Author: Nestor Makhno | File size: 290 KB
Anarchism does not depend on theory or programs, which try to grasp man’s life in its entirety. It is a teaching, which is based on real life, which outgrows all artificial limitations, which cannot be constricted by any system….
Text from LibCom
Author: ¡klas batalo! | File size: 1,01 MB
To this day many class struggle anarchists, syndicalists, and leftists of varying traditions gloss over, purposefully or naively Nestor Makhno’s and the historical platformists’ affinity for anarchist unionism or anarcho-syndicalism….
From: ¡klas batalo!
Author: Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro | File size: 348 KB
This article discusses the complicated questions of commitment, responsibility and self-discipline from the point of view of the Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro.
Translation: Jonathan Payn | Related Link: http://farj.org/
www.anarkismo.net
Author: Workers Solidarity Federation | File size: 244 KB
It is falsely claimed by some that Anarchism, as currently constituted, is unable to attract Black people, and other specially oppressed minorities. It is therefore argued that we should thus endorse separate Black-only anarchist/community organisations that may in some (vague and unspecified) cases associate with “white” groups – “white” groups should “work among” “their own” people etc.)… but… “it was the ability of anarchism to provide alternatives and to pay special attention to the specific needs of … different sections of the working class in order to unite the whole class that made the success (of the Cuban anarchists and IWW) possible,” not “a revision of anarchism to accommodate nationalism”..
Originally published in Black Flag magazine, 1998
Text retrieved from LibCom.org
Online WSF archive
Author: José Antonio Gutiérrez D. | File size: 729 KB
It is not enough to have the “truth”…
This article discusses the anarchist programme from a revolutionary anarchist perspective. In it, the author analyses the need to make a qualitative shift from an anarchism which is restricted to propaganda circles, to an anarchism with the possibility of social transformation, putting forward a few basic considerations for the necessity of the development of revolutionary programmes in order to facilitate this shift.
Translation: Jonathan Payn (ZACF)
Found at: www.anarkismo.net
Author: Gregor Kerr | File size: 356 KB
Trade Unions are important organs of the working-class. Gregor Kerr – a member of the Irish National Teachers Organisation who has been involved in campaigns against “social partnership” and in many strike support groups – argues that trade union involvement should form a central part of the political activity of all anarchists.
This article is from the WSM’s publication Red and Black Revolution, #3
Author: Chris Crass | File size: 350 KB
Have you daydreamed about being a member of an inter-generational social justice organisation like the Order of Phoenix? Do you want Dumbledore to be your mentor? Have dementors ever burned you out to the point where you doubted your ability to take on the Voldemorts of our world? Do you find yourself analysing Dumbledore’s Army for lessons on developing liberatory vision, culture, leadership, and organisation? Me too. Let’s develop our magic, build our liberation movement, and defeat the Voldemorts in our world….
![[Leaflet] The Importance of a Liberatory Process: a Critique of Fetishized Militancy](https://zabalazabooks.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/leaflet_the_importance_of_a_liberatory_process_scott_nappalos.gif?w=676)
Author: Scott Nappalos | File size: 55 KB
Militancy is revered on the left. Whether insurrectionary violence or mass militancy of social movements, the form and level of militancy serves as a marker of the relative power and progressive nature of a movement. Insurrectionists fetishize either mere acts alone (independently of who does them, groups or individuals) or fetishize violent acts as signs of collective will. Some social movement organizers take militancy to indicate a progressive or revolutionary nature of a movement. Looking at militancy and militant acts alone however is bound to be distorting and lead us down garden paths. A militant event occurs in a social context and through a social process, and these facts bare on the meaning of militancy as a historical phenomenon….
Author: Nate Hawthorne | File size: 41.5 KB
Some of us struggle to articulate our core values and our main ideas in a non-specialist vocabulary. There’s a place for specialized vocabulary, but we need to challenge ourselves to be able to make our points in other vocabularies as well. The following two documents attempt this. They were written shortly after the Jimmy John’s Workers Union campaign went public in Minneapolis. The first appeared in the newsletter of the Twin Cities branch of the IWW.
From: RECOMPOSITION: Notes for a New Workerism
http://recompositionblog.wordpress.com | http://recomposition.info/
Author: Aidan Rowe | File size: 886 KB
As class-struggle anarchists dealing with the relations between gender, race and class, we must, in theory and practice, pick a path between two pitfalls. On one side is economic reductionism – the reduction of all political questions to the social relations of production – which erases the perspectives and struggles of women, queers and people of colour; submerges their voices within an overly generalised class narrative, in which the idealised Worker is implicitly white heterosexual and male; or consigns their struggles to a secondary importance compared to the “real struggle” of (economic) class against class. On the other is a stultifying and inward-looking liberal-idealist identity politics, concerned fetishistically with the identification of privilege and the self-regulation of individual oppressive behaviour to the (near) exclusion of organised struggle, which, while amplifying the voices of the marginalised, consigns them to an echo chamber where they can resonate harmlessly….
This article is from the Workers Solidarity Movement’s Irish Anarchist Review, No. 7 – Spring 2013
Author: Thomas (MAS) | File size: 279 KB
As anarchist communists, we are against reformism. However, we are for reforms. We believe that fundamentally the entire system of capitalism, the state and all systems of hierarchy, domination, oppression and exploitation of humans over humans must be abolished and replaced with a direct democracy, egalitarian social relations and a classless economy that bases contribution according to ability and distribution according to need. However, such a social revolution can only occur through the power of the popular classes themselves from the bottom-up. In advancing towards such a social revolution and a free and equal society, we must build our power in preparation for this fundamental transformation of the world, building on struggles along the way….
From the website of Miami Autonomy & Solidarity | See also: www.anarkismo.net
Author: Scott Rittenhouse | File size: 517 KB
Urban Planning is neither boulevards for conquerors, nor a landscape for the palaces of the rich, nor an opportunity for land speculators, nor a design opportunity for artists, nor a conspiracy for social engineers.
Urban planning is conducted to promote the health, safety, and well-being of people living together in urbanized areas; to enable people in urbanized areas to use scarce resources efficiently (all natural resources are “scarce”: supply and demand equals scarcity); and to mitigate the impact of population growth on the health of the planet.
Under capitalism, planning has been used to service the interests of the rich who own property [real estate] and the means of production. Under Anarchism, these will be “socialized”: expropriated, collectively “owned” by the Free Commune / Community, used and self-managed by workers and residents, non-transferable, and non-saleable. People will be able to make the land use decisions which meet their needs and make their lives better. There will be no “property values” or land speculation….
Author: Carlo Cafiero | File size: 256 KB
“At the Congress … a speaker who was distinguished by his bitterness against anarchists said: ‘Communism and anarchy howl to find themselves together!’
Another speaker who also spoke against anarchists … cried when speaking of economic liberty: ‘How can liberty be violated when there is equality?’
Well, I think that these two speakers were wrong….”
First published as a pamphlet by Emile Darnaud in Foix (southern France) in 1890
Author: Chekov Feeney | PDF file size: 692 KB
There are many irrational beliefs held by sections of our class which act against our objective interests, that is to say that they hinder us from uniting against our common enemy, the bosses, our exploiters and oppressors. Sexism, racism, religious sectarianism and what the imperialists call ‘tribalism’ are prejudices which are held by significant numbers of our class throughout the world. To state that they exist is to state an obvious fact, like stating 2+2=4. Everybody knows they exist, save perhaps a tiny number of deranged individuals with a tenuous connection to reality. It is neither useful nor original to state their existance, what is useful is to ask why they exist…
zabalazabooks.net 