Libertarian Socialism : Politics in Black and Red

Notes
Lucien van der Walt, ‘Counterpower, Participatory Democracy, Revolutionary Defense: Debating Black Flame, Revolutionary Anarchism and Historical Marxism,’ International Socialism 130 , accessed 19 February 2017, http://isj.org.uk/revolutionary-anarchism-and-historical-marxism/. Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer, The Floodgates of Anarchy (London: Kahn & Averill, 1970), 6. Jorge Semprun, Communism in Spain in the Franco Era: The Autobiography of Federico Sanchez, trans. Helen R. Lane (Sussex: Harvester, 1980), 7. Marie-Louise Berneri, Neither East Nor West: Selected Writings 1939–1948 (London: Freedom Press, 1988), 66. Benjamin Franks, ‘Between Anarchism and Marxism: The Beginnings and Ends of the Schism …,,’ Journal of Political Ideologies 17:2 , 207–27, accessed 15 February 2... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Bibliography
Bibliography Manuscripts and Archival Material Dachine Rainer Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Daniel Guérin Papers. International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam. David Thoreau Wieck Papers, 1942–1969. Peace Collection, Swarthmore College. Fonds Guérin. Bibliotheque de Documentation Internationale Contemporaine, Nanterre. James, C.L.R. ‘Charlie Lahr’ . Unpublished MS in the possession of David Goodway. Karl Korsch Papers. International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam. Leahy, Terry. Pre-War Anarchists and the Post-War Ultra-Left. MS, Sydney, 1981. McDonagh, Grant. My Involvement in an Ultra-Leftist Tendency. MS, Nelson, 1981. National Archives, London. KV/2/1... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 15 : Conclusion: Towards a Libertarian Socialism for the Twenty-First Century?
15. Conclusion: Towards a Libertarian Socialism for the Twenty-First Century? Saku Pinta and David Berry There is something that has amazed and even shocked me for a long time. There is a tragicomical paradox in the spectacle of people who claim to be revolutionary, who wish to overthrow the world and at the same time try to cling at all costs to a reference system, who would feel lost if the author or the system which guarantees the truth of what they believe, were to be taken away from them. How is it possible not to see that these people place themselves by their own volition in a position of mental subjection to a work which is already there, which has mastered a truth which henceforth can only be interpreted, refined, patched up? Cornelius Castoriadis It is difficult to imagine the ‘Black and Red’ conference... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 14 : Situating Hardt and Negri
14. Situating Hardt and Negri David Bates Introduction To what extent is it possible to situate Hardt and Negri’s thought? Are they best regarded as ‘anarchists,’ ‘socialists,’ ‘communists,’ ‘Marxists,’ ‘Leninists,’ ‘post-Marxists’ or ‘post-anarchists’? Answering this question is no mere intellectual exercise. As Wittgenstein once remarked, ‘words are deeds.’ On the radical Left, much blood has been spilled through those deeds, careers ended and reputations shattered. Of course, today a great deal is made of the claim that we live in ‘post-ideological’ times, ‘new times’ where ‘class struggle’ does not have the importance it once had; postmodern times, where meanings and identities are constantly subject to the contestation of ‘discourse.’... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 13 : Carnival and Class: Anarchism and Councilism in Australasia during the 1970s
13. Carnival and Class: Anarchism and Councilism in Australasia during the 1970s Toby Boraman Anarchism and ‘councilism,’ a form of libertarian socialism that was influenced heavily by council communism, converged in Australasia during the 1970s. Many anarchists drew upon councilism in order to update anarchism. Councilists sought to rejuvenate socialism from below and to reevaluate Marx. In so doing, they took an anarchistic turn. Overall, two loose anarchist/councilist tendencies emerged. The first was that of ‘class-struggle anarchists’ and councilists. The second was a bohemian, anti-work current represented by ‘carnival anarchists’ and situationist groupings influenced by the Situationist International (SI). This chapter examines the perspectives these currents held on class. Both tendencies, following the councilist analysis of ‘bureaucratic capitalism,’ asserte... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

A ‘Bohemian Freelancer’? C.L.R. James, His Early Relationship to Anarchism and the Intellectual Origins of Autonomism
8. A ‘Bohemian Freelancer’? C.L.R. James, His Early Relationship to Anarchism and the Intellectual Origins of Autonomism Christian Høgsbjerg In April 1940, in a private letter written amid a fierce faction fight then engulfing US Trotskyism, Leon Trotsky would refer in passing to Cyril Lionel Robert James (1901–1989), one of his leading comrades hailing originally from Trinidad, as a ‘Bohemian freelancer.’ No doubt such an appellation would have caused distress to James had he heard of it at the time, for his political and intellectual evolution had owed much to Trotsky’s Marxism ever since his reading of the first volume of History of the Russian Revolution in 1932. Yet such an appellation would, ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Antonio Gramsci, Anarchism, Syndicalism and Sovversivismo
6. Antonio Gramsci, Anarchism, Syndicalism and Sovversivismo Carl Levy Introduction The relationship between Antonio Gramsci’s Marxism and the anarchist and syndicalist traditions is complex and intriguing but it is overlooked by most of his scholarly interlocutors. I have argued that there are a number of elective affinities between the young Gramsci’s unorthodox Marxism and the libertarian socialist tradition, and that Gramsci’s concept of industrial democracy, elaborated during the era of the factory councils in Turin (1919–1920), was shaped through his encounters with anarchists, self-educated workers and formally educated technicians employed by Fiat and others. His relationship to the anarchists runs far deeper... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Beyond Black and Red: The Situationists and the Legacy of the Workers’ Movement
12. Beyond Black and Red: The Situationists and the Legacy of the Workers’ Movement Jean-Christophe Angaut Introduction Over the last 20 years, the situationists have often been reduced to a mere group of artists criticizing everyday life, detached from any social struggle. The common description of their contribution to the events of 1968 in France was symptomatic of this reduction: either the so-called cultural orientation of these events was attributed to them, or it was said that, because the role of the situationists had been over-emphasized, these events were reduced in the collective memory to their cultural aspect. Nevertheless, this understanding tends to weaken with a close reading of the situationists’ texts (consisti... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Council Communist Perspectives on the Spanish Civil War and Revolution, 1936–1939
7. Council Communist Perspectives on the Spanish Civil War and Revolution, 1936–1939 Saku Pinta Introduction Council Communism is often regarded as a current within the revolutionary Marxist tradition that bears a close resemblance to what some now refer to as ‘class struggle’ anarchism and is routinely considered to belong to a broader ‘libertarian communist’ tendency. In so far as those anarchist currents which embrace a revolutionary class politics are delineated from individualist or other variants, the common emphasis on direct action and forms of self-organization as the prefigurative organs of revolutionary change, distrust of bureaucracy and officialdom, and critique of both reformism and Bolshevism all... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Freedom and Democracy: Marxism, Anarchism and the Problem of Human Nature
2. Freedom and Democracy: Marxism, Anarchism and the Problem of Human Nature Paul Blackledge Introduction In this paper I argue that anarchist criticisms of Marx’s ‘statism’ inherit themes from liberalism that serve as a brake on the democratic aspirations of anarchist practice. While superficially attractive, especially when deployed to explain the character of both Stalinism and social democracy, this liberal element of anarchist theory prevents anarchist practice developing from a mode of resistance to capitalism to become an adequate strategic alternative to it. Further, I argue that classical Marxism offers tools by which to overcome this problem and suggest that Marx is best understood not as the statist other to lib... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)