workers of the land) as well as Amore underground. death, Povero Calabrese. Ribelle (Rebel Love) – a love song to With the development of anarchist Songs were also composed about Revolution! resistance groups in the mid-40s came the death in a police cell in Pisa in Gori’s pure personality and sincere the birth of new anarchist songs. One, 1972 of the young anarchist, Franco devotion to the cause made him the song of the Gino Lucetti Battalion, Serantini and of the imprisonment of greatly admired among the Italian named after the anarchist who had the anarchist Giovanni Marini after he working class. When he died in 1911 tried to assassinate Mussolini, Dai had defended himself against a fascist (his health broken by his ceaseless Monti di Sarzani (Down from the gang. Songs are still being composed, propaganda work), the train taking his Mountains of Sarzana), specifically like, for example, one based on a local body to his final resting place stopped mentions Pietro Gori as inspiration. folk melody on the occupiers of empty at every station along the track where houses in Spezzano Albanese in the large crowds had gathered. Pinelli and Valpreda South. Of the same second generation of In December 1969, a bomb killed 16 Alongside this tradition of song was anarchists as Gori, the Lombard, Luigi people in Milan. The bomb had been the appearance of singers who can be Molinari, devoted much of his activity planted by fascist groups, and they likened to Brassens and Ferre in to editing a paper L’Universita themselves had been used by the France, who Popolare and to projects of libertarian Italian intelligence services. All of this made a living education based on the Modern School was established much later and there out of singing ideas of the martyred Spanish are indications that the American and who anarchist Francisco Ferrer. secret service, the CIA, was also expressed a He believed in intensive campaigns involved in what has been called “the number of of education among the workers and Strategy of Tension”, provocations anarchist peasants and saw the value of song as designed to bring on State repression. ideas in their a propaganda weapon. His Inno della The anarchists were immediately songs. The Rivolta (Hymn of Revolt) is the most targeted by the police. The anarchist most famous famous of his songs. railway worker Giuseppe Pinelli ‘fell’ of these is Other anarchists of this period also from the 4th floor window of the main Fabrizio De penned songs, like for example Attilio police station in Milan. Andre (above right). Born in Genoa in Panizza and his Inno dei Malfattori Another anarchist, the dancer 1940, he became heavily influenced by (Hymn of the Malefactors). The Pietro Valpreda, was arrested and after the French chansonniers, above all occupation of the factories by the a long imprisonment was acquitted Georges Brassens.

23 CULTURE/THE NET

His long career as a singer, until his crucified alongside Christ. His most appears to be close to the anarchist death in 1999, revealed his anarchist political album recorded in 1973 is movement. and atheist ideas and his sympathies Storia di un impegiato (White Collar What is important is that the for the oppressed and the outsiders. Story). tradition of anarchist song appears to The one that shocked the Catholic Other singers who have expressed be still vigorous, directly related to the Church most was his Il Testamento di anarchist ideas are the Modenese social movements and not eclipsed by Tito (Titus’ Testament) which purports Francesco Guccini and the upcoming professional singers who may have to be the views of one of the thieves singer from Salento, Alessio Lega, who some anarchist sympathies.

hundreds of others, poisoned themselves were reported in the Los Angeles Times (26 November 1978) by Charles Garry of Revolution on the net San Francisco, attorney for the Peoples’ Temple. http://www.uncarved.demon.co.uk/othertexts/brinton1.html There is a wealth of anarchist and libertarian communist As We See It and As We Don’t See It. Two pamphlets that material on the internet. What follows is a necessarily selective set out Solidarity’s basic politics. Still two of the best and highly personal review of sites that should be interesting. expositions of what it means to be a revolutionary. This pamphlet was rewritten in the late ’70s. The most accurate Solidarity texts versions are available on http://www.geocities.com/ The British group Solidarity (early ’60s to early ’80s) was knightrose.geo/blasts/blasts.htm. Also on this site is the without doubt the most influential group ever to publish in the Solidarity text, Third Worldism or Socialism. English language. A number of their key texts are available: http://www.geocities.com/knightrose.geo/blasts/thirdworld/ The Irrational in Politics, by Maurice Brinton. This text can thirdworld.html and finally John Crump’s pamphlet, A be found at http://www.redthread.f2s.com/Texts/Brinton/ Contribution to the Critique of Marx. TheIrrationalInPolitics.html. An excellent introduction to the http://www.geocities.com/ knightrose.geo/marx_critique.htm politics of Wilhelm Reich. The author looks at sexual repression as a cause of mass support for authoritarian and fascist politics. Other texts The Bolsheviks and Workers Control, by Maurice Brinton. A News from Nowhere. William Morris the artist was also a great detailed account of the early days of the Russian Revolution, libertarian socialist. He wrote his book, News From Nowhere in describing how the Bolsheviks effectively neutered, then the utopian tradition. A socialist from the 19th century goes to suppressed organs of working class power. Available from sleep and wakes up in a world after the revolution has http://www.redthread.f2s.com/Texts/Brinton/ successfully occurred. This book sets out a wonderful vision of TheIrrationalInPolitics.html. the future, with ideas and concepts of beauty and ecology that Hungary ’56, by Andy Anderson. One of Solidarity’s brilliant will still appeal to the modern reader. It is available in its analyses of important periods of struggle. The Hungarian entirety at the following address: Revolution marked a watershed in left wing politics. For the http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/stor/nowh.html first time a mass movement of workers sought to overthrow a Workers’ Councils, by Anton Pannekoek. Written during the ‘communist’ regime. From: http://www.redthread.f2s.com/ Second World War by one of the foremost theoreticians of the Texts/Anderson/Hungary56.html council communist movement. An easy read and a great The Kronstadt Commune, by Ida Mett. In 1921, the introduction to council communist politics, though somewhat revolutionary sailors of Kronstadt rose up against the Bolshevik mechanical by modern standards. state, and were, in Trotsky’s words “shot like partridges”. http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/wcontitl.htm http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/russia/mett.html Paris, May ’68. In the ’60s, the state and ruling class were Other websites confident that prosperity had effectively killed off the prospect The following websites are worth a look. They are not of revolution in the west. In May 1968, the students and exclusively anarchist, but all of them contain politics that is of workers of France shook that confidence to the core. our tradition. http://geocities.com/cordobakaf/ maya.html • For Communism. http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/. Portugal, the Impossible Revolution, by Phil Mailer. With the One of the most extensive sites around. fall of the fascist regime in the ’70s, the Portuguese working • Class Against Class. class set about reshaping society in their own interests. This http://geocities.com/cordobakaf/index.html book is huge, it runs to several hundred pages. • Collective Action Notes. http://geocities.com/cordobakaf/por.html http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379/ The Workers’ Opposition, by Alexandra Kollontai. Not all the • Antagonism. Bolsheviks were happy with the direction their party was http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3909/ taking. There were numerous attempts to turn the party into a • Subversion. http://www.geocities.com/knightrose.geo workers’ organisation. One of these was the Workers’ • Spunk Press. http://www.spunk.org. An absolutely Opposition. http://geocities.com/cordobakaf/koll.html enormous site that will lead you to just about anything you Suicide for Socialism. An analysis of religious cults. “We’re want to know about anarchism. gonna die for the revolution. We’re gonna die to expose this racist and fascist society. It’s good to die in this great Finally, a number of AF groups host their own sites, including: revolutionary suicide.” The words uttered by two young men in Manchester and Oldham: Jonestown (Guyana) a few minutes before they, together with www.geocities.com/anarchist_federation

24 LETTERS

position Rosa Luxemburg took on “party scaring the shit out of the politicians and and substitution” from before the financiers, uniting hundreds of thousands Letters Russian Revolution or like Eber, G. Lora in opposition to the monopoly of global or the late T. Cliff, seems such an easy capitalism, forcing the authorities to way out, in that the most widely spread react with draconian emergency Black Block ideas are those fostered by the ruling regulations, imprinting the word Dear Comrade, class. To challenge those ideas requires “anarchist” on the brains of a whole new In what I’ve read of the Black Block it theory and arguing against the system generation of 21st century people. was never forgotten what they got right has always required a much higher level And your question is: “What do we in the recognition of the primacy of the of argument than lobbying for think we are accomplishing?” Yes of working class and that the key struggles compliance/apathy. This makes the course we should be getting the message are ‘in the heart of the beast’ rather than revolutionary (option two) seem like across in our own communities, waiting for capitalist hegemony to be some kind of ‘outsider’, whether called workplaces and so on — you can’t only nibbled from the periphery. Whatever ‘trot’ or ‘anarchist’, even though s/he is turn up for big events and expect to criticism I have seen to the strategy working the same hours and getting the build anything. But they’re not mutually stemmed from the ability to lump with same crap pay as anyone else in that exclusive and a lot of your readers are the class enemy anyone who is not factory or production-line. undoubtedly already doing both. The already prepared to engage in the If you want to be factual, it is the importance of the summits may be subjective refusal approach and treat the reformist organisations such as CND, not symbolic but, like it or not, symbols class as if its conscious was homogenous the ‘trots’, who finger demonstrators to inspire people and move them to action. while it, in reality, consists of a variety of the cops, and reformists have always Big, unruly protests raise the political sections, different breadth of used censorship to keep a flabby temperature in a way that committee consciousness and engaged in different ‘consensus’ together in that those who meetings will never achieve. They create forms and levels of struggle otherwise it called for a principled anti-imperialist a feeling in the air, an electric crackle of would be simplicity itself not only to position were evicted with violence by revolt that may not be easily quantifiable organise workplace actions on bread and so-called ‘pacifists’ as was shown in one but is certainly highly potent – that’s butter issues but it should be less of the demonstrations against Gulf War why they cannot be tolerated by the difficult to show the class unity between One, and these arguments are and will state. I also disagree with the comments workers in struggle here and in other be fought and sharpened inside the anti- that a lack of formal structure “can open sectors of industry or other countries but capitalist movement. It must be us up to take-over and manipulation by it, as every activist well knows, is not remembered that ‘green’ energy is not authoritarian Leninist groups”. I would that easy. just ‘muck and windmills’ but the have said it was the other way round – Another mistake is to expect the same emerging ‘over-unity’ technology that it’s much easier for someone, whether level of militancy throughout the whole are so non-polluting and free that, once SWP member or state agent (or both?), to class than in the factory in which it is on stream, no capitalist would allow take over an organisation, locally or possible to make demands like “If they them to be developed as they can’t nationally, if there is a committee they offer $100, demand $1000”: You can meter, control or sell it and never again can get themselves elected onto and key either 1) wait for a militant section of the will a single life be squandered for ‘our’ positions they can aim to control. class to spontaneously come up with a oil and we should get those military Working on a looser organic basis, position and articulate that demand in satellites, laser systems and missiles out which seems to come naturally to most which all you can say is how to picket or, of our space! (check anarchists, means people go along with in suitable occasions, occupy; or 2) try to http://www.disclosureproject.org for something only if they think it’s a good advance a clear revolutionary perspective details!). Workers of all worlds unite! idea, not because some all-wise anarchist “authority” (as if there could be such a that involves taking the control of the John Johnson strike movement, not from the ‘class’, thing) has decreed it. Long may this but from the union bureaucrats that try continue. Anti-globalisation to cap the struggle and use it as leverage Dave Phillips to gain a more advantageous position in Dear Organise! worthing eco-action, which to cuddle up to the bosses. It’s always a good idea to step back from PO Box 4144 We need to strengthen the forms of the fray from time to time and consider Worthing, W Sussex organisation at their weakest point so whether the way you are going about that no worker will comply with things is the most effective possible. Dear Dave redundancy and plant-shutdown or the But parts of your analysis of the anti- I’d like to take up some of your points crossing of picket lines and workers, globalisation movement (in Organise!) about structures. In certain specific consciously and collectively, seek control read like an attempt by Mr Spock out of arenas, such as when organising actions, of what they produce. The problem is Star Trek to explain why emotion is such a (decentralised, non-hierarchical) that the ‘economism’ (option one), used illogical and feelings have no rational structure is useful in terms of not having by some anarchists like Bakunin, the basis. A massive new movement leaders of demos etc, but in terms of kind of ‘trot’ that hides behind the emerges on the streets across the world, organisation it’s not. I would definitely

25 FEATURE/LETTERS recommend you read (if you haven’t) etc to infiltrate. It often starts with 10 The Tyranny of Structurelessness in Trots turning up and proposing a vote Untying the Knot (available from AFed on some bogus ‘motion to send to Trade Manchester etc). Union branches’ or something – the SWP In practice, the sort of movements etc are already moving into position to Radical you’re advocating are dominated by take over. Attempts to oust them by this informal leaders who thrive on the lack stage HAVE to be structured formally Bookfair of a structure (which could shut them up (unless you are going to physically fight and bring more hesitant people, each one that tries to come). But it’s Sunday 5 May unconfident about their ideas, more to already too late because they can pack the fore). Such groups preclude the out the meetings at which these formal MERCI involvement of most working class structures will be agreed on (eg they 22a Beswick St people as they represent friendship formalise membership to exclude people Ancoats cliques which are created usually in and win votes, they control the agenda Manchester M4 7HS middle class circles and, crucially, even though its apparently created at OUTSIDE of the meeting/action basis of each meeting ‘from the floor’). For details: the group/movement. If you are organising to take on an [email protected] Outsiders are given the impression enemy, you need to plan a good battle or write to Merci at the that no one is ‘in charge’ but quickly strategy but you also need to build a realise that this is not the case and castle to hide in when they fight back – above address. eventually work out who is actually in and that’s an organisation! (Sorry, doing Manchester AF are supporting charge and why things work the way too much medieval history at the mo.) this event and will be leading a they work (the basis of the power, the Claire workshop on the day. informal rules). Also, lack of structure is AF member the BEST type of organisation for SWP

against the banning of the Étoile Nord Sail Mohamed Continued from back page Africaine edited by Messali Hadj and director of L’Éveil social (Social ‘Revolutionary Portraits: Paul against the repression of Awakening), le journal du peuple. Roussenq’ in the last issue of demonstrations in Tunisia, which had Following an antimilitarist article he Organise!). Sail was responsible for resulted in 16 dead. Again arrested for was prosecuted for “provocation of the bringing out the North African edition “provocation of the military” he was military to disobedience”. The Secours of Terre Libre. He attempted to set up condemned to 18 months in prison in Rouge International, a satellite an Anarchist Group of Indigenous December 1938. organisation of the Communist Party, Algerians, with various appeals in the At the start of the Second World lent him their support, which he anarchist press. At the same time he War, he was arrested again and put in rejected in the name of the victims of continued to be active with the Union the concentration camp at Riom. His Stalinism. Anarchiste. large library was broken up after a In 1934, the “Sail Mohamed Affair” raid. He escaped from there, forged burst onto the scene. The Spain false papers and went underground demonstration of the fascist and anti- After the Francoist uprising in Spain, during the Occupation. Semitic Ligues on 6 February 1934 set Sail joined the Sébastien Faure From 1944 he worked with others off a chain reaction throughout the Century, the French-speaking section for the reconstruction of the anarchist worker’s movement. Sail collected of the Durruti Column, the anarchist movement. With the Liberation he set arms and hid them. On 3 March he militia unit in September 1936, up the Aulnay-sous-bois group again, was arrested for “carrying prohibited becoming its commander. Wounded in and tried to reform the Committees of arms”. The workers’ movement gave the hand during November 1936, he Algerian Anarchists. In Le Libertaire, him their support, except for the returned to France, after having sent weekly paper of the Fédération Communist Party, which denounced out many letters describing the Anarchiste, he wrote a column on the him as an agent provocateur. situation of the Spanish anarchist situation in Algeria. He produced a Condemned to a month in prison, then movement. series of articles on the “Calvary of another for “retaining weapons of After his wound was healed, he the Indigenous Algerians”. war” he ended up serving four months took part in many rallies organised by He died in April 1953. Georges in jail. He resumed the struggle. the Union Anarchiste on Spain. Fontenis delivered an address in his L’Eveil sociale merged with Terre Immediately after this tour, he honour in the name of the anarchist Libre (monthly paper of the Alliance participated at a meeting organised by movement at his funeral on 30 April Libre des anarchistes du Midi – see revolutionaries in Paris to protest 1953.

26 ANARCHIST FEDERATION Aims and principles

1. Anarchist Federation is an organisation of revolutionary class to control its membership in order to make deals with , struggle anarchists. We aim for the abolition of all hierarchy, management. Their aim, through negotiation, is to achieve a and work for the creation of a world-wide classless society: fairer form of exploitation for the workforce. The interests of anarchist communism. leaders and representatives will always be different to ours. The boss class is our enemy, and while we must fight for better 2. Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class conditions from it, we have to realise that reforms we may by the ruling class. But inequality and exploitation are also achieve today may be taken away tomorrow. Our ultimate aim expressed in terms of race, gender, sexuality, health, ability and must be the complete abolition of wage slavery. Working within age, and in these ways one section of the working class the unions can never achieve this. However, we do not argue oppresses another. This divides us, causing a lack of class unity for people to leave unions until they are made irrelevant by the in struggle that benefits the ruling class. Oppressed groups are revolutionary event. The union is a common point of departure strengthened by autonomous action which challenges social for many workers. Rank and file initiatives may strengthen us and economic power relationships. To achieve our goal we in the battle for anarchist-communism. What’s important is must relinquish power over each other on a personal as well as that we organise ourselves collectively, arguing for workers to political level. control struggles themselves. 3. We believe that fighting racism and sexism is as important 8. Genuine liberation can only come about through the as other aspects of the class struggle. Anarchist-communism revolutionary self-activity of the working class on a mass scale. cannot be achieved while sexism and racism still exist. In order An anarchist communist society means not only co-operation to be effective in their struggle against their oppression both between equals, but active involvement in the shaping and within society and within the working class, women, lesbians creating of that society during and after the revolution. In and gays, and black people may at times need to organise times of upheaval and struggle, people will need to create their independently. However, this should be as working class people own revolutionary organisations controlled by everyone in as cross-class movements hide real class differences and them. These autonomous organisations will be outside the achieve little for them. Full emancipation cannot be achieved control of political parties, and within them we will learn many without the abolition of capitalism. important lessons of self-activity. 4. We are opposed to the ideology of national liberation 9. As anarchists we organise in all areas of life to try to movements which claims that there is some common interest advance the revolutionary process. We believe a strong between native bosses and the working class in face of foreign anarchist organisation is necessary to help us to this end. domination. We do support working class struggles against Unlike other so-called socialists or communists we do not want racism, genocide, ethnocide and political and economic power or control for our organisation. colonialism. We oppose the creation of any new ruling class. We We recognise that the revolution can only be carried out reject all forms of nationalism, as this only serves to redefine directly by the working class. However, the revolution must be divisions in the international working class. The working class preceded by organisations able to convince people of the has no country and national boundaries must be eliminated. We anarchist communist alternative and method. seek to build an anarchist international to work with other We participate in struggle as anarchist communists, and libertarian revolutionaries throughout the world. organise of a federative basis. We reject sectarianism and work 5. As well as exploiting and oppressing the majority of people, for a united revolutionary anarchist movement. Capitalism threatens the world through war and the destruction of the environment. WANT TO JOIN THE AF? 6. It is not possible to abolish Capitalism without a revolution, WANT TO FIND OUT MORE? which will arise out of class conflict. The ruling class must be completely overthrown to achieve anarchist communism. I agree with the AF’s Aims and Principles and I would Because the ruling class will not relinquish power without the like to join the organisation. use of armed force, this revolution will be a time of violence as I would like more information about the Anarchist well as liberation. Federation. 7. Unions by their very nature cannot become vehicles for the Please put me on the AF’s mailing list. revolutionary transformation of society. They have to be Name ...... accepted by capitalism in order to function and so cannot play a part on its overthrow. Trade unions divide the working class Address...... (between employed and unemployed, trade and craft, skilled Please tick/fill in as appropriate and return to: and unskilled, etc). Even syndicalist unions are constrained by AF, c/o 84b Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX. the fundamental nature of unionism. The union has to be able

27 REVOLUTIONARY PORTRAITS Revolutionary portraits We continue our series Revolutionary Portraits on the lives of those women and men who have done so much over the last 120 years to build the anarchist movement.

internment at the Gurs concentration camp. Conditions here were terrible. Carl In 1940 Germany invaded France. Unable to escape to America as he wished, he wrote to his friend the art Einstein critic Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler: ”If the Gestapo are on my trail I will drown Carl Einstein was born in 1885 at myself.“ He did this on 5 July 1940. Neuwid in the Rhineland, Germany on On his memorial plaque, which 26 April. He was a nephew of Albert Kahnweiler helped put up you can Einstein. read Carl Einstein’s words on the agricultural proletarians, slaves of After having been an apprentice in Durruti Column: “Where the Column caciques that they were, change into a bank, whilst taking art history advances, they collectivise. The land is free men. One passes from agrarian courses, he became a critic of art and given to the community, the feudalism to free communism.” literature. In 1917, he participated in the soldiers’ councils set up within the German army in Brussels. Returning to Berlin, he was hunted by the police for Sail Mohamed activity as a member of the Spartakists. Sail Mohamed, Ameriane ben French. Sail set up an anarchist group Loosely associated with the radical Amerzaine was born on 14 October in Aulnay-sous-bois and became one of art movement, he then edited a 1894 at Tarberit-Beni-Ouglis in the its most effective activists. In 1929, he political and artistic review with Georg Berber region of Kabylie, Algeria. became secretary of a new committee: Grosz, Der Blutige Ernst (In Bloody Like many Algerians, he received the Defence Committee of Algerians Earnest). He became closely associated little schooling. A driver-mechanic by against the Centenary Provocation with Franz Pfemfert and his review Die trade, all his life he thirsted for culture (France was preparing to celebrate the Aktion which dealt with both and took great pains to educate centenary of the conquest of Algeria revolutionary ideas in politics and art. himself. From a Moslem Berber on 5 July 1830). All the tendencies of After having realised one of his background, he became a convinced the anarchist movement, the UA, the dreams, to live in Paris, he founded atheist. During the First World War he anarcho-syndicalist union the with Georges Bataille and Leris, the was interned for insubordination and Confédération Générale du Travail review Documents, which appeared then desertion from the French Army. syndicaliste-révolutionnaire (CGT-SR) between 1929 and 1930. His sympathies for anarchism were and the Association de Fédéralistes He wrote articles on painters like already developing. anarchistes denounced “Murderous Picasso, Braque, Leger and in-depth At the end of the War, with the colonialism, bloody masquerade”. They studies of African art. When the rebuilding of the anarchist movement, put forward the statement Spanish Revolution broke out, Carl he joined the organisation Union “Civilisation? Progress? We say, joined the German-language group of Anarchiste (UA). In 1923, with his Murder!” Following this, Sail joined the Durruti Column, the Erich Muhsam friend Sliman Kiouane, a singer, he the CGT-SR, in which he created the Century. Muhsam, a well-known founded the Committee for the Section of Indigenous Algerians. The anarchist, had been horribly murdered Defence of Indigenous Algerians. In following year, with the Colonial in the Nazi concentration camps, and his first articles he denounced the Exhibition at Paris, the anarchist this may well have influenced poverty of the colonised people and movement restarted its campaign Einstein’s later actions. He was colonial exploitation.He became an against colonialism. Sail was in the wounded in combat. He delivered a expert on the North African situation. forefront of this struggle. funeral address at Durruti’s funeral, He organised meetings with the which was also broadcast over the anarchist groups of the 17th Social awakening radio. arrondissement of Paris on the In January 1932, he became the The collapse of the Republic meant exploitation of North Africans, which his fleeing to France and his were delivered in both Arab and Continued on page 26

28