The Political Thought of Errico Malatesta

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The Political Thought of Errico Malatesta - Felipe CorrêaAuthor: Felipe Corrêa  |  File size: 361 KB

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This text is divided into four main parts for the presentation of Malatesta’s political thought: a.) a brief description of the author’s life, the political environment in which he found himself and his main interlocutors; b.) a theoretical-epistemological discussion, which differentiates science from doctrine/ideology and, therefore, the methods of analysis and social theories of anarchism. A notion that will be applied to the discussion of Malatestan thought itself; c.) theoretical-methodological elements for social analysis; d.) conception of anarchism and strategic positions.

NOTE: PDF corrected and uploaded 06.04.2014

Translation: Jonathan Payn  |  Related Link: http://ithanarquista.wordpress.com

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James Connolly: Syndicalism and the Struggle for Irish Independence – National Liberation through Class Struggle!

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James Connolly, Irish SyndicalistAuthor: Various  |  File size: 1.01 MB

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JAMES CONNOLLY (1868-1916) is a revolutionary hero, known for his role in the struggle for Irish independence from British imperialism, and for his revolutionary syndicalist politics – he was part of a long tradition of anarchist and syndicalist anti-imperialism worldwide. The texts in this pamphlet outline Connolly’s life and ideas, as relevant to anarchists, syndicalists and anti-imperialists today as at his death.

Connolly promoted a radical vision of decolonisation: a “workers republic,” under worker-peasant self-management, free of both British imperial and native Irish elites, and part of a larger socialist world community and struggle. He was active in the syndicalist-influenced Irish Transport and General Workers Union (ITGWU) — which built its own militia (armed forces), the Irish Citizens Army, in 1913.

Connolly and the Irish Citizens Army joined with Irish republicans in the armed 1916 Irish Easter Rising against British imperialism. Severely wounded during the fighting that followed, he was arrested and shot by a British firing squad. The Irish war of independence that followed the Easter Rising was a major defeat for British power, but ended in a capitalist Ireland far short of Connolly’s “workers republic.”

It is essential to reclaim alternative anarchist and syndicalist visions of anti-imperialism, like Connolly’s, which show a better way.

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Race, Class and Organisation

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Race, Class and Organisation by the Workers Solidarity FederationAuthor: Workers Solidarity Federation  |  File size: 244 KB

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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

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The Economics of Anarchism

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The Economics of Anarchism by AnarchoAuthor: Anarcho  |  File size: 290 KB

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Includes two texts, The Economics of Anarchy and Anarchist Economics

Capitalism is in crisis (again!) and the failure of state socialism could not be more clear. Social democracy has become neo-liberal … while this year also marks the 20th anniversary of the collapse of Stalinism in Eastern Europe. With its state capitalism and party dictatorship, Stalinism made the disease (capitalism) more appealing than the cure (socialism)! In this anarchists should be feel vindicated – the likes of Bakunin predicted both these outcomes decades before they became reality…

So there is an opening for a real alternative. For we must not forget that capitalism is but the latest form of economy. … So we have seen slave labour, followed by serfdom, followed by capitalism. What is capitalism? As Proudhon put it, the “period through which we are now passing… is distinguished by a special characteristic: WAGE LABOUR” (“la salariat”, to use the Frenchman’s favourite term for it).…

So capitalism is an economic system based on hired labour, that is selling your labour (liberty) piecemeal to a boss. For anarchists, this is best called “wage slavery” …

These texts from the Anarchist Writers site

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Considerations about the Anarchist Programme

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Considerations about the Anarchist ProgrammeAuthor: José Antonio Gutiérrez D.  |  File size: 729 KB

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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

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Anarchists and the Trade Unions: Be active! be involved!

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Anarchists and the Trade Unions by Gregor KerrAuthor: Gregor Kerr  |  File size: 356 KB

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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

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Expecto Patronum: Lessons from Harry Potter for Social Justice Organising

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Expecto Patronum: Lessons from Harry Potter for Social Justice OrganisingAuthor: Chris Crass  |  File size: 350 KB

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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….

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Green Flame: Kropotkin and the Birth of Ecology

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Green Flame: Kropotkin & the Birth of Ecology - Graham PurchaseAuthor: Graham Purchase  |  File size: 330 KB

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“The pre-eminence of environmentalism in the 21st century is a novel political and historical development. Ecology is a new body of scientific description and knowledge upon which social, economic, political and ethical ideas and practices have become premised. Ecosystem science suggests that political, social and economic arrangements must be compatible and ideally optimize natural ecological processes. Harming ecosystems is considered ethically, politically and ecologically wrong….”

From the Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #54, Summer 2010

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From Defence Cadres to Popular Militias

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From Defence Cadres to Popular Militias - Augustín GuillamónAuthor: Augustín Guillamón  |  File size: 248 KB

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A short article summarizing the history and transformation of the CNT’s Defence Committees in Barcelona during the 1930s from their origins as street fighting units to their reorganisation as integrated combat/intelligence formations, to their suppression by the Republic after the working class defeat of May 1937.

Translated from the Spanish original in October 2013. Obtained online, October 2013 at: http://www.lahaine.org/index.php?p=44663

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In Place of Compromise: Why we need a Rank and File Movement

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In Place of Compromise: Why we need a Rank and File Movement - AWGAuthor: Anarchist Workers Group  |  File size: 936 KB

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The most striking feature of recent industrial struggles has been the way in which the ruling class has attempted, and largely succeeded, in using the power of the bureaucracies within the trade unions to its own advantage. The militant Syndicalist miners in their pamphlet ‘The Miners Next step’ urged that:

“The old policy of identity of interests between employers and ourselves be abolished and a policy of open hostility be installed”.

But the trade union leadership will not do this for us. We must do it for ourselves. This pamphlet outlines how.

First published by the Anarchist Workers Group
October 1988, Huddersfield, England

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Direct Action in Industry

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Direct Action in Industry: A Direct Action Movement PublicationAuthor: Direct Action Movement  |  File size: 339 KB

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To improve one’s working conditions one does not immediately have to resort to strike action. There are ways to achieve what one wants quite simply and effectively by taking ‘direct action on the job’, which also has the advantage of not losing one’s wages while airing one’s grievances!

This pamphlet then, lists several of these direct action methods. To make the most of these methods one needs good job organisation and a general consensus among the workers, that there is something to take action about. Even then, it could be possible that the chosen method does not work. In that case a prolonged strike might be the only answer.

First published by the Direct Action Movement, now
Solidarity Federation  |  www.solfed.org.uk
The pamphlet is undated but appears to be from the early 1970’s

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[Leaflet] The Importance of a Liberatory Process: a Critique of Fetishized Militancy

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[Leaflet] The Importance of a Liberatory Process: a Critique of Fetishized MilitancyAuthor: Scott Nappalos  |  File size: 55 KB

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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….

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The Fundamental Requirement for Organised Safer Space

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The Fundamental Requirement for Organised Safer SpaceAuthor: Anarchist Federation  |  File size: 236 KB

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This article will be a very basic introduction to the foundations of safer spaces, community accountability and transformational justice that arise from elements present from the very inception of anarchism as a political philosophy. These concepts are responses to verbal, physical and sexual abuse that have always been present within radical communities and continue to present a challenge to this day. As such this article will touch on all forms of abuse from problematic language through to rape and physical violence. An example of one such policy can be seen at http://bit.ly/1207uq8

This article was first published in the Anarchist Federation’s
Organise! magazine #80, Summer 2013.

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