INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Big Brother in Glasgow • Unemployed occupy Edinburgh Centre • Looking back at Timex • The Scottish Financial Mafia • Our History • and much more

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MONITORED Contents

5 The Pollok Free State ...... ««»•••«»..»»••»»•»••.•.•"" McLlbel 2 ^ Orwell's 1984. Glasgow's 1994? » * * Hands Off Our Babies!!! .....— ...——~»— Flushing out the Scotnsh Financial Mafia —. .... 10 Ttmex- Labour and Trade Unionism at Its best 14

Spain and Its Relevance Today ...... *••«....«.••••—""" 16 Anarchism In Glasgow—— ...... 20 Review: Severely Dealt With —

From an Egoist Window Pane „„„™™.™...... ».....»».. 24 Ireland -for a lasting peace with justice...... 26 Computer Networks and Anarchy ...... 28 London demonstration at Downing Street editorial Cover illustration; AngryArtworks into the free, we can only who do and watch them turn WELCOME TO THE FIRST ISSUE OJ struggle. We want to be but get that we nightmare of stale capitalism. We must and Scottish Anarchist We hope yon will be truly free in a free world. To the with you. Its will sing anew and write the songs of enjoy it need you! But the first step lies new world we carry in our hearts in a new Scottish Anarchist is the Journal of the your life. of tomorrow. anarchist and the SFA aim to help language . the language Scottish Federation of Anarchists (the SFA). Scottish to hope And this tomorrow? Anarchy, a free The SFA unites anarchists, libertarian us to dream again, to fight again, forums through which we society of free and equal individuals, who socialists and autonomous revolutionaries again by providing themselves from the authority talk, think and act. By organising have liberated across this fair nation. It does this for the can discuss, new world in and existence of state, capital and church and express aim of increasing the influence of and resisting we can build the who control their own fates. Such is our aim, anarchist ideas and ideals in the class our vision. A vision that inspires our actions today, for anarchism is not a thing of the So what can the SFA do for you? Exactly Revolutionary hopefully, aid this future, but of the present It is not a matter what the name suggests. We do not see This magazine will, aims to bring a of 'demands', but of living. Something we ourselves as a new set of leaders. We do not process. Scottish Anarchist capitalism. issues; events in the can forget while surviving under want you to follow us. We want you to think unique viewpoint to all Timex or the struggle against for yourself, feel for yourself, act for yourself. class war, like current trends in enjoy These ideas may come across as strange, the criminal justice bill; politics; Iain MacSaorsa even unusual? Too long have the twin evils capital, the state, technology, history, both in of labourism and its "radical' wean anarchist and working dass the planet; to "Freedom without Socialism Is Bolshevism dominated working dass political Scotland and elsewhere on privilege and injustice fust a few. life. Both are ideologies, seeking new sheep name Is slavery viewpoint? Because it is Socialism without Freedom for old shepherds. Both want to be our But why a unique revolutionary, something rare in the state

capitalist dominated left innovative and, more day our laughter with be stronger than the We aim to be an read. Too long Needless to say, we will welcome articles, voices they strangle today. We aim to make importantly, an interesting from any source. ideas written in the lyrics letters, graphics, whatever, that day arrive sooner, not later. have sodaUst been some, time stopped in 1917. Send letters, artides to :- But this does not mean we do not want to of the past For into or to Scottish Anarchist win hearts and minds. Far from it We in the But we do not aim to force reality procustean bed of c/o Glasgow Anarchist Gronp SFA want to encourage, support and place ourselves upon the the dreams of those PO Box 1008, Glasgow G42 8AA influence the spirit of revolt, the class ideology nor experience

SC01

Hflji THE. BARRICADES" OF BROUGHTON— THE ONCE-FAMILIAR WOODEN DOORS WMWe're going mtock worker George Wilson, churning out reams are Denied now 'neath steel, sheets of of Labour Party literature, exploiting them out, we're going ta steel shaped and bolted on by charitable tax status. donated blacksmiths who refused all and any my here 24 hours a The locked-out organised in a payment "One donation to the Centre", dav. Ifthe police and room across the road in the Gay Centre and *aJd they. Solidarity lives. In March '92, in a splendid piece of direct door But the doors are open twixt noon and action, smashed open the Centre's and opening it again to four every day bar Sunday, and the Centre is " re-occupied the building, them in inhabited around the dock, seven days a the unwaged and homeless'. week. Within opening hours a busy vegan Councillor Kinder's lucrative printing

left hanging. But even .Labour cafe, famously cheap and substantial, is the to mass-unemployment, and funded by the contract was a bit of direct hub of Centre activity and behind the chatting Regional Council, the Edinburgh Unemployed politicians are not averse to diners poster-festooned walk advertise gigs, Workers Centre (EUWC) was founded as a action, it seems, especially when their wallets meetings and artions, while the saining tables charitable trust and started life in the are threatened. Shortly after the Centre's sag beneath the mass of flyers and brochures basement of the Edinburgh Trades council liberation, one cold, dark March Sunday explaining anti-VAT on Fuel, Criminally building. morning, Labour trustee Jim Milne and George Wilson, Injustice Bill, Stop the Fascists, community In the mid-80's it moved to larger ex-Centre worker arts, homelessness, hunt sabs, gay rights, temporary premises off the city's High St. backed verbally by Councillors Kinder claimants rights, women's issues, Poll Tax There it became something more than a and Loughney, broke back In and arrears, AIDS, Parks for the People... printing press, computers and a meeting removed the printing press, 6 Above the cafe the pine-beamed mezzanine room, evolving, despite the reticence of the Applemac computers, a process they floor is being transformed into a snug Party-hack dominant clique, into a focus for camera, enlargers... in short took away reference library and reading room, while independent unwaged activists. The Right to £25,000 of the Trust's equipment, including next door the Centre office advises callers, Work campaign was submerged under a washing machine for die homeless. They who phone or drop in, on benefit rights. Claimants Union direct actions, then along removed the accounts and minutes books. There's a well-equipped children's playroom came the anti-Workfare Campaign. They even pinched the donations tin and the and a basement darkroom. By the time the Centre moved into its new teabags, and smashed the emergency lighting Upstairs, one end of the large hall is permanent premises in Broughton Street in system, Just for the hell of it The councillor- carpeted with defenders' sleeping bags while 1989 the Poll Tax fight was well under way. trustees then used their clout to freeze the the other end is a mass of art and craft odds By 1990 the Labour Council was setting the Centre's £10,000 bank account and stop Its andends with which the Creative Resource bailiffs on the refuseniks. All the poindings mail Repeated attempts by the independent Network makes the puppets and props for were stopped, many by pickets based at the trustees to have the assets Judicially returned its street theatre. The door of the small room EUWC By that time 4 of the Centre's 7-strong have been consistently denied legal aid. The opposite bears a hand-drawn sign - 'Cheap Board of Trustees were unwaged, unaffiliated Establishment closes ranks. Claes Shoap' activists democratically elected from the

The atmosphere is busy, cheery and Centre's Users Group. The other 3 were Hie Centre Fights On sociable. No-one gets paid Anyone can get Labour councillors Tony Kinder and Des involved. But when the doors are locked and Loughney, and Jim Milne, boss of Labour- "It's getting up the nose of the Council, the blocked and the Centre quietens down, ears controlled Dalkeith Unemployed Workers fact that we're unfunded, but still here and are cocked and nerves steeled for the baying Centre. [Loughney, for his sins, was and is stilt running. of the bailiffs and the grunting of the pigs. also secretary of Edinburgh Trades Council, Maggie, Centre volunteer, Powerful enemies indeed.] STY Reporting Scotland These Labour and trade union bureaucrats had lost control. Their response was swift Custodians now of a stripped building, with "The creatures lookedfrom pig to man, and During the night of 1/2 February 1992 the 3 no equipment, no funding and no bank from man to pig, and from pig to man Labour Party trustees simply, and unilaterally, account, the Centre users decided to fight again, but already it u changed the Centre's locks one night and on. Money was raised by using the upstairs * which was which. locked 4 trustees, the users group and the hall as an increasingly popular gig venue with public, out. The now-deserted building live bands appearing from all over Britain. resonated solely to the rhythm of the Room space was rented out to community

Conceived in 1981 as a left-Labour response basement printing press, operated by the paid and other groups. The bills could be paid,

SC01 3 :

The Pollok Free State

in Glasgow Pollok Free State has been the houses, totem poles, creating stone "Free State* in protest at one more bit of established in opposition to the half begun carvings. The gravel from the road has been environmental suicide.

M77 that is due to tear apart PoBok Estate. taken and scattered into the words "NO M77* Contact 041 636 1924 / 041 887 8990 for The Pollok Estate was intended by its donor on the exposed earth of the road foundations. more information on whats happening 9 for the use of the "citizens of Glasgow" but The camp occupants have been working now, despite a huge amount of objections at hard to create publicity, raise money and C. Berry the public enquiry stage, that right is to be live together collectively under the Editon note

"Auto-struggles : developing denied them. pressurised circumstances of living in a space The war against the road monster" is an important and interesting discussion on The £79 million M77 plan is typical of the which anyone can walk into and is due to be the anti-roads straggles going on in England. Its in issue unthinking attitude to transport and destroyed On the 24th of September they 3 of Aufheben, £2 from Aufheben, c/o Prior House. environment that prevails amongst those in marched from the centre of Glasgow to the Tilbury Place, Brighton, BN2 2GY. power. The presenting of rational arguments from a huge number of community groups has not stopped their crazy roads road plans so now the rational McLibel remaining argument of 2 physical opposition is being used. The McLibel 2 are activists who are being into court to back up their case. The defiant protest of local Colin McLeod sued by the giant McDonalds Hamburgers Ltd Now this may not seem a big deal to you, who spent ten days up a tree that was due for telling the truth. it may be an issue you care nothing about, to be cut down drew others to the current They distributed leaflets describing but to me the issue is more than the site of the Earth First! (Anti-M77) Camp. The business practices of McDonalds in Central environmental one which was the concern vast majority of camp members are from America i.e. evicting peasants from land to of the McLibel 2. TWrthe way that a Glasgow and their wee vision of an anarchist feed cattle for their so called restaurants in multinational aided by the state Is being society has been receiving constant and the USA and the environmental impact of allowed to attack basic freedom of speech. generous donations and support from such a policy, and for this a multi-million So help stamp out bullying now - buy a kebab, neighbouring housing estates. pound international corporation has seen ftt buy chips, buy pakora, buy a pizza but don't The Earth First! camp is an open group to drag them through the courts. Not only buy a McDonalds. Help stamp out bullying that holds a public camp meeting every have they been kept from enjoying a normal today. Wednesday at 7.30pm. The camp has life by these bullying tactics but they have • Worldwide Anti McDonalds Day, Sunday achieved amazing architectural feats; building been told they cannot bring expert witnesses 16th October

5 Closed

Circuit

Telemion

in QIssqqin

Is It? running costs is 1 million pounds. people but to protect people" Strathc5yde By the end of this year four square miles of Regional CouncillorJames Jennings. Scotsman Who Is funding It? 16/7/93 surveillance. An area from Glasgow Cross to Half of the money is coming from private "The Cameras do notJust make sense. It Charing Cross will be dotted with 32 cameras. businesses in the city centre through makes business sense. * Caroline Durkan

These will produce over 5000 hours of voluntary donations. The rest is coming from Glasgow DevelopmemAgency (GDA). Herald footage each week of Glaswegians going the public sector - Strathclyde Regional 9/12/93 about their everyday lives. The cameras will Council and Glasgow District Council. Although there is confusion whether the be monitored by specialty trained disabled cameras are to protect property or people, civilians from a bank of screens at Stewart Is It for? the main stated aim of the project is to deter

Street Police Station. "The Cameras have been installed toprotect crime in the city centre and to make it "a valuable businesses" Glasgow Chief saferplacefor shoppers and shop owners, What will It cost? Superintendent Gordon Carmicheal. Daily families, women and other law abiding

The estimated cost of the project for Record 14/1/94 citizens' Strathclyde Chief Constable Leslie installation and the first three years of "The Cameras are not there to spy on Sharp. Herald 22/10/93

6 SC01 : rSORETHSyllE, GUILTY £220,000 to £36,000 (Scotsman 31/8/93). but armed robberies haven t declined. This r*Hg vm Newcastle installed a £400,000 system and proves cameras are not necessarily & claimed there was a 13% reduction in crime deterrent - they won't change peoples y prows in the first two months of operation fundamental behaviour" (Glaswegian 13/ {Guardian 13/5/93). 1/94). Hexham installed a video system and claimed there was a "significant reduction Detection _a

in crime by 97% in areas covered by Another argument used is that even If people cameras" (Scotsman 30/11/93)- do commit a crime they are far more likely Kings Lynn in the Midlands (of England) to be caught and therefore found "guilty'

installed cameras and claimed that thefts and "punished". This is probably true,

from cars dropped by 97% and car crimes in although people determined to commit i general by 91% (Guardian 31/8/93). crime are likely to adopt more sophisticated

These statistics appear impressive and have methods to hide their identity in an area

led to many Scottish towns installing or they know is covered by cameras. However,

planning to install camera systems. The most unless every street in every town has a

publicised case is Airdrie where it is claimed camera they are more likely to go to an area It will also be used to deter soliciting and crime fell by 75% in its first six months of not covered by c to film kerb crawlers (Glaswegian 19/8/93). operation (Scotsman 31/8/93). It is clear that the police have complete Other Scottish towns such as East Kilbride, power to use and abuse the technology as Bathgate and Kirkcaldy have installed show that crime does not simply they wish. The films could be used for any cameras and more schemes are being disappear into thin air. Instead it reappears purpose whatsoever, from filming public planned from Dumfries to Inverness. It is somewhere else. In Airdrie although crime Icafleting to filming people on marches and against this backdrop of a growing "camera fell in the town centre "the number oj demonstrations. Once the technology is in culture" that Glasgow is planning the biggest, serious crimesfor the division as a whole place it can be used for whatever the police most sophisticated and most expensive went up from 113 to 135" (Scotland on want system yet to be put into operation in any Sunday, 1 2/12/93). In Hexham, although How long will British" town or city. crime in the area covered by the cameras footage be kept? The British Security Industry Association fell by 17% elsewhere in Hexham It rose by (BSIA) say there are around 200 000 closed 12%(Scotsman,30/ll/93)- In the Herald (11/ circuit television systems in the country and 8/93) an editor of a Glasgow community Development Agency, "footage will be that the BSIA firms that supplied them did newspaper asks: retainedfor one month then wiped unless business worth 57 million in 1992 (Guardian, "Is it acceptable to the business required for evidence for information' 13/5/93). It Is now Big Business protecting community and municipal mediocrities in Herald 9/12/93 Big Business in "Britain". It Is hardly George Square who have not built a house This is obviously vague and open to surprising so much effort is being put into in 14 years that as long as robbery and interpretation and abuse by the police. convincing us video cameras are a cure all violence are confined to the schemes then for crime, But are they really? all is well?" f Will

1 The main argument against cameras and control off footage? whatever the statistics show is that Arguments "people should not be observed by "Recorded tapes will be the property ofthe institutions of the state as they go about their chief constable and will be used only be for and everyday business (Carole Euart, SCCL, Strathclyde Police to deter and detect Glaswegian 13/1/94). This is the main criminals ' Caroline Diutan (GDA). Herald against objection that we as anarchists should put 9/12/93 across to other people • The above statement was enough to Closed Circuit convince doubting Strathclyde Regional Councillors that the video cameras would Television not be an abuse of civil liberties. Such unlimited powers should obviously because Deterrent for concern, not confidence, in the system. The major argument used in favour of the

A U.S. Lawyer quoted in the Scotsman 31/8/ cameras is that they deter crime. They may 93 states "the person who controls the deter certain categories of crime but they do

technology controls the use made of it" not deter neither the drunken nor the determined "criminal". The person who

Background commits a crime when drunk is likely to do

Since the mid 1 980's there has been a rapid it anyway. A person determined to commit a

growth in English towns and cities installing crime will just go to greater lengths to avoid closed circuit television systems. In 1986 being caught. Carole Euart, from the Scottish Bournemouth installed video cameras along Council of Civil Liberties (SCCL), stated its scafront and claimed that in its first year "people have been watched by camerasfor of use the bill for vandalism dropped from manyyears in banks and building societies,

SCO 7 HANDS OFF OUR i BABIES!!! *

Ministers and hospital Many managers have finally came clean. For the first time, they've admitted a similar sys- publicly that they want to tag babtes with tem already. barcodes the moment they're horn. Who'd expect Every newspaper in the country has said the Ministry of De- what a wonderful idea this is. So have fence, for example, politicians from all the main parties. to let strangers into Selected babies have already been the building, resting barcoded In Edinburgh's Royal assured that no-one Infirmary. could take anything be- security Both the Murdoch press and the few titles cause all secret docu- industry. After all, taken ments had tags sellotaped still owned by his competitors have Obviously any theyVe given entire prisons the same line. Some woman dressed as a on? return for or spy could to firms like Group 4, in nurse stole a baby In Nottingham, Therefore whistleblower donations to party funds. just cut the tag off. And any Italian-style all babies should be tagged and coded. this doesn't seem to be iL A serious baby snatcher could do But for once Otherwise it could happen again. Introducing them the same. baby-tag costs about lOp. At least one paper published a picture of a exactly alarms could be set in a big hospital like Edinburgh's Royal mother kissing the barcoded foot of her day- You might argue that of pounds". as someone tried to cut off infirmary will cost "thousands old baby. The implication is that mothers to sound as soon maternity hospital, or a security if you still think these people are For a who don't allow their babies to be tagged a tag. But our benefit, just ask yourself: company, that's peanuts. like items in a supermarket aren't good doing it for And yet the authorities do seem very mothers. anxious to tag and barcode our babies. This kind of nonsense is, of course, the snatching one baby is as bad as stock-in-trade of advertisers, people trying Surely any other baby. Or is a nurse going Why? to trick us into buying something or voting snatching what else has been the number of any baby who's Well let's just consider for them. to punch in past year or legitimately, so the alarm decided or 'considered' in the Let's be clear about km things. being taken home off it's taken out by its real so. Firstly, tagging babies has been in the won't go when ago, a baby being snatched, 1) After being dropped three years pipeline for months. mother. Meanwhile electronic tagging of offenders is coming It's not a response to anything which has previous 'experiments' No, this isn't it the nurse back. Whereas in happened in the past few days. To say all the bells ringing. plugged Into the phone, just cut the tag off herself when the tags had to be otherwise is to tell a complete he. It is being could to private saving all those now they can send messages introduced now because the media have baby's ready to go home, guards over the airw aves. costs on training, but with exactly the same security made it acceptable now. In a move closely connected to rlghtwtog The 'experiments' in Edinburgh (just who effect 'underclass'. could be the same, Tory propaganda about the do these people think they are, using our In that case, all tags for the be no need for individual The Sunday Times has called uauicaiui cA[rauiicuu 7 ™-|»™ and there'd of the we're just not being told tagging of "far fewer than IS time ago. Tagging babies was also mentioned barcodes. It seems population" (I.e. less than half a million conference in Cambridge in April, where the truth in a begins in politicians have said No people). A pilot scheme an American 'expert' also spoke of keeping Quite a few (In should be spared" in Manchester in JWNnrf 1995. a register of babies' footprints. expense fitted to security. That's the Tennessee, tags are already Secondly, tagging babies is not about guaranteeing baby politicians like to say. truanting schoolchildren). stopping baby snatchers. kind of thing Michael Howard has hardly expect them to say 'Baby 2) Home Secretary If that were really the goal, it would make You'd be got down to an considered having fingerprints taken much more sense to tag doctors, nurses, snatching must Another plan Is to level.' from everyone. hospital porters, fathers, etc. Or they could acceptable 32 million other hand, a sceptic might think fingerprint Britain's be given tags to carry in their pockets. Doors On the to include prints on point is for the Tories to give some motorists and to maternity wards and nurseries could be the whole database would be their friends in the private driving licences. The made to open only for people carrying tags. more money to ran by a private company. Police chiefs City shopping 6) centres are now most of us to work for the rich. They don'i are confident the plan will be In place routinely scanned by 24-hour video care about our babies being stolen any more by 1996. cameras. This Information was first than they care about our houses being broken

3) Transport Secretary John Mac Greg or released to a wide audience at the time into, or deaths caused by tobacco. They like has called for all cars to be fitted with a of the James Bulger murder. The it when working class people turn on each "black box.' Cars would be tracked by implication was that anyone who other and we live in fear. Nor would things

satellite, and drivers would be charged objected to the general trend didn't care be different if any other party were in power. according to which roads they drive on about toddlers being butchered. Even if everything were nationalised' we'd and for how long. (A version of this 7) Soon TV viewers may have to pay for just be exploited directly by state bureaucrats system Is already In place In Oslo). each specific programme they watch. rather than by the directors and bankers who

Companies like GEC are hoping to They'll buy decoder cards for the currently tell them what to do.

employ technologies first used to track Saturday match during the week. Recent calls to abolish benefits for single tanks daring the Golf War of 1991. To Already people using cloned cards can mothers show us that the ruling parasites sweeten the pill, and to make more have their reception turned off feel strong. They're on the march. More and profit, motorists will be sold Info individually by Sky. more information is being kept on more and services at the same time. The system 8) Britain's chief film censor, who thinks more people. will be tested next spring, and is due to childhood is an 'outdated concept', The mass media discourage us„irom come into force In 1998. wants compulsory ID cards to be issued looking beyond the next few months.

4) Child benefit and pension books are to all children. The pretext Is to 'control But if we do, we see lines of information due to be replaced by swipe cards In access' to videos, fireworks, alcohol, being established which are 1997, and benefit books will disappear cigarettes, etc increasingly two-way or inter-

altogether in 1999- Already pension Baby tagging fits very veil into this list of active/Surveillance, or keeping track of books have been barcoded In parts of developments. In every case, the authorities people,Ieads directly to control. The reason London. lell us it's for oar own good. they want to tag babies Is because it's easiest It seems likely that eventually all We all know that the government only to start with them. It's got nothing to do benefits will be paid Into bank accounts. protects people to the extent that it's with stopping them being snatched.

Post offices will be ran in the Interests good for Business. Health Department We'll say It straight

of private banks, and many will just be officials are little more than agents of Over the next 5 to 15 years, the rulers

shut down. the huge drug companies; and their hope to keep tabs on us all by electromag-

5) The police are increasingly using DNA colleagues in the Ministry of Defence are little netic means. Corresponding types of direct testing and some senior officers have more than agents of the arms manufacturers. surveillance would be horrificThe only thing called for the forcible testing of all adult Transport bureaucrats give millions to that can stop this is Revolution. Against this males. (No date on this one yet, bat this construction companies and increasingly to World Society of Exploitation • year's Criminal Justice BUI will allow security and electronics companies too. In

DNA testing for all offenses the short, it's there to keep us in 'acceptable ] Some Opponents of Teckmfascism, record). levels' of poverty and disease, and to force Central Scotland, July, 1994

No constant supervision, But die poor chaps been in In due case we wecan provide home help- institutions il his hie. cantpmriinin SOLUTION three mirtuK43 day. He liasiu die least idea cf 3 private iwrne. how to look after himsdf. He'dupsetthe jrjwr residents, whoare paying enormous fecs. Jlmtn.ProHem,

».«'mi #/ r\&

SC01 s FLUSHING OUT THE SCOTTISH FINANCIAL MAFIA

some companies if not monopolising their fields, aim here Is to examine in of The shady case them, Scottish Widows Thedetail an organisation called certainly dominating alone makes profits of XI ,000m and is the Scottish Enterprise (SE) which was the Glasgow biggest Company in Scotland. So here Invented In 1988 by Sill Hughes, at the second two rich, highly important and time a CBI boss and advisor to the Development we have who would feel insulted if Thatcher government, now the director influential men, Agency did not describe them as motivated solely of Grampian Holdings. SE Is the parent we personal gain and the pursuit of wealth, body of 14 local Enterprise Companies by head of the Glasgow Development (LECs) and by looking in detail at one Clark at the by Billy Agency (GDA) and Lothian and Edinburgh of these, the Glasgow Development The question.!* why? Agency (GDA), we shall see that It Enterprise Ltd. (LEEL). question - as ever - igwhere is all represents a gathering of powerful Nickson, McFarlane is the director of some The other business/financial alliances. The fifty or so companies, the main ones being the money going? information provided here alma to The Clydesdale Bank, General Accident, Inform our understanding of the forces The American Trust, Clansman, United But there are more than just two men In operation here, how they function Edinburgh Fund Managers and companies ninning the Scottish Financial Mafia, the LECs and In whose interest Dlstillers/Gulness pic His other process of profiteering When Hughes proposed the SE system, he concentrate on the construction and fitting as an adjunct to the seems to be acting as a communal slush fund bypassed the then Secretary of State for out of offices from their painting right down its for a fair cross section of Scottish capitalism. Scotland, Malcolm Rifkind, going straight to to the packaging the furniture comes in, labels, lot If we were to examine the other directors of Mrs. Thatcher. This unusual tactic was transportation, and adhesive the even one each of McFarlane and Eraser's main adopted because after the disastrous fall in basically: if you work in an office, go the the McFarlane' companies we would see that they are the Scottish Tory vote in the '87 elections, bank then go for a drink, Politically we can connected to almost the entire spectrum of the Scottish Office was blamed for resisting interests are well served. he the nonparliamentary right who control the new economic culture through the locate him on the Authoritarian Right, (a finance, investment and industry in Scotland. Scottish Development Agency (SDA). Unable funds British United Industries right- To identify just the Banking interests alone: to conceive that her policies alienated the somewhat secretive channel for funding course the McFarlane and SE boss Sir David Nickson as Scottish electorate, Thatcher was already wing political projects), and of have already seen represent The mulling over plans to scapegoat and abolish Conservative Party, General Accident alone we Clydesdale Bank and General Accident. the SDA when Hughes opportunistically donates around £50,000 a year. Accident's other directors include knocked on her door. We cannot fully In the light of this It is clear that McFarlane General role the directors of the Royal Bank of Scotland, reconstruct their conversation, but perhaps would readily be attracted by a steering the and the Ottoman Bank so we have Hughes promised to set things to rights by in an organisation devoted to manipulating TSB four banks there, (five if we count Nickson's transforming the SDA (created in 75 by Willie the political climate of Glasgow towards the directorship of Hambros which is a Merchant Ross) from a child of Wilsonlan Corporatism, right, and that he would have identified this due course bank). One of Sir Charles Annand Fraser's into a vehicle for promoting Thatcherism agenda as one which would in also Company, Scottish Widows, contains Perhaps too, he would have said something enhance his own empire. McFarlane of the Clydesdale Bank, The Royal about the deal being squeezed past the seemed to have been highly aware of the directors Bank of Scotland, The Bank of Scotland and Treasury via the promise of selling off, what opportunity the creation of the Glasgow LEC Merchant Bank Kleinwort Benson, together could be sold of the SDA's property portfolio offered in openly manipulating the Labour looks like with directors of the main Scottish (they managed to raise £100m before the controlled District Council: and it set out to do in Investment Trusts, Murray Johnstone, Jardine slump set in), and privatising anything else he achieved everything he will return to this subject Fleming and Bailie Gifford. Undoubtedly it the SDA had a share in. In any case some thing this respect, but we was these connections - and you will made Thatcher's eyes light up and two years later. appreciate we have just skimmed the surface later the project was launched at the Sir Charles Annand Eraser's interests are have been - which would further recommend them for Dunblane Hydro. It has hardly met with a similar to McFarlane's, and they through the the job of heading a LEC. Such alliances are word of praise since. similarly financially enhanced find similar groups hype of local enterprise. He is the director not unusual we would competing banks always in Obvious Connections of about sixty companies including Scottish of supposedly Stakls pic existence, to a greater-or lesser extent, if we Its initial hierarchy was established as Television, Scottish Widows, activities examined any of the top Clearing Banks, follows: at the head of SE Sir David Nickson and United Biscuits Frasefs main Merchant Banks, Insurance Companies or of the Clydesdale Bank, General are inextricably linked to Edinburgh tourism, Investment Trusts. Accident, Hambro* Bank and Scottish & with Stakls and United Biscuits, and are also be pointed out that the Newcastle Breweries. This choice alone augmented with other interests concerning It should function of an LEC is defined as that represented a sizable percentage of Scottish property development and "Heritage" official offshore tax- of encouraging enterprise by providing Capital and was further enlarged with the projects; further interests being business with financial or other forms of two leaders of the main LECs in Glasgow exempted trusts ( British Assets Trust, leadership and tactical support" and Edinburgh: Lord McFarlane and Sir Fidelity, Investors Capital Trust etc) "strategic encouragement of investment Charles Annand Eraser respectively. dealing mostly in cash deposits in various including the large and training. It has never been openly Having the more obvious connections to currencies . These are all very

1 advanced in their own publicity material that to BiU Hughes. The GDA's 92/93 Accounts for an enquiry into the matter. By the they have, a now somewhat anachronistic, and Report gives us an interesting insight reactionary nature of the enquiry they Thatcherite* mission, nor what that might into how they arrived at these decisions: demanded, it could be easily argued that they entail. Their involvement in local politics is "Other location marketing activities either completely fail to understand the of the function of the are usually defined, if at all, in terms of inclndc . . . participation In reality GDA or unsubstantiated boasts or buzzwords such complementary events such as the unwilling to concede their own role In it. as "job creation" and "inward investment*. Scottish Financial Enterprise dinner In Their posture of outrage seems solely fuelled Each of the LECs have a budget of upwards London ." Some readers may have already by the fact that Direct Line gained a high of £5 5m, while the total SE expenditure was come to the conclusion that for a business public profile as one of the fastest growing put at£449m for the last financial year. While to relocate in Glasgow it will most likely have companies in the UK, with one of the highest the overall initial popular perception of this closed Its operation somewhere else, paid directors, Peter Wood, who receives a was that the money is given to deserving obviously resulting in staff dismissals, and yearly salary of £6m. The Labour Party are to cases, SE have made it dear that they do not such is the case with the examples cited happy with SE as a whole, and they have think their role is to "bail out bankrupt above: the Amy Pay Centre for example be, because their argument that DiredUnc companies". (Herald 1/5/93). They are relocating from Ashton-under-Lyne with all should fund themselves rather than dip into however hell-bent on spending money on the workers being sacked. If we examine the pork barrel, while being morally Inspiring in themselves. pattern of funding we would see that the an abstract way, directly intertwines with the financial institutions received funds on the process of Labour Party patronage, as we They Like To Say Yesl pretext of training. This too is somewhat shall see below. One could also say the same the fact thai Now let us focus on the Glasgow LEG, the misleading givea thai virtually ill of the large concerning the fuss made over Glasgow Development Agency (GDA). financial institutions have been heavily fined a great deal of the LECs, asffiT them it would McFarlane recently departed his post handing by their regulatory bodies for failing to seem, have been awarding funds to owned by members of the LECs. it over to Forbes McPherson (the director properly train their staff and engaging in companies of the TSB, Glasgow Cultural Enterprise*, professional anscondsKl (thus precipitating Direct line is not run by anyone on the GDA, Dumfries II Q 1 Samuel Sank (a Merchant bank the massive private pensions swindle); it is though run by someone on subsidiary of the TSB), The Scottish ioctadiag of coarse Abbey National Life and and Galloway Enterprise: its chairman, Sir Metropolitan Property Co. and Scottish the Norwich Union (who suspended then- Michael Hemes (also of Scottish Widows and Mutual Assurance). Under his leadership entire pensions sales staff as part of their re one of Sir Charles Fraser's Investment the GDA has funded several "new training). Companies). operations', the main ones, indeed the So here we have an insight into the process Although the GDA claim (Glasgow Herald ontyones, include aiding Abbey National of how the GDA works, which could be 1 1/1 1/93) that "no directors or connected life in occupying the building that BP roughly summarised as follows: (1) You go persons had a material interest In any vacated when they removed their operation to a free lunch in London with a group of contract [Issued by the GDA]" they add the elsewhere (to be awarded £260,3 57 by Forth people who are stockbrokers, bankers and paradoxical rejoinder that "this does nol Valley Enterprise, whose directors include insurance men. (2) They tell you what to do. mean, however, that there were no Edward Ferguson of BP Chemicals). The GDA (3) You give them lots of money. (4) They [involving companies has also funded "second round investments", sack a lot of their workforce. with directors! links". Sadly they declined J A ~ ft,—*!*——. l fl fnMiAti»«i kill nrlint passing funds to Direct Line Insurance (a provide any runner information, out wnat they are likely concealing is the fad subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland ), A Nice Line In... most Provincial Insurance, British Airways, The decision to award 1250,000 to Direct that Scottish Mutual Assurance, Forbes Barclays Stockbrokers, The Norwich line Insurance (again taken from the GDA McPherson's company, is a subsidiary of the Union and the Army Personnel Centre, training budget) did not pass without Abbey National, who as referred to above most of which as we shall see are old friends comment by the Labour Party who called are supposedly slipping quietly into the old BP offices aided by GDA funds and good wishes. ComctdentaUy BP Chemicals had to

hand over most of the £260,357 when it was fined a total of £230,000 for burning one worker to death and seriously burning three others in February '92. So there we have another use for enterprise cash: if you kill your workers your local LEG will cover your legal fees. Research has only begun into the merry- go-round of funding concerning LECs director's companies receiving LEG funds (Herald 11/11/93); a bigger and more revealing picture of this process would show the inter-relationships between LECs f other LEG directors companies.

Return Of The. But none of this would come as any surprise to our founding father Bill Hughes. Who has gone on record as viewing die situation thus: "You're always going to get the joker, always that one case every year or two where the Fraud Squad is called in. That's unavoidable In any walk of life

1 1 • Johnston: Bank of Scotland, today ... If wc are going to have top- quangos has already reached points of Thomas (Scotland) • Ronald Miller. quallty people serving on LEC board* I transcendental absurdity with ousted Science Projects Leader McFadden Dawson International, Christian Salvesen, would be surprised if they weren't trying Glasgow City Council Jean on about their lack Securities Trust of Scotland • Peter to help their own businesses. Gosh going into print railing that she Jsmleson: Robert Fleming Holdings, jardine they're giving up their time for nothing of accountability, without disclosing GDA, as was Fleming Group (Bermuda), Kletnwort and that's good news". herself is on the board of the • as is STUC Overseas Investment Trust Bernard That kind of talk cuts both ways of course: her predecessor Pat Lally, and Provincial, Edinburgh Campbell Christie . Solomans: Allied as was mentioned above Hughes runs a "supremo" McPherson, the Fund Managers Investment Trust, Tile London company called Grampian Holdings which Turning back to Forbes Enterprise. reader will recall that he is a member of a Stock Exchange, Scottish Financial is engaged in such diverse activities as Enterprises Through Ray Johnstone we can see an transport bulk tippers, plant hire equipment, company called Glasgow Cultural during the intimate picture of the relationship between sporting goods and pharmaceuticals, its (GCE). This was set up in 1990 " and SFE, GCE, and the LECs not to mention institutional shareholders are Murray "Year of Culture to profit from bodies, the media and a Johnstone: 4.08%, Scottish Widows: administrate (including the spending of a Cultural funding recently built Royal range of Investment Trusts and Financial 4.89%, Barclays Bank: 4.3%, Standard £lm Council subsidy) the deal being struck with Institutions. One other, now ex-director of Life: 3-48%, Scottish Amicable: 3.52%, Concert Hall, (a similar Crossart whose companies National Westminster Bank: 3.09%, the other main Glasgow concert venue, the SFE is Angus is made up Noble Crossart (Scotland's first merchant Abbey Life: (a subsidiary of Abbey National) SECC). Similar to the GDA GCE Councillors and top Bank), Alexander ft Alexander, American 3.27% and Scottish Mutual Insurance: 3.55%, of an alliance of Labour Trust, Scottish Investment Trust, the bulk of whom we have already Scottish Television, Wt Royal Bank of encountered above as the recipients of GDA The world ofbanking Scotland, Edinburgh Fund Managers, funding. Another director of Grampian Hewden Stuart and Murray International Holdings is Professor Donald Mackay who and highfinance has Holdings; make Crossart one of the most last year took over from Sir David Nickson interpenetrated influential men in Scotland: Alexander & as the overall head of Scottish Enterprise. long Alexander is the world's second biggest Professor Mackay (an advisor to six the Secret with that of insurance broker, and has recently(more or Secretaries of State for Scotland, and whose less) token over the running of the Glasgow other Company Pleda has been receiving Service... Royal Infirmary Trust, imposing ludicrous SE money from the start) has bis work cut demonstrates the conditions on the ancillary staff who started out for him, with an investigation by the EC Businessmen and aptly And here we have the Commission's Co-ordination of Fraud willingness (some would say complicity) of a strike in protest. crux of the matter: if you have a conflict of Prevention Unit (Glasgow Herald 10/7/93), the Labour Council to embrace the amenities tadicative of the interest, because it is they who make their the result of an adverse audit of SE accounts privatisation of its integral to the GDA's right- money through people making private in relation to their disposal of European transfer of power celebrations of a new provision for theses things, through private Social Fund Money (money designed to help wing agenda. The with the pensions, health care insurance and so forth, the poor),resuiting in the present Commons Glasgow in 1990 directly coincided its onset add to that the unaccountability of a quango Select Committee on Scottish Affairs enquiry launch of the GDA which from Council's budget and we can see the LECs as a key instrument into the operation of all the Enterprise completely took over the the in bask covert right-wing operations. We can agencies. and responsibilities regarding City, largely on the connect Angus up with Norman McFarlane It will be interesting to see if the Commons "redevelopment" of the The American Trust which they both enquiry touches upon the GDA's secret pretext that they would encourage "culture through Thatcherite run (interestingly along with Alms of allocation of £500,000 to another of the UK's and tourism". In regard to their word merely Industry member Lord Goold); they also fastest growing companies, Peel Holdings. crusade (inasmuch as that the unaccountable power of finance jointly run Edinburgh Fund Managers, its This is something of a farcical tale of Peel mystifies City London) the notion parent company. These two companies' run Holdings claiming that it had negotiated a capital and the of mineworkers Pension scheme and the contractual claim on a plot of land in of cultural redevelopment provides the GDA the British Coal staff pension scheme, investing Cambuslang Glasgow (which incidentally is with an all encompassing scope for tinkering it in American securities. Edinburgh Fund highly polluted) during the old days of the with local democracy. Managers also manage the investment SDA They made their claim known when portfolio of The Smaller Companies the GDA paradoxically offered the same land Fingers In The Pie foolishly member of is (the International Trust, which they to a very peculiar company called Superstadia Another significant GCE whose invested in a company called International (run by a man facing racketeering charges recently knighted) Sir RayJohnstone Scottish Amicable, Signal ft Control (IS&C), which some in the USA). The money was given to Peel so directorships include Trust, and readers may know became part of the BCCI/ they would give up their "rights" to the land; HurrayJohnstone Investment Iran-Contra saga: it was an arms Company but because of the secrecy of the transaction Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE). The it which which merged with Ferranti and then the nature of these were never fully reader will also recall that is SFE dinners. collapsed, leaving a £lbn hole in Ferranti's established. Peel itself is based In Manchester advises the GDA at those London A accounts (causing US collapse) and sending and run by a millionaire property speculator, partial breakdown of some of the other including their IS&C's far-right chairman into an American some local Councillors and individuals from directors of Scottish Amicable include: jail (the other directors who were the local Manchester Development/Enterprise other directorships would power brokers seem to have companies. On a similar theme, and Dr. William Brown: GMTV, Pauline Hyde Washington Scottish Arts escaped). unfortunately for our righteously indignant 4 Associates, Radio Clyde, The ex-director of the It would be interesting to see when labour Party, the enquiry could also touch Council, STV. [Brown is an Cathedral Edinburgh Fund Managers ditched their IS&C on one of their more sensitive points, namely GDA] Roy Nlcolson: Forth shares, this would reveal the extent of an old SDA loan to a property company run Investments, Euros alas Properties, Enterprise, Rothschilds Assurance Grossart and McFarlane's far-right by some Monklands District Councillors Valley J. [The connections. The investment world is a tricky which was unaccountably written off. The • Maurice Paterson: Lautro Ltd. business and to get in on the bottom floor Labour Party calls for investigation into regulatory body for Insurance Companies)

1 2 one must engage In what can only be termed they are asked to write a CV as an exercise to be put into sate hands or better still in espionage. The world of banking and high and these are collected (typed out by persons nobodies hands, in the Natwest*s bomb proof finance has long interpenetrated with that unknown) and never returned to the of the Secret Service and the sharing of mdhiduaL there are also several personality intelligence forms the basis of how UK assessment questionnaires which are again Sterstilp Enterprise Enterprise and Enterprise interests are protected and advanced. assiduously collected. All "long-term" The concept of unemployed individuals have to endure these Zones are, on a wider scale, at the core oi courses or suffer the withdrawal of their how the World Bank and the IMF function

The far-right connections seem to abound benefit Amounting to little more than pencil as the premier development agencies. Both here, going back to Forbes McPherson, our sharpening and dock watching, the courses draw on top executives from the main GDA leader shares his seats on die board of offer a golden opportunity to gather all European and American Banks, and of course the TSB and Hill Samuel with Sir Richard manner of intelligence on "troublemakers". function as a wing of Western, mainly US, Lloyd of the Dltohley Foundation and They are also staffed at a higher level by foreign policy; largely free from legislative, various arms companies. The Ditchley people fresh from training in the US on the judicial constraints and popular influence, principal hi Foundation is based at Ditchley Park and "is Workfare system.the model for future they are increasingly the agents a conference centre...used for private Government policy. forcing governments to 'devalue their VIP meetings guarded fay Special Branch The Natwest Bank has also become the currency, privatise their industries, the ISC [Institute owner of the Contaminated Land Register, open their doors to foreign Investment, and M15 . It was used by polluted sites freeze wages, raise food for the study of Conflict] as a conference which lists thousands of ] centre from 1972 onwards; the ISC throughout the UK. Prior to the last election social services and :

Council minutes of 21/1/72 mention an the Government did promise that this would sanction population i ISC conference on Ireland that was held be published and made public, but they (Covert Action No 39, p2» under conditions of extreme secrecy. reneged on this sad now a company or With a Government as intertwined with Ditchley park is closely linked to the individual has to pay the Natwest (after a the financial Institutions as we have in the Bllderberg Group, 14 ofwhose members suitable vetting mo doubt) to find out what UK, what is done in the name of developmenl " sit on the centre's board of Governors lies beneath the surface of a prospective by the World Bank and the IMF is nol (Lobster no.26 page 16). Lloyd has been on development or an existing one The LECs restricted to the "Third World* but is the Council of management of the Ditchley are also supposedly responsible for clearing continually modified into local variants for Foundation since 1974, and he also sal in on up polluted sites of, for example ex-steel mills home application. Professor Donald MacKay, the mid-seventies Wilson Committee's such as Ravenscraig. This is (at times literally) the new SE leader made his name as a attempts to curb the unaccountable power something of a minefield in social, economic consultant by winning a $lm Economic of the financial world, so Forbes keeps some and political terms, particularly since the consultancy from the World Bank , Firmly in interesting company. property and construction industries (the two the neo-conservative monetarist camp, he The question of whether the LECs are biggest clients of the Banks and Insurance believes that "the only way public underwriting the expenses of the larger companies) are in such a slump. There are spending can be cut in any meaningful businesses and financial institutions is hardly massive interests being protected here: in way would be a through a major shake open to debate . It is hard to see what the the US a new report estimates that the up of the social security system waste of time and money represented by the insurance Companies will have to reserve including ft re thin fa About the pfinciplc Commons tinkering enquiry into it will $260bn in additional funds to meet their of univ ersal benefits". (Scotsman 12/1/93) achieve, a fine perhaps, some government exposure to environmental and asbestos It was Bill Hughes' experimental contribution funds returning to the Treasury, one or two claims over the next IS years (Financial to this, in the form of the creation of SE, resignations? Already there has been a few Times 13/4/94), And it is much the same in which would have really made Mrs. resignations from within the LECs on the the UK, only made worse by the partially Thatcher's eyes light up. Back in '88 when basis that some directors were not told what cataclysmic problems already facing Lloyds she gave him the go-ahead Hughes must have was actually going on. (which acts as the clearing house through felt like Yul Brenner in the Magnificent Seven, which every Insurance company works). So gathering up institutional investors in his own Screening For Workfare a document like the Contaminated Land Company and his CBI chums and riding into It has also been reported, even in the Register, and the responsibility for clearing town, the difference being that the Bandits mainstream media, that the banks have taken up the mess, of at times immortal toxins, terrorising the locals are indistinguishable over the role hitherto the province of the strewn all over post-industrial Britain, has from their new found protectors • Economic League; that of amassing personal information on individuals to STA establish a political and social profile with a view to political vetting and blacklisting. Secretive elements in what must be the most sinister aspect of the work of the LECs can be tentatively identified in aspects of their training projects, particularly with the work of the Restart Programme (the LECs receive a large part of their funding from the

Department of Employment). It is true that the management of the unemployed is moving into the hands of shady little companies which are funded by the LECs while assuming the guise of private companies. One of the more peculiar activities of the week-long compulsory Restart course is the collection of data on its subjects:

SCO' 1 3 strike was called, I was groups would be able to a certain extent to fed gossip from individual members of the on the picket line with an RCG member, act autonomously. The fact that trade strike committee and the majority of this whose uncle was on the strike unionism of a lefty persuasion tried to control information was bullshit committee. As an active anarchist with them completely (and failed), was due to The main priority of the strike committee resources and comrades, you activist work being done directly with Timex was to control the support groups' action. se who you'll work workers on the picket line. Strike committee members attended the this activist all due initial support group meetings in Dundee to of support he gave gain assurance that support group members me when I was trying to push for real When the would act on the directive . of the strike working class action. realised that the support groups could act as committee only, and not independently. I was actively involved in workers' a catalyst drawing waged and unwaged Assurance was given ^ the majority of representation at my own place or wort, and workers together, they used a carrot to entice support group members SWPers, Militant, CP held elected positions within the TGWU from the idiots of the SWP and Militant into giving of Scodand, Labour activists etc,jhe fate of shop steward to member of the Regional thea (the onion) critical support; this was autonomous support groups waT sealed by Committee for Scotland (Textiles) Therefore done by the STUC and later the TUC. an inbred trust in the trade union movement I was well aware of the internal corruption Conferences were hastily convened to discuss ..acting on behalf of the strikers. and sterility of the trade union movement. the Timex situation, meeting after meeting The betrayal of the strike was apparent as I must explain that the majority of trade was called to further discuss what had early as March/April 93, 8 weeks into the unions conduct themselves in the same already been discussed, this is the format strike, support groups were being set up manner: structures and voting rights may that trade unionism uses to bury workers throughout the country, in consultation and differ but the end result is always to act on struggle. Endless meetings and discussions with full support of workers on the picket the instructions from the top or the National but no decisions for any real action. The SWP/ line. At this time the strike committee in Executive Committee. Branch and workers' Militant members wasted all their energy Dundee felt so confident in the fact that the committees are virtually nonexistent as are lobbying useless talking shops, while strikers SWP/Militant would give them the full true representatives of workers' demands, on the picket line were becoming more support and compliance, that they decided particularly in time of conflict or struggle disillusioned with their union's approach and to stop sending a committee member to with bosses, and as such all actions or more angry at the fact that nothing was being support group meetings to update the groups decisions are directed or made for workers discussed with them direcdy. on actions begin taken. Strikers were in struggle by full time officials (highly paid Report backs were given to strikers a on misinformed or not informed at all on in comparison to working people). These weekly basis in a small yard across from the negotiations taking place on their behalf. officials are strictly held to the official trade picket line, but again it was only trade union Marches and rallies were held in obscure union line {pensions and bribes assured). rhetoric, diluted information from AEEU parks or places of no importance, contact Strike committees are set up as a means of officials at the bottom of the union pecking between strikers and other workers was control over workers in struggle. order. I would regularly ask strikers what deliberately ignored. The NUM differs in this situation. The full actions were being planned but no one ever For example, a major industrial estate was time officer will always be present at these knew. It soon became apparent that the strike bypassed as a route for a march and rally in meetings to ensure that no abnormal lines was being undermined at a national level, favour of a country park, a major housing of action are taken by workers acting on their between the National Executive of the AEEU scheme next to the Timex factory was own initiative. and the Timex bosses, with even the strike ignored, no leaflets or local work was done The difference at Timex was that although committee being fed secondary information. to encourage local people to take up the the picket line and demos were attended to The workers on the picket line were only strikers' cause, and all this time the AEEU token union officials, MPs and other parasites National Executive was trying to undermine who required a high profile and used such the strike by using the law against mass struggles to gain this, the majority of support ...strikers on the picketing, (Gavin LajrA Genera] Secretary for the Timex workers came from the AEEU: These people should stay at home established left wing parties: SWP, Militant picket line were and mind their own business.") quoted from and a combination of Communists the national press the day after Timex strikers (Stalinists), with anarchists on the fringe of becoming more and their supporters successfully stopped these, but Timex workers approved of this scab buses from entering the Timex factory. and any other support in the struggle to beat the bosses. their union's It was anarchist Initiative to set up the The official trade union movement was using Timex support group network, which in turn approach... all its energy to isolate the Timex strikers. upset the official trade union line, as these Local marches and demos in April and May

1 4 mm were well attended but the tired old left wing the strike was ewer.) Even at support group November the strikers were thoroughly

mentality of giving critical support to the meetings in D—rlrr from 1st July, SWT and demoralised by the betrayals of the whole

official defenders of the working class was Militant Ad mot beferve that nothing would trade union movement that even manning more apparent than ever. For reference to come oat of the Scottish stewards Meetings. the picket line had to be supplemented by this see the front pages of Socialist Worker/ TWSwT/Mfcwl mi win is of the Dundee activists on a day to day basis. Militant etc At this time the national press support group continually asked the support had a Held day, reporting real working dass group secretary to write to the strike Media action on the 17th May as 'Battlefield Timex-, committee and the STUC to reconvene The national press and media, sensing the and "Scenes not seen since Orgreave*, and another stewards meeting, but their bleating workers' spirit had been broken, called for again with national union figures condemning came to nothing. The STUC could never allow an end to this "bitter" dispute, so Calkled the support for Timex strikes as "far left another meeting, the call for solidarity was leaked information on talks at the highest trouble makers", out for their own gains, a too strong, and this was one thing the trade level (Olsen and his negotiators) went to clear example of corrupt trade unionism union movement did not want. Negotiations press on a daily basis, this was how the Timex

acting hand in glove with a corrupt media, at a national level between the National strikers received their information, again the and coercing with corrupt bosses. Executive of the AEEU and the Timex bosses betrayal of the strikers by trade unionism

This conduct by union officials angered continued but no real report back was given was so blatant that workers passing the picket striking workers on the picket line, mass to strikers from the first week in July to the line on their way to their own jobs in the support by workers and mass action was 9th of August, when a further march and industrial estate dose to the Timex factory

what they were asking for, not union leaders rally was called, again a country park, again bowed their heads or scurried past, some

or labour politicians condemning actions to union rhetoric, the STUC placated their "left" even took a half mile detour to avoid being

save their jobs. The strikers themselves wing allies in the SWP etc, by organising a reminded that these fellow workers had

forced the first all Scottish shop stewards' "major" rally on the 21st of August, a "major" stood united for 1 months fighting for their meeting, in the history of the STUC. dose of union crap. jobs and conditions and against the lecherous Women and men who remained on the will of a multinational boss, only to be abused Real Feelings picket line were so disillusioned at the and sold out by their own trade union. This was an opportunity for workers conduct of the union officials that when a The media, local and national, did their

representatives to express the real feelings mass meeting was called to put forward a job well, in the last two months of the strike of waged workers from a broad spectrum of settlement proposal for the strike in the support had dwindled, marches and rallies Scottish industry, on Sunday 13th June the Maryat Hall, Dundee 1st week in September, were poorly attended, the "left" wing groups meeting was convened In Dundee under the Jimmy Airhe and the Scottish executive of were looking for another cause to champion auspices of the STUC, full time officers from the AEEU were shouted off the stage with in their role as the vanguard of the working

all unions were present but were not Invited died of scab for their actions and had to class. The AEEU threatened strikers with

to speak or address the meeting (apart from abandon the meeting. This was the time for expulsion from the union if they did not John Kydd Snr, local negotiator for the real working class action but how could real comply with the final seTHftient (solution) strikers) all applause at this meeting was revolutionary politics be introduced to they had negotiated. Redundancy followed, given to speeches calling for real action (A galvanise and break the strikers' trust in the and another 342 trade union members signed Scottish strike), the STUC deputy secretary official trade union movement? on the dole 9 (Campbell Christie was late and missed the The local full time officer, through the meeting) was forced by the mood of the strike committee, smothered this avenue. At Obituary, in the hope that the labour and meeting to state that "some form of action this time the split in the strike committee trade unions' time wilt come and alt the will be taken/called." was apparent to all who regularly manned more sweeter will their destruction befor

(January 94 and the strikers were still the picket line. The union continued its high- the countless numbers ofbetrayals to their waiting for the promised Scottish-wide action, powered, high-profile talks, but by October/ class.

i 5 Spain and its Relevance

Today by lain Mai

•If instead ofcondemning that experience cabinet at one point, the C.N.T. (and to a be covered here. All that can be done Is [ofcollaboration}, the movement continues lesser degree the radical sections of the highlight a few points of special interest and to lookfor excusesfor it, the same course U.G.T.) constantly urged people to organise hope that these will give some indication of for a general strike, arm themselves and the breadth of these events and encourage

directly resist the coup. people to read a few of the books listed

When the army did start its uprising, it below. dJ,AnarchItOrganisation!The History was met on the streets with the heroism and All industry in Catalonia was placed either ofthePAI, page 251 initiative of the members of the C.N.T. under workers self-management OR workers

("Cenctistas') who went on the offensive. It control (that is, either totally taking over ALL Introduction was the CN.T7FAJ. which lead the resistance aspects of management, in the first case, or,

Spain, in the 1 930's. had the largest anarchist to the Generals. The members of (he U.G.T. in the second, controlling the old movement in the world. At the start of the followed behind, while the politicians did management). There was, of course, a direct

Spanish "Civil" war, over one and one half nothing (as usual). It should be noted that relationship between the size and influence million workers and peasants were members U.G.T. unions in areas where the C.N.T. was of the C.N.T. and the number and internal of the C.N.T.(the National Confederation of strong were totally reformist. In areas where nature of the collectives formed. Workers in Labour), an anarchosyndicalist union the C.N.T. was organised, but smaller, the the U.G.T. were generally inspired to action federation, and 30,000 were members of the U.G.T. was forced to be more radical under by the practical example of the C.N.T. FAX (the Anarchist Federation of Iberia). The the influence of C.N.T. activities and the fear In some cases whole town and regional total population of Spain at this time was 24 that their members would join the more economies were transformed into federations million. The anarchist movement was larger, militant (and effective and modern) of collectives. The example of Alcoy more dynamic and more influential than the organisation. After the resistance of the 19th (population 45 000) can be given as a typical corresponding Marxist organisations (the ofJuly, the Generals' coup had been defeated example: U.G.T. union federation, the Socialist Party, in TWO THIRDS of Spain. •Everything was controlled by the etc). Since 1868, the history of the Spanish It is clear that as the cenetistas fought and syndicates. But it must not therefore be Labour and revolutionary movement was died on the barricades they would not be assumed that everything was decided by a dominated by anarchism, a situation unique risking their lives for some poxy republic. few higher bureaucratic committees to Spain in many respects. They unleased the most profound social without consulting the rank and file

Therefore, considering this, the need to revolution in the history of the world (so far members of the union. Here libertarian understand and know the events of Spain is at least..). democracy was practised. As in the C.N.T. essential Firstly, to learn from the activities there was a reciprocal double structure; of our comrades, to learn from their mistakes The Revolution from the grass roots at the base . ..upwards, and, secondly, to find and apply what is still In the heady days after the 19th of July and in the other direction a reciprocal relevant from their history to OUR activities (people burning money was a common sight influencefrom thefederation ofthese same and political programme/agenda. Thirdly, to in the streets of Barcelona, for example) the local units at all levels downwards, from discuss some basis ideas of anarchism, with initiative and power truly rested in the hands the source back to the source." (Gaston reference to actual events, which should be of the rank and fde members of the C.N.T. Leva!, quoted in "The Anarchist clear in people's heads. and FA.I. No positive directives came from Collectives', Ed Sam Dolgoff, page 105)

Hopefully comrades will find this article the C.N.T. committees (who were to busy It should be noted this was obviously useful. Needless to say far more could be doing other things as we shall see later). It before the counterrevolution got under way written on the subject of Spain. This is one was ordinary people, under the influence of and that the organs of the collectives were view point and should be seen as an aid for Faistas (members of the FAX) and C.N.T. NOT identical to the corresponding organs the discussion, for further reading and debate militants no doubt, who, after defeating the of the C.N.T., although they did operate like and as an indication of what anarchism and uprising, got production, distribution and the C.N.T. did before the Civil War. anarchists are capable of doing. consumption started again (under more In practice, until sabotaged by the state, egalitarian arrangements of course) as well the collectives proved that ALL aspects of Hie Start of the Civil War/ as organising, and volunteering (in their industry and agricuitufr can be operated Revolution thousands) to join the militias which were better by the workers themselves (using When the Generals revolted against the to be sent to free those parts of Spain under anarchist organisation) than under capitalism. republic on July the 19th 1936, the Franco. In every possible way, the working Collectivisation was not full socialism government was paralysed. The only class of Spain were creating by their own (although it was definitely socialistic). resistance to the fascists came from the actions a new world based on their own ideas For example, most collectives kept the working class, first and foremost from those of social justice and freedom (ideas inspired, use of money (in some form or another) sections organised in the C.N.T. and FAX of course, by anarchism and as well as distributing goods according While the government tried to negotiate with anarchosyndicalism). to DEED not NEED (ie, saying that so the fascists, offering them spaces in the The full extent of this revolution cannot much labour is "worth" so much and so

1 6 KOI "

defeated so quickly. Sad to say, it was the hacks not to talk of libertarian Instead of a genuine federal body (made up

actions of the CNT-FAI and, in particular, the but only of the fight against fascism. of mandated delegates from workplace,

actions of certain 'influential militants* (or In practice the committees had been militia and neighbourhood assemblies) the

leaders). separated from the rank and file and their C.N.T. created a body which was not to, could reflect the ideas For a revolution to be successful it needs members transformed from delegates into accountable nor expressed to create organisations which can effectively representatives ("leaders" in every sense of of, ordinary working dass people replace the stale and the market, that is to the word) who started to make policy in then* assemblies. The state and government create a widespread libertarian organisation decisions on the rank and files behalf, without was not abolished by self-management, only for social and economic decision making bothering to consult them. ignored through which working class people can start On the 20th ofJuly, instead of, for example, This first betrayal of anarchist

to set their own agendas. Only by doing this organising a joint plenum of CNT and UGT led to ail the rest, and so the defeat of can the state and capitalism be effectively syndicate delegates plus delegates from revolution and so the civil war. In the na

smashed. For example, if the state is not previously unorganised workplaces of -antifascist" unity, the CNT worked with

smashed, it will continue and get stronger (mandated by the rank and file) in order to parties and dasses which hated both them

as it will be the only medium for wide scale discuss the situation and possibly create a and the revolution. In the words of Sam decision making. This will result in permanent delegate federation to coordinate Dolgoff 'boSt before and after fufy 19th,

revolutionaries having to work within it, the revolution and the war against the an unwavering determination tocrusk the the trying to influence it since no other fascists, the CNT-FAI committees sent a revolutionary movement wot leitmotif means exist to reach collective decisions. delegation of its members to meet the leader behind the policies if the Republican This problem confronted the leaders of the of the Catalan Government government; irrespective of the party in

CNT on the 20th of July. They interpreted "The delegation... was intransigent... power' (The Anarchist Collectives, p40) the needs of the situation as "either we seize either Companys [the Catalan president] It is clear that anti-fascism destroyed the power or we collaborate with political must accept the creation of a Central revolution, not fascism. "Fascism is not parties" (and so the state) in effect, "anarchist Committee [of Antifascist Militias} as the something new, some new force of evil dictatorship" or "democracy". While the rank ruling organisation or the CNT would opposed to society, but is only the old

and file members of the CNT (and other CONSULT THE RANK AND FILE AND enemy, Capitalism, under a new and sections of the working class inspired by the EXPOSE THE REAL SITUATION TO THE fearful sounding name.,.AntiFascism is the CNT) were in the process of constructing a WORKERS. Companys backed down. new slogan by which the working class is new world, clearly showing in practice that (p2l6, Durruti the people armed (my being betrayed" (Ethel McDonald, Workers they were in favour of anarchism, the emphasis)) Free Press, Oct 1937) "influential militants" in CNT committees This shows dearly the role of the CNT To Justify their collaboration, the leaders were stabbing them in the back. committee members (see also "Towards a of the CNT-FAI claimed not to collaborate Instead of pursuing anarchist policies (and Fresh Revolution" by the Friends of Durruti), would have lead to a civil war within the past CNT policy as indicated from congresses), They used their new found influence in the civil war. In practice, while paying lip service the committee members started to pursue eyes of Spain to unite with the leaders of to the revolution, the communists and their own policies. Far from NOT seizing other organisations/parties but not the rank republicans attacked the collectives, anarchists, cut supplies to jHjwcr uicni>civtj \ a& me iruiaiyiicsiaiiiciiij and file. This process lead to the creation of murdered their definition of Voters power"), the CNT the "Central Committee of AntiFascist collectivised industries (even WAR and FAI committee members seized power Militias", in which political parties as well as industries) and disbanded the anarchist within their own organisations. Without labour unions were represented. This militias after refusing to give them receiving any mandate from the CNT committee was not made up of mandated weapons and ammunition (preferring to syndicates they claimed to be delegates from, delegates, but of representatives of existing arm the Civil Guard in the rearguard in the leading committees dedded off their own organisations, nominated by committees. order to crush the CNT and so the revolution). By collaborating, a tivil war was not avoided. One occurred anyway, with

the working dass as its victims, as soon as

the state felt strong enough. Garcia Oliver

(soon to be the first ever "anarchis t" minister of justice) stated that collaboration was necessary and that the CNT had "renouncjed] revolutionary totalitarianism, which

lead to the strangulation of the revc_ by anarchist a-nT Confederal dictatorship. We had confidence in the word

and in the person of a Catalan democrat" Companys (who had in the past jailed anarchists). Which means that only by working with the state, politicians and

capitalists can an anarchist revolution be truly

libertarian! The continued existence of the state ensured that economic federalism (ie Workers self-management in action - the trams were collectivised in Barcelona. extending the revolution under the direction

1 8 of two months, the Central Committee of

Anti-Fascist Militias was abolished and, having clear that anti- no where left to go, the CNT committees sent It is 4 representatives into the government as ministers. According to Solidaridad Ofcrera fascism destroyed (the CNT paper) this meant that "the government has stopped btyng an oppressive force against the morking the revolution, not class...with the participation of the CNT, the state andgovernment no longer oppress the people'. fascism a sick joke considering that soon This is

after the state decided to crush the collectives by force and provoked the May Day events leadership gave the rank and of the syndicate) could not develop naturally defeated. The (during which the "anarchist" ministers, in file choice (a fait accompli) and, in nor be developed far enough in all places. no effect, sided with the state and in the name addition, members at the front were not Due to the po&Krf compromises of the C.N.T. of antifascist "unity" called on the^working consulted (most of the "hard-core" anarchists the tendencies to coordination and mutual class to stop resistance). j£ - most against compromise aid could not develop. For example, in ie those who were Spain, by the actions^-of the ordinary - opposition to the Barcelona during the first two months were there) thus reducing members of the CNT-FAI gave This fait accompli was the of the revotation there were few real leadership's line. anarchism one of its most glorious extreme example of similar actions attempts at economic federation most moments. Unfortunately, it also gave in which had occurred periodically in the past, between industries. While understandable us one of its worse by the actions of certain ie the committees controlling the union and the circumstances, Le. the need to get "influential militants" • the syndicate assemblies. Usually, CNT production going agate placed federalism not In part 2, next issue, lessons from the plenums.congresses and conferences down the list of things to do, it did lead to Spanish Revolution and Spanish a large some collectives becoming 'collective managed to curb this tendency to anarchism. centrally controlled capitalists' as the market could not be extent The leadership at short replaced by a integrated social organism. In the organisation, calling plenums (which was Books worth reading addition, due to the existence of rich and notice, defining the agenda and not poor capitalist firms before the revolution, unheard of In the past) Lessons of the Spanish Revolution by Vernon distributing information to the union there were rich and poor collectives as well. Richards (Freedom Press) leadership's policy, of Since there did not exist the means to assemblies. The Anarchists In the Spanish Revolution by Jose antistate/ coordinate production and distribute goods "anti-fascism* as opposed to Peiratt (Freedom Press) actions lead to The Spanish Anarchists by Murray Bookchh according to need, attempts at mutual aid anticapitalism and its Spanish Revolution by Gaston and so the Collectives lr» the were often ad hoc. the defeat of the revolution Level (Freedom Press) that the war. As Vernon Richards makes clear: This lack of coordination meant Free Women of Spain by Martha A. Ackelsberg possible, to collectivisation could not develop towards full "[was it] essential, and A New World m Our Hearts edited by A. Mettzer that is Abel Paz (Black Rose socialisation (socialism/communism) plus it collaborate with political parties Dumri the People Am^rjy at Books) made equalising any differences between politicians honestly and sincerely, and F.A.I, hands Anarchist Organisation : the History of the collectives much harder to achieve. It also a time when power was in the of by Juan Gomez Cases (Black Hose Books) intervene into the the two workers organisations... allowed the state to Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship by Noam the hands economy and, through its control of credit, ...All the initiative... was in of Chomsky like Romero Maura control the collectives. The October 1956 the workers. The politicians were The Spanish Case by J. (contained In Anarchism Today, pages 80-B3, Collectivisation Degree (used by the CNT generals without armies floundering in a them edited by James JoH and David E. Apter). leadership to "legalise" the revolution!) desert offutility. Collaboration with The Practice of direct action : The Barcelona rent state further way to undermine could not, by any stretch of the allowed the a strike of 1831 by Nick Rider to self-management in industry. This Decree imagination, strengthen resistance (from For Anarchism edited by David Qoodway clear that (Edited David distorted and controlled the revolutionary Franco. On the contrary, it was Vision of Fire: Emma Goldman political parties meant Porter) economy, ensuring that it could develop no collaboration with Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell further and laid the ground work for its the recreation ofgovernmental institutions The anarchist collectives edited by Sam Dolgoff towards normal and the transferring of initiative from the degeneration back (Black Rose Books) with capitalism, which state control of credit {and armed workers to a central body Towards a Fresh Revolution by The Friends oi Richards 1 Ran^e*,. so the collectives) ensured. executive powers" (Vernon DurrutJ (Drowned Social Revolution, Counter Revolution Not destroying the state meant that the Lessons ofthe Spanish Revolution, page 42). Spain: Freedom Press (selection* from "Spain and tne revolution could never be fully successful This is a very good book and is Workf) are recommended. economically as politics and economics The Writings of Camilto Bemerl state bound together so dosely. Only under the This collaboration gave the and Clenfuegos Press Anarchist Review and time to Burnett BoUoten political conditions of anarchism can Its capitalism a breathing space The Spanish Revolution by The Blood of Spain by Ronald Frazer economic conditions flourish and vka versa. gather their strength. When the time was destroyed The CNT leaders, from the very start of right, they counter attacked and All ava/VaWe tromAK Distribution the revolution, claimed that only by a united the revolution and their "allies" in the ("anti-fascist*) front, could fascism be antifascist front, the CNT-FAI. In the space

1 S Anarchism

Charlie Balrd Snr, Mollle Baird, John Taylor 14W87 Part 1 Caldwell, Bsbs Raeside, Jimmy Raeside,

belonged to the old Russian Narodniks, who In August 1987 the Raesides, who had been shooting returned believed in propaganda by deed, in living in Australiafor manyyears, State has provided a rare officials and they believed that the to Glasgowfor a visit This contract with the people and when opportunity to bring together some a social contract, the common groups in it fails to fulfil that surviving members ofanarchist Charlie Baird, Molly Baird, Jimmy of nature and can declare the 1940s for a public people are in a state Glasgow during Raeside, Babs Raeside; summer 1987 war. That was the beginning of the theory of discussion on the history ofthat movement can be learned propaganda by deed in Russia. and the lesson which Theatre in 1912. There were no The other stream was Kropotkin who Pavilion and the theatre by the State microphones in those days Glasgow in a believed that we are dominated JTC: The movement started in he was such a success that he analysis of the State was filled, but a certain amount of and he gave a historical way that's buried in came back again and again, and in the end and that we should get back to a pre-state mystery because they haven't been able to and formed communes. made Glasgow his native city Paris condition of a society run by it properly, but after the He research his own Communist Propaganda Group. Frenchmen came to Commune a number of was running "The Spur" which had a good and one of these settled in Glasgow the Britain from circulation and was well known in But the third person was Bakunin who and became the companion of a woman came through movement St. a philosophical point of view MacDonald who lived in Crown jail called When the war came Guy went off to Hegel and he believed mat we had to destroy She had anarchist views and they by Rose Witcop, point of view but his paper was carried on movement in authority. Guy developed that organised the first anarchism companion. When he came back but then felt that they his free-love working from Crown St. and in the Freedom Press, Glasgow the war, his CPG had folded, because theoretical, Sunday afternoon after space outside Glasgow Green were too meeting in the really the centrepiece of it so he and another founded a he was Sq or Jail Sq. People anarchists, which is called Jocelyn The Glasgow Anarchists (those who'd paper called the "Voice of Labour", to carry there every Sunday. gathered formed a group at the time of William Morris) fight into the factories. there was a lull until we have the Afterwards carrying on: Willie MacDougall was one 4 months Guy realised that if were Democratic Federation (Hyndman's After 3 or the Social and of them - he'd been jailed too, taken down you do that it runs along trade-union building up a group in Glasgow; the from crowd) to Dartmoor. He simply escaped amelioration lines; what we need is education stage on the road to anarchism was next - he jumped on a bike and cycled - Communist Propaganda Dartmoor formed the Socialist so he formed the when the disaffected home and nobody stopped him. (Only a few - these were to educate, the other to under William Morris. They wanted Groups League years ago, at 86, he was still carrying on his but not anarchist. agitate. to be anti-parliamentary propaganda). the CPGs were anti-parliamentary. There was such an influx of anarchists in Now You have to remember the context: the Glasgow and eventually in 1895 it broke up Revolution new, it had been Hie Russian of Glasgow was Labour Party was something and the anarchist movement which split unions and wasn't Then came the Russian revolution, met in a formed to represent trade formed. It had 50 members and introduced a a left or the group in a dozen ways and sure whether it was going to be place in Holland St. It had a number of - vanguard communism. There be an industrial syndicalist new concept one - and liberal party or speakers: Willie MacDougal was and pro- with Tom Mann came a conflict between the anti- developed from that. From organisation as identified the movement communists. Guy was quite in America. There was a parliamentarian invite Kropotkin and or Daniel De Leon 1900 it was able to it against favour of the Russian revolution when Glasgow and careerist element and Guy fought in Voltairine deClerke to speak in favourably of Lenin, members, and this took on the took place and spoke to the start of the 1st payment of was quite a force up to be a statist faction. even although he-knew him because of the form of an anti-parliamentary World War when it broke up conditions in in Glasgow in He thought that, under the its Guy was invited to speak persecutions it had to endure because of was doing all he could do, until by a splendid organisation called the Russia, Lenin position. 1912 anti-war that Lenin and the Bolsheviks It had all kinds of things to he discovered Guy (Aldred) had a group Clarion Scouts. MB: I knew that anarchists in Russia and - bicycle persecuting the interest young people camera clubs, were in little rooms in Clarendon St.. the 2nd Congress of the Communist clubs, etc... They formed their first when JTC: Guy Aldred came to Glasgow in 1912... International took place and Lenin declared organisation in Glasgow in 1898, 1 think, and anarchist movement in London had three The anti-parliamentarians were not help any left-wing organisation - they distinctly that elements: one was Stepniak, one was would - allowed in the Communist helped the ILP, they helped the anarchists to be Kropotkin, the other was Bakunin. International. He denounced left-wingism in policeman in they were not sectarian. Stepniak had shot a you must Guy Aldred to speak in the Britain; he said it was infantile, St.Petersburg and fled to London - he They invited registered as a consoeaucms did a lot of work helping conscientious that age. I capture that organisation which his the Guy to prison where I met Jimmy, objectors during the war, he helped Eddie objector, went attention of the working class, the Labour Dick, and Denis Glyn, who all became Shaw, the two Dicks.) Jimmy so the Communist Party was founded Party, members of the Glasgow Anarchist Group I programme of capturing the in 1921 with a knew Eddie Shaw, who was a founder Party and trying to capture Labour member of the GAG. When we came out of CB: That'was an excellent history of the parliament. and Denis McGlynn To go on jail, Roger Carr, myself reconstituted his origins of the anarchist movement Opposing that, Guy out and joined the GAG. Do Anarchism continued in the form and Jimmy came Propaganda Groups but in time called it the from then: which you want to take it from there, Jimnjf? of the old Glasgow Anarchist Group, ANTI-PARLIAMENTARIAN Propaganda of No, I think you're a repository actually from a split in a group called JR: he had a paper called The Spur. The was Groups; broke knowledge of the entire GAG. I keep learning called the Marxist Study Group. Two men new group wanted its own paper, and Shaw and Frank things from Charlie. Commune, which had a program away from that group: Eddie it the Red CB: The Glasgow Anarchist Group in the Leech. of anti-parliamentism. became a very large group, very active. fellow, an ex-miner called Jimmy 1940s take a leaf out of the book A Utile Guy said , Let's meetings at the weekend in a man steeped in Marxism used to We had Feiners, who made use of the Kennedy, of the Sinn Burnbank, Hamilton, Paisley, Glasgow, seat give excellent lectures on anarchism. Now ballot box in 1918 by standing for every Edinburgh. It was the Glasgow group who that may be misleading - Jimmy Kennedy was could capture Guy said "There's what they although he supplied speakers... 'We are the an anarchist out-and-out to do, let the workers say, following among the from a marxist point MB: It had a big their ballot boxes approached anarchism disinherited'; let us use and Burnbank... they still called miners in Hamilton to go into of view. It was deceptive but ^ and let us pledge ourselves not ^ ^ themselves the Marxist Study Group. parliament but stay in Scotland until there's laid the foundations... V us to form a quorum. This was enough of MB: That's right Some of the anarchists his anti-parliamentism. CB: The Glasgow group supplied all these and some belonging to the in his group towns with speakers and sold a tremendous the William Morris groups remnants of amount of anarchist literature and had opposed this, so the Anti-Parliamentary tremendous meetings in Brunswick St and Communist Federation was formed with had a hall too in Wilson St We had meetings some antagonism. It existed until 1932 when there too; when the weather was Inclement different faction and it was taken over by a we took them into the hall. That must have faded. f been one of the most prosperous, lively came the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Then periods for Freedom Press, on account of from nowhere erupted the anarchists Then the amount of literature we took from them. had deserted anti-parliamentism as too who Later on we might have something more to dogmatic and too theoretical. They came to say about the estrangement between the and, under Frank Leech and the fore again Glasgow Anarchist Group and Freedom Press, or two others, formed the new Anarchist one which finally led to the split and final demise Federation.... of the Glasgow Anarchist Group. Spanish Civil War, So at this point, the of the machinations JR: I wasn't too aware had the USM; there was still a APCF Guy prior to the split and the fact that, although under Willie MacDougall; but when the Charlie was the elected secretary of the anarchists came on the scene again the anti- group, there were individuals in the Freedom they called them) and the pantys (as Group who bypassed Charlie and had a sort anarchists Joined to fight the Spanish of liaison with Frank Leech. When this Revolution. They adopted Emma Goldman became common knowledge it led to clashes that, as a hero, and Guy was opposed to had broke away from them of all kinds... Goldman was at that time Shaw and Leech because Emma talked about "Frank Leech's of personalities or something). MB: They and literature in America (a dash promoting culture ShaWs group'. How do you Another group was started up calling itself group", "Eddie was doing this with various literati and - and an anarchist "Charlie Baird" group? the Glasgow Anarchist Group. I was in prison have had forgotten about her anarchism and was with and don't know You become an anarchist to do away He opposed that and this at the time (so was Jimmy) now coming back. these personalities to take what happened but.. that! They allowed great deal of antagonism in the exactly caused a even Guy - the very last time I MB: Jimmy Dick was also in prison at the over. I mean, streets of Glasgow - they were tearing each talked to Guy, he talked about Frank Leech's time. He had been a member of the Marxist other's hair out, metaphorically. Frank Leech group but Charlie and Jimmy only came into group. continued his group until he died and then Can- JTC: ...But Frank Leech couldn't speak for it when the came out of prison. Roger on the scene came Eddie Shaw, Jimmy apples! It was called his group because was in prison at the same time, and Eddie toffee Raeside... had he ran three newsagents... movement up Veigh. Fenwick and Carr and Jimmy Dick JTC: Well, I've brought the newsagent in Marxist Group and that JR: He was the biggest century until the been members of the from the beginning of the physically! place and they Scotland, metaphorically and and Jimmy were in it was when the split took time when Charlie he hadteen heavyweight formed the Anarchist Federation. JTC: Physically Now they can tell you about it then. I in champion of his regiment. Another Movement, Q: So was it really your experiences remained in the United Socialist which won't add to your prison which made you want to move into reminiscence agitating for some form of unity. Before Guy theoretical knowledge but will give more weren't getting the anarchist group? died we'd long realised we Leech joined the been a rebel. I'd a biographical colour: Frank movement were only being CB: Since I was 16 I'd it, that we in the had been Party, a short APCF when he left the Navy. He because he was an short period in the Communist Guy's supporters, champion. Bakunin Press the LLP and came out of both the heavyweight enormous platform figure and well-known period in a little gym down in the basement disillusioned. I was an anarchist and didn't had orator, and we in the USM were finally simply all pacifists! Benny Lynch - of course, at although they were that realise it politically immature, his stewards and supporters. (1 may say

2 1 SCO' - it's no good kidding ourselves Glasgow group, who was myself, was the group, but used to go down there. Jenny Patrick (Guy they weren't all anarchists. They were says Frank was so secretary of the AFB.) Mdred's companion) the navy, the air had correspondence with deserters from the army, couldn't knock him down, For example, I indestructible, you there were different lads -home regarding the request for force, but knock him out on his feet and Freedom Press but you could on leave getting literature and taking it back more industrial news in the paper, which still be fighting! he'd spreading it around. was the organ of the anarchist and When we had the Free Speech Fight on we thought movement as a whole, and I found that Frank Glasgow Green the Communist Party tried Sedition was corresponding with Freedom Press over and we had a meeting in the Leech 4 to take it Freedom The boys were getting the idea - this was the the regarding Glasgow's business with Hall and a fight developed between about City idea, but they wanted to know more and the Communist - over my head. anti-parliamentarians They (Freedom Press) put out a leaflet the time, but I knew that it.. of the meeting. It I said nothing at over the domination - your Party the from Connolly's speech you know, keep split would inevitably happen, but in fisticuffs and the CP were very a came to - prior to this the Trots in London continuation of the movement arms but discovered we'd so many interests of the surprised when they also for suggesting it The it came out had got the Jail I didn't tell anybody. Eventually pugilists! edition of War Commentary afterwards to come clean and told them first that! There weren't anyway .... I had MB: I remember out with London Anarchists slamming (and Shaw too - he was definitely came for the APCF. I can tell you that Leech membership fees for getting bourgeois lawyers to Press and against the members the Trots Bakunin Press... They had these pro-Freedom a bit about defend them. Then Freedom Press put out were for the class struggle, the industrial to help to pay the rates, because who wee dances this leaflet and got the jail for sedition. own and the strueele the rooms were their secretary ofthe AFB and this up right Charlie's the bloody from within MB: Of course, you should set Communists used to burrow out - he's up the group in doesn't know the leaflet's Bakunin House, and for the people who're here. In (same as now) came to meetimpmd liable to get the Richards, Marie-Louise, speaking at a father, Jimmy London we had Vero it was Willie MacDougatt, my tiling's printed! jail and he doesn't know the and all that. But they were Frank Leech who had to put them Sampson Murray and CB: To put that in perspective: it was a House. theoretical... out of Bakunin carrying a quote from Jtm Connolly. CB: They were philosophicals... leaflet suggested to the British soldiers during MB: And intellectuals, But up in Glasgow, He - the war's the page of the First World War "When anarchists to and this is why we wanted CB: It's important for young back had up finished, hang on to your arms, come Catty's industrial news, all the members we understand why splits took place. demand your rights". They were working and assert yourselves, did the Glasgow here were industrialists. mentioned a few. Why I'd never seen it, I that was why we Well, I agreed with that; think that all over the Clyde and anarchists split up? You'd for, I didn't know what they were arrested wanted the news - we felt they were entitled anarchists didn't look up to leadership and that it was sedition but apart from because they were putting in the funds knew regard any other member of the to that shouldn't know anything about it So they were -we were sending at least 100 pounds a week didn't as a personality or as a charismatic group setting up a defence committee and the group to the running of Freedom Press and getting Anarchists should be free of all those they person. wanted to know something about why getting nothing out of it things: over-estimating people, situation in the Press were arrested.. That was the CB: I talked about the pro-Freedom impressed by their personality. of the group. Weu, the rest of them group. look up to a person with charisma, members If you the defense committee. As Mollie Freedom Press. We agreed that On to complex. This is what weren't anti it's a leadership pointed out, when the Trotskyists were Group. Freedom Press were doing a good job as far happened in the Glasgow Anarchist Commentary came but with a concerned - anarchist arrested, War regarded as a great as publications were Eddie Shaw was article lambasting them for leaflets - we realised that front page few could see beyond books, pamphlets, personality and very bourgeois lawyers, but when they has a place in the movement, employing a good speaker, a good orator, the intellectual him. He was it was the first thing they done workers. were arrested hard enough at the group, but so too do the and he worked - lawyers. However, we'll accept that, so the employ bourgeois pro-Freedom Press along with Freedom Press didn't but Eddie was go. All these things were place. The strange let that one mainly based breakaway eventually took Frank Leech. The group was cumulative effect was the of it, mentioned; the the thing was - there was no intimation the activities of industrial workers in majority on split What shocked me was that the tremendous Shaw and Leech didn't come and say: Well, factories and shipyards. A group disappeared at that was going all right of the Glasgow was taken into these we're finished. Everything amount of literature Shaw and all went the group period too; whenever and I still had hopes of salvaging factories by these comrades. Shaw. There was away they disappeared. time when we asked by speaking to Leech and There came a group practically ended when were going to compromise. One JTG The to give us more industrial no way they Freedom Press Raeside and Shaw left it week they didn't appear at the business Jimmy in War Commentary. Immediately, news and I, Phil Gordon and Jim following Sunday they had CB: Mollie and Frank Leech ganged up meeting and the Eddie Shaw - had big meetings They had deserted Dennis we carried on. We had a conference - a meeting in Maxwell SL against the idea, so we St, good meetings. My voice where they usually had their at Wellington - Press, Brunswick St several conferences with Freedom - wouldn't stand outdoor speaking 1 didn't - was the split. would Freedom Press give way. meetings and that but no way regard myself as a speaker anyway. Bill us one article Q: when was that? As a compromise they allowed - died in war, Borland went jnto hospital he It was before the end of the Commentary and by the time it got JR: in War Hospital - and John Dennis went I wasn't even Kniehtswood all because when I came back print it had been condensed out of into down to London aS he drifted out. And aware the split had taken place when I was recognition of the original copy. So this was that was the end of it. We were still speaking in Maxwell St! I was approached by the beginning of the dry rot in the movement Frank Leech who said anarchists... split taken both Eddie Shaw and It was obvious then that a had Maxwell St, you'll there was a bit of We hold great meetings in place. I knew too that End Part 1 • Transcribed in 1 of Shaw, Frank need t0 me U P- And subterfuge on the part of Eddie ^° ^ from a not-always-clear ( November 1993 Press. (Incidentally, the ^^ Leech and Freedom • Slightly abridged • Full to Marie-Louise cassette tape time is you must come back again anarchist movement was known by this can be obtained by because it and Audio copies of Britain. and Vero Richards getting the jail, as the Anarchist Federation contacting the GAG of the split... We had a very big Glasgow was the centre; the secretary of the was all part

2 2 dreams and families being driven out of the east Belfast John Taylor CaldweU Is over 80. For the hazy visions, colourful book is amazing in streets. last 60 years he has been an active antt- profound thoughts'. The After the death of his mother, through parUamentarian, a close comrade of the its record of how his mind developed its own through to a page domestic violence, John, still tied to his late unorthodox anarchist-communist, philosophy, from a child was called over to manage Guy Aldred* and more recently a writer boy in the Picture House in Sauchiehall Street uncaring father, a house in Glasgow, where the fatherjled to. and historian recording these times. For those interested in history, we get of We get a chilling account of Glasgow: "big Now, encouraged by the publishers, he has view of pre-War xenophobia, the horrors maimed, and the city, where thepeople lived uj> closes' which turned attention to his own eventful life. The thousands post war mood had stonepipe-clayed stairs with a lavatory first volume deals with his first 16 years, on each landing to do three orfour more moving from Dumfries to the hurly burly of that houses. At night many of the closes were Belfast, and a voyage of discovery that led occupied by the homeless, him to Glasgow.

It is remarkable how John has been able to a brew concocted of to recall his innermost thoughts and cope methylated spirits and with recalling the brutality he suffered as an injection of coal gas a child. He also provides a vivid picture from the stairhead of life, as his family spiralled down the social ladder. The respectable It was at pretensions of his father, insensitive many of the side-street to the misery inflicted on his wife and dwellers wore cloth caps with kids (he fathered 10 by way of three razorblades sewn into the cap, women) are brought into focus, as and often carried cut-throat his employment prospects razors in case the need arose worsened in Belfast and the cut a throats. The 'polis' standard of housing worsened to few were to befeared- mostly big men with each successive move. who, like the Irish, spoke in It is a life before the 'safety amusing malaprops (for instance net' of the Welfare Stale, of 'Come on get you want to poverty, not couched in 'good off, 'If stand there you'd better move old days' nostalgia but of subsistence, with the along')' also hear of a hanging of an children being dragged We unfortunate youth Kean, whose hanging down to the level of street took place at Duke Street Prison, andJohn urchins. The state's imagining him in his cell "beneath the attitude when school great hammer, having a sentence of beckoned was to treat bell's pounded into his mind in a last these working class the Court stroke of retribution". kids, catholics and Although many biographies of the period protestants, as "outcasts... herded have been written, John Caldwell's book is into classrooms, not just to be educated, but unique in its experience of brutality and to be disciplined, to be tamed. Hence order, "WAR IS recording the path silence, unquestioned obedience... made to MURDER, WAR IS HELL, his conscious dWaJopment from fear authority*. The sadistic recourse to NEVER AGAIN" is captured from a of to anarchist communism. The physical punishment commonplace in such child's view into adolescence. At the recent philosophy the actor book can be obtained for £5-95 from the •centres of learning' is described, with some book launch in Glasgow Cross, chapter publishers, Northern Herald, 5 Close Lea, humour in the chapter, "Severely Dealt With". Kenny Grant read this brilliant on Rastrick, Brighouse HD6 3AR or after John remembers, sharing a bed with all the post-war mood in Glasgow, Antl-niilitarist catalogue (send a large SAE) his brothers and sisters, lying awake with disabled out-of-work soldiers requesting a AK Distribution, 22 Lutton Place, '...nowadays it would be said that I had a everywhere. In Belfast, the mood was from hyperactive mind. It was never still. It deflected by the revived sectarianism Edinburgh • in "Rooting out like a great accompanying partition, and is k) burned inside my head flame 'Com, h^W Dork. ** MMloolofT^k, qf.iUr* puMM* of catholic h AXfor 16.95. in a little candle. It illuminated a stream of the Fenians" we get a child's view From an Egoist Window Pane discovery of atmospheric pressure was once said, "nothing Shakespeare essential in this process and, incidentally, this either good or bad, bat Is process was in transition long before the thinking makes it so". Yon ieonoelci/l advent of modern capitalism. Thfcgis a truth say; some things are bad may which has little or Bo validity powers that be will listen but it is a truth and some good Independently Do you think the me. It has escaped by grasp. your moralistic platitudes? They gave you for thinking. This Is to say; food is to of my you The capitalist class has wrenched control Independent of my the vote as a red herring. They gave good or bad who have constructed it The state can give you it, then from those The policeman's baton is good free speech. But if they stomach. machine as protector sanctions this state of it from you. What use is free Independent of its exercise on they can take or bad The state is therefore my enemy and good or bad speech? They only bleat You have to take it affairs. my body. The knife is of my weakness. So have to assert it exists only because say. and not grovel for it. You independent of me, yon may boldness of spirit; my philosophers long as I retain my of the knife yourself by action. You fireside Does my thought of the use my obduracy; my intrepidity; danger to them. You can ramble recalcitrance; whether it is good or are of no not determine for me not be secure. It is pub and club and my stealth; the state will the use of the knife on about your theories in bad? Does my thought of are a danger to the you for what not my attributes which lethal or the powers that be only treat not determine whether the knife is attributes speak state but the multiplication my you are: Arm chair philosophers who value. In the hands of an assailant the The of use it permeate th«* of like mind. eagles but are in fact barnyard should thinking. In the hands like predatory knife is lethal to my can incarcerate me but it cannot fowls divested of their claws. Poets, state on the battlefield it has good of a soldier incarcerate a bold union of many. music, art, subversive song and itself is neither good nor subversive value. The knife in which I can do many tolerance as I have a right arm soldier by ideals are treated with some bad but thinking makes it so. The mine. The state expressions. things with so long as it is the knife, long as they remain idealistic his passion for patriotism regards may have my body is no may incarcerate me. They does But when the ideal becomes real it bayonet or bullet indispensable. That won't have the but they won't have me; they not from longer the ideal. This is what offends "for patriotism" derive from if they won't have my mind. powers that be. They know the whole of me; or wrongly*; predicates sensitivities of the thinking "rightly sever my arm from me they won't action intends to make the If they derived from thought The the person of which again are arm is severed from will so long have my arm. Once my surgeon could be ideal real Serve an ideal if you knife in the hand of a All they would corporeal. me it is no longer my arm. as you wiD not transform it into the propitious in my way of thinking. would serve yourself but have is a stinking corpse which one of my To serve an ideal is to serve not Thought of course is merely with an anti-state have an ideal on further purpose. But and blood and in mother outside yourself. I may qualities. I also have flesh force there would be no not it Can the ideal union in when a blow is but it is not t and I am consequence I feel pain of arm corpses. Unity is if I am to accumulation for the be anything but my possession administered If I am incarcerated remain my own master? If the ideal gets strength. violation of a law, violence may be exercised who won't a A union of determined beings the above for me to serve then 1 become upon my person by the lickspittles of or so-called possessed succumb to anv master, mundane identity creature of my own creation I am a law, in order to get me to reveal the vanquish. divine, is a force that no agency can pain, then my man. of my accomplices. I may feel to accept her you a singer In 1952 when I was forced thought like Let me ask the question. Are thought comes to my aid. My house on the hill dancer before Majesty's hospitality in her The thoughts of the before you sing? Are you a flesh and blood is mine. asked to lead off a rebellion speaker before you "Barliniue' I was are possessed you dance? Are you a lickspittles are not theirs; they prison warders there before you think? against a fish diet The victims of their own speak? Are you a thinker by them; they are led off the successful revolt speak, if I think, knew that I had and If I sing, if I dance, if I So I put my thought to use creation. did nothing. Not because they were afraid these attributes stem from? I pinch but play or I steer them where do bring my obduracy into they knew I had the still of me but because myself and feel it, confirming that I'm wrongly. Yes, I tell them a lie. If 1 was support of many inmates. However to make alive. Of course they stem from me. Your possessed by truth I would have to be disloyal their a false show for the satisfaction of ideals, your truths are static without your friends and pander to my enemies. to my superiors, eight innocent inmates were above me. If I was a lover activity. The truth is not It was a lesson For some, truth singled out for punishment Infatuated by an Can they move as you do? of truth I would be more. However, that is truth. They in unity. Need I say is eternal or they seek eternal abstraction. If some truths exist, what do I trees. They have another story. * them in cannot see the wood for the care? Must I genuflect before not egotistical. I am a conscious egoist but optical illusion, they approach truth like which is unpalatable to an reverence. A truth asked many times to tell this the more they I have been the power to approaching the horizon; me will be subdued if I have this would I told of several escapades further it recedes. Their story. If to me I approach it the do so. A truth which is favourable seeking notoriety. travelling seem to be egotistical and convinced me mission can be fulfilled without will accept Economists have possessed; possessed symbolically To be egotistical is to be accept afar. It is on their own doorstep, that the capitalist system prevails. I possess something by vanity. I may w?nt to but a truth which I want speaking. that this is a truth by anything. 1 neither truth. In but not to be possessed I am not truth, I am more than make an untruth. If I had the power to to want to be a Mr Somebody or a Mr Nobody would modern parlance with a twist of wit I have annihilate this chimerical monster I merrily gratify absolute but merely a Mr Thisbody to truth plus "vat". I do not accept not hesitate. For the present I can only gnaw appetites. I have a digesting stomach, a determinant thought or absolute truth a la my like excavating at a mountain with a at it thinking head and a social heart and his admirers Herren Marx and until I muster sufficient Hegel pick and shovel I seek and the absolute For my digesting stomach Engels. I am transitory and leave dynamite to blow it out of existence and consume wholesome food. For my thinking you, and a several behind. reach my destination. You, pursuits and especially inventor without reverence. head I have cultural are the dynamite and I admire an thousand times you with literature and seek invented the steam engine and acquaint myself It is self-interest but James Watt detonator which I seek. I have rational discussion. For my social heart a mutual self-interest

2 4 :

state she has hunger and want What does the nation It is sad; by taking vows when I k>ve, I nun? communion with others and For service it pays homage vegetative needs. She has care about that? taking the suppressed her a full heart without phrases. The patriots can love with life. Her with some meaningless denied herself a natural love more than the nounstaeut great cause of the nation loved one for any sublimated and have died for the vegetative energy has become Otherwise my appetites™* manure of their corpses that of my passion. which is an state. By the she is in love with love, be a servile creature so they have been take control and I would of state comes to its bloom; To give it some semblance abstraction. of history. They of my own creation. egoist, thrown on the dungheap she calls it god. She is no hawing corporeity the state is die for a loved one without died for an abstraction and I could "gawd". She renounces have is she? She is serving but because it gratifies call that a remunerative any abstract calling she elevates the laughing heir. I herself. By her self-renuneration loved one has pain 1 feel You law abiding fodTS. You me to do so. If my and books herself in kind of egoism. °* herself. She is exalted 1 not a by violating the law. pain just as inflicting. am P"**** She may think you are criminals advance a reservation in heaven. a stone or a block ot enough. culture, but I am not stealth. You don't go far it but this is egoism by anterior be innocent of If you have emotions. Society is just violate law. Destroy it wood. I have something to live by. Don't Before But we have to the root To before man became man. a tree you have to cut it at to man, i.e. "what do you believe in?" If cut emotions are You may say, only grow became "human'. My cut branch by branch is folly. They man the pronoun of what to who I of you change take it society and are Just one my To destroy the state you must derived from answer. again. require could give you my sustenance qualities. Qualities which by the root and deprive it of its the revelations aboutJoseph Stalin s procure from society, Before ownership of the means nourishment which I The which is unjustifiable he was the great man of steel. nourishment from food for atrocities You, You and You with your just as 1 procure shone from of production. Russian people thought the sun unje*must my digesting stomach. banding together in your this disregard the law and take possession. If wha#Pour violence is is a criminal act, so of the state is is to serve not yourself called crime. The violence an ideal in principle, To serve called law. There is no difference Strike yourself I may have merely a difference in terminology. another outside will be the but while the iron is hot and you not it. heir. an ideal but it is not I and I am laughing Can the ideal be anything but my Postscript The German anarchist Max Stirner advocated own egoists. A union which I am to remain my a union of conscious possession if or to would revere no one or any external gets abovefor me indubitably expresses master? If the ideal abstract cause. This human or divine. own antagonism to authority; creature of my together; organisation. serve then I become a Union means getting nineteenth century possessed man. In the latter days of the creation. lama anarcho-syndicalism was in Its embryonic worthy of development This is an entity were alive, examination. Stirner is dead. If he was their "gawd"... Stalin the most his posterior. He quarrel with' me I Our existence begins with I'm sure he would not Stalin gives us butter, Stalin already living giveVus guns; heads who would intimate conjunction as we are have can envisage many empty us tractors. Poor old Joe must before we breathe. When gives was resuscitated he would with our mother Was he not pure However, if Stirner a been working night and day. light of day, we at once lie on and 1 would not be he. we see the Russians thought; not be I mother unselfishness himself? The of a human breast We are cradled by our Anarcho-syndicalism is a union he cared for his people. Ah Society is our oh how lovingly workers irrespective and attached by many ties. of workforce embracing all his people. Call yourself not one develop, we can yes, for to Stirner "Max if I state of nature. When we of skill. I would say given a trip to the Siberian not the his and you are will be four. enter into a society of our choice, multiply two by two the result born into. The one saltmines. mate uses addition one we were involuntary If an anarcho-syndicalist causes which are presented to me therefore All the I such a born into is not to my taste. I says two and two is four, am I was but abstractions, and said, to serve are nothing trivia?" anew. It once was wisely quarrel with such seek society The good cause. lame brain to urge". figments of the imagination. with others urge to destroy is also a creative an egoist who can organise "the cause of humanity. The I am society God's cause. The signposts directing seek the destruction of capitalist who will take notice of the I nation, of mankind, of society cause of truth, of the integrate envisage the forging of a new to our destination. I can and the cause of "Four us means Franklin D. Roosevelt, but time based on unrestrained access to the conscious egoism with syndicalism a hundred other causes - read of voluntary Freedoms" and impediment for me to of life and the practice and space creates an for that is what they are. like subjugation of men -shadows* to put you in association replacing the illuminate. I therefore have chase after shadows. The collectively by "nut" cases, we time and space and women individually and the promised land until I have but it takes in world is an insane asylum or the owners of subject its profound credibiUty. political government notice it to give the such a huge space most of us don't would be a with To treat with so many causes of society is in harmony Meantime I recommend ^ThJTorm time and space is in laborious task and my egoism, or, if you like, it's "Syndicalism" by Tom Brown conscious a lifebelt limited so I have been thrown harmony with the aspirations of a conscious "Anarcho-syndicalism" by Rudolf Rocker call in the pub, "time gentlemen I bold As they Cooperative as I. Each individual am and the egoist such the allowance "Syndicalism please". You are consoled by Entile say categorically is an egoist The by Entile Protaud and enough to there's time Commonwealth" of ten minutes drinking time. So of the matter is whether one is significance hollow cause for Pouget • egoism and space for one other conscious of it or not The denial of The state can call you to and is you to ruminate. Own, are leads to varying degrees of dogma These, like The Ego and Its nation. The patriots than not the colours to defend the kindled to fanaticism more often available A.K. Distribution the struggle with from fall in bloody battle or in Observe that pure angelic face of yon young I R E L A

broadcast by him telling us how he had made

the country safe for the little children. Solidarity Whatfollows is the statement by the Irish anarchist group, the Workers With the Official Unionist Parly Movement, on the IRA ceasefire and Us likely effects on frisk politics. begrudgtogly welcoming of the cease-fire it would seem that within a short time there

opposing it, with welcome the IRA ceasefire. wfll be no significant faction exception of Ian Paisley's extreme Over the last 25 years over between Catholics and F the likely W'e have been extracted from the British state right wing Democratic Unionist Party [This 3,000 people have been killed possibility of the loyalist and 40,000 injured. Thousands since that time. Some aspects of is not to discount the around housing death squads murdering more Catholics first have been through or are in still prison. The discrimination, most notably basis they have not gone "soft"]. primary blame for these deaths and all the have been removed or had their legal to show have It is far from clear that the British associated suffering belongs with the British undermined. Further concessions may the cease-fire, government will fulfil its part of whatever state. No cease-fire has as yet been declared been won In return for IRA system of deal has been made. At a minimum these by the British state, Likewise the loyalist but the legacy of that fact that a seem to be early release for political paramilitaries have not yet declared a cease- discrimination still remains in the would is 2.4 times more likely to be prisoners, amending the 1920 Government fire, and have killed Catholics and bombed Catholic of Ireland Act to allow unity if a majority in a Sinn Fein office since the IRA ceased their unemployed than a Protestant 6 counties vote for it and allowing of military campaign. In these circumstances the the Sinn Fein into direct discussions. Britain has IRA cease-fire alone will not bring peace, the IRA ceasefire destroyed the possibility of peace before by much less justice. Some on the left will see of refusing to honour commitments. As we said of the armed struggle in our as a sell-out. We don't. The politics lead to a Nevertheless a majority of republicans are position piper on the Nation**! Question.. nationalism were always going to compromise with imperialism, it was only aware that the armed struggle cannot Inflict Britain, and has become "10, The current tactic of armed straggle those with illusions in the republican's "left a military defeat on as carried out by the republicans Is turn" that thought otherwise. It has been redundant Incapable of achieving a solution as It clear for a decade, even to the republicans, nowhere. is incapable of delivering a military that the armed struggle was going process" as it is called, will not victory and defeating the British army. Britain could not be defeated militarily, and The "peace socialist Ireland, or In addition the British ruling class cares Sinn Fein could not expand on its vote either deliver a united With the reaching of significant improvements apart from those little for the deaths of individual in the North or South. a compromise In El Salvador, South Africa associated with 'de-militarisation'. In addition traditional and Palestine it became no longer a question it represents a hardening of the goal of getting an 11. In addition we believe the armed of 'if but one of "when' such a compromise nationalism, and of all the nationalists, Finna Fail, struggle Is also faulted as It relies on would be reached here. As such the fact, if alliance and the Catholic church. Its the actions of a few with the masses left not the exact terms, of the current settlement SDLP, Sinn Fein part of appeal to Protestant workers is no greater in either a totally passive role, or one with world capitalism are an integral nationalism and the logical conclusion of the than the military campaign (i.e. none) and republican statements have focuW shelter to the few.] to date several years it seemed that on the need for a De Klerk type figure to to irmlntfli fi the £3inft uiflif c I Indeed for compromise. It may 60's and early 70's and to protect the the British government would, for its own lead the Protestants to leader of the nationalist community from tome selfish reasons, refuse to give an inch, being well be that James Molyneux, to represent such a figure if loyalist and state terrorism." more interested in a propaganda Victory' O.U.P. will come than in peace. However it would seem that the initial days of the«ase-fire are anything approach should come as no The gun was re-introduced in Northern Irish the massive City of London bombs and the to go by. This airport, surprise to us, it is the underlying bedrock politics some 25 years ago by the British state mortar attacks on Heathrow coming military campaign, of nationalism It is the reason we are anti- and its forces. It Is significant that the first on top of a prolonged imperialists rather than socialist republicans. death, the first dead solider, the first dead convinced a majority of the British talks. In cease-fire will make this argument policeman, the first dead child and the first government to bring the IRA into The was eager easier to put to activists in the north who to bombing were all at the hands of British or the 26 counties Albert Reynolds put their trust in republicanism, loyalist forces. These forces have yet to lay to seize the mantle of the Taoiseach who date have of the because of its left veneer and the need down their arms. They took them up 25 years brought peace to Ireland. On the day both boys'. Depending on ago to smash a peaceful civil rights cease-fire we were treated to a nauseous to support 'the

26 mm developments it may also become easier over the next couple of years to begin a more What is needed is a revolutionary Protestant workers. sustained approach to anti-imperialist To date this has been almost impossible due movement, with consistent loyalist death squads have to the fact that policies, that is composed ofworkersfrom targeted, attacked and even killed revolutionary socialists and anarchists who both Protestant and Catholic backgrounds. attempted to work in their community while maintaining a principled opposition to imperialism. attempt to unleash the same forces on us. and Catholic backgrounds. In this sense the ending of the armed the left of the attack can only be defeated by mass This will be the real test for struggle, seen as sectarian by one side and Such an thousands and not cease-fire. It is where the cease-fire assumes which demobilised the other opens up real mobilisations of tens of small armed elite. its international dimension. All over the possibilities for revolutionary politics. At the by the actions of a world the authoritarian left has collapsed due same time however the left in general and Partition to the inadequacies of its politics. Building the anarchist movement in particular, is too the armed struggle cannot revolutionary movements) in Ireland now weak to make significant gains in the The ending of part of history. The issue of represents the same challenge faced by immediate future. If the peace holds, the next simply become quietly dropped in the few years will be a test of our ability to build partition can not be over Protestant workers. depends on our ability to convince people a viable alternative to the bosses, north and interests of winning the ability to fight it would be possible to of our politics, demonstrate south. But we are aware that 25 years ago In the short term day to day economic and win, and give people the confidence to the British state smashed something much build workers unity on but it change society. This is the process that can more modest than what we propose with issues without mentioning partition the past we lead to a lasting peace with justice • armed force. We are also aware that would be building on sand. In involving very sectarianism was used as the weapon to have seen how instances, some have The Workers Solidarity Movement can be smash any major manifestation of workers large numbers, of working class unity What contacted at unity in the north, not to mention been swept away on a tide of bigotry. revolutionary movement, with PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland revolutionary poli tics. If we are successful in is needed is a is or by anonymous e-mail to budding a revolutionary alternative, then consistent anti-imperialist policies, that [email protected] somewhere down the road the state will composed ot worxers trom doui rroiesuuu

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|gj|| . Computer Networks and

J

Communication using computer* Is Users of the computer networks depend on how much you use the system, the possible because Information may be strong tradition of the free exchange of speed of your modem (the faster the cheaper) and transferred between two computers information. This can be traced to links between t computer is local c

the counterculture and those Involved in the early . You can continue to use your: using a variety of methods: a physical development ofcomputers. There is a vast amount for DTP and other purposes, too. wire, the telephone, or even radio waves. of information available on a wide range of Good books on computer networking Include To get from a computer In Glasgow to subjects - not only concerned with computers. The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog," by one In California, a message Is sent from Much of this is generated by discussion groups Ed Krol. published by O'Reilly & Associates, and then to third, one computer to another, a centred around "Bulletin Board Systems", or "EcoLinking: Everyone's guide to online and so on, u With BBSes, anyone who wishes can join environmental information,'' by Don Ritter, from

(to cross a discussion group by sending messages to a PeachPit Press. 24 USLxth St.. Berkeley, CA 94710.

computers communicate via a. specific computer which sends the message to There is lots of free information about the internet

everyone else, thus simulating a real discussion. itself, once you are connected. If yea have material

at the destination Is The Internet currently has several discussion for Spunk Press, contact them c/o the Glasgow anarchosyndicalism and Anarchists. Once you get on the Internet, send a used, the from Glasgow Is groups on anarchism, can be saved on the anarchist activism. message to Spunk Press and the Glasgow group at their electronic mail addresses: *t, or. reply

The information available is stored on particular [email protected] respectively. > "networks* of computers have computers' disks and can be accessed by several Don't forget that computer communication is an proliferated in the past twenty years; methods. Nowadays, text, pictures and even sound addition to meeting people, using the telephone many of them are connected to form can be transferred. There are several computer and writing letters, not a substitute! the biggest network, called the Internet archives of anarchist material, including the Fast The Internet connects at least ten Breeder BBS in London, Love and Rage, and Spunk million people around the world. The Press. The last two can be contacted on the growth and operation of these networks Internet. Low and Rage distribute their bulletin electronic messages. The Spunk Press archive act as one of the most significant as currently has over 400 artides from publications examples of a functioning anarchy. such as Here and Now, Libertarian Labor Review, There is no centralised control; you join Counter Information, Wind Chill Factor, Warrior, the network by cooperating with the COUNTER Mother Anarchy, works by Emma Goldman, nearest computer site already on it, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and articles from the Glasgow INFORMATION which will forward all messages for you. group and others around the world. A current Although governments sponsor and project is to add back issues of 'Anarchy, a Journal For free news-sheet send s.s.s. to indirectly run the parts of the Internet of Desire Armed' to the archive. Any magazine 11 Forth Street, Edinburgh EM which transfer a high volume of produced by computer desktop publishing (DTP) information, many networks are on a PC or Apple computer can be added to the completely Independent. For instance, archive without the effort of retyping the contents. Spunk Press is run by a collective of members Fidonet is a worldwide network of home U.S., U.K., Sweden, Holland, Italy and computers run by computer hobbyists, in the elsewhere, using electronic mail to discuss, and the European Counter Network is ClASS^DWAR coordinate and develop the archive. a network of activists in Europe. Is all this secure? It isn't difficult for One of the most popular ways to use the governments to monitor messages, though there P.O. Box 1008, networks is to send messages to a particular person is a vast amount of traffic and methods of or organisation; this is called "electronic mail*. Glasgow, 042 8AA encrypting messages have been d An important point is that it costs no more than a make it almost ii phone call to the nearest computer to do this, read them. even though the message could be destined for There maybe someone in your group who has California. Also, the message is sent after you free access to the Internet through work or study. have finished typing It, typically at a rate of page In this case, they out act u the Internet contact a second, so slow typing doesn't cost you more. for the group. Otherwise, what do you need? A On the Internet, such a message could take as computer, a modem • which to used to transmit little as half an hour to reach California, allowing messages via telephone - and a service provider', 81* a reply within an hour. The message could contain an organisation that allows you to connect to the an article from a magazine produced by computer, Internet. The service provider usually supplies which could be printed out and distributed locally you with the software for your computer and DISTRIBUTION There Is great potential for keeping In touch and instructions on how to connect and use the working together. Many anarchist/libertarian Internet Computers are still not as straightforward TltouMaid* of radical papery m«g»Thir% organisations can be contacted by electronic mail: to use as they could be, though things are pamphlets and books the IWf, WSA, Love and Rage, the Autonome improving, so it Is best to find someone who has Fern eataiagut and a targt t.a.*.u>: Forum, Infoshops, the Anarchist Communist already done this. How much does it cost? The AX Distribution, 22 Luttan Piatt, Federation, the German FAU, the SAC, and service providers should charge less than 10 Edinburgh EH8 9PE anarchists in the USA, Europe, Russia, japan and pounds a month - shop around. Telephone bills elsewhere