ORGANISE! For Revolutionary Anarchism Anarchy and the Thatcher years The SWP Anarchism in Latin America £2.5080 €3.00 Free to prisoners Varieties of organising Privilege and Safer Spaces Anarchist Federation local groups and contacts Organise! England (and all general enquires) Organise! editors The magazine of the BM ANARFED, London, WC1N 3XX, Organise!, BM ANARFED, London, Anarchist Federation England, UK WC1N 3XX [email protected] [email protected] Issue 80 - Summer 2013 http://www.afed.org.uk Resistance editors Organise! is the magazine of the Anarchist Bristol AF Resistance, BM ANARFED, London, Federation (AF). It is published in order to [email protected] WC1N 3XX develop anarchist communist ideas. It aims http://bristolaf.wordpress.com/ [email protected] to provide a clear anarchist viewpoint on contemporary issues and to initiate debate Lancashire Sheffield AF on ideas not normally covered in agitational papers. 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Issue 80- Summer 2013 Editorial 4 Organise!, BM ANARFED, Lon- don, WC1N 3XX The Socialist Workers Party: [email protected] Why it’s all Gone Wrong 8 Subscriptions Privilege Theory and Intersectionality 12 Single issues £3·50 (£4·00 EU / £4·50 rest of world) The Fundamental Requirement for Annual subscriptions to Organ- Organised Safer Space ise! (two issues) are available 19 for: £6·00 UK / £7·00 EU / £8·00 Teddy bears and Anarchy: Political rest of world Prisoners, Freedom of Speech & State Repression in Europe’s Last Dictatorship For a joint subscription to Or- 24 ganise! and Resistance £14·00 UK / £22·00 EU / The Idea of the Commune in £28·00 rest of world Anarchist Practice 26 Resistance sub. NB: A year’s Platformism in Latin America: sub is 10 issues. The Uruguayan Example £8·00 UK / 15·00 EU / £20·00 33 rest of world Anarchism in Latin America Cheques or postal orders pay- 36 able to ‘AFED’ Ask about discounted bulk or- Reviews ders : [email protected] Fighting for Ourselves: Anarcho-syndicalism and the class struggle 39 Haymarket Scrapbook 43 Free Society; a German exile in revolutionary Spain 45 Letters 46 4 Organise! Margaret Thatcher politely died not least in Northern Ireland, These battles were not, of course, just in time for us to commemo- where working class people were lost without a fight and hugely rate her life appropriately, in brutalised and murdered under important acts of bravery and the 80th issue of Organise! We the divide-and-conquer approach inspiring solidarity. But the only will speak ill of the dead, and to domestic dissent. Her racist major working class victory in the go to press in the hope that the policies supported the rise of the Thatcher period was the struggle celebrations that began on Mon- far-right in Britain, and black and against the Poll Tax. This ideologi- day 8th carry on, showing the white youth were forced to fight cal class-based attack took place extent of contempt for Thatcher the police in the riots of 1980 in the context of the dismantling throughout the British working onwards (especially 1981): an and destroying things tradition- class. The world we now live in is more dangerous, corrupt, un- equal, oppressive and impover- ished because of her particular legacy. From the start of her leadership in 1979, she turned Editorial up the heat internationally to What’s in the latest Organise! put Britain ‘back on the map’. She built up its military capabil- explosion of anger at what inner- ally understood as social prop- ity in the 1980s and established city life had become. She passed erty: the major industries, public Britain’s place in the Cold War, the first anti-gay legislation for services, jobs and welfare. The so that a generation grew up in 100 years, known as ‘Clause 28’. abolition of the Poll Tax was an- fear of a nuclear conflict with the In economic and industrial terms, nounced in 1991. The power of USSR. In 1982, by ‘defending’ the key focal points of working class opposition to the tax in Scotland Falklands with immense fire- militancy were attacked in ways since 1987 had quickly spread to power (which included the notori- that were openly divisive and England and Wales by amazing ous sinking of the Belgrano), she smashed much confidence in our feats of working class solidarity, heralded in an era in which Britain class. The Miners, who struck in organisation and a willingness to has gone to war at the drop of a 1984-5, were tragically defeated, take to the streets and fight. The hat. She supported the Apartheid as were the Wapping print-work- Poll Tax riot of 1990 and smaller, regime in South Africa, was best ers in 1986 (Murdoch, please die but very serious, local distur- pals with the Chilean dictator soon as well). bances were not organised by general Pinochet and was hated anarchists, as the state, the press and some left parties claimed (as though we could pull that off!), but neither did they come out of nowhere. In fact, for a time, it seemed that the working class could win. This is not to suggest that things were great before Thatcher; ‘old’ Labour was an example of how not to share out common re- sources. And afterwards, ‘New’ Labour set about completing her legacy with their Thatcherite- Labourism, paving the way for the current cabinet’s unrelenting attacks on our class. As anarchists Organise! 5 we clearly understand, and all rism, in particular. It became one dammit, Thatcher wasn’t even this demonstrates, there is no of the back-bones of the anti- doing anything for women! Two, hope except in a class-based nuclear movement, and its de- both the established, London- revolutionary solution. But whilst centralised but hard-core legacy based tendencies and the new all politicians are the enemy of extended into the environmental regional groupings, tended to be the working class, some do more and anti-capitalist movements of dominated by older men with damage to us than others, and today. Several books of varying informal power and a certain rug- rightly we rejoice in the demise of quality have been written about ged individualism. It was difficult those we have most to despise. this movement recently, and its to grow intellectually in their significance should not be over- company and female comrades If it seems strange to some peo- looked. tended to do a lot of listening ple that others would happily rather than speaking. Anarcha- dance on the grave of a long- Secondly, the 1980s also saw the feminists began to rattle estab- senile old lady, it’s because we growth of locally-focused ‘synthe- lished anarchism, by at times are still her victims, after all this sist’ anarchists groups in major organising on a women-only time. Although her death doesn’t UK towns, sometimes linking basis and by openly picking fights alter the challenges we face, even up regionally.