The Rise of the Post-New Left Political Vocabulary

September 6, 2015January 25, 2016 / Zabalaza Books

Author: Stephen D’Arcy | File size: 350 KB

Download PDF

“If a handful of time-travelling activists from our own era were somehow transported into a leftist political meeting in 1970, would they even be able to make themselves understood? They might begin to talk, as present-day activists do, about challenging privilege, the importance of allyship, or the need for intersectional analysis. Or they might insist that the meeting itself should be treated as a safe space. But how would the other people at the meeting react? I’m quite sure that our displaced contemporaries would be met with uncomprehending stares…”

Found on the website of The Public Autonomy Project

Continue reading →

The Problem with “Privilege”

September 6, 2015January 25, 2016 / Zabalaza Books / 1 Comment

Author: Andrea Smith | File size: 328 KB

Download PDF

“In my experience working with a multitude of anti-racist organising projects over the years, I frequently found myself participating in various workshops in which participants were asked to reflect on their gender/race/sexuality/class/etc. privilege. These workshops had a bit of a self-help orientation to them: “I am so and so, and I have x privilege.” It was never quite clear what the point of these confessions were. It was not as if other participants did not know the confessor in question had her/his proclaimed privilege. It did not appear that these individual confessions actually led to any political projects to dismantle the structures of domination that enabled their privilege…”

This article is from the blog of Andrea Smith.
It was found on the website of Miami Autonomy & Solidarity

Continue reading →

Don’t Vote, Organise!

June 20, 2015June 20, 2015 / Zabalaza Books / 4 Comments

Author: unknown | File size: 359 KB

Download PDF

“It seems amazing that after over 100 years of electioneering, the Left still thinks that standing for elections is a good thing. It is even more amazing that certain anarchist thinkers are arguing along similar lines. Recent developments within the left and the US anarchist scene make it worthwhile to present the anarchist case against standing for elections…”

This text was downloaded from the excellent and highly recommended Struggle.WebSite

Continue reading →

Marxism, Freedom and the State

July 13, 2014November 19, 2014 / Zabalaza Books / 2 Comments

Author: Mikhail Bakunin | File size: 478 KB

Download PDF

Liberty for all, and a natural respect for that liberty: such are the essential conditions of international solidarity.

~ Bakunin

This collection of extracts from the works of Mikhail Bakunin are taken from his writings touching on his controversy with Marx over the nature of the state and its role in the liberation of the international working class.

Written between 1867 and 1872, many of Bakunin’s predictions about the outcome of following the authoritarian communist road have been proven valid by the actions of Leninist tyrants across the world.

Text from LibCom | libcom.org

This second Zabalaza Books edition July 2014

Continue reading →

Democratic Centralism in Practice and Idea: A Critical Evaluation

May 15, 2013February 1, 2014 / Zabalaza Books

Author: Scott Nappalos | File size: 379 KB

Download PDF

The terrain is changing beneath our feet. Since the collapse of the majority of the “official Communist” regimes, the world has witnessed both events and ideas that have undermined the former dominant thinking within the left. The Zapatistas, Argentina in 2001, South Korean workers movements, Oaxaca in 2006, the struggles around anti-globalization, and Greece’s series of insurrectionary moments have increasingly presented challenges to traditional left answers to movements and organisation. In previous eras Marxist-Leninism was the nexus which all currents by default had to respond to either in agreement or critique. Today, increasingly anarchist practices and theory have come to play this role.

As a member of an anarchist political organisation, a friend once told me I in fact was practicing democratic centralism. This was perplexing, because the group had no resembling structures, practices, or the associated behaviours of democratic centralism….

Continue reading →

From Theory to Practice, Taking a Critical Look at Leninism

May 7, 2013February 1, 2014 / Zabalaza Books

Author: Adam Weaver | File size: 303 KB

Download PDF

Where can those looking for a critical understanding of Lenin turn? How can we better understand how the Russian Revolution began as the first modern anti-capitalist revolution from below with workers taking over and running their workplaces, peasants seizing the land, and the creation of democratic soviets (worker committees)? And then in less than a decade its devolution into the brutal dictatorship of Stalin? Is there a continuity between the ideas of Lenin and his particular brand of Marxism that reshaped the Marxist movement in the 1920’s and the number of revolutionary parties that would later achieve state power and claim the Bolshevik party and Lenin as their model and inspiration?

This is a piece that was originally posted to Machete 408 by Adam Weaver. It is a review/summation piece, which is released in conjunction with a piece by Scott Nappolas which presents an extensive discussion of Lenin’s concept of democratic centralism. See Democratic Centralism in Practice and Idea: A Critical Evaluation by Scott Nappalos, now published by Zabalaza Books.

Continue reading →

Marxism and a Free Society

May 5, 2013February 1, 2014 / Zabalaza Books

Author: Marcus Graham | File size: 288 KB

Download PDF

Isaac Deutscher’s lecture “On Socialist Man” was given to the second annual Socialist Scholars Conference held at the Hotel Commodore, New York, on September 9-11, 1966. Deutscher had come from London as the principal invited guest at the conference. This reply to Deutscher’s address by Romanian-American anarchist writer Marcus Graham deals, in particular, with the Minutes of the First International and the sabotaging of the Hague Congress by the Marx clique.

First published 1976 by Simian Publications (Cienfuegos Press), Over the Water, Sanday, Orkney, KW172BL.
See: www.christiebooks.com

Continue reading →

Industrial Unionism and Constructive Socialism

April 29, 2013February 1, 2014 / Zabalaza Books

Author: James Connolly | File size: 235 KB

Download PDF

“There is not a Socialist in the world today who can indicate with any degree of clearness how we can bring about the co-operative commonwealth except along the lines suggested by industrial organisation of the workers.

Political institutions are not adapted to the administration of industry. Only industrial organisations are adapted to the administration of a co-operative commonwealth that we are working for. Only the industrial form of organisation offers us even a theoretical constructive Socialist programme. There is no constructive Socialism except in the industrial field.”

The above extracts from the speech of Delegate Stirton, editor of the Wage Slave, of Hancock, Michigan, so well embody my ideas upon this matter that I have thought well to take them as a text for an article in explanation of the structural form of Socialist society. In a previous chapter I have analysed the weakness of the craft or trade union form of organisation alike as a weapon of defence against the capitalist class in everyday conflict on the economic field, and as a generator of class consciousness on the political field, and pointed out the greater effectiveness for both purposes of an industrial form of organisation…

From Socialism Made Easy, 1908

Continue reading →

A Critique of Marxism

March 27, 2013February 1, 2014 / Zabalaza Books

Author: Sam Dolgoff | File size: 892 KB

Download PDF

“This summation is written in response to young people seeking clarification of the main issues involved in the classic controversy between Marxists and anarchists. The subject matter is arranged in the form of extracts from relevant sources. The anarchists as well as the marxists speak for themselves in quotations culled from their works. Since the non-anarchist critique of Marxism has taken a libertarian direction, we have also included extracts from such writings….”

First published by Soil of Liberty, Minneapolis, 1983

Continue reading →

[Leaflet] Statement on the Informal Anarchist Federation and terrorist tactics

May 22, 2012February 1, 2014 / Zabalaza Books

Author: Anarchist Federation | PDF file size: 42.1 KB

Download PDF | Read Online

On the 11th of May Roberto Adinolfi, CEO of an Italian state controlled nuclear engineering company, was shot and wounded. A cell of the insurrectionist Informal Anarchist Federation have claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement, saying that it was an act of vengeance for deaths and environmental damage caused by the nuclear industry. Previous acts claimed by Informal Anarchist Federation cells include sending a letter bomb to the Italian tax collection office, almost blinding a worker at the office and risking the lives of the postal and clerical workers who unwittingly carried the bomb. …

Marx’s Economics for Anarchists: An Anarchist’s Introduction to Marx’s Critique of Political Economy

January 20, 2012February 1, 2014 / Zabalaza Books / 3 Comments

Author: Wayne Price | PDF file size: 491 KB

Download PDF | Read Online

The world is facing upsetting upheavals, with aspects which are political, military, ecological, cultural, and even spiritual. Clearly this includes a deep economic crisis, overlapping with all other problems. We need to understand the nature of the economic crisis if we are to deal with it.

Of the theories about the economy, the two main schools are bourgeois, in the sense that they advocate capitalism. Both the conservative, monetarist, unrestricted-free-market school and the liberal/social democratic Keynesian school exist to justify capitalism and to advise the government how to manage the capitalist economy….

“The transcripts of the 2006 meetings [of the governors of the Federal Reserve Board and the presidents of the 19 regional banks]… clearly show some of the nation’s pre-eminent economic minds did not fully understand the basic mechanics of the economy that they were charged with sheparding. The problem was not a lack of information; it was a lack of comprehension, born in part of their deep confidence in economic forecasting models that turned out to be broken.”

NY Times (January 13, 2012); p. A3.

This essay can also be downloaded as a PDF with flowing text here

Bakunin vs. the Primitivists

September 27, 2011February 1, 2014 / Zabalaza Books

Author: Brian Oliver Sheppard | PDF file size: 276 KB

Download PDF | Read Online

The pamphlet is a critique of so-called “primitivism,” an anti-technological current mainly based in Western countries. It has a degree of influence amongst a sector of anarchists, but the author is incorrect to use the term “anarcho-primitivist,” as this suggests “primitivism” is a form of anarchism. It is not. As the author himself notes, Bakunin’s ideas are the key reference point for anarchism, and radically at odds with “primitivism”

Give Up Activism: A Critique of the Activist Mentality in the direct action Movement

September 20, 2011February 1, 2014 / Zabalaza Books

Author: Andrew X | PDF file size: 343 KB

Download PDF | Read Online

In 1999, in the aftermath of the June 18th global day of action, a pamphlet called Reflections on June 18th was produced by some people in London, as an open-access collection of “contributions on the politics behind the events that occurred in the City of London on June 18, 1999”. Contained in this collection was the article ‘Give up Activism’ which has generated quite a lot of discussion and debate both in the UK where it first appeared and internationally, being translated into several languages and reproduced in several different publications.

Here we republish the article together with a new postscript by the author addressing some comments and criticisms received since the original publication.

Give Up Activism is an important critique of the activist mentality in the direct action movement.

“The Coming Insurrection”?:Insurrectional Anarchism vs. Class-Struggle Anarchism

January 19, 2011February 1, 2014 / Zabalaza Books

Authors: Wayne Price and Anarcho | PDF file size: 256 KB

Download PDF | Read Online

The pamphlet, “The Coming Insurrection” has been attracting attention. A discussion of some of its key points is useful in considering the differences between “insurrectional anarchism” and “class-struggle anarchism.”

This pamphlet is made up of 2 texts: “The Coming Insurrection”?:Insurrectional Anarchism vs. Class-Struggle Anarchism by Wayne Price, and“The Coming Insurrection” Review by Anarcho.