Syndicalism: An International and Historical Perspective

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Syndicalism: An International and Historical Perspective - Dek KeenanAuthor: Dek Keenan | File size: 330 KB

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This paper will introduce syndicalism both as an historical international phenomenon and as a contemporary international model and movement. It presupposes very little knowledge of, but hopefully some substantial interest in, the subject on the part of the reader.

What does Syndicalism mean to us as labour movement activists? It may mean the million workers in the Spanish CNT fighting with a new world in their hearts during the Spanish Civil War. It may mean the legendary Industrial Workers of the World organising the One Big Union across craft and trade, race and gender lines. It may mean a vast movement of workers across Latin America during the first half of the 20th Century. It may mean Starbucks baristas fighting today to build unions in coffee houses in New York and Santiago. But it very possibly means none of these things.

Because syndicalism constitutes one of the least understood currents in the workers movement. And yet syndicalism was the driving force of immense and powerful labour movements across the globe in the first decades of the 20th Century; from Argentina to Japan and from Australia to Portugal workers gathered under its flag. And today it represents a small, but growing, part of the international labour movement; albeit one that remains unduly obscure and marginal.

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Marxism, Freedom and the State

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Marxism, Freedom and the State - Mikhail BakuninAuthor: Mikhail Bakunin | File size: 478 KB

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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

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You Can’t Blow Up a Social Relationship: The Anarchist Case against Terrorism

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You Can’t Blow Up a Social Relationship: The Anarchist Case against TerrorismAuthor: Unknown | File size: 332

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You can’t blow up a social relationship. The total collapse of this society would provide no guarantee about what replaced it. Unless a majority of people had the ideas and organisation sufficient for the creation of an alternative society, we would see the old world reassert itself because it is what people would be used to, what they believed in, what existed unchallenged in their own personalities.

Proponents of terrorism and guerrilla-ism are to be opposed because their actions are vanguardist and authoritarian, because their ideas, to the extent that they are substantial, are wrong or unrelated to the results of their actions (especially when they call themselves libertarians or anarchists), because their killing cannot be justified, and finally because their actions produce either repression with nothing in return or an authoritarian regime. Terrorism or propaganda by the deed can be of no benefit to the working class, as capitalism is a social relationship, not a group of bad individuals

This essay was first published as a pamphlet around late 1978 or 1979, in the aftermath of the Sydney Hilton Bombing of 13 February 1978. The black humour of the time around the anarchist movement was that the police and security forces framed Ananda Marga, a socio-spiritual organisation and movement founded in India, because they came before Anarchism in the alphabet.

The arguments in this pamphlet are still as valid today as when they were written all those years ago.

First published (1979?) in Australia by Libertarian Socialist Organisation

This second Zabalaza Books edition July 2014

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Anarchism, the Welfare State, and Social Assistance

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Anarchism, the Welfare State, and Social Assistance - Common CauseAuthor: Common Cause  | File Size: 322 KB

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Unemployment is a permanent fixture of capitalism. It is not simply the outcome of those who make bad life choices. There are no “cracks” to fall through when the entire foundation is designed with gaping holes. Mass unemployment is not merely a failure to apply a more compassionate capitalism, or a more Keynesian economic model with progressive taxation and better state provisions for the working class. Even the major structural reforms that brought about the post-World War II establishment of the Welfare State never ended unemployment. In fact, in hindsight we can see that these reforms merely set up a system whose subsequent dismantling has left a pacified and disorganized working class in its wake….

 This text is from Volume 2 of Mortar: Revolutionary Journal of
Common Cause Anarchist Organization | Linchpin.ca

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With Allies Like These: Reflections on Privilege Reductionism

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With Allies Like These: Reflections on Privilege Reductionism - Common CauseAuthor: Common Cause  |  File Size: 347 KB

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Over the course of the last several decades, anti-oppression politics have risen to a position of immense influence on activist discourse in North America. Anti-oppression workshops and reading groups, privilege and oppression checklists and guidelines, and countless books, online blogs and articles make regular appearances in anarchist organizing and discussion. Enjoying a relatively hegemonic position in Left conversation, anti-oppression politics have come to occupy the position of a sacred object—something that expresses and reinforces particular values, but does not easily lend itself to critical reflection. Indeed, it is common for those who question the operating and implications of anti-oppression politics to be accused of refusing to seriously address oppression in general. A political framework should be constantly reflected upon and evaluated—it is a tool that should serve our struggles and not vice versa….

This text is from Volume 2 of Mortar: Revolutionary Journal of
Common Cause Anarchist Organization | Linchpin.ca

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Taking Account of our Politics: An Anarchist Perspective on Contending with Sexual Violence

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Taking Account of our Politics: An Anarchist Perspective on Contending with Sexual Violence by Common CauseAuthor: Common Cause | File Size: 313 KB

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In the fall of 2010, several female members of Common Cause took on the task of developing a sexual violence policy for the organization. At the time, and as far as we were aware, there had never been an instance of sexual violence in Common Cause. Our drive to write the policy came from some members’ past experiences of being sexually assaulted while participating in other organizations, from a desire to do better, and from our own readings on sexual violence and accountability processes generally. Since then, we have, unfortunately, had to make use of the policy to address issues of sexual violence as an organization. There have been situations in which our members have been sexually assaulted, situations where members have been aggressors, and situations outside our organization where we have been asked or felt compelled to offer our perspective…..

This text is from Volume 2 of Mortar: Revolutionary Journal of
Common Cause Anarchist Organization | Linchpin.ca

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Bourgeois Influence on Anarchism: Redux

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Bourgeois Influence on Anarchism: Redux - Common CauseAuthor: Common Cause | File Size: 338 KB

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Reading Luigi Fabbri today, an anarchist of the revolutionary communist bent in Canada may feel a sense of smug satisfaction coupled with a dash of arrogant resentment. The way he set his sights on the debasement of our political tradition might have us thinking we’re reading the words of a kindred spirit. How very accurate and tragically humorous his polemic feels to us. All the more because it was penned nearly a century ago. However, have we really earned the self-satisfied head nodding and chuckles that accompany our reading of Bourgeois Influence on Anarchism? Fabbri took to task the growing sentiment within the anarchist tradition that glorified the outlaws, bombers, and assassins of his day. We read on with our own anarcho-rogues gallery of anti-organizationalists, black bloc puritans, and deep green resisters playing in our head. But are these really the contemporary correlatives of bougiefied anarchism?…

This text is from Volume 2 of Mortar: Revolutionary Journal of
Common Cause Anarchist Organization | Linchpin.ca

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Charted and Uncharted Territories: Common Cause and the Role of the Anarchist Organization

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Charted and Uncharted Territories: Common Cause and the Role of the Anarchist Organization - Common CauseAuthor: Common Cause  |  File Size: 415 KB

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These days, the phrase “anarchist organization” is widely seen as a contradiction of terms. For those whose opinions of anarchism are shaped by dominant society, this is perfectly understandable. In the crude caricature fashioned by capitalist media depictions and reinforced through popular culture, anarchy is synonymous with chaos, spontaneous violence, and a vicious, Hobbesian state of nature.

However, more pertinent to us is that even within anarchist circles, the idea of an anarchist organization is often seen either as an oxymoron, or more commonly, as an inherently authoritarian structure somewhat akin to a Leninist cult. And as anarchists who have derived considerable practical benefits from our participation in a formally structured organization, we feel that much of this confusion boils down to a misunderstanding of terms and history. …

This text is from Volume 2 of Mortar: Revolutionary Journal of
Common Cause Anarchist Organization | Linchpin.ca

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What is Anarcho-Syndicalism?: A Selection of Writings by Rudolf Rocker

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What is Anarcho-Syndicalism?: A Selection of Writings by Rudolf RockerAuthor: Rudolf Rocker | File size: 401 KB

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Includes:

  • The Objectives of Anarcho-Syndicalism
  • The Methods of Anarcho-Syndicalism
  • The Role of the Trade Unions: Anarcho-Syndicalist View
  • The Political Struggle: Anarcho-Syndicalist View

This collection of writings by one of the leading theorists of Anarcho-Syndicalism, Rudolf Rocker(March 25, 1873 – September 19, 1958), is taken from two of his books, namely Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice and his shorter work,Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism.

Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice was first published in London in 1938. In 1937, Emma Goldman had asked Rocker to write an introduction for the general public on the ideals fuelling the Spanish social revolution that was then in full swing. Within the book, Rocker offered an introduction to anarchist ideas, a history of the international workers’ movement, and an outline of the syndicalist strategies and tactics embraced at the time (direct action, sabotage and the general strike). The chapters from the book on The Objectives of Anarcho-Syndicalism and The Methods of Anarcho-Syndicalism have been included in this collection.

In 1946, Rocker wrote an abridged version of the book, entitled Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism. It was published for the first time with the same title in New York in 1948. It consists of slightly revised passages from different parts of the book Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice. This Zabalaza Books collection includes the chapters from the book on The Role of the Trade Unions: Anarcho-Syndicalist View and The Political Struggle: Anarcho-Syndicalist View.

Zabalaza Books
June 2014

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The Tragedy of Spain

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The Tragedy of Spain - Rudolf RockerAuthor: Rudolf Rocker | File size: 451 KB

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German anarcho-syndicalist Rudolf Rocker’s history of the Spanish Civil War and Revolution.

July 19th is the anniversary of the start of the Spanish civil war and revolution, the day on which right-wing army officers rose against the republican regime in Spain and, with the assistance of outside powers and foreign troops, plunged the country into a bloody war. The uprising against the revolt by the army officers turned into a full workers’ social revolution with widespread implementation by the workers of anarchist organizational principles throughout various portions of the country for two to three years, primarily Catalonia, Aragon, Andalusia, and parts of the Levante. Much of Spain’s economy was put under workers’ self-management; in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia, the figure was as high as 75%, but lower in areas with heavy Communist Party influence, as the Soviet Union-controlled party actively tried to crush attempts at worker empowerment. Factories were run through worker committees, agrarian areas became collectivised and run as libertarian communes.

Sam Dolgoff estimated that about eight million people participated directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish Revolution, which he claimed “came closer to realizing the ideal of the free stateless society on a vast scale than any other revolution in history.”

New (Second) Zabalaza Books Edition 06.2014

First published October 1937  | Text from LibCom

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