Anarchist Federation local groups and contacts Organise! England (and all general enquires) Organise! editors The magazine of the BM ANARFED, London, WC1N 3XX, Organise!, BM ANARFED, London, Anarchist Federation England, UK WC1N 3XX [email protected] [email protected] Issue 80 - Summer 2013 http://www.afed.org.uk Resistance editors Organise! is the magazine of the Anarchist Bristol AF Resistance, BM ANARFED, London, Federation (AF). It is published in order to [email protected] WC1N 3XX develop anarchist communist ideas. It aims http://bristolaf.wordpress.com/ [email protected] to provide a clear anarchist viewpoint on contemporary issues and to initiate debate Lancashire Sheffield AF on ideas not normally covered in agitational papers. [email protected] [email protected] We aim to produce Organise! twice a year. http://yorks-afed.org To meet this target, we positively solicit con- Leicester AF http://thefargatespeaker.wordpress. tributions from our readers. We aim to print [email protected] com/ any article that furthers the objectives of http://leicesteraf.afed.org.uk anarchist communism. If you’d like to write Surrey and Hants AF something for us, but are unsure whether Leeds AF [email protected] to do so, why not get in touch first? Even [email protected] articles that are 100% in agreement with our http://yorks-afed.org aims and principles can leave much open to debate. Scotland/Alba As always, the articles in this issue do not Lincoln AF [email protected] necessarily represent the collective view- [email protected] http://scotlandaf.wordpress.com/ point of the AF. We hope that their publica- tion will produce responses from our readers Liverpool AF (including Merseyside) Aberdeen and spur debate on. c/o News From Nowhere Bookshop 96 [email protected] For the next issue of Organise! Please send Bold Street all contributions to the address on the right. Liverpool L1. Dundee It would help if all articles could be either [email protected] [email protected] typed or on disc. Alternatively, articles can be emailed to the editors directly at [email protected] London AF Edinburgh & the Lothians • BM ANARFED, London, WC1N 3XX, [email protected] England, UK http://edinburghanarchists.noflag.org. What goes in Organise! [email protected] uk http://aflondon.wordpress.com Organise! hopes to open up debate in many areas of life. As we have stated before, un- Glasgow less signed by the Anarchist Federation as a Manchester AF [email protected] whole or by a local AF group, articles in Or- [email protected] http://glasgow.afed.org.uk ganise! reflect the views of the person who http://www.af-north.org/ has written the article and nobody else. Inverness If the contents of one of the articles in this Newcastle AF (including Tyneside) [email protected] issue provokes thought, makes you angry, Anarchist Federation, PO Box ITA, New- compels a response then let us know. castle Upon Tyne, NE99 1TA Stirling Revolutionary ideas develop from debate, [email protected] [email protected] they do not merely drop out of the air! Nottingham AF (including Notts) Box AF c/o The Sumac Centre Wales/Cymru 245 Gladstone Street Nottingham [email protected] NG7 6HX [email protected] http://www.afed.org.uk/nottingham/ http://nottsblackarrow.wordpress.com

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Letters 46 4 Organise! It might seem a bit peculiar to have these hopes now, swept away by the wars, no borders, and no inequal- as one of our main themes the idea greyness of austerity, cuts and the ity, where the fruits of the world are of Utopia, at a time when the situa- growing power of the police state. shared in common and prejudice is a tion both in Britain and around the thing of the past. That is what should world seems in many ways to be at But that is exactly why we have dedi- continue to make us fight on, even its grimmest for many decades. We cated some of this issue to the idea of in grim times. The vision of such a have seen deteriorating economic Utopia. Even in the grimmest times society, a Utopia if you will, should conditions as the ruling class and its we need a vision of What Could Be be seen as a lighthouse sending out governments impose massive auster- to sustain us. This was the outlook of its beams in the darkness. They must ity measures in many countries, we the revolutionary workers movement enthuse us to strive for something have seen increasing moves to States when it emerged in the nineteenth better, and they must be the inspir- increasing their repressive powers in response to people daring to fight back against these attacks. We have seen the rise of far-right and anti-immigrant and anti-minority parties throughout Europe. We have seen increasing racism and Editorial homophobia, with homosexuality What’s in the latest Organise! now criminalised in Russia by the Putin regime, coupled with vicious century. Anarchists and socialists ing vision of more and more of us as attacks on gay people there by fascist regularly referred to a future society, we look for a way out of the social groups. where life had been radically trans- catastrophe that life on this planet formed. We had works like William now seems. We feel that anarchism We have seen the National Health Morris’s News from Nowhere, Oscar can renew itself and once again act Service under increasing attack in Wilde’s The Soul of Man Under as a challenge to the system. As the this country, along with plans to pri- Socialism, and How We Shall Bring song Les Anarchistes by the singer vatise Royal Mail. Along with this are About the Revolution by Pouget Leo Ferré goes, anarchists “Struck so further attacks on the unemployed, and Pataud, as well as The Conquest hard, that they can strike again”. the imposition of the Bedroom Tax of Bread and Fields, Factories and (Poll Tax Mark Two), and mas- Workshops by Kropotkin and Anar- In this issue we talk about the possi- sively rising food and energy prices. chy by Malatesta. bilities of what education could look The increased State surveillance of like in a genuine free society basing our mails and phone calls has been Now all the socialists can offer us is them on social experiments in educa- revealed and the United States is either praise of the market, as with tion in the past and present. We look seen as Spy-Master in Chief, with the social-democrat and Labourite at the field of science fiction, a liter- the British government as a willing parties throughout the world, where ary form often conducive to showing accomplice. it would be difficult to tell the dif- us a different point of view and of ference between their policies and different possibilities. We look at the The Arab Spring itself, which en- outlook and those of the Conserva- work of Henri Edmond Cross, one of thused many, is now turning to an tive, Republican and Christian-Dem- the French post-impressionist paint- Autumn of Repression; the green ocrat outfits; and the small Leninist ers enthused by the anarchist idea, shoots of revolt appear to be turning groups, with their vision of a repeat who sought to represent this new into the brown leaves of repression, of the fiasco in the Soviet Union, society on canvas. We reprint Wayne with the military regime installed where one repressive and autocratic Price’s article on the idea of Utopia in Egypt. Those old revolutionary regime was replaced with another, itself, where he argues strongly for a hopes that re-emerged in the late and which are revealed in their re-affirmation of a Utopian outlook. nineteen sixties and endured for internal practices today- witness the many decades now seem like fool- appalling Gerry Healey, as well as the Also in this issue we look at the ideas ish fantasies. Yes, that period was a SWP. Only the social, class strug- and lives of people who fought hard time of great hope, and Utopia was gle anarchists still offer the hope of to bring about the birth of this new invoked many times, but where are a better world, where there are no society. Carlo Tresca was imprisoned Organise! 5

and persecuted for his beliefs before Did people believe that Louis XVI mass movement on the streets and ending up being slain by a gunman. would be overthrown, that that sym- in the workplaces to make this come Errico Malatesta also suffered many bol of ruling class power, the Bastille, about. We have seen examples of years of persecution, imprisonment would be razed to the ground, even mass movements that were capable and exile, ending up dying under a few days before the revolutionary of overthrowing regimes emerge house arrest in Mussolini’s Italy. events of 1789? And yet it happened. around the world. Everywhere the Neither of them saw this new soci- Did anyone envisage the end of ruling class has been terrified by ety, but we hope in the long term Charles I before the 1640s? And yet these developments. It has employed that what they dedicated their lives it happened. The fall of the Tsar, the increasingly heavy police measures, to, what inspired them in extremely fall of the regimes in Eastern Europe, not least in Britain, to stop this difficult situations, can be realised. the fall of Morsi? Great revolution- coming about. Everywhere we have Indeed it must be realised if we do ary movements have emerged and seen the police as brutal and willing not want to see a world of barbarism, fallen back in the course of the last servants of the boss class. The union of the repressive strong state, of war two centuries, but they all offer us a bureaucrats and Labour will attempt after war, of famine, poverty, and vision of a new society through their to sabotage any such developments, ecological devastation. original methods of organisation and but as we have seen, we need just the their example that power can be chal- conscious will and determination of We have included examinations of lenged. They fell victim to bloody first fairly small numbers, then many, the state of the social movements in repression and betrayal, but they still to give birth to a movement that can Egypt and Syria. Despite the repres- endure as to What Can Be. stop the Coalition in its tracks. sion of the Assad regime in Syria and the newly installed rule of the Army Recently the government was de- Finally in this issue, we have repub- in Egypt , despite the Islamist threat, feated over its war plans for Syria, lished Malatesta’s article on the need despite the strong arm of the police with general distaste among the for anarchists to organise effectively. and the Army, despite the carnage population for such an adventure The Anarchist Federation has con- and barbarity, we can see that these contributing to this defeat. This was sistently argued for effective organi- movements still offer hopes for the reflected among the general popu- sation since 1986. We will continue future, hopes for the masses in the lation in the USA and France, and to do so. Anarchists here and abroad Middle East and beyond. Remember, the Allies, at least temporarily, have must break with their rejection of the wave of the Arab Spring was un- backed off. What was revealed was organisation and develop effective precedented, and Egypt was seen as the general weakness of the govern- and efficient means of spreading our an extremely docile and passive place ment. This was already there, with ideas and examples of libertarian by its neighbours. It took the deter- the Conservatives, with a minority of practice. We must involve ourselves mined and inspired action of a few, votes, maintained in power by their in day to day struggles in order to then many, to change this and we saw Liberal Democrat allies. Now we help with the self-confidence of masses of people on the street there see signs of the Liberal Democrats the working class as a whole and to and in neighbouring Tunisia. New attempting to distance themselves popularise anarchist ideas and prac- social movements attempting to fight from the Conservatives, in readiness tice. as Malatesta has illustrated, the attacks on civil rights, on attacks to broker a deal with Labour at the this has to be done through the on pay and conditions, and a whole next election. But if the Coalition can building of a specific anarchist organ- range of other issues, were to spring be defeated over war plans, surely it isation, with effective propaganda, up in Turkey, Greece, Brazil and can be defeated over the Post Office, and the growth of mass movements. Argentina. This is not the end of the over the National Health Service. struggle, it is just the beginning. It only needs the emergence of a 6 Organise!

Utopian? Guilty Your Honour “A map of the world that does not is not just the State and the bosses one. This need not be the onerous include Utopia, is not even worth who ruin our lives. We compete with task which counter-Revolutionaries glancing at, for it leaves out the each other, exploit each other, abuse would have us believe. In the world one country at which Humanity is each other and constrain each other are more than enough buildings and always landing... Progress is the because Capitalist society persuades food to provide for everyone, enough realisation of utopias.” us that we cannot escape ‘the law of to survive a revolutionary war. What - Oscar Wilde the jungle’. In fact, this is a lie. There matters, of course, is to distribute are no ‘laws’ of human behaviour these using the newly seized com- Revolutionaries are often reproached except those which capitalist society munications such as radio stations, for being utopian, of being dreamers. imposes on us. Humans have so far roads and railways. Yes, we are dreamers, because like created their social institutions and children, we don’t like nightmares. ways of behaving according to the The global and local communities Yes, we are utopian. This utopia is interests of those in charge who fool can then decide what organisational not a heavenly paradise come to us into believing that war, poverty, structures they wish to establish. It Earth. Neither is it a return to a the nuclear family and religion are is not useful to try to determine now mythical Golden Age. This other ‘normal’. After the Revolution we exactly what these will be because ‘place’ is a symbolic territory, based will find that social relations can be this will be the task of society, not on our revolutionary refusal to put re-defined in creative and liberating the revolutionary organisation. up with a world founded on the ways. We will have a social revolu- However, as Revolutionaries we violence of class and ethnic or sexual tion. By choosing this Revolution we must argue for egalitarian structures domination, of the exploitation of will have chosen to live in a way in accountable and accessible to all. It labour and the body, of alienation. which we can all benefit greatly and seems most likely that these struc- This utopia is a reply to the crisis equally - that is, to live as unique and tures will emerge from the workers of humanist thought. It is the place equal individuals who collectively and community councils which the thanks to which it will be possible to comprise both an immediate and a working class created during the organise the resistance and Revolu- global community. Revolution. We also foresee that a tionise the Revolution. federal structure will emerge glob- ally to co-ordinate such things as First Things First the production and distribution of The Anarchist resources, the making of decisions Once Capitalism has been destroyed, which concern a number of commu- Communist World we can set about the exciting task nities etc. This is the organisational of fulfilling our individual potential Capitalist society, indeed, any society basis for an Anarchist Communist and shaping this new community. which is not Anarchist Commu- society. Collective decision making Of course, in a world which has been nist, fundamentally and negatively leaves no room for governing au- disrupted by the process of revolu- influences the kind of people we are, thorities, and voluntary co-operation tionary war, we first need to ensure what we are capable of achieving, will mean that laws and policing can that we can feed and shelter every- and how we relate to each other. It be done away with. Under these new Organise! 7 structures, all forms of exchange and which we have been deprived under side more efficient and sustainable money will be abolished and all land Capitalism, whilst others will relish systems for generating distributing and property will be taken into the the chance to share their lives with and using energy. We do not propose control of the community. Most of others and live communally. We rigid solutions but we do say that the it will be used collectively to pro- will also have more flexibility about technology for efficient and fair ways vide for the needs of its members. changing where we live, because the of sharing energy already exist. Mas- Some may be held by individuals for question of whether we can ‘afford’ sive consumption by some groups their personal use - there will be a it will not be relevant. Transport will and energy poverty for millions will distinction between ‘private prop- also be geared towards social need cease. It is likely that renewable, low- erty’, which exists only prior to the for industry, agriculture and leisure, cost and sustainable methods such Revolution, and the personal pos- and not the private ownership of as solar energy, photo-electric cells, session and use of resources by the status vehicles as it is now, and we passive heating through modern individual for their personal fulfil- will thus see a reduction in motor architectural methods, windpower, ment - though not at the expense of vehicles and the social and ecologi- biomass and combined heat and communal need. No community or cal problems they create. However, power systems will become com- individual will be privileged over monplace. But the burning of another in terms of resources. fossil fuels may continue for a while or where no alternatives exist. All nuclear power pro- The New Economic grammes will be halted and pol- Society luting industries will be progres- sively abolished or minimised. On this new organisational basis, Most work under Capitalism is we will then re-build our com- mindless and pointless, unless munities. Again, it is not for us to you are a boss. All activity after determine now exactly what our the Revolution will take place world will look like. However, not for profit or the maintenance agriculture will of course play of the status quo, as it does now, a major part, as will necessary but for the fulfilment of the industry, and both will be under- individual, although never to taken by communities which will the detriment of society. There be part of networks distributing will be no place for useless their produce. Where we live and work such as the production of work will, however, be consider- consumer goods for profit, the ably altered. There will be less maintenance of social control, of a division between town and because these ‘normal’ aspects country. Those living in isolated of society will be irrelevant after places or in villages can now have the Revolution. Each person will both a pleasant environment and the physical appearance of our world therefore have more time on their the resources to enjoy it. Some of us will only be a symptom of other, hands, but this is fundamentally will still desire to live in larger social more fundamental changes in hu- different to ‘unemployment’ because centres, but in the heart of towns man relations. The way we spend our no one will be ‘employed’. This is there will be no offices and shops but lives in relation to each other is even because society is easily capable of perhaps communal meeting places, more significant. producing enough for its needs but open green spaces for leisure and not its greed, the concept of having congregation, gardens and orchards, The Revolution will fundamentally to work for a wage - or else starve or whatever we choose and need. transform the nature of work. We and become homeless - will become Likewise, our homes need not look will re-organise industry so that we redundant. The nature of work will like the drab boxes we are forced only produce what is socially-useful. in itself be more enjoyable, because, to live in now, but can be as excit- We will introduce the ecological unlike under Capitalism it will have a ing as resources, not profit, allow. management of production and point to it and because we will work Indeed, some of us will desire to consumption. The renewal of the in ways which maximise fulfilment, live in our own space for the privacy built environment will occur along- not profit. Less pleasant but none the 8 Organise! less necessary tasks will be shared Communism, women will not have the requirements of profit for cheap out entirely equally and the rest of the maintenance of the home and labour in ‘under-developed’ coun- our time can be spent in enjoyable childrearing as their major social tries and, more importantly, the State and creative pursuits. function, because such tasks will be lie that certain ‘peoples’ are by nature Of course, fields will have to be the responsibility of the whole com- inherently inferior to others, then ploughed, drains cleaned and domes- munity. It may be that ‘parents’ in the significance of racial distinctions tic work performed, but no one will some communities do rear their own will be re-defined. Our relation- be ‘a farm labourer’, a ‘sewage worker’ children within a family unit which ships within our communities and or ‘a housewife’, because these task may live within a separate house to with other communities the world will be shared out equally and be others. Children will have a choice in over will be based on the sharing of performed in collectively run farms, how they want to live as well. It may ideas and ‘commodities’ as needed workplaces, launderettes and crè be the case that children have no and desired, and will not constitute ches etc., and occupy the minimum more connection with their biologi- either exploitation or charity. Racism of time for each person (unless they cal parents that with anyone else and itself will be eradicated both through like doing them!). In addition, these that the entire community chooses the process by which the class unites tasks will no longer be performed to live communally. There is no need globally to free itself from Capital- for a boss, a council bureaucracy or a husband, because we will not be answerable to any more power- ful individual but to our anarchist communist society, i.e. each other. It is a fundamental belief of anarchist communists that the working class already have all the skills needed to run society. Not everyone has all of these, of course, and equality does not mean that we all take it in turns to perform heart surgery. Neither will we all have the skills to nurse the sick back to health. Thus, some spe- cialisation will be necessary. What will change, however, is that there for it to be the ‘norm’ to live within ism, and through deliberate efforts to will not be more prestige or status a family unit. Indeed, the choice of expose and undermine any remnants attached to one social function in whether to have children, how to of institutionalised or personal comparison to another. rear them, and how the individual bigotry which remains within our wishes to live once it begins to make class after the Revolution. Whilst its own choices, will be a matter for not denying the multifaceted origins The Free Individual in those concerned and not for social of human-kind, in the new society Voluntary Society controllers. Similarly, the nature concepts such as ‘race’ will not be as of sexual relationships, whether relevant as those of ‘regional culture’. Specific examples of changed so- heterosexual or homosexual, will We of course reject the reactionary cial relations will serve to show be determined equally by partners regionalism supported by sections what we mean by Social Revolu- and need only be as monogamous of the New Right. Only the develop- tion. We spell out exactly what we or ‘conventional’ as the individual ment of regional culture that rejects mean because some previous and wishes. Just as not everyone accepts chauvinism and racism, and one that contemporary ‘revolutionary’ or narrow-minded definitions of what exists within a libertarian federalist ‘utopian’ theories, even those with is sexually acceptable prior to the framework that celebrates both inter- a class analysis, envisage an ‘ideal’ Revolution, so we can be even more nationalism and local diversity, can society which is still dependent on liberated and respectful of each other be at all supported. When resources the physical and sexual exploitation after the Revolution. have been more equally shared out of women, as though this is ‘natural’ Likewise, all other forms of social and the Earth’s ecology recovered and as though women will ‘naturally’ relation will change. Remove na- from Capitalism, the only relevant co-operate with it. Under Anarchist tional boundaries, colonial politics, differences between communities Organise! 9 the world over will be positive and ity of ‘crime’ relates to material need monoculture (single crop growth) creatively chosen ones of cultural or greed, neither of which should with the accompanying poisoning diversity. At present it is leading occur under Anarchist Communism. caused by chemical fertilisers and capitalists who are most easily able to For example, no money means that pesticides, the abolition of factory communicate across world-wide cul- there will be no need for burglary, farming which is harmful to both ani- tural boundaries, but the world will mugging, fraud or extortion. Drugs mals and people (e.g. foot and mouth seem ‘smaller’ after the Revolution will not be ‘illegal’ because there will disease, salmonella, B.S.E.), and the and contact and exchange with com- be no law, but a major change in the cessation of industrial fishing which munities globally will be a common extent to which we respect ourselves is decimating fish populations and feature of our lives. and each other will necessarily mean harming the environment. In place that anti-social drug use will be of such dangerous techniques there Other currently unequal relation- virtually unknown. Other ‘crime’, will have to be a system of sustain- ships will change. No individual will involving the abuse or exploitation of able agriculture, smaller scale, largely be considered less socially valuable one human being by another, will be or wholly organic, with, for example, because of age, ability or health. The minimised in a society which teaches crop rotation to restore and maintain identity of the aged, the very young, that we are all equal. Some such the soil. These changes would, for the mentally and physically disa- anti-social behaviour may remain, practical reasons, stimulate a move to bled or the infirm will not be one of however. For example, some people a far less meat-dominated diet. The ‘dependent’ on society but of ‘con- may still be psychologically unfitted global trend is currently in the op- tributor’ to it. Although this ideal is a to behaving with respect and care posite direction, as the ‘under-devel- common ‘sentiment’ in this capitalist for others. How such people will be oped world’ seeks (with the help of society, it can never be achieved until restrained from anti-social behav- the advertising industry) to emulate economic relations are taken out iour must be a matter decided by the the diseased, fat and additive-sodden of social relations. Under Anarchist community affected by them. West. Not only is this diet fundamen- Communism, ‘contribution’ and tally detrimental to human health, ‘social value’ will not be measured in The transformation of social relations it is unsustainable (and possibly un- economic terms. As with other areas between people - the Revolution - achievable) due to the vast amounts of social relations we do not envisage must be accompanied by a change of resources (energy, land etc.) that that, on ‘day one’ after Capitalism in how humans relates to other life; are consumed by animals, as com- has been over-thrown, we will all other animals, plants, and the ecosys- pared to arable (plant) production be free of unfounded and reaction- tem. This is because all life is inter- - larger areas of land are required to ary assumptions about each other. dependent e.g. plants produce the grow plants which feed animals to What we see is that a conscious and air we breath and our food (directly feed people. It seems obvious that voluntary policy of re-education will or via plant-eating animals) whilst the vast majority of animal experi- take place to undermine the com- in turn, plants are nourished by our ments will end with the abolition of monplace ‘truths’ created by Capi- excrement and dead bodies. All life the profit motive (e.g. those con- talism (indeed, this work must, and (excepting humans at present) exists nected with cosmetics, arms produc- does, take place before the Revolu- in a certain dynamic equilibrium tion etc). A new ethics arising from tion and forms an essential part of with other life, since plant and ani- the future society’s desire to achieve revolutionary propaganda). Only by mal populations interact and adjust a sustainable relationship in and with consciously understanding and act- to changes between themselves the rest of nature will also surely ing on the arguments for Anarchist and their environment in order to lead to a desire to minimise/abolish Communism can the individual be maintain a stable, though changing, the exploitation of animals wher- fulfilled, as well as free and equal, system. Post-revolutionary society ever possible, and it will rest with within the new society - creating the will therefore need to establish a way post-revolutionary society to decide life which they wish for themselves of life in a similar equilibrium with whether any animal experimentation in relation to the equally important the rest of nature, rather than the should be allowed to continue. needs of other people. present relationship of domination and destruction which has resulted From Beyond Resistance: A Revolu- Of course, even under Anarchist from industrial capitalism and class tionary Manifesto for the Millenium Communism, we cannot all live society. Practically, this would mean (see AF pamphlets on page 47 for harmoniously with each other all an end to the industrial methods details). the time. However, the vast major- of Agribusiness, such as large scale 10 Organise!

Beyond Perfection: What we can learn from science fiction anarchist utopias One of the major criticisms levelled earth-bound revolution, and they all they pretty much fail. Take News at anarchism as a political philosophy have utopian characteristics. from Nowhere, the most anarchist of is that it is utopian. Many would ar- these early utopias: it’s a guided tour gue that this is a misunderstanding of Then again, those critics may have a of a pre-industrial pastoral idyll, with anarchism, that the basis for an anar- point when it comes to some of the no nations or borders, no heavy in- chist society does not rely on naivety, 19th Century utopias (e.g. William dustry or money, all produce shared impracticality or a simplistic and Morris’ News from Nowhere, H.G. freely, all objects beautiful and overly positive view of humanity. I Wells’ A Modern Utopia, Edward practical works of artisanship, where want to argue that this is a misunder- Bellamy’s Looking Backward), but the words “work” and “play” mean standing of utopianism. Of course as a science fiction reader I have a much the same thing. Fair enough, anarchism is utopian. Anybody who greater criticism to level against these as holiday brochures go. I’m sold on thinks their own ideology is not uto- than their naivety or even their comi- the week’s stay, but if I’m looking to pian either hasn’t thought it through cally dire gender politics: they’re take up residence in a utopia I gener- properly or, for some reason, wants really dull stories. Which isn’t to ally want to dig a bit deeper and cast to live in a society that’s doomed say they aren’t interesting utopias. a more cynical eye. I might ask ques- to inequality, misery and eventual As portraits of the utopian ideals of tions like: “What happens if the har- self-destruction. And anybody who anarchists and socialists of the time, vest fails?”, “What if a natural disaster thinks utopianism is simplistic, im- they’re a fascinating insight, and requires the speedy need for mass- practical or naive clearly hasn’t read there’s plenty that’s still relevant in produced tools and shelters?” and enough utopian fiction. There are a their lengthy and technical explana- “If child-rearing and home-making plethora of distant worlds that can tions of the organisation of labour are such highly respected, reward- boast anarchist societies as complex, and property. But in terms of plot, ing professions, haven’t any of these as pragmatic, as inspired and inspir- character and a sense of place with sexually free and socially emancipat- ing, as troubled and as troubling more depth and veracity than the ed women ever wondered why there as any historical or contemporary stage set for a school pantomime, aren’t any men doing them?” There’s Organise! 11 something about those unflappably that with a guided tour of a perfect of other societies. This last is the job amiable, instant responses the tour society, but it’s more interesting of an organisation known as Contact, guide has to all the protagonist’s and more persuasive to show how a popular career choice with those questions that suggests a script, or at that society deals with imperfection who remain strangely unsatisfied by least a party line, recited by rote and and conflict, both from within and the literally limitless opportunities possibly under threat. You want the without. The Culture has to offer, and take to protagonist to, just once, say some- the stars to see and ultimately save thing like: “I don’t buy it, beardy. It’s Iain M. Banks sets his Culture novels less fortunate worlds. These are too perfect, and the ‘work is play’ in a context that gives his advanced the most interesting characters, as crap sounds distinctly Orwellian to anarchist society something to kick their stories tell us most about The me. Put down the exquisitely carved against, namely a universe full of Culture itself, and about our own pipe and tell me where they’re hiding distinctly less utopian societies. The ambivalence towards utopianism. the gulags.” Culture is post-scarcity, high-tech, We fear and mistrust perfection even wish-fulfilment utopianism at its as we strive for it, because it will ulti- This might be a little unfair. News most decadent. Resources are near mately leave us with nothing to strive from Nowhere was written to explain infinite, labour is unnecessary, and for, no jeopardy to brave, no cause how an anarchist society can be pro- infallible sentient computers (the to defend, no meaning to our exist- ductive and stable in the conditions Minds) with a wry sense of humour ence. The Culture, like Nowhere, is of the time and place it was written, and impeccable ethical judgement a static society, but unlike Morris’ not to explore its responses when ensure the smooth running of all en- utopia it isn’t merely holding itself faced with environmental crisis or vironments. The enhanced human- in place with a distaste for further massive social change. But you’ve oid residents of The Culture’s many development, it has reached the peak got to admit, answering those ques- worlds have nothing to fill their of its possibilities – of all possibili- tions would make it a much more near-immortal existences except ties – and has nowhere to go. This is interesting novel. The utopias that for games, sex, drugs, the pursuit of the problem that leads to the restless- really capture our imaginations are intellectual and creative fulfilment, ness of those who join Contact, and those that are less concerned with and interference in the development who then struggle with the ethical the solutions an anarchist society can offer than the problems it might face.

If you’re wondering whether a story exploring problems within an anar- chist society is really a utopia, let’s do definitions. The word “Utopia”, coined by Thomas More, comes from a pun on the Greek for “no place” and “good place”. So really, the essential qualities of a utopia are just that there’s something desir- able about the society, and that it doesn’t exist. Anybody who thinks that establishing a better society will instantly bring blissful contentment to all is destined to spend the revolu- tion forcibly re-educating dissenters (and until then, they’ll probably be selling you The Socialist Worker). A utopia doesn’t have to be a flawless place, where day to day problems are entirely eliminated. It’s about demonstrating an alternative and preferable way of living. You can do 12 Organise! dilemma of what they do, of whether ignored power relation at work that There are easy parallels to draw with the worlds they visit even want to be compromises its integrity, or even our own world’s revolutions and the saved, of whether they are, in fact, that you can have too much of a good founding of Anarres, which reflects saving them or dooming them to thing. It’s a more subtle and complex the society many Russian revolution- their own state of existential stasis. It message about inertia and entropy, aries envisaged, and might have built would all be quite angsty if it weren’t of the nature of power and privilege, if they weren’t trapped in the context for the humour of the Minds, who and the need for change and devel- of a capitalist economy. Even the inhabit armed spaceships that can be opment, personal and societal, even language and names sound a little as large as planets and give them- in the face of seeming perfection. bit Russian. It’s a great utopia for selves names like Prosthetic Con- showing how anarchism can build a science, Of Course I Still Love You, At the other end of the scale is society as stable as any other system, You’ll Thank Me Later, Jaundiced Anarres, a scarcity society set on but also how isolation and ideologi- Outlook, Frank Exchange Of Views, a near-desert moon in Ursula Le cal orthodoxy breed stagnation, and Honest Mistake, Zero Gravitas and Guin’s universe of the Ekumen. It the importance of revolution as a God Told Me To Do It. is most fully explored in The Dis- social value, not a one-off event or a possessed, which is subtitled “An means to an end. Don’t be fooled by the presence of Ambiguous Utopia”. Anarres is warships and conflict into thinking neither the simple idyll of Morris’ For all these reasons, The Dispos- this is a trick utopia. There are no Nowhere nor the paradise of Banks’ sessed tends to be the go-to utopian false walls here, and the Minds are Culture. An isolated community, novel for anarchists trying to explain not secretly megalomaniacal control- self-exiled from its capitalist neigh- to the cynical how a society without lers who keep humanity enslaved in bour Urras, the Anarresti have built money or authority could actually luxury for their own ends. They are, their utopia in far from ideal condi- work. We see a society in which themselves, complex and sympathet- tions. This anarchist society suf- children are taught from the earliest ic (if somewhat ineffable) characters, fers famines, labour shortages and age that they can’t keep possessions as caught up in the ethical dilem- social upheavals, and has plenty of to themselves (though there’s little mas of utopian life as their human technological development still to for them to keep) but are free to do companions. While some of them strive for. Because we see Shevek as they choose (and there’s much for can be manipulative, they seem to be both growing up on Anarres and them to do.) They learn together genuinely trying not to be, though explaining his homeworld to those through play and discussion, and they’re so much more intelligent and he meets on Urras, there are some education continues into adulthood aware of action and consequence good, clear demonstrations of how through self-directed research. Work than their organic friends they can labour, property, security, family and is not compulsory and resources are hardly help it. The point of this anar- institutional decision-making work not rationed, but contribution to the chist utopia is not that there’s some in a world without money or leaders. community and distaste for excessive Organise! 13 consumption are strong social values. social status of various kinds, and imagining. It is a strange, sad, beauti- Personal freedom and social duty the reliance on the spiritual and the ful story that consistently challenges exist in a balance that is, for the most rejection of technology (aside from gut responses and judgements on the part, healthy, rational and fulfilling, some sort of internet that they don’t nature of power and community. I but this can change with a bad har- use much) sends it into a static state. highly recommend giving it a read, vest. The story follows Shevek’s ca- In this way it would resemble News not as a model for an anarchist soci- reer as a physicist whose momentous from Nowhere if it weren’t for its ety but as a challenge to some of our discovery could affect all the known much more sophisticated investiga- ideas on interpersonal relationships worlds of the Ekumen. His desire to tion of cultural differences and in- and social duty. follow anarchist principles, to avoid teractions, and its acknowledgement propertarianism and unbuild walls, of various forms of conflict, both So which of these societies, if any, leads him to Urras, which looks a lot personal and societal. comes closest to what we as anarcho- like contemporary western democ- communists aim for? For me, any racy (except for those countries that More unusual, and less frequently society claiming utopian status has look a lot like contemporary state explored, is the world of Eleven-Soro to be convincingly resilient; show communism). On Anarres, Shevek in the short story Solitude, a world that it’s not going to crumble at the battles environmental and social in which a post-cataclysm society first sign of change or challenge; upheavals, informal power structures has developed social arrangements that its systems are robust enough and the appropriation and censor- that go to extreme lengths to guard to undergo cultural, ecological and ship of ideas, and yet the anarchist against the mistakes of the past. Any technological developments without society still manages to come out exercise of power by one person compromising its ideological foun- favourably in comparison with Ur- over another is taboo, referred to as dation. Static societies are neither ras, in which the power structures “magic”. This includes any attempt to believable nor desirable. Who wants are even less clear to Shevek, and a manipulate another’s behaviour, to to live in a world where nothing ever great deal more dangerous. Protest make them feel guilty or duty-bound changes? and defiance of convention meets to follow a course of action for with violence on both worlds, but another’s sake. The men live alone This is the mistake many make about ultimately both have the possibility and the women in circles of houses utopianism and about revolution. of revolution, of growth and change, known as “auntrings”, where they They think it means embodying an and hope for the future. educate each other’s children but do ideal within society and then try- not enter one another’s homes and ing to hold back the tide of human Nobody does alternative societies rarely speak to other adult women fallibility and outside influence to better than Le Guin, and she has without good cause, in what seems to preserve that moment of perfection. created a few besides Anarres that be the ultimate expression of anar- No wonder so many people think it’s could be viewed as ambiguously chist individualism. Nobody asks for a completely unrealistic perspective. anarchist, and more ambiguously or offers help with any task, though That kind of utopianism is not what utopian. They tend to get less atten- women are watchful of one another’s we strive for, either in life or science tion than Anarres, probably because health, send their children with food fiction. I read utopias and work they’re less useful for anarchists hav- to the sick and assist each other in towards anarchist communism not ing arguments. They’re interesting, childbirth. Only children can ask because I believe in a perfect world though, for more subtle discussions questions or be taught anything. but because I believe in a better of anarchist society and utopianism, No adult tells another what to do, world. The most inspiring and per- ones that explore not the society or even offers advice except in the suasive utopias are the ones that, like that anarchists would necessarily most roundabout of ways and the Anarres, don’t just ask, “Where do wish to build but the many varieties direst of circumstances. Looked at we want to be?” or even “How will of anarchist society that are possi- as a society, Eleven-Soro is brutally be get there?” but “Where will we go ble, the many ways in which human dystopian (especially for men), but next?” That’s something important societies could reject hierarchy. One individuals within it can find a kind for science fiction writers and activ- of the most acclaimed is Always of utopia that is achieved through ists alike to remember. Revolution Coming Home, but though there is the fulfilment of total self-awareness, is not an event but a process, and no particular hierarchy of individu- becoming “a self sufficient to itself”, utopia is a journey, not a destination. als in the societies of the Kesh, there and in many ways the lives of the are a great many customs that dictate Sorovians are rich and happy beyond 14 Organise! Anarchism: Utopian or scientific Wayne Price Organise! is reprinting this article ism was made by the reformist Marx- unequal. Attempts to force them to by Wayne Price which originally ist, Michael Harrington: “Utopian fit a cooperative, benevolent, society, appeared in the US anarchist socialism...was a movement that it is said, can only be done by totali- magazine The Utopian, because gave the first serious definition of tarian means. Therefore, by this view, we feel it raises a number of socialism as communitarian, moral, the failure of socialism was due to important issues. feminist, committed to the trans- its utopianism. So this anti-socialist formation of work, and profoundly trend also focuses on the inherent Together with the revival of anar- democratic. If there is to be 21st cen- utopianism of socialism. chism in the last decades, there has tury socialism worthy of the name, been an increased interest in Utopia. it will...have to go 200 years into Political critics have denounced This is largely due to the crisis in the past to recover the practical and me as a utopian myself, perhaps Marxism, long the dominant set of theoretical ideals of the utopians” because I write for a journal titled ideas among the radical left. After the (quoted in Hahnel, 2005, p. 139). The Utopian. And indeed I am a Soviet Union imploded and China utopian...among other things. My turned to an openly market-based Especially interesting has been the earliest political influences were such capitalism, Marxism became dis- revival of the utopian project, that books as Paul Goodman’s Uto- credited for many. This resulted in a is, the effort by radicals (influenced pian Essays and Practical Proposals revived interest in Utopia from two by both anarchism and humanis- (1962) and Martin Buber’s Paths in apparently contradictory directions, tic Marxism) to work out how a Utopia (1958), and other works on for and against. What these views libertarian-democratic socialism Utopia and utopian socialism. These have in common is that they take could work—what a post-capitalist works started me on a path toward utopianism seriously. Utopianism society might look like without anarchist- pacifism, and then to a must be taken seriously if socialism either markets or centralised, bureau- libertarian-democratic version of is to get out of the dead end it has cratic, planning. This includes the Marxism, and finally to revolutionary reached through established Marx- “libertarian municipalism” of Murray anarchism (in the libertarian social- ism, but what revolutionary socialists Bookchin and his “social ecologist” ist or anarchist-communist tradition, need is much more than simply a followers (Biehl, 1998; Bookchin, which has been referred to as “social- return to Utopia. 1986) and Michael Albert and Robin ist anarchism”). Hahnel’s “participatory economics” On one side, there has been an in- or “parecon” (Albert, 2003; Hahnel, In common speech, “utopian” means creased desire to find utopian aspects 2005). ideas which are fantastically unreal- of socialism, including Marxism istic, absurdly idealistic, and impos- (Geoghegan, 1987). This includes On the other side, there are those sibly dreamy. The anti-utopian spirit looking at the work of Walter Benja- disillusioned ex-Marxists and is expressed in the movie “Rudy,” min or Ernst Bloch. There is a greater ex-socialists, who blame the totali- when a priest sneers at Rudy, a work- concentration on Marx’s critique of tarianism of the Marxist states on a ing class youth who wants to play alienation and of his scattered hints supposed utopianism. The goal of football for Notre Dame University of what a communist society might Marxist socialism was of a classless, (I quote from memory), “You’re a look like, as in his Critique of the stateless, cooperative society, with dreamer. Nothing great was ever ac- Gotha Program. More and more, so- production for use rather than profit, complished by a dreamer.” Actually, cialists refer to the utopian meanings without alienated labour, without nothing great was ever accomplished of their socialist faith, the original national boundaries or wars—the except by dreamers—even though vision of a liberated humanity. From realisation of solidarity, equality, dreaming, by itself, is never enough. this point of view, the failure of and freedom. This goal (which is pseudo-socialism in the Communist- the same as socialist anarchism) is Originally, “Utopia” was the title of a run countries was supposedly due to condemned as an impossibility, a 16th century book by Thomas More, their downplaying utopianism. Utopia, which contradicts inborn hu- which presented an ideal society, man nature. Humans are supposedly partly seriously and partly humor- Recognition of the value of utopian- naturally competitive, aggressive, and ously. It comes from the Greek words Organise! 15 for “no place.” The idea is the same as Samuel Butler’s Erewhon, a pic- ture of an ideal society whose name is “nowhere” spelled backwards. It is as if the utopian authors agree that such an ideal social system does not exist anywhere and perhaps will not exist anywhere. But the word is also close to “eutopia,” which means “the good place.” It took the horrors of the twentieth century to produce negative-utopias, or “dystopias,” such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, George Orwell’s 1984, or Jack London’s even earlier The Iron Fourier’s Utopia Heel. spelled out in The Manifesto of the there were a few brilliant thinkers Communist Party (or Communist who had insights into the evils of Utopia may be rejected as a program Manifesto) by Karl Marx and Frie- capitalism and the possibilities of for a perfect society, without con- drich Engels (1955) in the section socialism. Such thinkers included flicts or mistakes, managed by per- on “Critical-Utopian Socialism and Henri de Saint- Simon, Charles fect people. There never will be such Communism.” Their concepts was Fourier, and Robert Owen. Because a society; humans are inheritantly elaborated in Engel’s Anti-Dühring: the class struggle of capital versus finite and fallible and will always be Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution labour had barely begun, these could so (and right after a revolution, a new in Science (1954). Parts of this not have had a well-rounded theory society will have to be built by peo- book were taken out during Engels’ of how society operated. But, said ple deeply marked by the distortions lifetime and made into a famous Marx and Engels, they could and did of the old one). However, it is pos- pamphlet, Socialism: Utopian and have sharp insights into the evils and sible to think of Utopia as a program Scientific. Sentences and paragraphs problems of capitalism. They devel- for a society which makes it easier which Engels added to the pamphlet oped their insights into systems of for people to be good, which makes were then typically placed in brack- thought, which their later followers their self- interest be in relative har- ets in later editions of Anti-Dühring. organised into closed, quasi-religious mony with that of others, and which (There has been a controversy over sects. Unable to make a fully “scien- limits the opportunities for people to this book, with some Marxists tific” view of the world, they tended become corrupted by having power being embarrassed by the mechani- to start from moral precepts and then over others. Utopia may be a vision cal flavour of Engels’ exposition of work out how a society might be based on trends and possibilities dialectics; they claim [absurdly in my built on such ethical rules. which exist right now in society and opinion] that Engels did not really which could come to fruition under understand Marxism, or not as well By the mid-19th century, Marx and different social circumstances. If we as they [the critics] do. In fact, Engels Engels argued, capitalism had devel- wish people to risk their lives and went over the whole of the book with oped much further. There was now families for a fundamental change, Marx beforehand, and Marx wrote a a large industrial working class (the socialist-anarchists have to be able chapter for it, which he would hardly proletariat), engaged in class strug- to present a vision of a new society have done if he had disapproved of gle, and a new industrial technology which is possible, workable, and it. This is not to deny that Engels was which potentially made possible a worth risking everything for. a different person from Marx, and world of plenty for all. It was now more of a populariser of their joint possible to have an objective, “sci- Marxism and views. But the mechanistic aspects entific,” analysis of how capitalism of Marxism which appear in Anti- worked, how it would develop, and Utopianism Dühring are a real aspect of Marx’s how the working class would replace thinking.) it with socialism. In this view, the Much confusion has been caused earlier socialists had been “utopian,” by the Marxists’ use of “utopian” Marx and Engels claimed that, at the not because they were idealistic but in a specialised way. This was first beginning of capitalism’s take-off, because they were premature, unable 16 Organise! (yet) to make a scientific analysis. noted the ecological implications: moral. Indeed, they never explain “The present poisoning of the air, why anyone should be for socialism It has been often noted that Marx- water, and land can be put an end to at all. ism is a synthesis of three traditions: only by the fusion of town and coun- German (Hegelian) philosophy, Brit- try...” (same, p. 411). Like anarchists, The Marxist Hal Draper accurately ish economics, and mostly-French he believed that this could only summarizes Marx’s views: “Marx socialism (the utopian socialists happen in a socialist society; unlike saw socialism as the outcome of and also Proudhon the anarchist). anarchists, he believed this required tendencies inherent in the capitalist Readers of Marx are often surprised centralised planning, needing “one system...whereas the utopians saw to discover that he did not condemn single vast plan” (same). socialism simply as a Good Idea, an the so-called utopians for their abstract scheme without any histori- advocacy of ideal societies in their However, Marx and Engels critiqued cal context, needing only desire and time. On the contrary, Engels and he the earliest socialists because they will to be put into practice.... praised them as pioneers of social- did not (and could not yet) base ism. They praised Saint-Simon for their programs on the struggle of “Marx and Engels habitually stated raising the end of the state, which he the workers and oppressed. Instead their political aim not in terms of discussed, in Engels’ words, as “the they looked to upper class saviours a change in social system (social- future conversion of political rule to come along and aid the workers. ism) but in terms of a change in over men [sic] into an administra- class power (proletarian rule)....For tion of things and a direction of the “...Marx...did not con- Marx the political movement was in processes of production” (Engels, demn the so-called uto- the first place the movement of the 1954, p. 358; this formulation has working classes to take over state problems which I will not get into). pians for their advocacy power, not primarily a movement for They praised Fourier for his con- of ideal societies in their a certain scheme to reorganise the demnation of capitalist “civilisation”, time. On the contrary, En- social structure” (Draper, 1990, pp. for his “dialectical” approach, and 18, 44; his emphasis). for his criticism of the oppression of gels and he praised them women under capitalism. “He was as pioneers of socialism.” But if socialism is just a matter of the first to declare that in any given class interest rather than the vision society the degree of woman’s eman- The infant class of workers existed of a better world, then the interest of cipation is the natural measure of for them as a suffering class, not as a the capitalists is as justifiable as that the general emancipation” (same, p. class capable of changing the world. of the workers. Why should anyone 359). (They did not go on to discuss Along with these criticisms of the from the capitalist or middle classes Fourier’s support for homosexuality utopians (with which I agree), Marx go over to the working class (as did and other sexual variations.) They and Engels also, unfortunately criti- Marx and Engels)? Why should not praised Owen for his materialist phi- cised them for their moral appeal. individual workers go over to the losophy, his vision of communism, Rather than making an appeal to the side of the capitalists (as so many do, and his criticism of marriage under self-interest of the workers, Marx such as union leaders)? Why should capitalism. and Engels complained, the utopians workers risk a revolution without made broad appeals to justice and some moral (and political and eco- Engels and Marx noted that both moral values, which could attract nomic) goals? Why should they fight Fourier and Owen had proposed the anyone from any class. Marx and for “class power” (let alone “to take end of the current division of labour, Engels rejected moral appeals. “From over state power”!) without the goal replacing it with a variety of occupa- a scientific standpoint, this appeal of “a change in social system (social- tions for each person, making labour [by the utopians—WP] to morality ism)”? attractive, and developing everyone’s and justice does not help us an inch productive potentialities. Similarly, further; moral indignation, however Contrast the Marxist view with that the two utopians had raised the goal justifiable, cannot serve economic of Kropotkin: “No struggle can be of an end to the division between science as an argument, but only as successful if it does not render itself city and countryside, proposing the a symptom” (Engels, 1954, p. 207). a clear and concise account of its spread of industry across the coun- In their voluminous writings they aim. No destruction of the existing try, integrated with agriculture, in never say that people should be for order is possible, if at the time of the communities of human scale. Engels socialism because it is good, just, and overthrow, or of the struggle leading Organise! 17 to the overthrow, the idea of what knowledge or study, including not essence, to destroy itself, but that is to take the place of what is to be only chemistry but also philosophy is what we are now in the process destroyed is not always present in the and literary criticism (Draper, 1990). of doing” (Kolbert, 2005, p. 63). It mind” (Kropotkin, 1975, p. 64). While this is true, it is also true that may still be possible to permanently Marx and Engels repeatedly com- reverse this biological self-destruc- Engels justified “proletarian moral- pared their theories to biology or tion, if we replace capitalism with a ity” because “in the present [it] chemistry, saying that Marx’s dis- cooperative social system. But this is represents the overthrow of the coveries were comparable to those a choice, not an inevitable future. It present, represents the future...” (En- of Darwin. Engels’ Anti-Dühring is hard to see how it can be addressed gels, 1954, p. 131). But why should (1954) itself is the best-known without an appeal to the very moral we automatically support something example of this equation of Marx’s standards which Marx and Engels just because it leads to the future? theories with the natural sciences. had ruled out. How do we decide that the future will be good, will be what we should From the beginning, the Marxist want? Engels declares that it will only The Limits of Marxist view of utopianism and scientific be in a classless society that “a really Inevitablism socialism had certain limitations. human morality” will be possible. For one thing, with all his rejection This may be so, but it again begs the Sometimes this inevitabilism is of moral appeals, Marx’s writings question: why should we commit modified by statements that there breathe with a moral indignation, ourselves to the goal of a classless is an alternative, either socialism a deep love of freedom and justice, society of freedom and equality, of or the degeneration of society, the and a burning hatred of suffering really human values? None of this destruction of all social classes. The and oppression. This does Marx makes sense unless we accept, in Communist Manifesto states in its credit, but it makes his objection to some way, the historical values of beginning that historic class struggles moral appeals into hypocrisy. This justice, compassion, and kindness, as “...each time ended, either in a revo- weakness of Marxism, its lack of an well as equality and freedom. lutionary reconstitution of society explicit moral viewpoint, has often at large, or in the common ruin of been pointed out, by supporters and Instead, the founders of Marxism the contending classes” (Marx & opponents of Marxism, on the right argue that their “science” tells them Engels, 1955, p. 9). They were prob- and on the left. that socialism is inevitable and ably thinking of the collapse of the therefore, they imply, should be ac- Roman Empire; however, that these For another thing, these early social- cepted. The Communist Manifesto alternatives exist is not repeated in ists did not call themselves utopians. declares, “What the bourgeoisie the Manifesto. Engels declared, “...if They emphasised that they were therefore produces, above all, are the whole of modern society is not being scientific and materialistic. its own gravediggers. Its fall and the to perish, a revolution in the mode Saint-Simon is usually recognized victory of the proletariat are equally of production and distribution must as one of the founders of modern inevitable” (Marx and Engels, 1955, take place, a revolution which will sociology. “The utopian socialists p. 22). To advance beyond the put an end to all class distinctions” saw themselves as social scientists. utopian socialists, Engels wrote, “...it (1954, p. 218; my emphasis). Rosa ‘Utopian’ was for them a pejorative was necessary...to present the capi- Luxemburg summarized this as the term....Time and again in their work talistic method of production...and alternatives of “socialism or barba- they asserted their hard-headed, its inevitableness during a particular rism.” scientific, realistic, and practical ap- historical period and therefore, also, proach to society....The description its inevitable downfall...” (Engels, In this day of economic decline and of their work as ‘utopian’ is therefore 1954, pp. 42-43). the worldwide spread of nuclear a retrospective judgment and not a weapons, these probably are the self-definition”(Geoghegan, 1987, p. Marx’s determinism, or (as I will call alternatives. For example, to a great 8). it) “inevitabilism,” is defended by his extent the economic crisis of capital- claim to have created a “scientific so- ism has turned into an ecological Anarchist thinkers, who were politi- cialism.” Some excuse Marx’s scient- and environmental crisis. One report cally closer to these early socialists ism by pointing out that the German concludes, “It may seem impossible than were Marx and Engels, also word which is translated as “science” to imagine that a technologically emphasized how scientific they were. (Wissenschaft) means any body of advanced society could choose, in Proudhon insisted he was being sci- 18 Organise! entific. Unlike Marx, Kropotkin tried edly scientific predictions did not rial page of the New York Times, the to develop a naturalistic ethics. But work out as he expected, that his voice of a major wing of the U.S. rul- Kropotkin (who had been a geolo- so-called science has been a bust. ing class, predicts a general worsen- gist) also claimed that anarchism The capitalist countries have (it is ing of the U.S. economy. Under the was the conclusion of scientific said) become prosperous and stable, headline, “Before the Fall,” it wrote understanding of the world, as he with attenuated business cycles and a about the weakening of the dollar wrote in his essay “Modern Science well-off working class—at least in the and the U.S. economy, and predicted, and Anarchism.” “Anarchism is a industrialised, imperialist, countries. “The economic repercussions could world concept based on a mechani- The working class has not become unfold gradually, resulting in a long, cal explanation of all phenomena, revolutionary. There have been no slow decline in living standards. Or embracing the whole of nature....Its workers’ revolutions. The revolutions there could be a quick unravelling, method of investigation is that of the led by Marxists which did happen, with the hallmarks of an uncon- exact natural sciences” (Kropotkin, became miserable totalitarian states, trolled fiscal crisis. Or the pain could 1975, p. 60). Therefore he rejected oppressors of their workers, and fall somewhere in between” (April describing anarchism with “the word nothing like the socialist democra- 2, 2005). One libertarian Marxist, ‘Utopia’” (same, p. 66). cies Marx and Engels had envisaged. Loren Goldner, has written of the These criticisms of Marxism have led breakdown of capitalism in our time, Malatesta was to criticize Kropotkin many to accept capitalism and others “If there is today a ‘crisis of Marxism,’ for this very scientism, which he felt to look for alternate approaches to it cannot be in the ‘analytic-scientific’ left out the importance of will and socialism—including the present side of Marx’s prognosis of capitalist consciousness. “Kropotkin, who spread of anarchism. breakdown crisis, wherein current was very critical of the fatalism of developments appear as a page out of the Marxists, was himself the victim There is a great deal of truth in these vol. III of Capital” (Goldner, 2000, of mechanistic fatalism, which is far criticisms of “Marxist science.” p. 70). more inhibiting....Since, according World War II was followed by a capi- to his philosophy, that which occurs talist boom, up until the late sixties. The image of a fat and happy capi- must necessarily occur, so also the The great revolutions of Russia and talism with a fat and happy work- communist-anarchism he desired China, as well as others led by Marx- ing class comes from the fifties and must inevitably triumph as if by a law ists, ended up with new bureaucratic sixties (and was not fully true even of nature” (Malatesta, 1984, pp. 263, ruling classes, rather than human then). It became the dominant con- 265). So, rather than being simply liberation (although they did not be- ception of the left during the radicali- utopian, anarchists were just as capa- come a new type of society but were, zation of the sixties. It justified the ble of scientism and inevitablism as rather, statified versions of capital- liberalism and reformism which was Marxists, although there were some, ism). There have been no successful the main trend among U.S. leftists. It such as Malatesta, who opposed this working class revolutions, since the also justified the Stalinist politics of approach. ambiguous Russian revolution of the many who became subjectively 1917. There is no longer a working revolutionary. These revolutionaries class with a significant revolutionary admired Cuba, China, and North movement, anywhere, certainly not Vietnam. In these countries middle- The Rejection of Scien- in the United States. class intellectuals led revolutions tific Socialism in which the workers played minor However, there is also a great deal roles at best, and then established the The revival of moral and utopian of untruth in these common views. leaders as new, bureaucratic, classes thinking has been based on a rejec- In particular, the post-World War who exploited the workers (and tion of Marxist “scientific social- II boom has been over for some peasants) in a state-capitalist fashion. ism.” Robin Hahnel,co-inventer of time. From the seventies onward, These radicals regarded themselves “parecon,” has concluded, “...New the world economy has been going as Marxists, as did such theoreticians evidence from the past 30 years downhill—with fluctuations up and as Herbert Marcuse, while more or has weakened the case for scientific down, and with lopsided and uneven less consciously abandoning any socialism even further and greatly development in different parts of the belief in a working class revolution strengthened the case for utopian world. But the overall direction has in either the industrialised nations or socialism...” (2005, p. 390). It has been negative. Writing about the de- the oppressed countries. been argued that Marx’s suppos- cline of the U.S. economy, the edito- Organise! 19 While the image of a perpetu- review in Wood, 1998). Similarly, vision of revolution is not prem- ally prosperous capitalism has been the theoreticians of “participatory ised upon the exacerbation of class shown to be false, this does not economics” start with abstract moral conflict, but rather the emergence of “prove” that “Marx was right.” How- principles and develop an economic a democratic sentiment that rejects ever correct Marx was in his “analyt- system which would fulfil them, exclusive, non-participatory social ic-scientific analysis” of capitalism, without any discussion of how such a institutions ... focusing on the ideals, it should now be clear that socialism society would develop out of capi- not class positions, of activists within is not inevitable. There is no way talism (Albert, 2003). I have heard the movement.... This value-based to be absolutely sure that socialism Michael Albert presenting his system approach is a precept of any revolu- will come before nuclear war or (at a work- shop at the Global Left tionary democratic politics” (same, ecological catastrophe or perhaps a Forum 2005), beginning by describ- pp. 27, 29). perpetual capitalism that grinds on ing “parecon” (he rejects the label and on until it produces “the com- “socialism”) as happening “after the As Morse says, the views of Marx mon ruin of the contending classes.” bump.” The “bump” is his term for and the anarchist-syndicalists were At best we are dealing with prob- the change of systems, covering re- indeed developed in the late 19th abilities, which are almost irrelevant form or revolution or whatever. How and early 20th centuries. There- in terms of making commitments to the change happens is not important fore they bear the imprint of their one side or the other. “Marxist scien- to his vision. time, including their scientistic and tific socialism” is not the issue, in the determinist concept of social sci- abstract, but whether or not to make There are also many who come out ence. Nevertheless, the social system a class analysis of current society and of the anarchist tradition who reject which they first analysed, at the time to commit to working class revolu- a “scientific” approach for one based when it took off, remains the basic tion for a better social system. Loren solely on morality and abstract social system of today—despite its Goldner concludes that the real crisis values. Perhaps the purest example development and changes. Morse of socialism is not in terms of Marx- is the “social ecology”/“libertarian still calls it “capitalism” rather than ist science. Rather it is “...a crisis of municipalist” program developed calling it some new form of soci- the working-class movement itself, primarily by Murray Bookchin. ety (such as “neo-feudalism”) or and of the working class’ sense, still These views are clearly summarised claiming that the problem was not relatively strong in the 1930’s, that it by Chuck Morse (2001). Writing in capitalism but something else (such is the class of the future” (Goldner, opposition to reformists within the as “industrialism” or “civilisation”). 2000, p. 70). global justice movement, he rightly This is not to deny that the analysis proposes a revolutionary perspec- of capitalism has to be expanded to tive. However, he also rejects the cover later developments and must A Revival of Utopian class perspective of “many anarcho- be integrated with analyses of gender, Socialism and Its syndicalists and communists” who race, sexual orientation, ecology, and accepted “the analysis of capital- other areas, but capitalism remains as Class Limitations ism advanced by late 19th century a system of commodity production, and early 20th century socialists,” market exchange, competition of The rejection of “scientific social- presumably Marx as well as the capitals, the law of value, the selling ism” has often led to a socialism anarchist-syndicalists. They believed, and buying of the human ability to which claims to be based essentially he claims, that “capitalism creates an labour (treating working capacity on moral principles, on a universal industrial proletariat that must, in as a commodity), and the use of appeal for a better society, rejecting turn, fight for its interests as a class... workers to produce a surplus for the appeals to class self-interest. This is a not only...for immediate benefits capitalists (that is, exploitation). In return to utopianism. In rejecting the but also against the social order that its essence, capitalism, as capitalism, weaknesses and strengths of Marx- has produced it as a class...” (Morse, remains the capital-labour relation- ism, these thinkers revive both the 2001, p. 26). ship as it was analysed a century and strengths and weaknesses of utopian- a half ago. ism. Such views have been developed Instead, “it is possible to imagine by theoreticians with Marxist back- revolution in a democratic populist Morse notes that this 19th cen- grounds, sometimes giving them- sense, in which people draw upon tury theory postulated a working selves good-sounding names such as shared values (as opposed to class class “that must fight.” The “must” “post-Marxists,” “pluralists,” or “radi- interests) to overthrow elites. This is the important point. Implicitly cal democrats” (there is a thorough 20 Organise! but correctly, he is criticizing the that the workers, as workers, will not Lacking a social analysis, the ethical dominant interpretation of Marxism make a revolution. Both are wrong. It vision approach lacks a strategy for (one rooted in Marx’s work) that it is a living choice for the workers. implementing its (worthwhile) goals. is “inevitable” that the workers will More specifically, it lacks an agent, come to fight for socialist revolution. Elaborating on the ideas of a social force which could overturn It is not inevitable. Such determin- Bookchin, Morse, as quoted, rejects capitalism and replace it with a new ism is essentially authoritarian. How a working class orientation. Instead society. All it has are people who are can an oppressed class create a self- he calls for a “vision of revolution... idealistic, of every class and sector conscious and self-organised society premised upon...the emergence of of society. From this point of view, through the automatic processes of a democratic sentiment...focusing there is no reason why socialism history? To fight their exploitation, on...ideals, not class positions...” could not have been implemented at the workers need to want something (same, p. 27). As stated here, this is any time in human existence, from new. If they are to be free, they must rather vacuous, but this would not hunter-gatherer society until now, cease to submit to the laws of history be a valid criticism, since Bookchin since people have always had moral and become conscious of what they has elsewhere worked out a utopian values and visions of a better world. can achieve. vision of a post-capitalist,(small-c) Bookchin has argued that a free so- communist, society—a federation ciety is possible now since it is only This does not mean a rejection of all of communes managed by directly now that we have the technology to objective analysis, however. Sailors democratic assemblies (Biehl, 1998; possibly create a society of plenty for may take a sailboat to different ports, all, including enough time without depending on their goals, but only “Lacking a social analysis, toil for people to participate in the by using their knowledge of wind the ethical vision approach managing of society (a view which and seas, not by ignoring this scien- lacks a strategy for imple- was raised by Marx). However, this tific knowledge. But the seafarers’ still leaves the question of who will knowledge does not decide their menting its (worthwhile) make the revolution. goal. goals.” As opposed to this vague appeal to Marxist analysis (consistent with Bookchin, 1986). This is done in idealists, Marx and Engels, and later anarchist goals) may be interpreted much greater detail than Marx or the anarchist-syndicalists as well as (or re-interpreted) differently than Engels ever did. Bookchin deserves most anarchist- communists, looked in an inevitablist manner. It could credit for this. to the struggle of the workers. This be said that Marx demonstrated that did not necessarily mean ignor- there is a tendency for workers to However, the social ecologists’ ethi- ing the struggles of other sectors of rebel against their exploitation— cal approach, as described here, has society, such as women and “racial” what else? But there are also counter- certain weaknesses. To begin with, it groupings. I have already noted how tendencies. For example, better-off has no study of how capitalist society Engels valued the utopians’ criti- workers tend to become bought off works, what are its contradictions cisms of the oppression of women. In and to accept the system. Poorer, and conflicts. This is not a matter of the same work, he commented, “It is worse-off, workers tend to become reviving the mechanical “science” significant of the specifically bour- overwhelmed and demoralized, to and determinism of the worst of geois character of these human rights give up. Bookchin argues that factory Marxism. It is making a theoretical that the American constitution, the discipline itself teaches the workers analysis of society, including eco- first to recognize the rights of man to accept hierarchy. Which tenden- nomic and other factors (race, gen- [sic], in the same breath confirms the cies will win out: struggle, to the der, ecology, etc.), laying the basis for slavery of the coloured races existing point of revolution, or acceptance a strategy for bringing utopian goals in America; class privileges are pro- of capitalist authority? We do not into reality. It is true that Bookchin scribed, race privileges sanctioned” know; it is not inevitable. As Morse has made an analysis of society in (Engels, 1954, pp. 147-148). Not writes, “many anarcho-syndicalists terms of a supposed conflict, the that Marx and Engels had a sufficient and communists” have believed remnants of town and community analysis of either gender or race, but that it is inevitable that the workers versus the national state, but it is it is now possible to see the interac- “must fight,” and eventually make a hard to take this seriously as the basic tion and overlap of racial, gendered, socialist revolution. Others, such as conflict of society. and other forms of oppression with Bookchin, argue that it is inevitable the economic exploitation of the Organise! 21 working class. not entail an ‘interest’ in the cessa- Gay liberation. However, it seems tion of class exploitation, that the to me that a Marxism which accepts However, the working class has a relations between capital and labour utopianism and the insights of anar- particular strategic importance for have no fundamental consequences chism, radical democracy, feminism, revolutionaries. Of all the oppressed for the whole structure of social and Gay liberation would cease to be groupings, only the workers can and political power, and that the Marxism, even if much remained of stop society in its tracks, due to their conflicting interests between capital Marx’s project (especially his class potential control of the means of and labour are all in the eye of the analysis). That is, the particular syn- production. And only the working beholder. (Wood, 1998, p. 61) thesis of ideas which Marx created class can start society up again by oc- would be drastically reorganised. An- cupying the workplaces and working Contrary to the middle class myth archists too have historically some- them in a different way. This does not of working class quiescence, workers times been too scientistic or have make workers, as workers, more op- do struggle against capital. Every day more often been anti-theoretical and pressed than, say, physically disabled there is a tug-of-war, a guerrilla con- anti-intellectual, but it is anarchism people, or women, as women (two flict, in every workplace, sometimes which has been more open to both a categories which mostly overlap breaking out into open rebellion but moral vision and a theoretical analy- with the working class). It just points mostly kept at a low simmer. From sis of capitalism. However, there is a up the workers’ potential strategic time to time there have been great great deal of overlap between class- power. eruptions when workers rose up and struggle anarchism and libertarian Unlike the capitalists or the “middle demonstrated the possibility of over- Marxism. class” managers who work for them, throwing capitalism and its state, of the workers (that is, most of the replacing these institutions with the I reject having to choose between population, when they go to work self-management of society. I will not either utopianism or science (using for some boss) do not have anyone review the history of workers’ revolu- “science” to mean an analysis of soci- under them to exploit. They do not tionary upheavals here, but workers ety, done as realistically as possible, live off of the exploitation of others. have shown more ability to strug- and not an attempt to treat society The workers have a direct interest gle in the brief history of industrial as if it were chemistry). I will not in ending the system of exploita- capitalism (about 200 years) than choose between raising moral issues tion—that is, the pumping of wealth any other oppressed class in history. and appealing to the self-interest of from them to the capitalist rulers. Without slighting other oppressions, oppressed people. I reject the alter- Ellen Meiksins Wood argues against the struggle of the workers should be natives of either a moral vision or a the views of certain ex-Marxists who a major focus of any revolutionary practical strategy. I refuse to choose have rejected a working class orien- strategy. between Utopia and support for tation in favour of an ethical- only workers’ class struggles. approach similar to that of Morse and Bookchin (Bookchin himself Utopianism or What is the Utopia of socialist anar- being an ex-Marxist who has rejected Science...or Both? chism? It has many interpretations, a working class orientation): but some things seem central: It In Utopianism and Marxism, Ge- includes a cooperative economy with The implication is that workers are oghegan concludes, “The distinc- production for use, which is planned no more affected by capitalist ex- tion between utopian and scientific democratically, from the bottom up. ploitation than are any other human socialism has, on balance, been an It means the end of the division (in beings who are not themselves the unfortunate one for the Marx- industry and in society as a whole) direct objects of exploitation. This ist tradition” (1987, p. 134). He between mental and manual labour, also implies that capitalists derive demonstrates how both wings of between those who give orders and no fundamental advantage from Marxism—social democracy and those who carry them out. This the exploitation of workers, that Leninism—have been affected by would be part of a complete reor- the workers derive no fundamental their mechanical scientism and their ganisation of technology to create disadvantage from their exploitation rejection of visionary utopianism. He an ecologically sustainable society. by capital, that the workers would recommends that Marxists look into It includes an economy and polity derive no fundamental advantage the alternate tradition of anarchism, managed by direct democracy, in from ceasing to be exploited, that the as well as other traditions, such as assemblies and councils, at work- condition of being exploited does democratic liberalism, feminism, and places and in communities. It has 22 Organise! no state, that is, no bureaucractic- difference. Bookchin, Murray (1986). The limits military machine with specialised of the city. Montreal: Black Rose layers of police, soldiers, bureaucrats, Leaving theology aside, today there Books. lobbyists, and politicians, standing is a prophetic challenge. It is both Buber, Martin (1958). Paths in uto- above the rest of the population. If “utopian” and “scientific.” Humanity pia. (R. F. C. Hull, trans.). Boston: defence of the people is needed, this faces probable disasters: increasing Beacon Press. would be done by the people— the wars (including eventual nuclear Draper, Hal (1990). Karl Marx’s the- armed people—in a popular mili- wars), ecological and environmental ory of revolution; Vol. IV: Critique tia. Instead of a state, local councils catastrophe, economic decline, and of other socialisms. NY: Monthly would be federated at the regional, threats to democracy and freedom. Review. national, continental, and interna- But an alternate society, a utopian Engels, Frederick (1954). Anti-Düh- tional levels, wherever needed. In goal, may be envisioned, with a dif- ring; Herr Eugen Dühring’s revolu- this freely federated world, there ferent way for humans to relate to tion in science. Moscow: Foreign would be no national borders. The each other—if not a perfect society Languages Publishing House. socialist vision has always been that Geoghegan, Vincent (1987). Uto- of a classless society and the most “The socialist vision has pianism and Marxism. London & exploited class has an interest in win- always been that of a class- NY: Methuen. ning this. Whether the working class less society and the most Goldner, Loren (2000). Ubu saved will seek this vision remains an open from drowning: Class strug- gle and question, in my opinion—neither a exploited class has an statist containment in Portugul and guaranteed outcome nor a guarantee interest in winning this. Spain, 1974- 1977. Cambridge MA: that it will not. It is a choice, not an Whether the working class Queequeg Publications. inevitability. Goodman, Paul (1962). Utopian will seek this vision re- essays and practical proposals. NY: In his Paths in Utopia, the Jewish mains an open question, Random House. theologian Martin Buber (1958) in my opinion—neither a Hahnel, Robin (2005). Economic compares two types of eschatologi- justice and democracy; From com- cal prophecy. One is the prediction guaranteed outcome nor a petition to cooperation. NY/Lon- of apocalypse, an inevitable end of guarantee that it will not. don: Routledge. days which is running on a strict It is a choice, not an inevi- Kolbert, Elizabeth (2005, May 9). timetable. God and the devil will The climate of man—III.What can fight and God will win. Human tability.” be done? The New Yorker. Pp. 52-63. choice is reduced to a minimum... Kropotkin, Peter (1975). The es- people may decide individually to be than one that is much better. There sential Kropotkin. (Emile Capouya on the automatically winning side or exists the technology to make it & Keitha Tompkins, eds.). NY: to be on the guaranteed losing side. possible. There exists a social class Liveright. That’s it. Such a view is presented whose self-interest may lead it to Malatesta, Errico (1984). Errico in the Left Behind novels, express- struggle for this goal, alongside of Malatesta; His life and ideas. ing a conservative interpretation of other oppressed groupings. Those (Vernon Richards, ed.). London: Christianity. In a secular fashion, who accept this analysis, and who Freedom Press. it also appears in the mainstream believe in the values of this goal, may Marx, Karl, & Engels, Friedrich interpretation of Marxism (and choose to take up the challenge— (1955). The communist manifesto; also in aspects of Kropotkin’s anar- and to raise it for others. It is a matter Manifesto of the communist party. chism). In comparison, Buber says, not only of prediction but of moral Northbrook, IL: AHM Publishing the prophets of the Old Testament commitment. Corp. presented the people with a collec- Morse, Chuck (2001). Theory of the tive choice. Disaster was looming, References anti-globalization movement. The the prophets warned, but it could be Albert, Michael (2003). Parecon: New Formulation; An Anti-Authori- averted. To do so, the people would Life after capitalism.NY: Verso. tarian Review of Books. Vol. 1, no. 1, have to change their ways and follow Biehl, Janet (1998). The politics of November. Pp. 22-31. an alternate path. Prophecy was a social ecology; Libertarian munici- Wood, Ellen Meiksins (1998). The challenge, not an inevitable predic- palism. (with Murray Bookchin). retreat from class; A new “True” tion. Human choice could make a Montreal: Black Rose Books. Socialism. London: Verso. Organise! 23 Children of the Commune “You must understand that once ally a Jewish communal community. parents, share the same meals and we have property in common, and While it is impossable to sum up the enjoy the lifestyle. establish on a solid moral and history of hundreds of settlements material base the principle of so- formed over a hundred years in a After being weaned a child would be cial solidarity, the maintenance of neat package, the first kibbutzim assigned to a nanny whose job was the children will be the concern of were established early in the twen- not only to watch over a small group the community, and their educa- tieth century, primarily as farming of children, but to also teach them tion will be the care and responsi- communes that aimed towards the the social skills of co-operation, bility of everyone. agricultural settlement of the land of mutual support and compassion. The Israel. While in recent history most nanny would also support visiting Probably all men and all women have changed their ideology towards family members in learning essen- will love all the children; and if, one of capitalist individuality and tial parenting skills “on the job”. The as I believe is certain, parents nationalism, many of the initial nanny would be joined in helping the have a special affection for their pioneers did not want to recreate children by a formal teacher when own children, they can only be the old order of settlements where the children turned seven, and this delighted to know that the group would stay together up future of their children is until teenhood. After this point secure, having for their main- the youngsters would move tenance and their education into larger dormitories, visiting the cooperation of the whole home several times per week, society.” while the nanny and teacher - Errico Malatesta, At the would separate from the group Cafe and a new wave of teachers would take responsibility for This piece will be a very brief the group’s development. glance through squinted eyes at what early life could look like Children would become in an anarchist utopia. While responsible for maintaining we may seem a long way from elements of their environ- communal life, it is important ment such as their living space, to have some conception of the vegetable gardens and even as- ideals we are trying to prefig- sistants to young nanny groups. ure in our lives here and now. A multidisciplinary approach Speculation on the early stages to education was offered so of someone’s life in a society led by Jews acted as bosses and Arabs were that everyone would pick up some anarchist communist principles, far brought in as workers but instead practical skills while at the same time from being a waste of time, can help sought to forge new paths in the Zi- nurturing those with a particular ap- make our groups more accessible to onist movement based on a utopian titude to excel in their chosen field. those with a duty of care today. Many socialist programme. instances of communal childcare and While this method of child-rearing alternatives to early life exist to point Part of this drive led to the tasks of has ended in the kibbutzim, ech- the way towards a better world. childrearing, both social and eco- oes of this method can be seen in nomic, being seen as a responsibility modern speculative fiction, such as of the whole kibbutz. As such, all the Embassaytown by China Mieville. children were given the same op- The Kibbutz portunities and options without the economic situation of the parents Alternate Education A kibbutz (plural kibbutzim, origi- giving rise to bias towards one child There are many alternatives to the nally meaning a cluster or gathering) or another. Children would live col- current mainstream option for edu- is the name for what was tradition- lectively in a separate building to the cation. While it is outwith the scope 24 Organise! of this piece to give a comprehensive designated to certain activities, com- the ward of the community to be list of all possible options, or to even plaints heard, and staff hired or fired. emancipated and free to be a full part go into any great depth on any one, of commune life, perhaps mainly it is worth mentioning a few of the Montessori Education considered after a certain period different modes developed that have of learning. Conversely if a person elements more suited to anarchist This mode of education looks to felt that their freedoms were being communism. guide children along certain de- hampered in one community they velopmental paths. This is done by would always be free to leave and Unschooling / Autonomous having a “prepared environment” join another. Education that has features that are of interest to most people in the specific age Living the Dream This method of home-schooling band as well as features specifically assumes that children have a natural introduced to suit those learning in All this utopian thinking leaves a lot disposition to wanting to learn. It the space with an eye to bringing for the anarchist groups to act on in also works on the basis that, as each forward the qualities that the com- the here and now. We can’t just wait child will have their own prefer- munity wish to foster in their youth. for a member of the group to pop out ence on how to search for and digest Lessons are presented by teach- a sprog or hope that parents will fit information, it is the child them- ing staff, however it is the students social revolution around the child- selves who should pick the methods who pick which topics of enquiry care. Instead we should make our by which they undertake this task. to follow up upon, and student-led groups seem inviting and supportive Youngsters are encouraged to persue trips outside the classroom to find of those with children, starting our subjects they have an interest in, new information (known as “going drives for social change with the with parents sharing in the task of out”) is a key element of this style of social groups closest to us. The exam- looking into areas of enquiry with education. ples of support from the kibbutz can them and helping the student find be taken not only to offer childcare the information they seek. Parents Becoming a Grown-up in meetings, but to offer support to provide resources, make suggestions, carers at other times when they need provide text and create learning A final question that has to be asked some space. We must understand plans. Though as the child gets older, of communal society is at what that even our closest comrades now the parents pass more and more of point are you considered to have full have a whole new focus in life when the responsibility of these tasks onto responsibilities as a member of the they take on the duty of care to a their child. commune? Even more fundamental, young life. They require us to under- are the ideas of grading personal take self-education and skill-sharing, Sudbury Schools responsibility by age overly arbitrary rather than shirking at the idea of or proscriptive? At what point does children being near to us. These are schools where the staff and a duty of care impinge on another’s the pupils are all part of the same freedom of choice? We must also look at the question of directly democratic learning estab- at which point the children have a lishment and have an equal say in Concepts of free association would say in decisions that will effect their how it is organised. It is assumed that suggest that any individual should lives and can take on responsibilities children already possess the main be free to apply to join, or leave a as part of our groups, because if we behaviours needed to advance in community or workplace as they cannot show our wards the same re- society and so by engaging in directly feel inclined to do so, and the com- spect we would show a stranger, then democratic methods of organisation munity should be free to associate or what hope do we have of them taking the child will find the best way for dissociate from individuals as it sees forward ideas of social change in them to be part of a directly demo- fit. Extending this logic to the young- their lives? The children of today are cratic society. While there are no est members of our society, they are revolutionaries of tomorrow. If we formal rules to begin with and rooms in a position where they are subject are serious about future generations of these schools are not designated in many ways to the communities growing up in an anarchist commu- for particular tasks, weekly collective choices, until either party decide nist world then we have to prefigure meetings allow for new rules to be otherwise. that outcome today. introduced, learning programmes started or altered, areas of the school At this point someone may call for Organise! 25

Education in an Anarchist Society “Education either functions as an (‘Ain’t it funny that the factory doors nantly focussing on pedagogical ap- instrument which is used to fa- close ‘round about the time the proaches to anarchist education; that cilitate integration of the younger school doors close’ as Rage Against is, how, what and why would young generation into the logic of the the Machine succinctly put it!). people learn? present system and bring about conformity, or it becomes the When looking at what an anarchist Anarchist education has a long and practice of freedom, the means by education may look like, we will proud history, opening doors for which men and women deal criti- not focus on the structure of the hundreds of thousands of working cally and creatively with reality school for the worker. In an anar- class youth to explore, question, and discover how to participate chist society, as with all workplaces, learn and confront on their own in the transformation of their schools would be self-managed. To terms. But before we begin looking world.” describe the process by which educa- back at the historical precedent for - Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the tion workers could self-manage their anarchist education, we should begin Oppressed own workplace in terms of negating by looking at what it is not. hierarchy, oppression and exploita- Throughout history, education has tion is no different than the process In recent years, free schools have been a force used for both oppres- by which any worker would achieve gained prominence in the press. sion and liberation. The fact is, as such a goal. Class struggle anarchists Some loosely defined ‘anarchists’ and with today’s education system, it can have written on (and demonstrated ‘radicals’ have even suggested that be both; an inspirational teacher, in practice) adequate examples of free schools provide an opportunity classmate or neighbour can teach the power and efficiency of workers for rolling out a more libertarian cur- invaluable skills, unlock a passion for self-management. The school is a fac- riculum. This is wrong for a number learning and help mould inquiring, tory, and as such, the organisational of reasons. Free schools represent independent and creative learners. methods of education workers in an the marketisation of education. Any By the same token, education too anarchist society would not have to group or individual with enough often reinforces the logic of capi- differ radically from that of any other cash can set up a free school. They talist society, burdening kids with worker (other than the fact that the have complete control over the cur- arbitrary rules, unquestionable and ‘product’ in education is human, and riculum as well as admission policies. infallible authority figures and a as such needs to be incorporated into Already, free schools for the offspring training course in quietly accepting the decision making process!). With of posh hippies are cropping up in their future roles within class society that in mind, we will be predomi- urban, working class areas. Do you 26 Organise! kids of the local people get a look genuinely emancipatory educational thousands of young people. in? Any education system allowing experience. After all, the wealthy, such a level of exclusivity needs to liberal parents of the lucky few who While anarchist schools - who had as be rejected outright by class strug- attend Summerhill fork out between their teachers and founders figures gle anarchists. Free schools around £3-5,000 a term for the privilege; such as Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, the the country are already grooming reinforcing the very class inequality Catalan anarchist eventually execut- our kids to accept extreme religious that any truly anarchist education ed by the state, Alexander Berkman, dogma; some are owned by corpo- must seek to at the very least ques- Emma Goldman and thousands of rations who refuse to teach climate tion, and preferably destroy. While forgotten but equally dedicated anar- change, militarists who push un- there is much interesting to be chist educators - were diverse in their fortunate youth towards the armed learned from the pedagogy of Sum- approaches and pedagogy, there were services and fanatics who refuse to merhill, the elite nature of its pupils, several factors that united them. teach contraception, evolution or and elitist model of its admissions recognise homosexuality as anything render it, like free schools, invalid as An emphasis on learning by doing other than a perversion. Any attempt a genuinely ‘free’ educational experi- was a central factor. To the anarchist by anarchists to take advantage of a ence. As consistent anarchists, we teachers, exploring, experimenting government supported and spon- must rule out any education system and pupil-led processes of trial and sored system that allowed for such with the power or inclination to ex- error were infinitely superior to desk inequality and reactionary teaching clude pupils on any grounds, includ- bound, fact based learning. The focus and designed to open the education ing economic. Our education will be on hands-on-skills extended beyond system to the financial markets is inclusive, or it will be bullshit! the school to involve the whole flawed in the extreme. So, while it community in the education of the would theoretically be possible for Now that we have had a chance to child. Who better to teach a young an anarchist group to fund and oper- look at, and hopefully dismiss some person to build than the carpenter ate a free school, giving a rich and dead end roads on the route to an and bricklayer or to prepare food exciting education to the few kids anarchist education, we can begin to than a local baker or chef? In this involved, to do so would be lending look forward to how such a system way, the anarchist idea of community tacit support to the oppressive, exclu- may function. On this subject, in self-management was extended to sive and market orientated education looking forward, the best way to start provide pupils with real life learning suffered by pupils in the majority is by looking back; specifically back opportunities, taught by the working of free schools. By the same token, to the early 20th century, when a class experts that surrounded them. independent schools such as Sum- wave of anarchist ‘rational’ schools, merhill, so often lauded as anarchist emanating from Spain, but spreading Encouraging critical thinking was a education in action, can offer us across the globe made an anarchist key part of anarchist education. All little help when attempting to offer a education a reality for hundreds of the assumptions of society, from the institutions that governed countries, to the church and capitalism were put on trial and held to scrutiny by pupils encouraged to question and where necessary confront, a far cry from the quietly acceptance of soci- ety and it’s norms bred by traditional education.

Creating and developing the ‘whole person’ was an important part of an- archist education. Rather than seeing academic knowledge, or suitability for obedient employment as the end goals of education, anarchist teach- ers fostered independence, inter- dependence, problem solving skills Organise! 27 and social skills; prioritizing the world around them was vital, this written in the past tense should not development of happy, emotionally could best be achieved through a pu- be a cause for dismay. While it is true and socially balanced, enquiring and pil focusing on the aspects of learn- that anarchist schools all but ceased co-operative young people. As a part ing that most engaged and interested to exist in relation to the decline of this approach, anarchist education them. of the vast anarchist movement of included a large number of group the first half of the 20th century, collaborative projects, there are still thousands of showing that we are schools across the world capable of more amaz- practicing a rational, creative, ing feats when working co-operative and democratic together than when sat educational curriculum. That isolated behind a desk, in many of these, especially in the intimidating silence the global North have lost of an exam hall. Anarchist their anarchist roots and educators recognized either abandoned or never that the strict, fact and considered class struggle by exam based learning of charging admission fees and traditional schools served operating an elitist intake only to more efficiently system does not detract from categorize pupils into the soundness of their peda- appropriate bands of gogical approach. In fact, ‘ability’ and determine many pedagogical approach- future employment . The es pioneered by the found- exam hall was detached ers of the rational school from reality; a tool to movement have found their make life easy for employers when In addition to providing a libertarian way into mainstream state education selecting employees, whereas group education, anarchist schools often (although it goes without saying that, work allows the truly cooperative modelled the form of democracy while these approaches have created and collaborative nature of young they wished to extend to wider so- a more creative, interesting learning people to make engagement, success ciety. Attitudes differed from school environment for young people, a cur- and real, practical learning a real- to school and examples of pupil- riculum that democratizes education ity. In the spirit of this collaborative inclusive self-management varied and teaches pupils how to challenge approach, assessment did not take widely. However, it was not uncom- the status quo is still lacking). The the form of an end of term exam or mon to find the administration and society that the early anarchist teach- other alienating, divisive experience. curriculum of the school managed ers sought to bring crashing down Rather pupils were more likely to through meetings in which pupils still exists and the validity of their be constructively assessed based on and staff had an equal say. In some creative, rebellious, democratic and projects, coursework and produc- cases, pupils successfully overturned cooperative approach to education tions, during the creation of which, unpopular punishments, subjects or still as vital now as then. These teach- the pupil would have been free to rules, or forced apologies, or even ers saw and nurtured the uniqueness draw on the experiences, skills and resignations from unpopular teach- of every pupil while allowing them knowledge of those around them. ers. In some schools, justice was to grow and develop in a communal administered by a rotating jury of context that allowed them to foster But as well as being a highly com- pupils who would hear any disputes respect, solidarity and interdepend- munal system, the anarchist school before reaching a verdict. Any ‘pun- ence with their fellow pupils and placed high importance on nurturing ishment’ was made to be relevant to the wider community. Our ideas the talents, skills and interests of the the ‘crime’ and a focus on restora- have stood the test of time, the real individual. The purpose of education tive justice and reconciliation was a task for today’s anarchist pupils and was the pursuit of truth, interest and central aspect of this self-managed teachers is to take those ideas and happiness and it was recognized that, student justice system. turn them into an inclusive, revolu- while a sound understanding of key tionary modern day curriculum. aspects of literacy, numeracy and the That much of this article has been 28 Organise! In Defence of Malatesta “Let there be as much class strug- The ruling class, the other workers gle as one wishes, if by class strug- organizations, the region’s position gle one means the struggle of the in global capital, etc. When we move exploited against the exploiters away from the abstract and timeless for the abolition of exploitation. perspective Malatesta uses, one leg That struggle is a way of moral of his argument crumbles (that it and material elevation, and it is is not possible to have mass unions the main revolutionary force that that have revolutionary ideas and can be relied on.” practice). - Malatesta 2. Malatesta misses the role of Recently, there has much discussion struggle radicalizing workers con- of the ideas of the Italian anarchist sciousness. Errico Malatesta, in books and pam- phlets and on blogs. One example is This makes growth without water- Scott Nappalos’ article at libcom.org: ing down principles possible, since isn’t negated by the fact that the ‘Anarchism and the unions: a critique workers in participating can be CNT or whoever did in fact turn of Malatesta’s ahistorical perspective’. radicalized (not saying it will, just towards reformist activities, since that it is possible, which destroys the in fact that was true by default. All I quote in length from that article: fork in his argument). This is a simi- revolutionary movements either pro- lar issue as above with Malatesta’s duced reformism or were destroyed. “There are three main errors in lack of understanding of struggle There are other factors that explain Malatesta’s argument that will lead across time. Workers’ ideas are not cooptation (and this was not in fact us to different conclusions. Malat- static, but rather shift in a dynamic Malatesta’s argument, he argues esta botches the role of history in between the notions they have, their unions will become reformist before union’s structure, the function of activity, and the ideas they encoun- reaching revolutionary conclusions). struggle in transforming the con- ter. Throughout history workers sciousness of its participants, and have built libertarian organizations It is also worth pointing out that the variations in the forms of work- not necessarily from anarchist agita- alternative libertarian institutions ers organizations.” tion within movements so much as such as anarchosyndicalist unions, being radicalized by the dynamics workers councils, militias, peas- 1. Ideology is less a product of struggle itself (though of course ants’ councils, etc., formed per- of will than of history. there are other examples too). This haps the only significant anarchist means that it is also possible for movements. Given this history, the In his reply to de Santillan, Malat- workers in libertarian unions to burden of proof falls on those who esta claims he recognizes this point. develop revolutionary consciousness claim Malatesta’s strategy, which as It may be that he did, but he fails to without being required to be anar- of yet has no significant historical see the problem for his argument. chists before joining. Since libertar- precedent. The basic idea is that unions can ian unions’ structure/principles are be revolutionary to the extent that voluntarily built, there is always 3. Not all unions were created the class or sections of the class are a struggle around the orientation equal. revolutionary. This is a historical of the union. That doesn’t mean matter. History and society devel- however (as Malatesta argues) that Since Malatesta died before see- ops unevenly, there will always be unions by their nature will cease ing the integration of unions into sections of the working class mov- being revolutionary when struggle the social partnership of the state ing into and away from various progresses. Otherwise we would not and capital, it is not useful to view revolutionary praxis embedded in have seen libertarian institutions Malatesta’s unions as identical to their organizations. Likewise the grow at all, they would have turned ours. For that reason, it is likewise success and failure of these move- reformist while growing and never naïve to think that one can merely ments depend on their context, i.e. had the chance to be repressed. This exist within organizations that are Organise! 29 setup for and schooled in repress- what Malatesta argued against, it is cal role of labour and trade unions ing radical organizing and carry a union of one form or another.” in Italy. He used the experience he out propaganda effectively. Over 80 achieved in Britain when he pub- years of communist infiltration into Now in fact, Malatesta believed lished the newspaper L’Agitazione the unions failed to produce any the opposite of much of the above. in Ancona in 1897, and later when significant shifts in the unions nor In fact, it was he who provided an the Italian anarchists led the Unione revolutionary movements. Again the inspiration for many of the leading Sindacale Italiana.” burden of proof lies with anarchists lights of the foundation of the French who think otherwise, and who have syndicalist union the Confederation In the paper he brought out in next to nothing to show for anar- General de Travail (CGT) and the London L’Associazione, Malatesta chist attempts at such. parallel Bourses de Travail (labour began to consider the implications exchanges controlled by workers), of the great strike. Issue 1. contained Malatesta’s arguments rely on the like Emile Pouger and Fernand Pell- an article by him, A Proposito di idea that all unions are the same, outier. Uno Sciopero ( Regarding A Strike). some just want ideology. But in fact He noted that as soon as the casual the structure, methods, and aims of Between 1885 and 1889 he was liv- workers strike was called, all other unions vary considerably. The fun- ing in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here, trades connected to loading and damental division in our time is be- he took part in helping organise the unloading of cargoes stopped work, tween unions (or workers’ organiza- bakers’ union, which was founded some of them purely in sympathy. tions) that seek to mediate between by Ettore Mattei and Francesso Simultaneously other trades not capital and workers, and those that Momo. He drew up the charter and connected to the docks put for- are spaces for autonomous organ- programme of the union and sup- ward their own demands and went izing that don’t exist beyond the ported its successful strikes. “His out on strike, amounting to a total activities of workers. The former and Mattei’s roles in the union were number of 180,000 on strike. The is the traditional American union, fundamental; they fought so that gas workers offered to come out on which exists mostly as a bureaucrat- the union would be an authentic strike, with the prospect of London ic layer of paid staff with specialized society of resistance, an organization “plunged into darkness at night” and skills who negotiate a contract for that moreover could be labelled as the homes of the bourgeois “exposed the workers. The contracts exchange “cosmopolitan”, instead of yet an- to great danger”. He was deeply workers control for largely economic other mere mutualist society” (The impressed by the self-discipline and gains. Workers interact with the influence of Italian immigration on “remarkable” ability to get organ- unions, and struggle for changes the Argentine anarchist movement, ised. Feeding a population of half through (and sometimes against Osvaldo Bayer). a million, managing donations and it), but the union remains a third collections, organising meetings and party with separate interests of its In 1889 Malatesta moved to London demonstrations, and keeping watch own. The 20th century is filled with and remained there, off and on, for on the bosses’ attempts to employ examples of the unions are highly the next decade. Shortly after his scabs, “All this was done marvel- efficient repressive organizations for arrival, the Great Dock strike broke lously and spontaneously, by the class cooption and collaboration. out. This ran from 14th August to work of volunteers”. Above all, the 16th September. Like his fellow workers’ collective action earned We can likewise show our own fork. anarchist Kropotkin, Malatesta was his admiration. “Those workers If you try to bore within the exist- much impressed by the action of the were not lacking a broad and often ing repressive unions, either you do workers. As DiPaola notes, he had: instinctive notion of their rights and so autonomously (with workers’ “close contact with anarchist, labour social usefulness, nor did they lack own separate structures to organ- and trade union militants. …Thanks the combativeness required to make ize with) or you don’t. If you work to his deep knowledge of British a revolution; a vague desire of more within the union’s framework, you trade unionism he could examine radical measures arose in them…” work on their terms and must fight both its positive and negative as- against their superior resources pects, particularly those arising from Turcato notes that: “ The positive both economically and in alliance the danger of greater bureaucracy in implications of the Great Dock with the boss and the state if you the labour movement. This contrib- Strike and the tactics of new union- are successful. If you build a paral- uted to the development of his ideas ism can hardly be over-estimated. He lel structure, then you are pursuing about the organisation and politi- (Malatesta) came to regard strikes as 30 Organise! the most promising path to revolu- Malatesta misses the role of struggle where he advocated the general tion, in contrast to any other means radicalizing workers consciousness, strike as a revolutionary weapon. It that anarchists had practised until as even a cursory look at Malatesta’s is apparent that Pouget had become then”. As Malatesta himself wrote ideas proves the falsity of this state- influenced by the Italian’s ideas on in his article after considering both ment. Further, we have to address the subject. In 1895 he and Fernand movements originally initiated by the assertions made in the Solidar- Pelloutier, described by Max Nettlau the bourgeoisie, and wars as catalysts ity Federation booklet Fighting For as an “intransigent anarchist commu- for social unrest, where reliance on Ourselves that: “early anarchist-com- nist” went on an intense propaganda them led to fatalism: “Fortunately munists did not focus primarily on drive to introduce these new syndi- there are other ways by which a revo- the labour movement”. Apart from calist methods to French workers. lution can come, and it seems to us the fact that anarchist communists Indeed Pelloutier in his 1899 Let- that the most important among them of the period also engaged, quite tre Aux Anarchistes ( Letter To the are workers’ agitations that manifest correctly, in agitation among what Anarchists) praised Malatesta, “The themselves in the form of strikes… was then a sizeable class, the peas- words I am going to say have a per- The most fruitful lesson of all was antry, careful observation reveals this fect illustration in propagandists like the huge dock labourer strike which not to be true. The booklet includes Malatesta, who knows how well to recently occurred in London”. Malatesta among these early anar- unite an indomitable revolutionary chist communists. As we have seen, passion with the methodical organi- Malatesta further expanded these Malatesta was an early advocate of sation of the proletariat”. ideas in his paper, calling for the in- involvement in the labour move- tervention of anarchists in struggles ment. Turcato underlines this: “Or- It should be recognised that it was in for immediate economic gains. Fur- ganisation was a worker’s means to this context that Malatesta, who as ther, he stated that the Revolution gradually and collectively approach we have seen was instrumental in ad- was a longer process than anarchists anarchism through class conscious- vancing the idea of the general strike had believed. What was needed was ness”. He then quotes Malatesta, “To among anarchists, criticised it at the a daily and long term involvement in become an anarchist for good, and 1906 Amsterdam anarchist congress. unions, cooperatives and educational not only nominally, he must start He stated that the general strike on societies. to feel the solidarity that links him its own could not overthrow capital- to his comrades; learn to cooperate ism, but that what was needed was For Malatesta economic struggle with the others for the defence of the complementary insurrectionary implied a political one. He used the common interests; and, struggling action to destroy the State. In fact First of May mobilisations to illus- against the masters and the govern- he had emphasised this in his first trate a point. The most important ment that supports the masters, article on the subject back in 1889. thing was for workers to collectively understand that masters and govern- He was aware that some syndical- assert themselves, not the limited re- ments are useless parasites and that ists were substituting the General forms they demanded. Furthermore, workers could manage by them- it was a mistake to dismiss agitation selves the social enterprise. When around the eight hour day, as Malat- he has understood all this, he is an esta admitted a poor reform, because anarchist, even if he does not carry struggle would produce class con- the denomination”. Furthermore, sciousness. Commenting on the joint Emile Pouget, who was an architect congress of the CGT and Bourses of French syndicalism, travelled de Travail in Toulouse in 1897 he to London and had meetings with wrote: “The conscious part of the Malatesta in 1893. The following French proletariat, even when they year he was again in London, living do not comprehend or accept our at the house of the Italian anarchist general principles, can devise the Defendi family, where Malatesta also way that must lead to the end of hu- resided. Both of them contributed man exploitation. Malatesta repeat- to the British anarchist communist edly emphasised that these forms of paper, The Torch . The August 1894 struggle were means towards social issue had articles from them both, revolution. This flies in the face of but significantly Malatesta’s was The the statement of Nappalos’ that General Strike and The Revolution, Organise! 31 Strike for generalised revolutionary should have, but he was aware from to “push” them forward as much as action. Indeed, this spurious notion the start of the general drift of trade possible.” reached its apogee with the General unions towards pure economism, Strike being seen as a non-violent reformism and bureaucratisation. As Turcato remarks on the concepts alternative to the failed uprisings of Malatesta as regards will and during the German Revolution, by Finally, on the question of will versus material conditions: “To the extent the leadership of the Freie Arbeiter history. Malatesta was highly critical that Malatesta committed revolution Union Deutschlands, which included of Kropotkin’s rigid determinism and and anarchy to conscious choices, Rudolf Rocker. his elevation of anarchism as a sci- he correspondingly refrained from ence, influenced as he was by posi- comforting analyses that committed On the subject of the unions which tivist ideas. “Science, like any other social progress to allegedly empirical Nappalos addresses. Malatesta was system of ideas, must not be blindly trends, be they kropotkinian evo- aware of the differences between accepted as infallible; it is a study lutionary laws or marxist historical different types of unions. In his that only concerns itself with what necessities. Malatesta held a realistic articles on the New Unionism of is, and not with what ought to be, outlook on class consciousness for- 1889, he heavily criticised the “old” that is, with the aspirations, desires mation. He realised that propaganda unions. When he attempted to and wants of humanity”. For Malat- had limited power on masses con- introduce these new tactics in Italy, esta, anarchy is a product of the will, strained by harsh material condi- he was accused by some anarchists of not of necessity. As such, science tions. At the same time, he did not inglesismo (Englishism). He replied: cannot embrace it, because science expect capitalist development to cre- “Forget about inglesismo. If this “stops where inevitability ends and ate the proletariat as a revolutionary term means anything at all, it means freedom begins” ( Julius Gavroche, force, nor mere economic interests to economic resistance for its own sake, Autonomy No1). On the other hand unite the working class into a com- as it was practised by the ‘old’ trade he was equally critical of Bakunin’s pact army.” unions, which - though they wanted belief that the masses had a natural to improve the workers’ conditions tendency towards anarchism. As he We do not bow down to Malatesta - accepted and respected the capital- wrote: as some sort of tin idol; he had his ist system and all bourgeois institu- faults, which should be recognised. tions”. “The great majority of anarchists, if I But a false representation of his ideas am not mistaken, hold the view that does no favours to those anarcho- Malatesta was an extraordinary human perfectibility and anarchy syndicalists who wish to argue pragmatic and flexible activist and would not be achieved even in a few against Malatesta’s ideas on specific thinker, adapting to situations as they thousand years, if first one did not anarchist political organisations and unfolded. Thus, after the founding of create by the revolution, made by a syndicalism. In the next issue of Or- the USI in 1912, Malatesta gave sup- conscious minority, the necessary ganise! we will take a more in-depth port saying that it corresponded best environment for freedom and well look at Malatesta’s concepts of the to anarchist ideas and tactics. He did being. relationship of conscious anarchist emphasise that there were still many groups to mass organisation anarchists in the mainstream union “We do not want to “wait for the central, the General Confederation masses to become anarchist before Further reading: of Labour (CGL), and what was making the revolution,” the more so Malatesta: Life and Ideas . (ed) Ver- needed was unity of action between since we are convinced that they will non Richards these comrades. The organisation never become anarchist if the institu- Making Sense of Anarchism: Errico created by Malatesta and other tions which keep them enslaved are Malatesta’s Experiments With Revo- organisational anarchists in 1920, the not first violently destroyed. And lution. Davide Turcato. Unione Anarchica Italiana (UAI), since we need the support of the Anarchism and Authority: A Pghilo- worked closely with the USI in the masses to build up a force of suf- sophical Introduction to Classical period of social unrest that gave birth ficient strength and to achieve our Anarchism. Paul McLaughlin. to the Italian factory council move- specific task of radical change of the ment. Malatesta did not have the social organism by the direct action Scott Nappalos’ full article can hindsight that modern day anarchists of the masses, we must get closer be found at: http://libcom.org/ may have about the role of the un- to them, accept them as they are, library/anarchism-unions-critique- ions, as Nappalos seems to think he and from within their ranks seek malatestas-ahistorical-perspective 32 Organise!

Anarchism and Organisation Errico Malatesta Organisation which is, after all, only oppress them. Anarchism exists to Admitting as a possibility the exist- the practice of cooperation and remedy this state of affairs ... ence of a community organised solidarity, is a natural and neces- without authority, that is without sary condition of social life; it is an Now, it seems to us that organisation, compulsion – and anarchists must inescapable fact which forces itself that is to say, association for a spe- admit the possibility, or anarchism on everybody, as much on human cific purpose and with the structure would have no meaning – let us pass society in general as on any group and means required to attain it, is a on to discuss the organisation of the of people who are working towards necessary aspect of social life. A hu- anarchist movement. a common objective. Since hu- man being in isolation cannot even manity neither wishes to, nor can, live the life of a beast, for they would In this case too, organisation seems live in isolation it is inevitable that be unable to obtain nourishment useful and necessary. If a movement those people who have neither the for themselves, except perhaps in means the whole – individuals with a means, nor a sufficiently developed tropical regions or when the popula- common objective which they exert social conscience to permit them to tion is exceptionally sparse; and they themselves to attain – it is natural associate freely with those of a like would be, without exception, unable that they should agree among them- mind and with common interests, to rise much above the level of an selves, join forces, share out the tasks are subjected to the organisation animal. Having therefore to join with and take all those steps which they by others, generally constituted in other humans, or more accurately, think will lead to the achievement of a class or as a ruling group, with the finding themselves united to them those objectives. To remain isolated, aim of exploiting the labor of others as a consequence of the evolution- each individual acting or seeking to for their personal advantage. And the ary antecedents of the species, they act on their own without coordina- agelong oppression of the masses by must submit to the will of others tion, without preparation, without a small privileged group has always (be enslaved) or subject others to their modest efforts to a strong been the result of the inability of the his/her will (be in authority) or live group, means condemning oneself oppressed to agree among them- with others in fraternal agreement to impotence, wasting ones efforts selves to organise with others for in the interests of the greatest good in small ineffectual action, and to production, for enjoyment and for of all (be an associate). Nobody can lose faith very soon in ones aims and the possible needs of defense against escape from this necessity. possibly being reduced to complete whoever might wish to exploit and inactivity. Organise! 33 one section to sell and of the other greater scope to the efforts which A mathematician, a chemist, a to buy, and impose his/her own in isolation would be impossible or psychologist or a sociologist may prices both on the producer and the ineffective. Thus for an anarchist -or say they have no programme or are consumer. This is what has happened ganisation congress, in spite of all the concerned only with establishing the in our midst; the less organised we disadvantages from which they suffer truth. They seek knowledge, they are have been, the more prone are we to as representative bodies, are free not seeking to do something. But be imposed on by a few individuals. from authoritarianism in any shape anarchism and socialism are not sci- And this is understandable. So much or form because they do not legislate ences; they are proposals, projects, so that organisation, far from creating and do not impose their delibera- that anarchists and socialists seek to authority, is the only cure for it and tions on others. They serve to main- realize and which, therefore need to the only means whereby each one of tain and increase personal contacts be formulated as definite programs. us will get used to taking an active among the most active comrades, to and conscious part in the collective summarize and encourage program- If it is true that organisation creates work, and cease being passive instru- matic studies on the ways and means leaders; if it is true that anarchists are ments in the hands of leaders. for action; to acquaint everybody unable to come together and arrive with the situation in the regions and at an agreement without submit- But an organisation, it is argued, pre- the kind of action most urgently ting themselves to an authority, this supposes an obligation to coordinate needed; to summarise the various means that they are not yet very ones own activities with those of oth- currents of anarchist opinions at the good anarchists, and before thinking ers; thus it violates liberty and fetters time and to prepare some kind of sta- of establishing an anarchist society initiative. As we see it, what really tistics therefrom. And their decisions within the world they must think takes away liberty and makes initia- are not binding, but simply sugges- of making themselves able to live tive impossible is the isolation which tions, advice and proposals to submit anarchistically. The remedy does not renders it powerless. Freedom is not to all concerned, and they do not lie in the abolition of organisation an abstract right but the possibility of become binding and executive ex- but in the growing consciousness acting; this is true among ourselves cept for those who accept them and of each individual member. In small as well as society as a whole. And it for as long as they accept them. The as well as large societies, apart from is by cooperation with our fellow administrative organs they nominate brute force, of which it cannot be a human beings that we find the means – Correspondence Commissions, question for us, the origin and jus- to express our activity and our power etc. – have no directive powers, do tification for authority lies in social of initiative. not take initiatives except for those disorganisation. who specifically solicit and approve An anarchist organization must of them, and have no authority to When a community has needs and allow for complete autonomy, and impose their own views, which they its members do not know how to independence, and therefore full can certainly hold and propagate as organise spontaneously to provide responsibility, to individuals and groups of comrades, but which can- them, someone comes forward, an groups; free agreement between not be presented as the official views authority who satisfies those needs those who think it useful to come of the organisation. They publish the by utilising the services of all and together for cooperative action, for resolutions of the congresses and directing them to their liking. If the common aims; a moral duty to fulfill the opinions and proposals com- roads are unsafe and the people do ones pledges and to take no action municated to them by groups and not know what measures to take, a which is contrary to the accepted individuals; and they act for those police force emerges which in return programme. On such bases one then who want to make use of them, to for whatever services it renders introduces practical forms and suit- facilitate relations between groups, expects to be supported and paid, as able instruments to give real life to and cooperation between those who well as imposing itself and throwing the organisation. Thus the groups, are in agreement on various initia- its weight around; if some article is the federation of groups, the federa- tives; each is free to correspond with needed, and the community does tions of federations, meetings, con- whoever he/she likes direct, or make not know how to arrange with the gresses, correspondence committees use of the other committees nomi- distant producers to supply it in and so on. But this also must be done nated by specific groupings. exchange for goods produced locally, freely, in such a way as not to restrict the merchant will appear, who will the thought and the initiative of In an anarchist organisation indi- profit by dealing with the needs of individual members, but only to give vidual members can express any 34 Organise! opinion and use every tactic which is archism as their goal or which do not easily dominated. And it follows, not in contradiction with the accept- follow anarchist methods of struggle. logically, that it cannot desire more ed principles and does not interfere To those comrades it seemed that all than that much organisation, and with the activities of others. In every organised forces for an objective less of the kind it needs to attain power: case a particular organization last than radically revolutionary, were Electoral organisations if it hopes to so long as the reasons for union are forces that the revolution was being achieve it by legal means; Military superior to those for dissension; oth- deprived of. It seems to us instead, organisation if it relies on violent ac- erwise it disbands and makes way for and experience has surely already tion. But we anarchists do not want other, more homogenous groupings. confirmed our view, that their ap- to emancipate the people; we want Certainly the life and permanence proach would condemn the anarchist the people to emancipate themselves. of an organization is a condition for movement to a state of perpetual We do not believe in the good that success in the long struggle before us, sterility. To make propaganda we comes from above and imposed by and besides, it is natural that every must be amongst the people, and it force; we want the new way of life to institution should by instinct aim at is in the workers’ associations that emerge from the body of the people lasting indefinitely. But the duration workers find their comrades and es- and correspond to the state of their of a libertarian organisation must be pecially those who are most disposed development and advance as they the result of the spiritual affinity of to understand and accept our ideas. advance. It matters to us therefore its members and of the adaptability But even when it is possible to do that all interests and opinions should of its constitution to the continually as much propaganda as we wished find their expression in a conscious changing circumstances. When it can outside the associations, this could organisation and should influence no longer serve a useful purpose it is not have a noticeable effect on the communal life in proportion to their better that it should die. working masses. Apart from a small importance. number of individuals more edu- We would certainly be happy if we cated and capable of abstract thought We have undertaken the task of could all get along well together and and theoretical enthusiasms, the struggling against existing social unite all the forces of anarchism in worker cannot arrive at anarchism organisation, and of overcoming the a strong movement; but we do not in one leap. To become a convinced obstacles to the advent of a new soci- believe in the solidity of organisa- anarchist, and not in name only, they ety in which freedom and well being tions which are built on concessions must begin to feel the solidarity that would be assured to everybody. To and assumptions and in which there joins them to their comrades, and to achieve this objective we organise is no real agreement and sympathy learn to cooperate with others in de- ourselves and seek to become as between members. Better disunited fense of common interests and that, numerous and as strong as possible. than badly united. But we would by struggling against the bosses and But if it were only our anarchist wish that each individual joined their against the government that supports groupings that were organised; if the friends and that there should be no them, should realize that bosses and workers were to remain isolated like isolated forces, or lost forces. governments are useless parasites so many units unconcerned about and that the workers could man- each other and only linked by the It remains for us to speak of the age the domestic economy by their common chain; if we ourselves be- organisation of the working and op- own efforts. And when the worker sides being organised as anarchists in pressed masses for resistance against has understood this, he or she is an a federation, were not as workers or- both the government and the em- anarchist even if they do not refer to ganised with other workers, we could ployers. Workers will never be able themselves as such. achieve nothing at all, or at most, we to emancipate themselves so long as might be able to impose ourselves ... they do not find in union the moral, Furthermore, to encourage popular and then it would not be the triumph economic and physical strength that organisations of all kinds is the logi- of anarchism, but our triumph. We is needed to subdue the organised cal consequence of our basic ideas, could then go on calling ourselves might of the oppressors. and should therefore be an integral anarchists, but in reality we should part of our programme. An authori- simply be rulers, and as impotent as There have been anarchists, and there tarian party, which aims at captur- all rulers are where the general good still are some, who while recognising ing power to impose its ideas, has is concerned. the need to organise today for propa- an interest in the people remaining ganda and action, are hostile to all an amorphous mass, unable to act organisations which do not have an- for themselves and therefore always Organise! 35 Syria: The Struggle Continues Syria’s grass-roots civil opposition The following was written by Leila Shrooms, from Tahrir-Interna- tional Collective Network, a group of Middle East anarchists.

The discourse on Syria has been dominated by discussions of militari- sation, Islamisation, sectarianism and geopolitical concerns. Conversely there has been relatively little focus on Syria’s grass roots civil opposi- tion. This has led to a lack of knowl- edge outside of Syria for activists who want to stand in solidarity with Syria’s revolutionaries but don’t know where to start. This article attempts to provide an introduction to some of the many civil resist- ance initiatives taking place on the ground and efforts at revolutionary self-organisation. It is by no means a Local committees and local Today hundreds of local com- comprehensive overview. mittees/coordinations have been councils established in neighbourhoods and towns throughout the country. In It focuses on initiatives that are non- The main form of revolutionary the local committees revolutionary party political or religiously aligned. organisation in Syria has been at the activists engage in multiple activities, It must be remembered that prior to local level, through the work of local from documenting and reporting on March 2011 there was not a func- committees and local councils. These violations carried out by the regime tioning civil society in Syria as rights were influenced by the work of Syr- (and increasingly elements of the op- to free expression, assembly and as- ian anarchist Omar Aziz. He argued position) to organising protests and sociation were highly restricted with that it was inconsistent for revolu- civil disobedience campaigns (such severe consequences for those who tionaries to participate in protests by as strikes and refusing to pay utility failed to comply. day and then return to living within bills) and collecting and providing the hierarchical and authoritarian aid and humanitarian supplies to structures imposed by the state. Aziz Who are the grass areas under bombardment or siege. believed that revolutionary activity They operate as horisontally organ- roots civil opposition? should permeate all aspects of life ised, leaderless groups, made up of and advocated for radical changes all segments of society. Whilst or- The core of the grassroots civil oppo- to social relationships and organi- ganising on the local level, they have sition is the youth, mainly from the sation. He called for autonomous, built up networks of solidarity and working and middle-classes, in which non-hierarchical organisation and mutual aid across the country. women and diverse religious and self-governance, based of principles ethnic groups play active roles. Many of cooperation, solidarity and mutual At the city and district levels lo- of these activists remain non-affiliat- aid. ed to traditional political ideologies cal councils have been established. There are 128 throughout Syria. but are motivated by concerns for Together with comrades he founded They are often the primary civil freedom, dignity, social justice and the first local committee in Barzeh, administrative structure in areas lib- basic human rights. Damascus. erated from the state, as well as some areas that remain under state control. 36 Organise! These ensure the provision of basic distribution of food parcels and basic services, coordinate with the local Whilst the main basis of activity is medical equipment for which it relies committees, coordinate with armed very much at the local level, there on individual donations. It is op- resistance groups and maintain are a number of different umbrella posed to both local armed resistance security. They mainly follow some groups that have emerged to coor- and international military interven- form of representative democratic dinate and network on the regional tion. Though non politically aligned, model and free local elections have and it is one of the few grass-roots oppo- occurred in areas where they have national level. These include the sition groups that participates in the been established, something that has Local Coordination Committees Syrian National Coalition (bourgeois not happened in Syria under four (LCC), National Action Commit- opposition in exile). The LCC’s decades of Baath rule. Some coun- tees (NAC), the Federation of the most recent campaign, following the cils change their elected representa- Coordination Committees of the chemical attack in Ghouta in August tives every three months and there Syrian Revolution (FCC) and the 2013, was denouncing chemical is no leader amongst them. As the Syrian Revolution General Commis- weapons use and calling on the Unit- humanitarian situation has deterio- sion (SRGC). None represent the ed Nations to implement a full inves- rated they have taken on an increas- totality of local committees/councils tigation and at the weekly protests ingly vital role but they face many participants carried signs with those challenges. The scarcity of resources messages on them. In July 2013 they has meant that some have had to ran a campaign calling on people not suspend work, such as happened in to deviate from the original goals of Aleppo. In an appeal for support to the revolution and condemning the local councils, human rights activist actions of war lords which they said Razan Zaitouneh says “We cannot act solely for personal gain and have continue to demand local councils to become as bad as the play their role without support and regime. employment plans that assist them to do the simplest actions helping Syrian Revolutionary Youth civilians to survive under siege and Coalition shelling. These plans include provid- ing potable water, collecting garbage The Syrian Revolutionary Youth, from residential areas, and support- founded on 1 May 2012, is com- ing projects that provide food from prised of young people who consider inside the besieged area exposed themselves leftists but are not affili- to hunger.” She also highlights that ated to any political party. Accord- lack of resources make local councils ing to one of their members, “The susceptible to influence by armed revolution is largely spontaneous. It groups and that help is needed for is not a revolution of political groups, them “to be independent from sup- a traditional opposition, or specific porting parties that try to arm the ideological groups … we continue to region to establish their authority work for the revolution as the whole, on the ground, rather than enable and they have different organisa- participating in demonstrations and [them] to have neutrality- as much tional structures and differing levels in other forms of protest.” They focus as possible- and make independent of engagement or non-engagement their activity on promoting both the decisions.” At least one Local Coun- with the formal political opposition. political goals of the revolution (the cil in Manbej,Aleppo, suspended For example the Local Coordina- desire for freedom) with the socio- work in protest against the excess tion Committees comprises 14 local economic goals (social justice). They of the militant Jihadi group ISIS in committees. It is a decentralised organise throughout the country, but the town. Some local councils have network of youth activists from their main presence is in Damascus been more successful and inclusive different ethnic, social and religious and Homs. Women play an active than others which have been plagued backgrounds that focuses on organ- role in the group’s activities and par- by infighting or found themselves ising civil disobedience campaigns ticipate in protests. unable to displace the bureaucratic and doing media work and also pro- structures of the old regime. vides humanitarian aid, such as the Organise! 37 Union of Free Syrian The Kurdish Youth Movement arrests for bloggers. Today, an inde- Students (TCK) pendent media is flourishing with 59 revolutionary newspapers and Students have played a key role in Syrian Kurds have suffered decades magazines. For example, ‘Oxygen’ the revolution and have organised of denial of their political, economic, a weekly magazine established by protests on campus demanding the social and cultural rights, as well as youth in Zabadani, publishes articles downfall of the regime since the their right to self-determination at about the Syrian uprising and peace- first days of the uprising. Political the hands of the Baath regime. The ful resistance, promotes ‘revolution- organisation on campus (apart from largest Kurdish youth group is the ary ethics’ and members collectively the Baath Party) was banned by the the TCK. It was established in 2005, decide on content. Another maga- regime, and students that have par- following the Kurdish uprising the zine ‘Local Grapes’ was established ticipated in the uprising have been previous year in which many were by women in Daraya, near persecuted by the security forces, killed and more than 2 thousand Damascus, which targets those who with the collaboration of university were arrested by state security forces. don’t have internet and is distrib- authorities. Many were arrested and The TCK advocates for human uted on the street. A number of detained. For this reason students rights and justice for Kurds and for radio stations have been established began to organise in secret and a federal solution for Syria’s Kurdish such as Radio ANA and Free Ya- the Union of Free Syrian Students population. The TCK has played an broud Radio. Citizen journalism has (UFSS) was formed in September active role in anti-regime protests flourished such as the Photography 2011. Their founding statement lists since the first days of the uprising. from Lens Youth which is a network their goals as being; to coordinate In recent weeks it has also been of photography collectives existing amongst students and universities, organising demonstrations against in different cities to document life to organise peaceful demonstra- the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and war in Syria. Kayani project is tions and strikes, to coordinate which is now the main party in con- one of a number of independent with unions, committees and other trol of the Kurdish areas, in protest media projects which produces short revolutionary groups and to work of the PYD’s authoritarian polices, documentaries about Syria’s revo- on building a civil, democratic and including arrests of Kurdish youth lutionary movement with English pluralistic state that ensures freedom, activists. Kurdish youth activists subtitles. Qama(wheat) is a group justice and equality for all citizens. participate in the activities of local of citizen journalists who focus on The UFSS has organised many committees, have established their building Syrian society rather than protests on campuses throughout own committees in Kurdish areas, the revolution. They say, “Change the country, and especially at Aleppo and play an active role in other grass stems from society, and not from re- university. They distribute informa- roots opposition initiatives. Recently placing political and military authori- tion and have founded their own protests have been held in Aleppo, in ties with other political and military magazine called ‘The Voice of the which hundreds of Kurds and Arabs authorities. Revolutions must end Free’. They document human rights participated calling for unity and eventually, but societies live on.” violations carried out against stu- condemning the recent atrocities They produce animated videos and dents and campaign for the release of carried out by militant Jihadi groups radio programs to promote civil student detainees. They participated against the Kurdish population. disobedience, non-violent resistance in many nationwide campaigns such strategies, and civil rights. In one as the campaign in solidarity with Newspapers, Magazines and campaign, they dyed the fountains of Damascus red to symbolise lives lost the female prisoners at Adra who Social Media went on hunger strike to protest their during the uprising. They also held conditions of detention in July 2013. campaigns to promote respect for all Prior to the revolution there were se- religions and put an end to incite- There are also other revolutionary vere restrictions placed on media and unions such as the Union of Free ment to revenge and hate speech the right to information. Only three They are self-funded and rely on the Syrian Professors, the Union of Free government controlled newspapers Syrian Doctors and the Union of work of volunteers to maintain their existed and the internet was highly independence. Free Syrian Artisans. restricted and use monitored. These factors led the Committee to Protect Journalists naming Syria as the third most censored country in the world with one of the highest number of 38 Organise! Other non-violence civil that participated in the strike, burn- a revolutionary struggle, but also a resistance groups ing down 178 shops in the city of brutal conflict between an increas- Deraa and a factory in Aleppo. ing number of actors. This article has Freedom Days: Is a collective Security forces damaged shops outlined just a few of the many established in October 2011 that which participated in the strike. In revolutionary initiatives that are brought together a number of non- the following two months Assad currently ongoing. Most of those violent groups including the Local closed 187 factories and laid off mentioned above have a nationwide Coordination Committees, Syrian more than 85,000 workers (accord- reach, but there are also hundreds of Non-Violence Movement, Nabd and ing to official figures) in an attempt other initiatives happening on the the Syrian People Know their Way. It to crush the protest movement. It local level as people try to organise aims to overthrow authoritarian rule didn’t succeed and Freedom Days both the continuation of revolu- and establish a civil state through has continued its work. Recent tionary activity and their lives in civil non-violent resistance and is examples include publishing infor- areas where the state has collapsed. the largest non-violence initiative in mation on how to overcome the loss Undoubtedly such initiatives are the Syria. One of their most important of a loved one or stay safe during an most positive thing to have emerged contributions to the Syrian Uprising airstrike, establishing assemblies to from the Arab Spring and they have was the Dignity Strike held between plan community-based initiatives, provided hope and energy to a gen- 14 and 30 December 2012. It com- organising cleaning campaigns in eration which was born and raised prised a number of components: destroyed areas, protesting against under repression. But the civil resist- militant Jihadi groups and religious ance faces many challenges. It is now 14-16 December: Roads and streets extremism and supporting initiatives fighting on numerous levels; against were closed and people did not go to for co-existence. a tyrannical regime, work between midday and 6pm against militant Jihadi groups, against 16-20 December: Strikes in stores Nabd (Pulse): Is an organisation increasing divisions within Syrian and shops established to fight both against the society. As the humanitarian and se- 21-23 December: Strike at universi- regime and against all forms of dis- curity situation has worsened, many ties crimination including on religious, civil initiatives have had to scale 24-26 December: Roads connecting ethnic or gender grounds, reinforce back their work or switched from the city and countryside were closed the diversity of Syrian society and revolutionary activities to providing 27-29 December: Strike by civil serv- promote peaceful coexistence.It humanitarian assistance. Some have ants is one of the largest civil groups in had to stop organising altogether. 30 December until demands (the Syria, established in June 2011. Nabd Most of all these initiatives end of the regime) were met: Ongo- organises protests which include lack the support and solidarity, from ing civil disobedience. members of all sects particularly in outside Syria, that is needed for them secular strongholds and mixed com- to continue, threatening all hope It was the first general strike held in munities such as Homs, Yabroud, for a future that is brighter than the four decades of Baath rule. Unions Salamiyeh and Zabadani. Nabd present. are dominated by the Baath party activists from minority groups such and a climate of fear had previously as Alawite and Ismaili communities For full notes and sources for this prevented worker’s organisation also smuggle humanitarian aid and article visit apart from very few localised strikes. supplies into areas http://tahriricn.wordpress. The Dignity Campaign was adver- under siege. Nabd also reaches out com/2013/09/16/syria-the-strug- tised on social media and through to people that are pro-regime. A gle-continues-syrias-grass-roots- SMS messaging. It was an over- recent demonstration they organ- civil-opposition/ whelming success in terms of partici- ised was on 23 August in Homs and pation. The LCC documented more Salamyah, protesting the chemical than 600 places which participated in attacks in Ghouta. the strike and it was observed across 10 governorates. A large section of Conclusion the economy was paralyzed. The response of the regime was Syria’s grassroots, civil resistance brutal. Arrests were wide-spread and lives on, despite the increased mili- government troops attacked those tarisation of what is now, not only Organise! 39 Statement from the Libertarian Socialist Movement (Egypt) The text below does not take into The neoliberal arsenal therefore tions reflect the fierce power struggle account the Army takeover in continues to rage, and state repres- between coalitions. detail, but gives a libertarian per- sion practiced diligently against any spective on events leading up to attempt for demands from all the the coup. The army was as much Egyptian working class. Popular protest concerned, if not more so, in head- The popular response to this situa- ing off a wave of popular action, tion is found in examples such as that as they were in muzzling the Mus- Between neoliberalism of Port Said. The city has since the lim Brotherhood, which has been and state repression beginning of 2013 seen a bubbling conveniently used as a pretext up of unprecedented protest, where to silence the movement on the Overwhelming evidence again of the protest turned into a broad move- streets and in the workplaces. full power of the army: the theft of ment of general civil disobedience. Qursaya island by the army, with the More than two years after the fall of blessing of the constitution concoct- The political and economic margin- Mubarak, the political situation is a ed by the Muslim Brotherhood. The alisation of the city by the central fool’s game between preda- government since the fall of tors: the Muslim Brother- Mubarak, the passivity of the hood, the institutional op- army and its role in the drama position and the army. The of the Port Said Stadium in economic situation is the ar- February 2012, and the con- chetype of neoliberal disaster. victions of the city youth as In response, social struggles scapegoats of this drama, are self-organising and trying pushed the population of Port to break the cynicism of poli- Said to actively take control of ticians and state repression. their city. First action: hunting down of all police units and The neoliberal zeal of the the creation of defence units in Egyptian Muslim Brother- neighbourhoods. The measures hood is a secret to no one. The that followed revealed a developing latest to date, Morsi’s support for the police are not left out either: it rein- spirit of self-management. Thus, the celebrated businessman Amer Fajr. forced the iron hand with which it “official” schools were boycotted, He had indeed requested arbitration held major cities during the Mubarak and parents and teachers began to (read: support) of the state after the era, and has largely targeted popular implement new educational media “blackmail” of striking workers at discontent since the beginning of the and a school curriculum relevant to the Fajr Allah factories last February. protest against the deposed presi- the city. Obviously, the bills received Nothing surprising about that: we dent. This iron hand meant an active by the State ceased to be paid, and all still remember the famous words of carrying out of massive and targeted taxes. Whether in Port Said in Egypt Hassan Malek, a businessman and a arrests of political activists, as well as and elsewhere, the struggles of the major figure of the Muslim Brother- violent actions against strike pickets Egyptian people cannot be reduced hood, who to give evidence of good across the country. to a demand for bread from the hun- conduct to Uncle Sam, told the gry classes; through their practices, American Chamber of Commerce In such a situation, the forces of in- they express a desire for freedom that that “the former regime did not stitutional opposition are limited to makes us take example. make the wrong choice in economic a “realistic” analysis and “pragmatic” policy, but the policy was poorly response to power, and thus shape Libertarian Socialist Movement implemented.” the legitimacy of the latter. (Egypt) translated from Arabic by Ultimately, these politicians’ calcula- Marouane Taharouri 40 Organise! Culture Article: Henri Edmond Cross: Painter of Utopia “Of all of Seurat’s disciples, he that he met the painter Paul Signac, like Georges Seurat and Charles was the one with the liveliest im- who became his friend and was later Angrand. However he continued to agination, the deepest feeling and to have a deep influence on him, paint in a style influenced by Manet. the most accomplished spirit.” both artistically and politically. Gradually, his colours became lighter - Emile Verhaeren and brighter, inspired as he was by In the following year he co- the sunny landscapes of southern Organise! has featured France, where he wintered a series of articles on every year because of his artists who identified chronic rheumatism. By the strongly with the anar- late 1880s he was painting chist movement. There landscapes influenced by have been articles in its Monet and Pissarro. pages on Pissarro, Signac, Luce, Steinlen, and De- He moved full-time to lannoy. This time we look southern France in 1891 at the work of the French because of his illness and painter Henri Edmond began to paint in a neo- Cross. Impressionist style. Here he was visited by the art critic Henri Edmond Delacroix Félix Fénéon, and by the was born at Douai in painters Théo Van Rys- northern France on May selberghe and Paul Signac 20th 1856, into a well off among others. It was sig- family of shopkeepers. A nificant that all three were cousin, who was a doc- very much identified with tor, noticed his interest in the anarchist movement in painting and helped him, France. His first painting in even paying for his first this style was a portrait of drawing lessons. He went his future wife, executed in on to attend art school in the divisionist style, where Lille. colours are separated into dots and brush strokes. At first he painted in a realist style. Not want- Fénéon had became direc- ing to be mistaken for tor of an art gallery, and the famous painter he helped his friend and Delacroix, and with his comrade by organising ex- English mother in mind, hibitions and publishing his he changed his name to Cross, the founded the Société des Artistes sketch books after his death. English translation of the “croix” Indépendants (Society of Independ- component of his surname. ent Artists), which revolted against Like the other artists that Cross the hidebound traditionalism of exhibited with - Luce, Petitjean, La In 1883 he took a trip to the south the official Salon and organised its Rochefoucauld, Van Rysselberghe, eastern corner of France and painted own exhibitions. There he met many Signac, Angrand, Seurat and the two many landscapes. It was on this trip members of the Neo-Impressionists, sons of Pissarro, - he had become an Organise! 41 anarchist and subscribed to the ideas above, Cross contributed to the him on several occasions donating of the anarchist theorist Kropotkin. anarchist movement by donating his works as prizes in fund raising They believed that science and tech- illustrations to the anarchist paper, lotteries for Les Temps Nouveaux. nology would help liberate humanity Les Temps Nouveaux (New Times), both materially and spiritually. He edited by Jean Grave. He provided Cross’s health was worsening, with painted landscapes where human the cover illustration for the pam- increasingly poor eyesight and pain- figures blend with nature in har- phletm, À Mon Frère le Paysan (To ful arthritis, and he died on the 16th mony. He evoked a future anarchist My Brother The Peasant), written May 1910 of cancer at the age of fifty utopia in these paintings. As he said: by the anarchist theorist and activist four. His fellow anarchist painter Van “I want to paint happiness; happy Élisée Reclus in 1899. The following Rysselberghe provided a medallion beings that men (sic) will become in year he did the same for Jean Grave’s for his tomb. a few centuries when pure anarchy booklet, Enseignement Bourgeois et will have been realised”. Signac had Enseignement Libertaire ( Bourgeois Signac saw him as an ‘impassive and already painted a vast canvas depict- Education and Libertarian Educa- consistent thinker, who is simulta- ing this future society first entitled tion). He provided an illustration for neously a passionate and strange Au Temps d’Anarchie (In The Time the book of lithographs published by dreamer’. Cross, despite his painful of Anarchy) and then Au temps Les temps Nouveaux in 1905 and a illnesses, had revelled in the joy of D’Harmonie ( In the Time of Har- drawing for the book, Patriotisme, painting and appreciation of great art mony). Carefree work for the good Colonisation. works. His sensuous painting exerted of the community, free love, and the an influence on a new generation joys of doing nothing are depicted. However, he was conflicted by the of painters like Kandinsky, Derain Cross undertook a similar painting need to provide propagandist illus- and Matisse. Unlike Signac, whose with his L’Air du Soir (The Evening trations and his reservations about children promoted and preserved Air) in 1894. compromising his artistic ideas, feel- his works, Cross had no such help ing constrained by the nature of the and after his death his paintings were Like the other painters mentioned pieces he offered. This did not stop scattered.

Henri Cross’s “The Evening Air” - showing a libertarian future 42 Organise! “I come to you like the beggar man...” A review of Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed As part of our utopia theme, we’ve pressive behaviours, each holding included a new review of an old the redemptive key to the other’s classic of the anarchist utopian doom. The spirit of Anarres shows genre. what can be achieved if society is reordered along the principles of When I first sat down to write this horizontal organisation, free associa- review all I could think of saying tion, solidarity and mutual aid. The was along the lines of “The Dispos- resources of Urras can break the bane sessed is about two worlds divided of economic scarcity that is choking by a wall, and what it means to be a anarchism to death in the face of col- beggar on either side of this divide. lective survival. Go read it!” Unfortunately that isn’t much of a review, but with that in The opening of the book presents to mind... us a wall.

The Dispossessed is a work of specu- The wall keeps one world in. The lative science fiction exploring two same wall keeps the other world out. the morals, philosophy, thought different societies living in orbit to This applies no matter which side and behaviours of the people of one another: of the divide you look from and it is Anarres. Their language sets up what this wall – constructed not only of they can or can’t put into words Urras. The Blue-Green world of plen- stone but of the material conditions and communicate and commonly ty. This is a world of class, a world of of the two societies – that is exam- conceive. These altered boundaries division. The place where the rich are ined in great detail. Le Guin does not of consciousness let us understand rich and the poor are poor. Where present this in dry terms however. for ourselves in the way their society workers take the brunt from the Her deft characterisation of Shevek, behaves, and in doing so invites the bosses wars and wants, no matter if our ideal anarchist cypher and lead reader to think in a different way, one the boss claims to be a capitalist or a character, is able to explore and re- that goes out-with those presented communist. It is our world presented veal to us the words as they are lived, in the mainstream of our day-to-day to us in another name. rather than simply providing us with lives. In short, it is consciousness dry exposition or simple narrator- raising. Anarres. A moon colony of idealis- descriptions, which could be read tic anarchists in exile. Now several but not felt. Alien planets beyond Like the anarchist ideals the book so generations old, it sits in isolation the entwined orbit of Anarres and deftly explores, the story itself does from the rest of humanity and the Urras give warnings of other possible not leave us with an ending so much worlds beyond. Life here is tough futures. Terra has been destroyed by as a staging point for our own jour- and resources are scarce. When crops self-created environmental catas- ney. To use the ideas of the books, it fail or disaster strikes the hardships trophe. Hain shows a disinterested comes to you like a beggar man, rely- leave deep scars against the egalitar- world dying in spirit due to a lack of ing on you for all that it requires and ian psyche. Although the ideals of creative passion. The wall that sepa- leaving you enriched by realising you anarchism are spoken of, the local rates and acts as the doom of Anarres would be better with nothing but conditions are helping the world and Urras is shown to also be the what you carry as long as all needs sleepwalk into bureaucratic syndical- foundation to the downfall of these are met. By the end of reading it I ism that sacrafices individual will to not-so-distant places. was stood at the wall between two the collective. worlds with the choice over whether A special note must be made towards I help to dismantle it, and by choos- Each is presented in a spiral of op- the use of of language to convey ing to do so build a greater whole. Organise! 43 Review Carlo Tresca: portrait of a rebel. Nunzio Pernicone 387 pages. AK Press. £14.00 “I declare that bourgeois society was the sixth of eight children unto must be changed by attacking the a well-off family which owned land pillars that support it. A revolu- and a carting business and stationery tion is needed to change it, not a shop. However an economic slump fascist revolution that is regressive in the 1890s effected the fortunes of and reactionary, but a proletarian the family. His older brother Ettore revolution, one of slaves against became a doctor and joined the slavers, of civilisation against Italian Socialist Party (PSI) after obscurantism. I declare that I witnessing the appalling health and feel my spirit and strength rein- living conditons of many workers vigorated every time the interests and peasants. Carlo himself had by of reaction attack me with their the age of fifteen developed an -in persecution. I affirm my libertar- tense hatred of the Catholic Church ian faith”. and began to engage in anti-clerical - Speech by Tresca in 1925 activity. He then began attending PSI meetings where he met many rail Nunzio Pernicone, the author of this workers, Sulmona having developed decided to emigrate to the USA. book died of cancer on May 30th into a major rail centre in the Abruz- 2013. He was a colleague of the late zo in this period. By 1902 Tresca was He arrived in New York in August Paul Avrich, and like Avrich contrib- propagandising for the PSI among 1904. Here he involved himself with uted much to historical research of the artisans of Sulmona. He followed the immigrant Italian socialist move- anarchism. His other major work, this up with organising drives among ment. He stood on its revolutionary Italian Anarchism, 1864-1892 the peasants in the surrounding area. wing. Very soon he became editor of appeared in 1993. This particular He capped his reputation by giving its paper, Il Proletario. He perfected volume is an expanded and corrected the final speech on the May Day rally the agitational literary skills he had version of the first 2003 edition. that year. His talents as organiser developed in Italy, attacking the It involved many years of research and orator were being honed by his Catholic Church and the consular tracing obscure old Italian immigrant activity, and soon he received a sen- representatives of the Italian state, anarchist militants in the United tence of thirty days for his socialist accusing them of parasitism and cor- States. activity. He aggravated the situation ruption. by calling the carabinieri captain In some ways this book is a tribute to who had arrested him a drunk, who Tresca’s exposure to the Sulmona rail Pernicone’s father, a great admirer of had arrested him to please the city’s workers had developed a taste for Tresca. Salvatore Pernicone imparted “cancerous criminal clique”, ending direct action among Italian workers. anarchist ideas to his son, and was an up serving seventy days. He involved himself in a hat makers actor and director in various amateur strike, delivering fiery speeches on theatre groups that put on plays as He now applied his skills to radical the picket line. By now, he was fol- benefits for Italian-American radical journalism, working on a local social- lowing the development of revolu- papers that included Tresca’s Il Mar- ist paper and finally being brought tionary syndicalism in Italy, which tello. Indeed some of the plays that up on a charge of insulting the army. spread its ideas to the Italian Ameri- were performed in the 1920s and He had now attracted the enmity can community. He agreed with the 1930s were written by Carlo Tresca of a local baron, who sued him for statement that “five minutes of direct himself. libel. Tresca had few illusions that action were worth as many years of he would be convicted for this, and parliamentary chatter”. Another de- Carlo Tresca was born in Sulmona in Italy at the time this meant five velopment was the emergence of the in the Abruzzo region of Italy. He years in prison and a heavy fine. He industrial unionist Industrial Work- 44 Organise! ers of the World (IWW). Tresca wel- increasingly anarchist convictions, of the Galleanists , and between comed its development and became he did not profess them openly and 1923 and 1924 anarchists were in a very visible supporter, although underlined the point that his new the forefront of anti-Fascist activity, curiously he never actually joined paper, Il Martello (The Hammer), along with old allies from the IWW. it. He did publicly declare himself a was an independent voice. This won Tresca also became involved in revolutionary syndicalist. him no friends around the anarchist the defence of the Galleanist anar- current organised around Luigi Gal- chists Sacco and Vanzetti, who were By now, the reformists among the leani. Whilst professing anarchist- eventually murdered by the State on Socialists were tiring of his revolu- communism, they were strongly flimsy charges. There though, Tresca tionary ideas. He had tried to es- opposed to effective organisation, faced Galleanist suspicion (although tablish an alliance with the Italian sneered at involvement in workplace Vanzetti himself sent him a letter of American anarchists but as the result agitation which they dismissed as thanks for his defence work). of an incident between the two cur- reformist, and adopted the use of rents, Tresca was meant to attack the armed force, engaging in bombings In 1926 Tresca narrowly avoided anarchists in the pages of Il Prole- and bank robberies. They felt that death at a rally as the result of a tario. He declined to do so and was Tresca should have openly expressed bomb, which prematurely exploded forced to resign in 1906. He resigned his anarchism and to prove it should and killed all three of the fascist from the Italian socialist section itself have risked deportation. Tresca tried bombers. The anti-fascist agitation after the vicious attacks on him by at first to get along with this current, eventually led to the dissolving of the the reformist leadership. He now but faced growing denunciations Mussolini-sponsored Fascist League launched an independent paper La from them. in 1929. Plebe. In 1923 he printed an ad for a birth He was now gaining other enemies. In this period he suffered a first -at control pamphlet in his new paper He had at first welcomed the Rus- tempt on his life when a small-time Il Martello. For this he received a sian Revolution, however it soon Mafiosi tried to slit his throat, most prison sentence of a year and a day! became apparent that the Soviet likely under contract from an owner Union was nowhere near the ideals of a conservative Italian newspaper. He became a driving force in stop- of socialism and anarchism, and he ping the growth of fascism amongst became a staunch opponent of the Tresca went on to taking a leading the Italian immigrant population. He Communist Party. They turned on role in the Lawrence textile strike actually forged an alliance with some him and launched vicious attacks in of 1912, organised by the IWW. He went on to take part in further strikes throughout the USA, including two textile workers strikes, a hotel work- ers strike, and a miners’ strike. He was always fearless and was arrested several times. He carried on anti-mil- itarist agitation through a new paper L’Avvenire (The future) and was fiercely opposed to the First World War. The authorities closed down the paper when the U.S. entered the war in 1917. A massive repression began against members of the IWW and against anarchists.Tresca was arrested along with the IWW leadership, even though he now felt lukewarm about the IWW because of “centralis- ing tendencies” initiated by Big Bill Haywood. In the end the charges were dismissed, but Tresca narrowly avoided imprisonment and/or de- Massachusetts militiamen with fixed bayonets surround a group of strikers portation. Whilst by now Tresca had at the Lawrence textile strike of 1912 Organise! 45 their newspapers. He served on the By now, other enemies of Tresca Poyntz. Many U.S. anarchists, not Dewey Commission which exoner- were becoming more concerned just the Galleanists, were shocked ated Trotsky of all charges from the about his activities. He had been by this act, and many old friends Moscow show trials. He accused the opposed to the Mafia from soon after and comrades broke off relations Soviet secret police of the disappear- his arrival in America. Now he began with him after this. Equally Tresca’s ance of Juliet Poyntz, who had been a public campaign against them in anti-Fascism in the end led him to involved in the Soviet underground Il Martello. On January 11th 1943 support for the Allies in the Second apparatus in the USA, and disgusted Tresca was shot dead by an unknown World War, though he qualified this by the situation in Russia, was now gunman as he was crossing Fifth with the hope that a social revolution preparing to issue a denunciation Avenue. would break out at the end of the and publish a book on her experi- war. As Pernicone asks: “Did Tresca ences in both the US and Russia. In- Was it the NKVD who had ordered not see the contradiction between dications are that she was murdered his death? Was it the work of Mus- these two objectives? Did he serious- by NKVD agents and buried in the solini’s secret police? Pernicone and ly believe in the possibility of a social woods near New York. others believe that it was in fact a hit revolution emerging from the war, or ordered by a Mafia notable, Frank was he merely engaging in formulaic Tresca had to face the combined Garafolo. Undoubtedly Tresca’s anarchist rhetoric?” attacks of both Communists and fearlessness resulted in his death, Galleanists. When Armando Borghi, whoever was responsible. This book describes a fascinating one of the chief proponents of the and larger than life individual, in the organisational anarchist communism Pernicone paints a warts and all por- process shedding light on the state of of Errico Malatesta and who had trait of Tresca, examining his colour- the Italian-American anarchist move- been a leading light in the Italian syn- ful love life, and his sometimes dubi- ment, a movement crippled by vi- dicalist union USI, came to the USA, ous use of funds. He broke a tenet of cious personal polemics and rivalries, he foolishly took the side of the Gal- anarchism that one should never pro- and by a failure to go beyond either leanists. From house arrest in Italy vide information to the government anti-organisational Galleanist insur- Malatesta pleaded for these vicious when he testified to the Criminal rectionism on one hand and ad hoc polemics against Tresca to cease. Division of the U.S. Attorney about labour organising on the other. Spanish Civil War Tour, Barcelona Three Hours for €20/€10 (U15s)/Free (U11s) I really don’t want to spoil anything, narrow streets and al- however this three-hour winding leyways of the gothic route through the heart of Barcelona city. Use of George at the time of the revolution is an Orwell’s Homage to absolute must. The tour begins in Catalonia along with the (usually) sun-drenched Playa de the photography, Catalonia. This large circular plaza is artwork and music both the heart of the city and was site of the time helped where the CNT led defence of Barce- to give a vibrancy lona was victorious, and thus the and relevance to the point from which the revolutionary whole experience Catalan defence rippled out from. It while Nick Lloyd, a also acts to set the scene of the forces Londoner who has at play with the Communist Party lived in Barcelona for the revolution and an overview of the HQ to one side, and the telephone many years now, acted as the perfect fascist victory and what it has meant exchange that was key to the CNT tour guide who’s wealth of knowl- for Catalan and Spanish culture as on the other. edge is evident. a whole being touched upon before a more up-beat Q&A session over a The tour then walks down the The tour comes to an end almost light lunch in La Libertaria bar. famous tourist thoroughfare of La where it began, but with the flow of Ramblas before winding through the events having already turned sour for The flow of the tour mirrored the 46 Organise! flow of events during the revolution, Be aware Barcelona is hot, so take on popular city locations and makes letting the facts and events speak for water and snacks, and not all loca- use of superb handouts, photos and themselves. You start in the bright tions are wheelchair accessible. music to set the mood. The Q&A at sun and the warmth of revolution, Though I didn’t have time, there is a a CNT run bar surround by period move through the winding paths six hour version of the tour that takes photos and art is an amazing way to of war and uncertainty, then at the in more locations and has a deeper end the experience. harsh acts of counter-revolution, look at the cultural echoes of the civil before being able to reflect upon the war still heard in the city today. http://iberianature.com/barce- lessons of the city’s past and look I can’t recommend going on this tour lona/history-of-barcelona/spanish- towards a better tomorrow. enough. The guide is vibrant and civil-war-tour-in-barcelona/ knowledgeable, shining a new light Letters Dear Organise! of Bookchin’s well-known critique of “communalism”- by which he meant, radical individualism: Social Anar- of course, libertarian socialism, or I went into Waterstone’s bookshop chism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An anarchism, as understood by genera- the other day and there on display-no Unbridgeable Chasm (1995). This tions of radical anarchists, past and less! Was John P. Clark’s recent text discussion can only be described as present. The Impossible Community: Re- a complete fabrication and misrep- alising Communitarian Anarchism resentation of Bookchin’s anarchism. Clark, however, in contrast, putting (Bloomsbury 2013). For Bookchin in his polemics made a new label on an old wine bottle- in a radical dichotomy between radical typical academic fashion- describes The book consists of a useful, worth- individualism and social anarchism, the anarchism of Kropotkin and Re- while and engaging collection of not, as Clark quite falsely contends, clus as “communitarian anarchism”. essays, mostly on substantive philo- between freedom and social solidar- Attempting to maintain his distance sophical issues relating to anarchism, ity. from Bookchin, Clark therefore that is libertarian socialism. But sadly makes a rather facile and unwar- John Clark seems distant to distance Social anarchism, as for the libertar- ranted dichotomy between libertar- himself from his early mentor, and ian communists Bakunin and Kro- ian socialism and communitarian several essays display a marked potkin, entailed a unity of liberty and anarchism. tendency to denigrate and decry the equality, liberalism and socialism, work of Murray Bookchin. freedom (and self-realisation) and It is rather a pity that Clark does not social solidarity. This was encapsu- engage with Bookchin in a more With little real acknowledgement, lated by Bookchin in the concept appreciative, scholarly and dialecti- Clark embraces much of Bookchin’s of social freedom. Bookchin’s social cal fashion- though in a footnote he own legacy, specifically relating to anarchism, otherwise known as lib- does admit that he was attempting to Bookchin’s advocacy of social ecol- ertarian socialism or anarchist com- re-affirm Bookchin’s “vision”. He has ogy, dialectical analysis and social munism, is thus wilfully distorted by an odd way of going about it! anarchism (or communalism). Clark, Clark. however, does not merely engage Few social anarchists, of course, have in a scholarly critique of Bookchin’s As anarchy (and anarchism)had, in embraced Bookchin’s libertarian oeuvre- a perfectly legitimate exer- the United States at least, come to municipalism as a political strategy cise- but rather never loses an oppor- be identified with primitivism and –or insurrectionism, for that mat- tunity to discredit, belittle or defame radical individualism-whether that ter- but this is no reason for denigrat- Bookchin as an abstract theorist, and of the anarcho-capitalists (Murray ing his legacy in the manner of this as quite incapable (unlike Clark!) Rothbard), Stirnerite individualists rather ungracious philosopher, who of understanding the profundity of (Jason McQuinn) or Nietzschean like every media celebrity these days, Nietzsche’s(utterly reactionary!) aesthetes and post-ideologists proclaims his “activism” from the philosophy. (Hakim Bey), Bookchin in his last roof tops! years renounced the term “anar- Take, for example, Clark’s discussion chism” and embraced instead that of Brian Morris Organise! 47 Also available from the Anarchist Federation Pamphlets BEYOND RESISTANCE - A REVOLU- AGAINST NATIONALISM TIONARY MANIFESTO Published September 2009, an analysis of 6th edition, Autumn 2008. The AF’s in-depth nationalism and why anarchist communists analysis of the capitalist world in crisis, are fundamentally against it. Free download. suggestions about what the alternative Printed copies £2.00 +p&p. Anarchist Communist society could be like, Anarchist Communist Editions series ♣ and evaluation of social and organisational ACE#20 forces which play a part in the revolutionary process - £2.00 +p&p. Anarchist Communist Editions series ♣ ACE#11

WORK AND THE FREE INTRODUCTION TO ANARCHIST SOCIETY COMMUNISM

The name says it all. Why work is so ter- This pamphlet is made up of two parts that run rible and why it must be destroyed before it alongside each other. The main text lays out destroys us! - £2.00 +p&p. the fundamental ideas of anarchist commu- Anarchist Communist Editions series ♣ nism. Various boxes throughout the text give ACE#13 examples from history to illustrate the ideas described in the main section. Free download. Printed copies £2.00 +p&p. Anarchist Communist Editions series ♣ ACE#21

RESISTANCE TO NAZISM THE ANARCHIST MOVEMENT IN JAPAN Telling the stories of libertarian groups that were opposing Fascism in Europe before, The fascinating account of Japanese anarchism and into, the 1930s including Edelweiss in the 20th Century, by John Crump. Updated Pirates, FAUD underground, Zazous, 43 with postscript, May 2008 - £2.00 +p&p. group, Arditi del Popolo and dozens of other Anarchist Communist Editions series ♣ Italian groups - £1.50 +p&p. ACE#8 Anarchist Communist Editions series ♣ ACE#16

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Back issues of Organise! are available from the London address Resistance is the monthly agitational bulletin of the Anarchist (or email [email protected]) for £1.50 inc. p&p. Alterna- Federation written by our members. tively, send us a fiver and we’ll send you whatever we can find Download and print off your own copy or join a resistance lying around. Cheques or postal orders payable to AFED. email list to receive a text-only or PDF copy each month. For complete list of back issues - For printed copies please write to: BM ANARFED, London, http://www.afed.org.uk/publicationons/organise-magazine.html WC1N 3XX. Send a Stamped Addressed Envelope to get a free sample, or send a donation payable to AFED. ANNUAL SUBSCRIP- TIONS of the printed issue sent to you door are avail- able. Also available: joint sub- scription to receive both Organise! and Resistance. Feel free to make lots of cop- ies to distribute or contact us for a bundle! If you like Resistance and want to help us with printing costs, please donate to our press fund. Thanks! 48 Aims & Organise!Principles of the Anarchist Federation

1 The Anarchist Federation is an organisation of revolu- not play a part in its overthrow. Trades unions divide the tionary class struggle anarchists. We aim for the abolition working class (between employed and unemployed, trade of all hierarchy, and work for the creation of a world-wide and craft, skilled and unskilled, etc). Even syndicalist un- classless society: anarchist communism. ions are constrained by the fundamental nature of union- ism. The union has to be able to control its membership in 2 Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working order to make deals with management. Their aim, through class by the ruling class. But inequality and exploitation are negotiation, is to achieve a fairer form of exploitation of also expressed in terms of race, gender, sexuality, health, the workforce. The interests of leaders and representatives ability and age, and in these ways one section of the will always be different from ours. The boss class is our working class oppresses another. This divides us, causing a enemy, and while we must fight for better conditions from lack of class unity in struggle that benefits the ruling class. it, we have to realise that reforms we may achieve today Oppressed groups are strengthened by autonomous action may be taken away tomorrow. Our ultimate aim must be which challenges social and economic power relationships. the complete abolition of wage slavery. Working within the To achieve our goal we must relinquish power over each unions can never achieve this. However, we do not argue other on a personal as well as a political level. for people to leave unions until they are made irrelevant by the revolutionary event. The union is a common point 3 We believe that fighting systems of oppression that of departure for many workers. Rank and file initiatives divide the working class, such as racism and sexism, is es- may strengthen us in the battle for anarchist communism. sential to class struggle. Anarchist-Communism cannot be What’s important is that we organise ourselves collectively, achieved while these inequalities still exist. In order to be arguing for workers to control struggles themselves. effective in our various struggles against oppression, both within society and within the working class, we at times 8 Genuine liberation can only come about through the need to organise independently as people who are op- revolutionary self activity of the working class on a mass pressed according to gender, sexuality, ethnicity or ability. scale. An anarchist communist society means not only We do this as working class people, as cross-class move- co-operation between equals, but active involvement in ments hide real class differences and achieve little for us. the shaping and creating of that society during and after Full emancipation cannot be achieved without the aboli- the revolution. In times of upheaval and struggle, people tion of capitalism. will need to create their own revolutionary organisations controlled by everyone in them. These autonomous or- 4 We are opposed to the ideology of national liberation ganisations will be outside the control of political parties, movements which claims that there is some common and within them we will learn many important lessons of interest between native bosses and the working class in self-activity. face of foreign domination. We do support working class struggles against racism, genocide, ethnocide and politi- 9 As anarchists we organise in all areas of life to try to cal and economic colonialism. We oppose the creation of advance the revolutionary process. We believe a strong any new ruling class. We reject all forms of nationalism, anarchist organisation is necessary to help us to this end. as this only serves to redefine divisions in the interna- Unlike other so-called socialists or communists we do not tional working class. The working class has no country and want power or control for our organisation. We recognise national boundaries must be eliminated. We seek to build that the revolution can only be carried out directly by the an anarchist international to work with other libertarian working class. However, the revolution must be preceded revolutionaries throughout the world. by organisations able to convince people of the anarchist communist alternative and method. We participate in 5 As well as exploiting and oppressing the majority of peo- struggle as anarchist communists, and organise on a fed- ple, Capitalism threatens the world through war and the erative basis. We reject sectarianism and work for a united destruction of the environment. revolutionary anarchist movement.

6 It is not possible to abolish Capitalism without a revolu- 10 We oppose organised religion and cults and hold to a tion, which will arise out of class conflict. The ruling class materialist analysis of capitalist society. We, the working must be completely overthrown to achieve anarchist com- class, can change society through our own efforts. Wor- munism. Because the ruling class will not relinquish power shipping an unprovable spiritual realm, or believing in a without their use of armed force, this revolution will be a religious unity between classes, mystifies or suppresses time of violence as well as liberation. such self-emancipation / liberation. We reject any notion that people can be liberated through some kind of super- 7 Unions by their very nature cannot become vehicles for natural force. We work towards a society where religion is the revolutionary transformation of society. They have to no longer relevant. be accepted by capitalism in order to function and so can-