Anarchism : Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarianism

In The Tradition : Where Our Politics Comes From, by Anarchist Federation
ACF: the first ten years THE SHIPWRECK OF anarchist communism in the late 70s meant that there was no anarchist communist organization, not even a skeletal one, that could relate to the riots of 1981 and to the miners strike of 1984–5 as well as to mobilizations like the Stop the City actions of 1984. But in autumn 1984 two comrades, one a veteran of the ORA/AWA/LCG, had returned from France where they had been living and working and where they had been involved in the libertarian communist movement. A decision was made to set up the Libertarian Communist Discussion Group (LCDG) with the aim of creating a specific organization. Copies of the Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, left over from the AWA/LCG days, were distributed to bookshops, with a contact address for the Anarchist-Communist Discussion Group (ACDG). Progress was slow, until contact with the comrade who produced Virus, a duplicated magazine that defined itself as &ld... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Travelers’ life-style further threatened : A brief history of The Grove at Stonehenge by a Surrey member of the ACG, by Anarchist Communist Group
The so-called ‘battle of the bean field’ lives long in the memories of the traveler community. The modern ‘war’ on ‘new age travelers’ was declared on the 1st of June 1985. Around 1,400 police from six counties and the Ministry of Defense were in Wiltshire to “decommission” the convoy, which consisted of around 500 new age travelers, free festival-goers and environmental activists. The police were thwarted in their efforts to arrest the majority of the convoy via a roadblock and the travelers then occupied a pasture field and an adjacent bean field, establishing a stand-off that was only broken late in the afternoon, when, under instructions from on high, the police invaded the fields en masse, and violently assaulted and arrested the travelers — men, women and children — smashing up their vehicles to try and make sure this new nomadic movement would never be able to function again. The threat over intervening... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

“Won’t somebody please think of the children!” Class War and Rees-Mogg, by Anarchist Communist Group
The wealthy steal from the working class and we are not allowed to talk about it. One of the functions of the media is to limit debate to very narrow discussions that do not contradict corporate or capitalist interests. As such it wasn’t surprising that when Class War protested outside Jacob Rees-Mogg’s house because he didn’t pay his nanny the living wage, the media tried to find something else to talk about. It was entirely unremarkable that journalists, commentators and politicians maintained complete and total discipline in ignoring the facts and creating a false narrative. Let’s not forget it was the MP that brought his children to the protest and kept them there. It’s also unremarkable that the press (the corrupt moralists of our time) worried about the effect the protest would have on the children (some even calling it “child abuse”) whilst ignoring the effect that Mr Rees-Mogg’s political activities have had on... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Women In Saudi Arabia and Iran, by Anarchist Communist Group
We welcome any moves towards gender equality as witness the recent decision to allow Iranian women to attend football matches and Saudi women to drive cars. However, to regard Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the autocratic Saudi leader, as some sort of champion of feminism would be a big mistake. Those activists who campaigned against the driving ban – Loujain al-Hathloul, Eman al-Nafjan, and Aziza al-Yousef- are still in prison whilst a further 17 women’s rights activists were arrested this month on suspicion of undermining security and are still detained. Secondly, the move to grant women the right to drive was driven by economic reasons, not progressive ones. Up to $390 billion could be added to the Gross Domestic Product of the country by opening a jobs market for women, pushing up the size of the workforce and raising output and incomes. The Saudi regime plans on raising the number of women in the workforce from 22% to 30%. Already c... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Why Work?, by Anarchist Communist Group
Why would people work in an anarchist society? If there was no link between work and reward, why work? The only way to answer this question is with another question. Why do we accept money as payment for goods and services? Why can I go into a shop and exchange paper, or some electronic numbers, for food, or water, or use it to pay my rent? The simple reason is because we all agree that it does. A shop allows me to buy food off them because they know that they will be able to replace the food and purchase the things that they want. So why, in an anarchist society, would a builder build a house if they already had one? Because the builder needs to eat food, so needs farmers to go out and grow food, even if they have enough food themselves. Both the farmer and the builder will need the doctors to heal even if the doctor is healthy themselves. In an anarchist society, everyone will work because everyone else will work, much in... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

1922
This pamphlet appears in Anarchy Archives courtesy of International Institute for Social History. Russian Revolution Series, No. 2, 1922. The Russian Revolution and the Communist Party Berkman, Alexander PREFACE Clarity of ideas is not characteristic of the average mind. Many people still continue to think and to talk of the Russian Revolution and of the Bolsheviki as if the two were identical. In other words, as if nothing had happened in Russia during the last three years. The great need of the present is to make clear the difference between that grand social event and the ruling, political party --- a difference as fundamental as it has been fatal to the Revolution. The following pages present a clear and his... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

1972
Michel Foucault: A Maoist told me: "I can see why Sartre is on our side, for what and why he is involved in politics; and you, I can even see why you do it, since you've always considered imprisonment a problem. But Deleuze, really, I don't see it." His question took me totally by surprise, because it's crystal clear to me. Gilles Deleuze: Maybe it's because for us the relationships between theory and praxis are being lived in a new way. On the one hand, praxis used to be conceived as an application of theory, as a consequence; on the other hand, and inversely, praxis was supposed to inspire theory, it was supposed to create a new form of theory. In any case, their relationship took the form of a process of totalization, in one shape or another. Maybe we're asking the question in a new way. For us the relationships between theory and praxis are much more fragmentary and partial. In the first place, a theory is always local, related to a limited domain, though it can... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

1890
"WORK WHILE IT IS DAY; THE NIGHT COMETH WHEN NO MAN CAN WORK." The time was Spring and the man's heart was glad within him at the thought of his garden and of the flowers which he would plant there and the seeds be would sown. And he rose in the morning and the sun laughed through the fleecy clouds and soft showers that kissed the breast of the fruitful earth. In the orchard among the blossomed fruit trees the birds were making love. The whole world laughed to sea itself so beautiful. A morning of sunlight and soft airs and hope and promise. Who could work on such a morning? So the man said: "I will walk with my beloved between the green hedges and gather the primroses and violets, and I can think and talk about where the roses and lilies shall grow in my garden and plant them later on." And he walked with his beloved along the happy woodland ways; but ere noon she said to him: "Dear on... (From : AnarchyArchives.)

1908
DEFINITION OF TRADE UNIONISM Of late the term "trade unionism" has a far more far-reaching meaning than it used to have. The term continues to qualify "members of a trade union organization." Besides this nebulous and colorless definition, which, by stretching a point, might be a label for "Yellow" as well as for "Red" trade unions, the term has acquired a new and very precise meaning. The term "trade unionism" has become a comprehensive term: the impulsive power of conscious workers towards progress. The workers who invoke this epithet have thrown aside unsound and deceptive notions, and are convinced that improvements, be they partial or extreme, can only result from popular force and will. On the ruins of their former sheeplike hopes and superstitious beliefs in miracles to be expected from State Providence as well as from Divine Providence, they have elaborated a healthy, truly human doctrine whose basis is explained and proved by social... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The fundamental error of the reformists is that of dreaming of solidarity, a sincere collaboration, between masters and servants, between proprietors and workers which even if it might have existed here and there in periods of profound unconsciousness of the masses and of ingenuous faith in religion and rewards, is utterly impossible today. Those who envisage a society of well stuffed pigs which waddle contentedly under the ferule of a small number of swineherd; who do not take into account the need for freedom and the sentiment of human dignity; who really believe in a God that orders, for his abstruse ends, the poor to be submissive and the rich to be good and charitable — can also imagine and aspire to a technical organization of production which assures abundance to all and is at the same time materially advantageous both to the bosses and to the workers. But in reality “social peace” based on abundance for all will remain a dream, so long a... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)