Red & Black Revolution 1 No. 11 - 2006 ! A magazine of libertarian communism AUS. $6 UK £2 USA $4.50 insurrection plus Gender under the spotlight * Privatisation * Precarity Contents About the Workers Solidarity Movement The Workers Solidarity Movement was founded in Dublin, Ireland in 1984 following discussions by a number of local anarchist 3 Insurrection: anarchism and groups on the need for a national anarchist organisation. At Insurrectionalism that time with unemployment and inequality on the rise, there seemed every reason to argue for anarchism and for a revolu- tionary change in Irish society. This has not changed. Ireland’s Easter Rising of Like most socialists we share a fundamental belief that capital- 11 ism is the problem. We believe that as a system it must be ended, 1916 that the wealth of society should be commonly owned and that its resources should be used to serve the needs of humanity as a whole and not those of a small greedy minority. But, just as Privatisation - the rip off of importantly, we see this struggle against capitalism as also being 14 resources, but is nationalisa- a struggle for freedom. We believe that socialism and freedom must go together, that we cannot have one without the other. As tion the answer? Mikhail Bakunin, the Russian anarchist said, “Socialism without freedom is tyranny and brutality”. 18 Independent Workers Union Anarchism has always stood for individual freedom. But it also stands for democracy. We believe in democratising the work- place and in workers taking control of all industry. We believe 19 Focus on Precarity that this is the only real alternative to capitalism with its ongoing reliance on hierarchy and oppression and its depletion of the Women are from earth (and world’s resources. 23 In the years since our formation, we’ve been involved in a wide so are men) range of struggles - our members are involved in their trade unions; we’ve fought for abortion rights and against the presence Review: Caliban and the of the British state in Northern Ireland, and against the growth 28 of racism in southern Ireland; we’ve also been involved in cam- 2 Witch paigns in support of workers from countries as far apart as Nepal, Peru and South Africa. Alongside this, we have produced over 80 issues of our paper Workers Solidarity, and a wide range of pamphlets. Over the years we have brought many anarchists from abroad to speak in Ireland. These have included militants from Like most of the publications of the left, Red and Chile, the Czech Republic, Canada, the USA, Greece, Italy, and a 2006 - Black Revolution is not a profit making venture. It veteran of the anarchist Iron Column in the Spanish Civil War. 11 exists in order to spread ideas and contribute to the process of changing the world. As anarchists we see ourselves as part of a long tradition that has fought against all forms of authoritarianism and exploitation, a If you would like to help out in this work there tradition that strongly influenced one of the most successful and Revolution are a couple of things you can do. One option is far reaching revolutions in this century - in Spain in 1936 - 37. The to subscribe to the magazine. Another is to take value of this tradition cannot be underestimated today. With the a number of copies of each issue to sell. We are fall of the Soviet Union there has been renewed interest in our & Black always looking for bookshops or stalls that will ideas and in the tradition of libertarian socialism generally. We Red sell this magazine on a commercial basis. hope to encourage this interest with Red & Black Revolution. We believe that anarchists and libertarian socialists should debate Our time and resources are limited and at and discuss their ideas, that they should popularise their history times of busy activity our publications are often and struggle, and help point to a new way forward. delayed. So any help that you can offer would be a real help in getting our ideas out to a wider A couple of years ago our paper Workers Solidarity became a audience. If you want to help out, get in touch at free news-sheet, which appears every two months. With a print- the address below. run of 6,000, this means a huge increase in the number of people here in Ireland receiving information about anarchism and strug- Red & Black Revolution is published by the gles for change. As more people join the WSM, we are able to do Workers Solidarity Movement. Permission is more to promote anarchism. If you like what we say and what we given for revolutionary publications to reprint do, consider joining us. It’s quite straight forward. If you want to any of these articles. Please let us know and send know more about this just write or email us. us a copy of the publication. If you are publishing a translation, please send us an electronic copy We have also increased and improved our presence on the for our web site. Submissions are welcome. Internet. This move has been prompted by the enormous suc- cess to date of our web site and resources. The WSM site has been updated and moved to www.wsm.ie and we are adding Red & Black Revolution new material all the time. A large number of people are now looking at and reading PO box 1528 about our anarchist ideas on our site. Many Dublin 8, Ireland of our papers, magazines, posters and some on the internet: pamphlets are available inn PDF format - http://www.wsm.ie allowing for material to be downloaded in [email protected] pre-set format, to be sold or distributed free [email protected] right across the world. InsUrrection ANARCHISM & INSURRECTIONALISM replace the sovereignty of a national government viewed to be the corrupt Insurrection - the armed rising of the people - has always been collaborator of the hacendados.”1 In close to the heart of anarchism. The first programmatic documents Spain in the 1870’s, where workers’ of the anarchist movement were created by Bakunin and a group of attempts to form unions were met European left-republican insurrectionists as they made the transi- with repression, the anarchists were tion to anarchism in Italy in the 1860’s. This was not a break with involved in many insurrections, and insurrectionism but with left-republicanism. Shortly afterwards in the case of some small industrial Bakunin was to take part in an insurrection in Lyon in 1870. towns, were locally successful dur- ing the 1873 uprisings. In Alcoy, for by Joe Black European radical politics of the as something that the republican previous hundred years had been bourgeoisie would fight against dominated by insurrections, ever not for - alongside the old order if “The workers seized and since the successful insurrection in necessary. For Bakunin, it was the burned the factories, killed France of 1789 had sparked off the experience of the 1863 Polish insur- process leading to the overthrow of rection, where it became clear that the mayor and marched the feudal order across the globe. the bourgeois republicans feared a The storming of the Bastille on 14 peasant insurrection more than the down the street with the July 1789 showed the power of the Czar, that conclusively proved this heads of the policemen” people in arms, this insurrectionary point. So now the fight for freedom moment, which changed the history would need to take place under a of Europe, probably involved only new flag - one that sought to organ- around one thousand people. ise the working masses in their instance, after paper workers who interests alone. had struck for an eight-hour day Insurrection and Class Politics were repressed “the workers seized The early anarchists embraced the and burned the factories, killed the 1789 also set a pattern where, new forms of workers’ organisation mayor and marched down the street although the working people made that were emerging, and in par- with the heads of the policemen up the mass of the insurrectionists, ticular the International Workers whom they had put to death.”2 Spain it was the bourgeoisie who reaped Association or First International. was to see many, many anarchist the rewards - and suppressed the But, although they saw the power led insurrections before the most masses in the process of introduc- of the working class organised successful - that which greeted and ing their class rule. This lesson was in unions, unlike the majority of almost defeated the fascist coup of not lost on those who saw freedom the Marxists they did not see this July 1936. as something that had to involve as meaning that capitalism could the economic and social libera- be reformed away. The anarchists In Italy in 1877 Malatesta, Costa and tion of everyone, not the right of a insisted that insurrections would Cafiero led an armed band into two new class to carry on ‘democratic’ still be needed to bring down the villages in Campania. There they exploitation of the masses. old ruling class. burned the tax registers and declared an end to Victor Emmanuel’s reign In the republican insurrections that Early Anarchist Insurrections broke out in Europe in the century - however their that followed, and in particular in Anarchist attempts at insurrection hope of sparking 1848, the conflict between the spread with the growing movement. an insurrection republican, capitalist and small In fact, even before the Lyon attempt, failed and troops capitalist classes and the republi- the anarchist Chávez López was soon arrived. can masses became more and more involved in an indigenous insurrec- Bakunin had already pronounced.