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i,IOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST.

Some G::eat Bnitish Tnaditions.

The Br"itish anmy likes tak-ing on a couple of kids, thnee

foot taJ.I. fn genenal a1I arms

of the state-police, army,

social secunity, tax inspecto?wifl take on and persecute

those they consider weak r:ath-

er. than those they think might

have some power or infl-uence.

Even when they attack thesmall-est of us they sometimes

find that too much fon them.

They ar"e not afraid ofattacking ful} grown people

when the circumstances ane

r"ight - i.e. when the people

ane unar"nqed, and the troops

have automatic weapons; when

the attack is made b1", sur.c:iseand there are arrnoure I '.'el.1c-L-

es to retreat into.

CONTINUED ON LAST PAGE...

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ANARCHY

Ne 12

CONTENTS

Set, illustrated, and printed by theAnarchy Collective, and published byAnanchy Magazine (Publishens),29, G::osveno:: Avenue, London N.5England.

POWER

THE TABOUR MOVEI'IENT IN SPAIN

THE RULES OF THE C.N.T.

ASPECTS OF ANARCHY

THIS IS YOUR LIFE

WHATIS WRONG I"iITTi FRXEDOM?

REVIEWS

NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS

2

5

l6

17

20

22

28

A BRILLIANT FIRST FOR SPANISH TECHNOLOGY.

POWEN

Some weeks ago I couldnrt help getting theidea that over the -last twenty years all ourgovernments have been fostering a shi.ft in indu-stry to use oi1 rather than coal. This rvouldfead to the conclusion that the Engt i5n ruJ_ingclass prefer to be dependent on oi} cr+ning shei-ks, and the big international oi.l_ ccnDanys,both cfass allies, nather than be deDendent onEngtish working class miners.

However. nicely that may fit i: ;:tth mypredjudices, I donrt think it?s tne irhcJ-e story.Note: In what follows Irm guessirg arC stickingmy neck out, for there is not the eviCence tosupPor.t all this, but -

The miners are one of the st:'ongest andbest organised unions in Europe. l:ey have thenumbers, the traditions, theytre :c:e of anindus'trial- union, rather than a traces union.They pose a threat to both the o;::er.s and ther:ulers, the bour,geoisie and the govetnnent.

Initially there was a move:.et:: t.wards us-ing oil instead of coal based o:: :;rc i:ningsg oilwas cheap, and by r"unning dornn :he pits, thepower of the miners was decreasec. lhen therecame the hope of oil and gas fron the ltrorth Sea.A pi:ayer: answered? \^iith oit fron t:e )lorth Sea,we need no longer depend on coa1, 5ut not at theprice of being dependent on oil fr.cr the l.liddleEast - or any other country. But thel,r were not.going to get much oil urrtil- the l_ai:e i97of s,what untif then? How much harrn is it soing to doto_ start changing over to gas and oll novr,taking advantage of its cheap price, and at thesame time breaking free of any threats from theminers? I seniously reckon that this was thebasic thinking behind the Labour and Tory gover-nments in the r6Os. There may have been ttherfactors which I do not know about vrhich enteredinto their thinking, who knows? t^lho cares?

So the basic pictune comes dovro to a runn-ing dor"in of coal miningrand an increasing depen-dence on oi1. The oi.J- was cheap, much cheaperthan coal, and although imported at that moment,this was only a temporary situation whil-e theNorth Sea was developed, and by 1980 they werepossibly expecting a1l_ their pr:oblems soived.

" :" -.

The r:aior ccnflict taking place at themoment is re:wee: ihe ininers *a-tf," government.The miners have :aken the same shit from thegovernnent tiai t:-e rest of us have had, add towhich, ever since :re war they have had promisespromises, ';hio: :hey ar.e gerting again today -accept wnatrs offered now, ard ire wifl look atthe situation so that at sonte tinie in the dist-ant future you will get decent pay and as goodworking conoitions as possible (or at leastbetter than novr). ltrot being a miner f don?twant to argue their case when you should haveheard it frorn them, so I wonrt.

I waat to point out certain tendencies ofour beloved government instead. This country hasin the past been truledt by a balance betweenvarious power groups, of which the government,business, and the trade unions are the nost obv-ious, (but not forgetting the gnomes of Zur:ichand the International Anarchist Conspiracy).Ever since the war successive governments havebeen trying to change this bal-ance of power(al-though nraybe different governments had diff-erent reasons). What they were saying wasrrthegovernment should governr, but the idea theyhave been trying to put over , and have beentrying to pnactice, is that of the rfive yeardictatorshipt. They now be-Iieve that the gover-nment once elected shou]d have absolute powerfor the next five years, provided only thatthey can contr.ol their o.^rn M.P.s.

The idea of any sort of Jimit upon gover-nment power, and on any so]"t of balance offorces, is gone. Clearly the IndustniaL Rel_ati-ons Act, the repeated States of Emergency ai:eexamples of this, but the cl_earest example issurely the Northern Ireland Act L972, whichbecame law on February 24th, having been intno-duced on the 23rd. This act was introduced atsuch shont notice because it became clean that

morring that a lot of the armyrs actlvities inNortbero lf€Iand were illegal, panticularlytltc:i.r night to stop arrd seanctr people ana iehi_cles. Th{.s br'it.i. nct onljr declarled thcin actibnsin the futune ].ega1, btrt also declaned thsl!past i11egal actions J-ega1, and opposition tollil"rl'iig"k,,lfl ,l;*B*'nisilili I

"3'i:g.lnru.Retroactive legislation like this is a clear:staement that the government sees itsel-f comple-t.Ly a!o-ve. tle laff. Shotrld they have any difficul-!y rnth the 1aw they change it, should they acti-Ileeally today they make an o:nden tomor,:row de.-}a:rrog the prc-vious dayrs crime to be tpnesenva-tion of law and o::denr.

this'changing attitude of government hasLed to confliet with certain rmiixrs, but it.hasalso ted to conflict with busme"" - r"y, it putsthe goveaunsnt is ccrrftict $ith the whole of so-ciety, in one way on another:. It furthen widlnsthe ilivision within the rluling classr, the own-e:rs. arrd: mErnagens of industry and robbeny - s.ot?t3ynot I meirt{'eorunerce t and the.t:ul-ers, goverrrment.People -have'seen and-tecognl.sed this .tehdencywithin the'laboun party. The l_abou:o panty inpowen does'not see its intenests as being thoseof the laboun movement, it sees its interests asbelng those of the par'ty and the government.Similanly; the to::i.es in powen do not see them-selves thare to serve the civmer.s, they see them-selwr the.re to govern, to serve their own int-eregts; 0f cournse there are stiL1 M.p.s who anemembens of va::rj.ous Tr:ades Ulions, othe::s who ar:estilL directons of companies. This does not stopthese members putting thein interests aa member:sof the govermment before their' other i-nter€sts.When not in powen, these other. inter€sts tend tobecome dominant, to bal.ance them thene is nolonger goveriment power, only the hope.of govern-ment power.

Itts only a five yean dietatonship-and thepatty In power knows it needs another. vote tokeep it in powen, this might lead to expectingthat the party in powen would always act withinthei:: supporters irterests. Hcuever with the gov-ernments contror on accurate informration, thei:rstranglehoj-d on the T;V., and the press, elect-ions ane not decided on assesstrEnt of accunateinforrnatioa, but on.a load of fantasies put outby all the parrties. Ihe other.maJon factor is theself iteeept'ion of the politictans, who often.6eemto believe ttrat the irtet:e8ts of the goverrmentare also the j.nterests of the coontr5ri and whenthe govertrent act.-in their: own

"go"Lrrtoi" *"y

they s_eem-to think'people wiIJ. aaiire and, supportthem fo:: it.

The stnrlggles whi.eh rlll be nrentioned inthe history books, and whtcfr. are covened by thenews are the mirrelrg and the r.aLLmcn agailst thegoyernm6nt. The outcone of the present.cnisis

3

$epelds on everybody, aot those'groups mentionedIn the-news. They ate not fought:oirt in poiitic-al, a:lenas renpned. .fnom our cwryday 1ives, buttaftc Alace everyday in oun ora homls, our ovrn

iffiT, schoole, wonkplaces and 5ackyands. ftra eaEj-er to r.nd6nstand-the spe.ctacuLan strugglertren you nalk out on stnike, it is handen tottoderrstand and continue theleveryday strtrggle ofyoun day-to-day life that t.akes place a1I thetime - homer. wonkshop, school, i., th" street aDdpr$.

Formost of us the struggle is not at thespe,ctacular stage. lIe are still living oun lifeof boredom. I[hat are we tr5/ing to do at theEiiltertt? B_eforc peqple wonking togethen ever goout togethet on stnike a 1ot has to happen.l{ainly it is a process.of cormunication-andbuitding up of tnust. A gnoup of stnangers puttogether lrl,Ll not act togethen, and the mainplocess is one in which a gnoup of in.dividuaLsbegin to identify with each other", at work thisis against the'boss. Today many oi us eet thisrrglacg conseiousnessr put to us when wJ ar:e kidsUufortr.nately many of. us do not recognise thispro@sa, and ruden the influence of ihat bou::greoise irtellectual Marx, and his henchmen thisprocess has been mainly atplied to stnaight'woz.tk situations.

Lets digress. A lange section of the left

4

look at the powen of or"ganised workers, and bec-ause it is easy to see and und'erstand, theybelieve that it is the major powen that ondin-any peoplehave, the power that shoul-d be devel-oped, and if you ane not part of it, too bad.Thus most women who are notfst::aight wonkers I

as the left see it do not have any power', and.the majon role that they can play is as passivesupportes of the wor"kers. This whol_e idea is inerfor, and it is also harmful to revolution andwor"st of aLl devisive, breaking down solidar'-ity and identification, and setting one personagainst another.

. At the moment struggles at wor"k mightappear to be the most important and the mosthopeful, of producing chalge, but then for manvyears this is the anea which the leit h;" ffiilconcentrating on.

Alongside this concentr ation upon indust-ny ther"e has been a neglect of the conrnunity.Not just a passive neglect, but an idealogicalassault upon any ideas that the community mightbe as powenful'as, or even more power"ful- than,industry.

Fir"st1y, l-ook at the signs. Taking an ext-reme example, that of Ulster, we see that stru:..ggles are not defined in terms of industr"i.es,but by communitiesr(with the exception of'Han1=and and Wolfe). Geographical aneas, such asClydeside, Moss side and the East End and SouthBank of London, as well as industries, havereputations for" militancy. Moreoven, if youpick out the most militant wonkens you oftennotice that they tend not onLy to wonk togethenbut to l-ive in the same community.

Al-l struggLes are interrelated and nogroup of people exists as an island. Thus theincome and security of the employed depends on

vice ve:lsa. The sucess of a str.ike depends on,among other things, the availability of peoplewilling to act as blacklegs, support fon picketsfrom the r"est of the commr.nity, and the r"ead-iness of thugs or police to.attack the picketsand troops to forcibly destroy the power of thestrikers.

One of the nesults of this perniciousideology.is the l.ack of community development.

Hence we have allowed thd community to be weak_ened on destroyed. Yet oant of the stnength ofthe minens li.es in that they live togethen aswell as wonk togethen.

Another nesult and perhaps the most harm_ful, is the way in which it divides us, and cre_ates a new elite. Especially it divides men andwomen, but also-employed and unemployed, andeven worke:rs with strong organisations and thosewith weaken ones. It divides peopl-e who a::e wor._king in one way fi."om people who ane wor"king inanothen, and makes them enemies instead of com_r:ades.

So, what to do?The above ridiculous divension has been followedto try to begin to pxplain the ideas behind myans$rer to this, mainly because the answen seemstoo mundane to be taken seniously without a bitof, window drressing apd achademic shit.

Penhaps the finst thing to do is to makefr-iends, and to find out who oun firiends ane.Many comrades wil-l no doubt think first of find-ing other: ananchists to talk to - but talkingto the other people in the street and at wonkis much'mone impot'tant - unless yourre a cloakand dagger anarchi.st, who canrt actually telIpeopfe what you bel.ieve in, in case they disap-prove, or the boss finds out.

If we try not to see ounselves as rspecialfwith r.specialr ideas, but as ordinary peoplewith ondinaryrbut diffenentrideas, we may findourselves part of everyday struggles, instead ofbeing external and to many people manipulating.Evelyone has differ:ent ideas - anarchyts abouthow people with differ€nt ideas can work toget-hen.

And what about our cwn lives?If youtre wor:king a 3 day week, what about shar-ing the other work that goes on afl- the samts -the shopping, washing, cooking and the chi.l,dcare.

What happens when the cnisis is over?Will we all go back to our old relationships;dominating and dominatedrpassive, alienated andsilent. Or having tnansformed the way we talkto and relate to people, will we nefuse to sinkback into traditional- bourgeoise roles and goon to build the revol-ution in our everyday lives.

ND

FIGHT FOU IIFE IS REAI

(

Libertorion Youth wlll cont-lnue the struggle for the Workers, Eevoluflont

pense with a bureaucracy; and that couldrnairtain its characte:: of control by the rankand file.

There are, of course, fauLts and fail.ures.These rnay be better understood following astudy of the working class rnovernent, anddispensing with the criticisrn of the anarcho-syndicalist offered by Trotskyist sourceewhich rnake false cornparisons out of contextwith Russia and deal with a period of onLythree years out of ninety; as a result of which,even among would-be libertarians, the yearsof struggle and achievernent are disrnissed

THE TABOURIilOVEMENT IN SPAIN

ON THE WHOLE there has been little or nostudy of the Spanish labour rnovernerrt. Thesuccess of the insurrection against Tsarisrnso captivated the irnagination of the world thatattention, frorn the point of view of revolution-a.ty socialisrn, has thereafter been riveted onRussia and what concerns its interests. TheState 'rSocialisrnrr that triurnphed in that coun-try is no doubt worth studying, if not experi-encing: but frorn the standpoint of any sincererevolutionary - even one who rnight not con-slder hirnself a libertarian - it is surely rnorerictr-Iy rewaxding to look at the case of a labourrnovernent that coul.d sustain itself throughgerxerations of suppression; that could dis-

lllrlnb Inrilrt; r hclf 3... tfirmt

6

with a vag'ue reference to rrbureaucracy" whichasserted itself at that period, or arnong Marx-ists, with a titter - "he-he anarchists enteredthe Popular Front Governrnentrr - as iJ therewas no rnore to be said on the rnatter.

The Spanish labour rnovernent had {iveoverlapping phases which can be surnrned upin five key words - the 'rinternationalrr; therrunion'r; the'rrevolutionrr; "anti-fascisrn'r andthe 'rresistance". Each represents a differentphase and the rnistakes, and betrayals appearalrnost entirely in the fourth ('tanti-fascist'r)phas e.

The significant character of the rnovernentis played down deliberately for a sirnplereason: it overwhekningly disproves theLeninist thesis, equally flatteting to thebourgeois acadernic, that the working-c1ass,of itself, can only achieve a trade union con-sciousness - with the corollary that tradeunion consciousness rnust be confined tohigher wages and better conditions, and with-out the guiding hand of the rniddle-class elit-ist, would never understand that it couldchange society.

The "International" Phase

The historians want on the one hand to saythat Bakunin was a poseur who boasted ofrnl'thical secret societies that did not exist;and on the other hand that he, by sending anernissary (who did not speak Spanish) intro-duced anarchisrn into Spain. In fact, eversince the Napoleonic wars - and in sorne partsof Spain long before - the workers and peas-ants had been forrning thernselves into socie-ties, which were secret orrt of grirn necessity.

It is sornetirnes alleged that rrliberal" ideasentered Spain only with the French invasion.What in fact carne in - with freernasonry - wasthe political association of the rniddle class forliberal ideas (and the advancernent of capital-isrn) against the upper classes, and theirendeavour to use the working class in thats:ruggle. But the working class and peasantshad a known record of 400 years insurrectionagainst the State. It is their risings andstruggles, and the rneans ernployed - longbefore anarchisrn as such was introduced -that are used by historians as if they weredescribing Spanish anarchisrn. In Andalusiain particular the peasants refused to lie down

and starve, or to ernigrate en rnasse (onlynow is this political solution being forced onthem): they endeavoured to rnake their oppres-sors ernigrate - that is to say, to cauge arevolution, even locally.

In the eighteen-thirties the co-operativeidea was introduced to Spain (relying on earlyEnglish experience); and the first ideas ofsocialisrn were dj-scussed, basing thernselveson the experiences of the Spanish workers andalso borrowing frorn Fourier and Proudhon.The early workerst newspapelrs carne out,especially in the fifties, and revealed theexistence of workerst guilds in rnany indus-tries, including the Workersr Mutual AidAssociation. Because of the Carlist wars -and the periodic need to reconcile all 'r1iberal'lelernents - a great deal of this went on pub-Iic1y, sorne of it surreptitiously.

The first workersr school was founded inMadrid by Antonio Ignacio Cervera (fifty yearsbefore the rnore farnous Modern School ofFrancisco Ferrer). He also founded a printingpress whose periodicals reached workers allover the country. Cervera was repeatedlypersecuted and irnprisoned (he died in 1860).It was frorn the ideas of free association,rnunicipal autonorny, workersr control andpeasantsr collectives that Francisco Pi yMargall, the philosopher, forrnulated hisfederalist ideas. The latter is regarded as

'rthe father of anarchismrr in Spain. But hedid no rnore than give expression to ideascurrent {or a long tirne.

During the period of the general strike inBarcelona (1855) the federations entered intorelationship with the lnternational As sociationof -Workers in London (later ca1led "The Firstlnternational"). It was quickly realised thatthe ideas of the Spanish section of the Inter-national were far rnore in accord withBakunints Alliance than with the Marxists.In 1868 Giuseppe Fanelli was sent byBakunin to contact the Internationalists inSpain. To his surprise - he barely spokeSpanish and said "I arn no orator'r - at hisfirst rneeting he captured the sympathy ofall. Arnong his first 'rconvertsrr the rnajoritybelonged to the printing ttade - tlryographerslike Anselrno Lorenzo, lithographers likeDonadeu, engravers like Sirnancas andVelasco, bookbinders and others. It was theywho were in Spain the rnost active, and the

n1(,s: . ' )f workers. They forrned thenuclcus ol ti;, lnternational. (Marx wrotegloornily to l"rlgeIs: "We shall have to leaveSpain to trirrr 7'tlakunin/ for the tirne being. 't)By the tirrr,. r,f the Congress in Barcelona in1870, thr.r,' u.ere workerst federations through-out thc ..:ountry. The prograrrurle on whichthey stoo<i: for local resistance, for rnunicipalautonorny, for workersr control, for the seiz-ure of the land by the peasants, has not sincebeen bettered. They did not fail because theywere wrong; rnerely because (like the Chart-ists in England) they were before their tirne.There was no viable econorny to seize. Theycould do nothing br.t rise aad fight.

The bourgeoisie had totally faileci, duriagtheir long struggle with reaction, to rnodern-ise the country. The Governrnent persistentlyretained control by the use of the arrny and ofthe systern of Guardia Civil which it hadcopied frorn France.

'W'ork rFederations

In I87l workersr federations existed inMadrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Cartagena,Malaga, Cadiz, Libares, Alella, Bilbao,Santander, Igualada, Sevilla, Palrna deMallorca - taking no orders frorn a centralleadership, standing on the basis of the locaIcornrnune as the united expression of theworkersr industrial federations, and in corn-plete hostility to the ruling class. It wasessentially a rnovernent of craftsrnen - as inEngland the skilled worker becarne a Radical,in Spain he becarne an Internationalist. Pridein craft becarne s)monyrnous with independenceof spirit. Just as in England, where the vil-lage blacksrnith and shoernaker becarne the'rvi11age radicalrr who because of his indepen-dence frorn ilthe gentryrrcould express hisown views, and becorne a focus for the agri-cultural workersr struggles - so in Spain hebecarne an Internationalist (a stand which heea sily cornbined with regionalisrn).

The first specifically anarchist nucleusbegan in Andalucia in 1869 - due to the workof Ferrnin Salvochea. It was there, too, thatthe International became strongest. As therepression grew so the anarchist ideas cap-tured the whole of the working class rnove-ment. But the reason was not becauseBakunin, Fane1li, Lorenzo or Salvochea haddecided to give Spanish federalisrn a narne, or

7

to l:rL, i .i r .r .sr''ctarian fashion. It w , ,,. -

causc tl.. '.1.'rxist part of the Internatt,,r,., l r.rrgrorrinl ., i( ,r v frorn thern. During Marr.' tstrlrgFl. r. rtlr llakunin he was forced mor,,clearly lo qtatr. his views in a specificallyauthorrtarr.r!) nlanner. The idea of centralStatr. arrthority was precisely what repelledthe Spanish Internationalists. The notion thatthey rcquirlrl a leadership frorn the centre wagsornething they had already, in their own or-ganisation, dispelled.

The International reached its peak during187314. lts seizure of Cartagera - the Corn-rnurre of Cartagena - would take precedenceover the Cornrnune of Paris for the "storrningof the heavens'r if greater attention had beenpaid to it by historians outside Spain.

The Cornrnune of Paris showed how theState could be instantly dispensed with; but itssocial prograrnrne was that of rnunicipal own-ership and it was in this sense that its adher-euts understood the word 'rcornrnunist". InCartagena the idea of workersr councils wasintroduced - it was understood that what con-cerned the comrnunity should be dealt with bya federal union of these councils; but that theplaces of work should be controlled directly bythose who worked in thern. This 'rcollectiv-isrn" preceded by forty or fifty years the''soviets'r of Russia (1905 and I!17) or thernovernents for workersr councils in Gerrnany(1918) and profoundly affected the whole labourrnovernent, which for the next twenty yearswas in underground war with the regirne:bitterly repressed, and fighting back withguerrilla intensity.

The conceptions which the British shopstewards brought to bear on British industry -of horizontal control - during the First WorldWar, of horizontal control to circurnvent thetrade union bureaucracy - were inbuilt into theSpanish workersr rnovernent frorn the begin-ning. When the workersr federations turnedfrorn the idea of spontaneous insurrections tobhat of a revolutionary labour rnovernent andbegan to form the trade union movernent, ithad already accepted the criticisrns of bur-eaucracy which were not even rnade in othercountries until sorne forty or fifty years ofexperience was to pass; it saw in a unionbureaucracythe gerrns of a workersr state,which it in no way was prepared to accept.Moreover, the idea of socialist or liberal

Idirection - urged by the freernasons - wasseen quite cleafly in its class context. It wasthis experience brought frorn the ,tlnternation-altr period that rnade the labour rnovement thernost revolutionary and libertarian that existed.

R egionalisrn

The essential regionalisrn of the Internation-alist rnovernerrt was sornewhat different frorntrade unionisrn as it was rrnderstood inIlngland. Instead of a national union of per-sons in the sarrre craft, the basis of craftunionisrn, there was a regional federation ofaLl workers. The federation divided irlto sec-tions according to firaction. Thus it was pos-sible for even individual craftsrnen to beassociated with the union rnovernent, whichaccorded with the hatred rnost of the workershad for t:he factory systern anyway. It alsorneant that when anyone was blacklisted forstrike activities, he could always be set up onhis own. Pride in craft was sornething in-grained in the internationalists. The rnostfrequent forrn.of sabotage agai.nst the ernploy-er was the rrgood workrr strike - in which bet-ter work than he allows for is put into a job.It was sornething they ernployed even whenthere was no specific dispute (it is the reasonwhy there were fewer State inspections ofjobs for safety reasons and why today - theunion rnovernent having been srnashed - onereads so frequently of darns breakilg, hotelsfalling down or not cornpleted to tirne, and soon). For this reason people trusted the r:-nionlabel when it was ultirnately introduced and -despite the law and his own prejudices - anernployer had to go to the revolutionaries toget the good workrnen, or let the public knowhe was ernploying shoddy labour. ',You arethe robber, not us,rr 'was the staternent rnostoften hurled at the ernployer who wantedhonesty checks on his workers.

'rRegionalisrn'r - the association of workerson the basis o{ Locality first, and then jntounions associated with the place of work - wassornething that concurred fully with the insur-rectional character of the rnovernent. Tirneand again a district rose and proclairned 'r1ib-ertarian comrnunismrr rather than be starvedto death or ernigrate (the latter solution was,years later, forced on thern only by rnilitaryconquest). It was for this reason that theseerningly pedantic debate began between'rcollectivisrn'r or trcommunislrr't in the anarch-ist rnovernent - fundarnentally a question as to

whether the wage systern be retained or not ina free society - since this was indeed an irn-rnediate issue in the collectiwities and co-operatives establi.shed with a frequency asrnuch as in rnodern Israel - though with thesignificant di{ference that it was in a waragainst the State and not with its tolerantas sistance.

Forrnation of CNT

The workersr organisations persistentlyrefused to enter into political activity of aparliarnentary nature. lt was the despair ofthe Republican and Socialist politicians, whowere sure they could 'rdirectrrthe rnovernentinto orthodox, Iegal channels. It was an at-ternpt to divide the rnovement, not to unite it,that led to the forrnation of the Union Generalde Trabajadores (UGf) in 1888. It was a dualunion, with only 29 sections and sorne threethousand rnernbers. The congresses of theregional rnovernent - the Internationalistrnovernent which by now was transforrni-ngitself into an anarchist one - had seldom lessthan two or three hundred sections.

In the years of terror and counter-terrorthat {ollowed, attacks on the workersrrnove-rnent led to the recurrent individual counter-attacks of the 1900s, resulting in the enorrnousprotests against the Moroccan 'W'ar that cul-rninated in the 'tRed Week't of Barcelbna.Meantirne the socialist rnovernent stood aloof,trying to ingratiate itself with the authoritiesin the rnanner of the Labour rnovernent in

England - then sti1l part ol thc lJbcrel Party.The dernand for national-bercd caaft unions(raised by the UGT) thu8 becarne ldentifiedwith the desire for parliamentary rePresenta-tion in Madrid. (History repeats Aself: today,under Franco, the Cornigionee Obreras aredoing exactly the sarne thing - to gain Stalinistrepresentation in the Cortes. )

The Spanish rnovernent was entering itsrrunion'r phase, influenced strongly by thesyndicalisrn of France. The SolidaridadObrera rnovernent (Workers' Solidarity)adopted the anti-parliarrentarian views ofthe French CGT srtrose platforrn for directworkersr control was far in advance of theepoch, and which was already preparing theway for workers to take over their places ofwork, even introducing ptactical courses onworkerst control to supplant capitalisrn.

As the anarcho- syndicalist rnovernentdeveloped in Spain after experience of theway in which the parliarnentary socialists hadgained creeping control of the syndicalistrnovernent in France and debilitated this rnove-rnent, it was inbuilt into the forrnation of theCNT (Confedetacion Nacional de1 Trabajo -National ConJederation of Labour) that themovernent should fol1ow the traditions of fed-eralisrn and regionalisrn that prevented thedelegation of powers to a leadership. TheCNT was created in 1911 (at the farnous con-ference at the salon de Bellas Artes inBarcelona) as the result of a dernand to unitethe various workerst federations all over thecountry - following strikes in Madrid, Bilbao'Sevilla, Jerez de Ia Frontera, Soria, Malaga,Tarrasa, Saragossa. It helped to organise a

general strike the sarne year (as a result ofwhich it becarne illegal).

It rose to overwhelrning strength during theworld war - its rnost farnous test being thegeneral strike arising frorn the strike at 'rLaCanadiense't. Frorn then on, fot 25 years, itwas in constant battle, yet the State was neverable to cornpletely suPPress it.

25 Years of Unionisrn

The cornplete failure of sorne libertarians tounderstand even the elernentary principles ofthe CNT throughout those years is staggering'When the structure and rules of the CNT werereprinted in Black Flag* sorne comrnents both

tprivately and publtcly l.{t or .&lt d. OD.ieader thought lt rrr t rrdrnocratlc crdrel'ist'r bodyr vhcn tho ltoL lhaF fDd ttluctut'of it wae obvlouriy tcalonrllst. For yalt',indeed, a mrjos dcbrto trgcfl rr to shcthcrunions ahould bc fudcrrtcd on a national basisat all. Somc could not understand it E a

rmion movcmGtt, ead pointed out the lack ofdecisiveneaa in dcaltng with national (political)problerne.

Another saw in the rule that delegatesshould not be criticised in public "a libertar-ian version of dontt rock the boat, cornrades",cornparing it with the deterrnination of theTUC not to let its leaders (quite a differentrnatter) be criticised' But the delegates wereelected for one year on1y. They could be re-called at a rnornentrs notice if they were notrepresenting the views of their mernbers.Most of the tirne, as negotiating body, theywere illegal or serni-1egal. \It was not pleas-ant for sorrreone who avoided acting as a dele-gate, and who had the power to recall thedelegate if there were sufficient rnernbers inagreernent, to attack a narned delegate in pub-lic. That is not the sarne thing at all as crit-icising a perrnanent leader or dernoctdrtically-elected dictator such as one finds in Britishtrade unionisr:n. Nor is it the sarne thing as

saying one should never criticise anyone atall. (It rnust, however, be held against therule that in I936 /9 and, after rnany refrainedfrorn criticising self-appointed spokesrnenbecause of this tradition. )

Yet others, bringing a forced criticisrn ofSpanish labour organisation in order to fit pre-conceived theories, have suggested it was sub-ordinated to a political leadership, theAnarchist Federation playing a "Bolshevik"role (sornething quite inconceivable) or that ofa Labour Party. What such critics cannotrrlderstand is that the anarchists relinquishedthe building of a political party of their own,

and that it was only because of this that theyhad their special relationship with the CNT'A-a tf,"y endeavoured to give it a politicalleadership, they would have succeeded inalienating thernselves as did the Marxists'(The original Marxist party, the POUM,endeavoured for years to obtain control ofthe CNT: later, when the Cornrnunist Partywas introduced into Spain in the tthirties, thePOUM was denounced as "trotskyists'r and

even 'ttrotsky-fascists't by the Stalinists' The

*Reproduced in this issue.

10

Trotakyists proPer took the line that the veryexistence of a revolutionary union was ananachronism and they criticised the POUMfor trying to infiltrate the GNT rather than toenter, and aspire to lead, the UGT - thoughthe latter waa a rninority organisation. )

Like many other anarchist groups in othercountries, those in Spain were based on affin-ity, or friendship, groups - which are both thernost difficult for the police to penetrate., andthe rnost productive of results - as againstwhich is the positive danger of clique-ism, aproblern never quite solved anywhere. Theanarchists who becarne well. known to the gen-eral public were those associated with exploitswhich no organisation could ever offic.iallysanction. For instance, Buerraventura Durruticame to farne as the result of his shootingAtchbishop Soldevila, in his own cathedra!. -in response to the rnurder, by gunrnen ofSoldevilars rrCatholicrr cornpany union, of thegeneral secretaiy of the CNT, the greatly-loved Salvador Segui. With bank robbeties tohelp strike funds, the namee of the inseparableDurruti, Ascaso and Jover becarne householdwords to the rnany workers who faced privationand hurniliation in their everyday life, and feltsomehow revindicated as well as reinvigorated.

One rnust bear in rnind the capitalist classwas at this time engaged in its own struggleagainst the feudal elernents of Spain (whicheven resisted the introduction of telephones).The economic struggle of capitalisrn (palelyreflected in the political rnirror as that ofrepublicanism versus the rnonarchy) was anextremely difficult one: it rnade the struggJ.eo{ the workers to survive that rnuch rnore.difficult. The employers did not have as rnuchto yield as in other countries where industri-alisation had progressed; had they in fact beenfurther advanced, the arnount so militant anorganisation could have obtained frorn capital-ism would have been staggering.

As it was, capitalism fought a constant[ast-ditch stand against labour. It was abloody one, too, and it should not be aupposed:hat individual trterror'r wa8 on one gide. Thelawyer for the CNT, a paraplegic, welL knownfor his stand on civil Liberties - FranciscoLayret who could be compared vdth BenedictBirnberg here, who has complained he hasbeen put on a police blacklist - was shot downin hie wheelchair by employersr pistoleros.

It was against such pistoleros that the FAIhit back. Anarchist assassination is taken outof its class context by Marxist critics. Theydid not think that individual attacks wouldItchange society", that the capitalist classwould be terrorised or the State converted bythern. They hit back because those who do notdo so, perish.

Unitv

While the loca1 federations always opposed anyforrn of comrnon action with the republican orIocal nationalist parties, and sornetirneslurnped (correctly) the Socialist Party with thebourgeois parties, nevertheless on the wholethey deplored the division in the ranks of theproletariat and as the struggle deepened in thethirties could not see why they should be sep-arated frorn the UGT, or the Marxist parties -the CP, POUM or some sections of the Social-ist Party. rtUnitytr is always sornething thatsounds attractive. But notwithstanding theadage it does not always rnean strength.Those who desire it the most are those whomust cornpromise the rnost and thereforebecorne weak and vacillating.

The popular rnistake, too, is to assurnethat becaus e these parties were rnore rrrnodex-

ate" j.n their policies - that is to say, rnorefavourably inclined to capitalism and less*'i11ing to change the econornic basis of society- they \r'ere sornehow rnore gentle in theirapproach, or pacific in their intentions' Underthe Republic the "rnoderate'r parties (which had

collaborated with the dictatorship of Prirno de

Rivera under the rnonarchy) created theAssault Guards especially to hit the workers,and the CNT in particular. To irnagine an

equivalent one rnust assurne that in addition tothe police, the Arrny are also on street patrol- as an equivalent to the Guardia Civil - butthe Governrnent brings in a special arrnedforce (Iike the "B'r Specials) to attack theTUC. This was a 'rrnoderate" policy asagailst the trextremism'r of the anarchists whowanted to abolish the arrned forces (which inci-dentally wero pLotting against the Republic).That was an 'rirnpractical and utopianrr idea,said the Republicans and Socialists, whoairned to dernocratise the arrned forces in-stead by purging it of older rnonarchists andbringing in young generals like FranciscoFranco (whose brother wae a tr'reemason andRepublican, as well as a rrnational hero'r),

whose rtloyalty to the republic would beas sured".

Problerns

,r. ,r.r.rn that we are farniliar with is thatof a labour rnovernent hesitarrt to take its op-portunities, while. the capitalist class seizeeevery possibility of advanci-ng its interests.The problern for Spanish labour was enti-relydifferent: narnely, that while it was deter-rni-ned and even irnpatient for Revolution, thecapitalist class rernailed (u:etil only a compar-.atively few years ago) afraid to i:rterferepolitically lest it upset the equilibriurn bywhich the rnilitary were the last !esort of tberegirnerandr:lwilling to rnove too far aheadindustrially for feat of the State power dorn-inated by feudal reaction; Only a few foreigncapitalists were willing to take the plunge inexploiting the country. Thus strike afterstrike developed into a general strike, andthb confrontation thus achieved becarne aLocal insurrection, for the capitalists wereasked rnore than they would or sornetirnescould grant.

It is the insurrections which have beenrnore often the concern of historians who inev-itably talk of rrthe anarchists" and their con-duct in running this or that local conflict: inreality, the anarchists had helped'to create anorganisation by which the workers and peas-ants could rrrn such insurrections thernselves.It is inevitable that because of this, rnistakeso{ generalship would occur and it would befutile to deny that a highly organised political

1:

party could possibly have rnarshaled suchforces rnuch differently (this was the constantdespair of the Marxist parties); but towardswhat end? The conquest of power by thern-selves. ln rejecting this solution, other prob-Ierns arose which rnust be the continuedconc ern of revolutiorrarie s.

What, after all, is the point of accepting apolitical leadership which rnight seize power -r*'ith no real benefit to the working class, asin'as the real case in Soviet Russia - by virtueof its brilliant leadership (and its tactical andtacit arrangernents with irnperialist powers) -or rnight (as the Comrnunist Party did inChiang's China or Weirnar Gerrnany) lead,*'ith all its trained "cadres", to the sarrre sortof defeat the rnan on the ground couLd quiteeasily rnanage for hirnself ?

One other point rnust be taken into consid-eration, and that was the dernoralisation ofrnany rnilitants after years of struggle in whichelorrrrous dernands were rnade upon the dele-gates with absolutely no return whatever out-side that received by all. There was no prob-lern of bureaucracy (the general secretary wasa paid official; beyond hirn there were neverrnore than two or three paid officials) but thenas a result there was no reward for the dele-gates, who suffered irnprisonrnent - and thethreat of death - and who needed to be of highrnoral integrity to undertake jobs involvingnegotiation, and even policy decisions ofinternational consequence, that in other coun-tries would lead to high office but in Spain ledrnerely to a return to the work bench at best,or to jail and the firing squad at worst.

It is not.a coincidence, nor the result ofconscious'rtreachery!', that rnany rnilitantsq'ho carne up through the syndicates'i' laterdiscovered rrreasonsrt for political collabora-tion or entry into the political parties, whichalone offered rewards, and every one of whichhankered after the libertarian union, whichalone had a broad bise that would rnean cer-tain wictory for whoever could cornrnand it.

*Pestafia, for instance, once General Secre-tary, later hived off to forrn his own politicalparty (the rtTreintistas'r - after his 'rCornrnitteeof Thirtyl').

12

The student-rnovernent-inspired ihesis iswrong: the FAI was not a Bolshevik nor asocial-deTnocratic party. lf it had been, thisproblern would not have arisen. The problernsof Spanish labour in those years were notproblerns of political control, nor whether thetactics of this party or that party were rightcr wrong (that is to think of Spain in terrnsappropriate to the Stalin-Trotsky quarrel, butthe dispute between the rival gangsters of theKrernlin is not necessarily applicable in everycountry). Basically they were the problerns offreedorn, and of rnass participation in its owndestiny. VIe rnust not delude ourselves thatthese do not exist.

Wittr this background of the labour rnove-rnent it was irnpossible for the capitalist classto switch it round on the basis of nationalisrnand harness it behind thernselves, as they haddone with ternporary success in rnany coun-tries in the First W-orld \.[ar, and with sorneperrnanent (as it then seerned) success intheNazi era. The Falange tried to ape the work-ersr syndicates but nobody was fooled who didnot want to be, When the Falange failed in itstask, as every atternpt of the Spanish bour-geirisie failed - whether 1iberal, republican orfascist - the Arrny was brought in, in the clas-sical rnanner of a ruling class holding power byforce.

What took the ruling class by surprise -having seen the way in which the labour rnove-rnents of the world caved in at the first blast ofthe trurnpet (above all, the fabulous Red Arrnytrained rnovernent of the Gerrnan workersunder Marxist leadership reduced with oneblow of the fist to a few, frightened peoplebeing beaten up in warehouses) - was theresistance to the nationrs own arsry by theworking people. lf at that rnornent the popularFront (clairning to be against fascisrn) -reaLising its fate would be sealed with thevictory of the Arrny - had arrned the people,the rising would have been over. The resultof their refusing to do so rneant that trenchwarfare could develop, in. which (againstheavy arrns, and later troops and planes,corning in frorn the fascist countries) theSpaniards could only resist, keep on thedefence, and never rrount an attack; hencethey would be bound to lose inthe finish.

One of the most significant trends shown inJuly I936 was the seizure of the factories and

the land by the workers. This was an experi-ence in workerst self-rnanagernent which wasnot however unique - silce the sarce atternptshad been rnade by rnany collectives and co-operatives before - but whose scale wasstaggering - and which represented in itselfa defiant gesture of resistance by the workerswhich the Popular Front Governrnent wished toplay down, and eventually suppress.

For this reason the Popular tr'ront hasnever since ceased, through its supporters atthe tirne, to harp on one therne only: the In-ternational Brigade. But this rnerits a sep-arate article.

It was not rnerely the disciplinary andrnurderous drives by the Comrnunist Partythat destroyed the collectivisation and self-managernent, One rnust add to it the factthat as the civil war proceeded, the workers.were leaving the factories in ever increasi.ngnurnbers, for the front lines, which becarneever rnore restricted.

D ivis ion s

The fact that the workers had, with practic-ally their bare hands, prevented an irnrnediaternilitary victory and, as it seerned, preventedthe rise of world fascisrn, caused a euphoriccondition. The slogan was ,rUnited proletar-ian Brothersr': the flags of the CNT rnixedrvith those of the UGT. The Comrnunists andSocialists were welcorned as feI1ow-workers,even the Republicans accepted for their sake.Undoubtedly the whole rnass of CltrT workers -and others - welcorned this end of divisionswhich seerned pointless as against worldfascisrn. In tirne of war one looks favourablyupon any allies: no leadership could haveprevailed against the feeling that there wereno rnore divisions inthe workersr ranks. Onthe contrary, those who now aspired to leader-ship - since the conditions of war were suchthat leadership could exist - began to extol thernerits of their new-found allies.

Those who refer to the 'ratrocities,r of theeariy period of the Civil War seldorn point tothe root cause of many of thern: the fact thatthe Republican authority was now officially onthe side of the workers. A sirnple illustrationwas tokl rne by Mi.guel Garcia of how, in theearly days in Barcelona.the group he was with

seizing arrns frorn the gunsrniths' to fight thearrny, carne in conJrontation with a troop ofarrned Guardia Civil, the hated enerny. Theofficer in chargr: siqnalled them to pass. Theydid so silently, waiting to dash for it - expe.ct-in6l to be shot in the back in accordance withthe 1ev de fuga. But the officer saluted. TheGuardia Civil was loyal to the Governrnent. Inrnany villages the people storrned the poli.cebarracks dernanding vengeance on the enemy.They were greeted with cries of "Viva laRepublica". "We are your allies now. \Yeare the officers of the Popular Front. Askyour allies in the Republican and Socialistparties if it is not so.

Even so, rnany anarchists never trustedthern.

It was the police and Guardia Civil whowete the rnost vicious to the fascists whornthey had to detain, to show their enthusiasrnfor the popular cause. Later, when the tidesof war had changed, they had to be even rnorevicious to the anti-fascists, to show that theyhad never ceased in allegiance to the properlyconstituted authority.

The Cornprornises

It is relevant to this description of the Spanishlabour rnovernent to trace the dissolution of theCNT, since with the drift frorn the factories itceased to be a union rnovernent and became, ineffect, an association of rnilitants'

During the war what .ras in effect a dernor'-alisation of rnany rnilitants set in, and a divi-sion occurred between "well known narnes'land those rnilitants who really rnade up theorganised rnovernent (the rank and file rnili-tarrts, rnilitantes de base), since the dernandfor unity, understandable as it was, 1ed to a

collabor ation with the r epublic an gove r nrne ntunder the slogan of 'rUHP'r. A11 those who hadfor years been denied a recognition of theirtalents - and ctaved for it - now had theirchance. Majors, generals; in the police andin the direction of governrnent; even in therninistries thernselves. Those who so collab-orated did not really go as rePresentativeseither o{ the anarchist rnovernent or of thelabou:r or ganisation although the ir collabor a -tion was passively accepted by rnost. Theytook advantage of the greatest weakness of thetraditional anarchi'st rnovernent, the "person-

13

ality cultr' (as witness Kropotkin, individuallysupporting World 'W'ar I, and causing enormougdarnage to the rlovernent which he in no wayrepresented and frorn which his "credentialgtlcould r.ot be withdrawn for there were noneexcept rnoral r ecognition).

The ernergence of an orator like GarciaOliver, or Federica Montseny, as a Ministerpurporting to represent the CNT was a syrnp-torn of these collaborationist rnoves. Keepingthe rnatter in proportion their betrayals andcorrrprorrrises were effected by the defeat, andwere not its cause.

It was, however, this division that disori-entated the organisation in subsequent years.

Following the defeat, the libertarian rnove-rnent was re-established in a General Councilin Paris in February I939. The existing sec-retary of the CNT, Mariano Vasquez' was ap-pointed secretary of the Council. But this wasin no way a trades union. It was a council ofwar, intending to rnaintain contact between theexiles now scattered round the wor1d, and inparticular those in France, where the rnajor-ity were in concentration carnps, set up withbarbed wire and guarded by Senegalese sol-diers, as if they were POWs, but under con-ditions forbidcien by the Geneva Convention.

There were no longer rneetings appointingdelegates subject to recall, nor any checkupon the representatives of the rnovernent.Nobody in any case was intereSted. Theworking class of Spain had been hecisivelysrnashed. Its organisations were in ruins.Those in exile had to build a new 1ife. Thosei-nside Spain were facing daily denunciationsleading to the firing squad and prison. Thechildren of the executed and irnprisoned werethrown ilto the streets. Large nurnbers ofworkers,were rnoving to places where theyhoped they would avoid,notice.

Thosg publications which appeared spokeonly in the vaguest terrns about the future.A11 that rnattered was the overthrow of Francoand of Fascisrn. In the circurnstances, apolitical party - with a policy dictated frornthe central comrnittee - would have produceda clear line (however vicious this rnight be, asthe Cornrnunist Partyrs line was after theStalin-Hitler Pact - one typical symptorn beingFrank Ryan, IRA CP fighter in the Interna-

14

tional Brigade, who went frorn Francots prisonto become a Nazi collaborator). The libertar-.ian rnovernent was clear only that it was anti-fascist. And that it would have no furthertruck yith the Comrnunist Party.

This was not an unreasonable line to take inthe circurnstances, but for a fatal corollary tothe anti-fa scist comrnitrnent, which ultirnatelyparalysed the entire Spanish working-classrnovernent and has kept Franco in power tothis day. This was that one rnust thereforeaccept anti-fascisrn at its face value and as-cribe anti-fascisrn to the dernocratic powerswhich were also fighting against powers whichnappened to be fascist.

A rnornentls refLection will show the falsityof the position. Tod'ay China finds herselJ inconflict with Russia. But she is not only notnecessarily anti-Comrnunist (in the Leninists,ense), she is not (in that sense) anti-Corn-rnunist at all. There is no reason to supposethat if China defeated Russia she would endstate dictatorship and concentration carnps; toascribe such rnotives to China is to deceiveoneself deliberately. Neither did it follow inL939 that anybody who happened to be fightingthe Fascist Powers were therefore anti-fascistin the sarne sense that the libertarians were.

Nor had ideology anything to do with it.Arnerica, while retaining dernocracy at horne,is perfectLy abLe to support dictatorshipabroad. Yet in L939 it was seriously supposedeven by the best of the Spanish rnilitants thatBritain and France rrlrst 'tlogicallytt opposefascisrn, as if nations went to war rnerely toirnpose their ideology. It was rnore difficultto support their jailer France, but afterFrance fell, Britain seerned to be +yrnpa-thetic. The British Secret Service enlistedthe aid of the Spanish Resistance groups,which sprang up irnrnediately after the dis-aster of 1940. They sought aid to bring sol-diers out of France over the border; theyenlisted the support of the rrgangsrt insideSpain to raid foreign Ernbassies and sabotageNazi pl.ans; they sought to co-operate (thoughit never carne to dorninating) the Spanish resis-tance in France. Because Francots tnen.wereat the tirne so violentl.y anti-British, it wassupposed Britain rnust rrlogicallyrt want tooverthrow.Franco. And it was rrrore 'treason-abl.err to believe in a British.victory - a prac-tical proposition - than in Revol.ution!

Even those in the Resistance who nevertrusted the British agenta, and who insisted ongetting paid for any services they gave them,never believed that they could be double-ctossed. Yet after a network of unions hadbeen re-established in Spain during the war -and a Resistance built up without parallel inrnodern leistory, inside Spain - all the corunit-tees were destroyed. None of the rnilitantsever saw cause and effect. Soon after the war,for instance, a rneeting was called by the Brit-ish Ernbassy for rnilitants of the CNT to dis-cuss the ANE D (Alliance of Democratic For-ces) and the possibility of co.-operation withthe (pro-British) rnonarchists. CNT delegateCipriano Mera reported that he could not seethe point of it. A few weeks later the entireCNT comrnittee was.arrested. Cause andeffect have not been seen to this day. Howcould it have been the Btitish Embassy thatwas the traitor? Britain was rtdernocraticrr,Franco was Itfascistrr.

One could go on at great length, but it canbe seen how the tranti-fascist" period, corningwhen the union phase had finished, helped toestablish a rnovernent in exiIe, in which nopopular representation existed or wa6 re-quired, and acted as a brake on Resistance.,A"fter the war, the exiles began to fit into Lifeabroad. l4lhat took over their organisation w.[snot a bureaucracy so rnuch as dornination bythe rrnarnestr. There was no Longer J.ocalautonorny in which all rnet as equaLs. tr'or acornmittee in TouLouse, one was asked to pickrrnarrresrr. The Igreat narnestr carne to thefote. But what were these 'rgreat narnesrr?They were not the narnes of the militants ofpre-war days. They were thoge who carne tothe fore during the era of governrnent collab-oration. Arnong thern was a division on rnanysubjects. Sorne thought they should enterpolitical collaboration urith the RepubJ.icanGovernrnent (pointless now that it was de.feated, but it stilL had rnoney stacked awayin Mexico). Others wanted a return toindependence - but they could not return tobeing a union. Only the workers inside Spaincould do that.

The rnajority of exil.es never warrt to corn-pronlise their position. It is understandable,but it is fatal for the ettuggle in the interior.In fact an exile rnovernent is basically in afarcical posiiion, for it is giving up the factof sttuggle in the country wheie it exists andtrying to carry one on in a cor::rtry where it

does not exist. It thus surrenders its useful-ness as a force in the labour rnovernent in thecountry where it resides; while at the sarnetirne holding back the struggle in the countryfrorn which i{" orrgiu,.Les - since the consider-ations that hold one back frorn action in axnore open society are not necessarily validin the dictatorship. Tirne and again, there-fore, the Organisation found itself in conflictwith the Resistance in Spair, being built up bygroups such as those of Sabater, Facerias andother s.

The Resistance - because of its daringattacks upon the regirne - was able to build upthe labour rnovernent tirne and again. It wasdestroyed.rna.ny tirneS; and has .LUen re-buiIt.It has e>rpected help frorn the exile Organisa-tion and received nothing. Worse, it has beenheld back. Eor this reason one finds todaythe whole of the pretended rrofficial'r libertar-ian rnovernent in utter disariay - theMontseny-lsglesias {action expelling alland sundry - striking out in the last gasps ofdissolution... above all, denouncing the reallibertarian rnovernent inside Spain because itdares to use the narne of the CNTI (It is forthis reason that organisations like the Fed-eracion Obrera Iberica - to save the recrirn-inations about rrforging the seals ' of theOrganisation which are held as by apostolicsuccession in Toulouse - have sirnply changedtheir narne, with the sarne airns as the CNTof old. )

The Spanish Libertarian Movernent, so-called (MLE) is not a union rnovernent, noran anarchist rnovernent. It is anti-fascist inideology, but basically it looks to a rrsolutionof the Spanish problern" rather than supportingthe Resistance in any way. Tirne and again theexpected political solutions have failed - orrather, have succeeded in the way their auth-ors intended thern, leawing the, $LE pathetic-ally declaring that the Britisl5 French orArnerican Governrnents have let thern down.Even now, many cannot understand how itcarne about that Britain did not send an Arrnyin to liberate Spain; why the Governrnent didnot even want to do so - and indeed, that eIe-ments in the British Government rnay haveconsidered Spain aLready liberated - byFrancol These axe the people who denouncethe Resistance as rrirnpractical'r, "utopian" -above all, rrviolent"l Many will explain that'rviolence" is wrong. That is to sayr it was

l5perrnissible in thc Civil War, wherr it waslegal; and during the 'W'orld War when, ifnot legal, in Spanish eyes, it was grantedthe equivalent status by virtue of the fact thatresistance was 'rlegallyrt recognised in France,but it becarne "un-Libertarianil even rrun-

Spanish" with the end of the 'W"orld WarlThis colours the attitude towards Resis-

tance in Spain, and nothing rnarks a greaterdiwiding line. The Resistance was carefullynourished by the Sabater brothers - of whornso litt1e is known'i' - the various bands of theResistance such as the Tallion, Los Manosetc., by Facerias and others. It had perforceto return to the tradition of guerrilla warfareand activisrn.

Despite the 'tofficial't propaganda in whichthe Libertarian Moverne,nt in Exile constantlyinvokes the narne of the CNT, it is not the '

sarne thing at all. The traditions of the CNTare reaffirrned by the Resistance within Spain,which is back in the period of regional corn-rnittees and loca1 resistance, and is stillunable to reconstitute itself on a nation-widescale - which indeed it rnay not consideres sential.

The period predicted by Marx during whichSpanish labour would have to be left to rrBaku-ninrr is, of course, over. The Cornrnunists,Maoists and Nationalists of various brandshave grown considerably - though socialisrnand the UGT are dead. Thanks to the fol1y ofrrToulouserr the narne of the CNT has beeneclipsed by schisrn. But we note one thing:whenever the struggle in Spain becornesacute, the workers turn to anarchisrn.

Albert Meltzer::ti:t:::::': . :*iK:rit--tE lffi"u.:,.. I ura r' 'o - ^

+< 1"'''"

*A book on Sabater by Antonio Tellez, trans.Stuart Christie, is corning out next Spring -published by Davis - Poynter.

.I

16

THE RULE Boox oF THE CoNFEDERAcIoNDEL TRABAJO (CNT)Spanish anarcho- syndicalist trades union(National Confederation of Labour)The constitution as printed in the rnernber-ship card.is set out in futl here..

The ernancipation of the workers rnust be thework of the workers thernselves

Anar cho- syndicirl.isrn and anarchisrn rec -ognise the validity of rnajority decisions.

The rnilitant has a right to his own point ofview and to defend it, but he is obliged tocornply with rnajority decisions, even whenthey are against his own feeling.

A rnernbership card, without the corre.s-ponding conlederal seal, is no longer va1id.The confederal seal is the only rneans ofincorne that the Regional and National Corn-rnittees have. Not to keep it paid is to sab-ota.ge the work that has been recornrnendedto those comrnittees, for they are unable tocarry out decisions without the economicrneans to do so.

We recognise the sovereignty of the indi-vidual, but we accept and agree to carry outthe collective rnandate taken by rnajority deci-sion. 14rithout this there is no organisation.

We rnust never lack the rnental clarity tosee danger and to act with rapidity. To losetirne in talking at rneetings by holding philo-sophic discussions is anti-revolutionary. Theadversary does not discuss, he acts.

The rnost fundarnental principle of federa.l-

isrn is the right of the rnernbers to exarninethe role of the rnilitants and to have controL oftheir delegates, no rnatter what the circum-stances or what position they have given thern.

'W'e rnust allow a rnargin of conJidence toour delegates. But we rnust also retain theright to replace thern if necessary.

To criticise in public those cornradesgiven places of confidence in our olganisationis to denalue the organisation. No conscien-tious cornrade criticises the comrnittees inpublic, because this only favours the adver-sary.

The choice of delegates is discussed inter-nall1i,:rnd it is essential that this takes place.But one should rernain silent in public. Thinkas you wish, but as a worker you need theSyndicate, because it is there to protect yourinter e st s.

Qornrade: This rnernbership card is thesafeguard of your working 1ife. It has noprice, but you will prize it above everything.And you will be ready to defend the card ofthe CNT wherever you see it attacked. UNITYIS STRENCTH.

Worker: The syndicate is your rneans ofsolidarity. OnIy in it are you able to forrna united proletarian rnovernent that will goforward to ernancipation.

L7

f,BIST.E$GHEffi!

JOTEPE DEJIOQUE e,f77rC-

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Ernest Coeuideroy and Joseph D6jacque aretwo of the rng.st interesting figures in the de-veloprnent of anarchist j.deas following the1848 revolution in France. They are irnpor-tant because they took anarchisrn forwardfrorn the non-revolutiondry libertarianisrnof Proudhon and the non-libertarian revolu-tionisrn of the socialist leaders, and pointedthe way towards the formulation of a consis-tent anarchist doctrine and the forrnation ofa genuine anarchist rnovernent. They both diedbefore this could happen and were forgotten formany years, but they were discovered at theend of the nineteenth century and they have re-cently been redis cover ed.

They both belonged to the petite-bourgeoisie, which has provided rnost

@t Knarehy

i.-'r r ':

18

anarchist thinkers. Coeurderoy was bornin 1825, the son of a republican doctor inBurgundy, and he becarne !:oth a doctor anda republican hirnself, practising rnedicineand participating in political agitation inParis just before 1848. D6jacque was botnin LB?Z, the son of a poor widow in Paris,and becarne a wa1I-paper se11er, a sailor,a shop-clerk, and finally a house-painter andpaper-hanger, also being active in the Parislabour rnovernent just before 1848. Thus theyrepresented respectively the professional andartisanal strands in anarchist historf, andboth began their political careers in a revo-lutionary situation.

They both took part in the successfrrl Feb-ruary revolution in Paris, when the rnonarchywas replaced by a bourgeois republic, andalso in the unsuccessful June rising againstthe Provisional Governrnent, when the social-ist workers tried to replace the bourgeoisregirne and were savagely repressed. Coeur-deroy escaped arrest for a tirne, but had togo into hiding in June I 849 and soon left

^4.-E rance. lJeJacque was arrested in June 1848

and irnprisoned for several rnonths, arrestedagain in June 1 849, and tried in I851 for pub-lishing subversive poerrrs; he left France justbefore Louis Napol6onts coup dr6tat of Decern-ber I 851 ended the revolutionary period witha Bonapartist dictatorshiP.

Coeurderoy took refuge in Switzerland frorn1849 to I85I, then in Belgiurn, England, Spain,and Italy (where he rnarried), then in unknownplaces after I855, during which tirne he seernsto have becorne rnentally il1, and then again inSwitzerland, where he is believed to have corn-rnitted suicide in 1852. D6jacque took refugein Be1giurn, then in England frorn 1851 to1 852, in Jersey frorn I 852 to 1854, and in theUnited States frorn 1854 to 1851, when he re-turned to England and then to France, wherehe is believed to have died in poverty in i864.

Coeurdqroy lived by practising rnedicine(in 1851 he published an article on 'rPeopletsMedicine"), and his political activity consistedrnainly of keeping in touch with other revolu-tionary exiles and w"iting against the prevail-ing republican opinions. He helped to producea parnphlet called The Barrier of the Cornbat(1852), and also wrote sorne letters whichwere printed (including one of 1854 to Herzen),rnany articles, and two books, On Revolution

in Man and SocietY (1852) and HulEhli-l-elR-evolution bv Cossacks (185a); a third book,On Harrnony in lr4en-err4 Jeglglt' was an-nounced but has disappeared without trace.His chief work was a long autobiography'Davs of Exile, of which two volurnes appearedtn I854-55; " thita volurne was announced buthas also disappeared without trace. He seemsto have published nothing after 1855.

COEURDEROY on revolution

rrRevolutionary anarchists, let us say it loud1y:

we have no hope except in the hurnan deluge;we have no future except in chaos; we have no

chance except in a general war which, rnixingall races and srnashing all established rela-tionships, will rernove frorn the hands of theruling classes the instrurnents of oppressionwith which they violate the liberties won at theprice of our blood. Let us introduce the revo-lution into deeds, let us transfuse it into insti-tutions; let it be inoculated by the blade of thesword into the social organisrns, so that theyare no longer bewitched by it! Let the hurnansea rise and ovetflowl When a1I the disinher-ited are seized by farnine, proPerty will no

longer be holy; in the arrned struggle, ironwill sound louder than gold; when everyonefights in his own cause, no one will need tobe represented; in the rnidst of the confusionof tongues, the lawyers, journalists, andopinion-rnakers will not be heard. With itsfingers of steel the revolution breaks allGordian knots; it has no understanding withPrivilege, no pity for hypocrisy' no fear ofbattle, no check in its passions, no coolnessfor its lovers, no quarter for its enernies.So letts get on with it and sing its praisesl'r

Hurrahi ll or Revolutionbv Cossacks (1854)

D6jacque lived very poorly and took a rnoreactive part in revoLutionary politics. Hernade drarnatic interventions at the funeralsof two republican exiles - first in London in1852 and then in Jersey in 1853 - taking theopportunity to accuse the socialist and repub-lican leaders of betraying the revolution, and

he signed the prograrnrne of the socialist !:ter-national Association in 1855 while he was inthe United States. Indeed it was there that he

did his most irnportant work - being involvedin the disputes among the French republicangioups, publishing several Parnphlets, espe-

"i"Uv The RevolutionqrlQgggllgn (1 8 54),

rnany articlee, and an enlarged collection ofhis poerns, but above all producing the firetanarchist-comrnunist paper in Arnerica, LeLibertaire_, of which 27 issues appeared frornJune 1t158 trl f elrx'u:ir"y 186 1 anti in whichD6jacque printed his chief work, The Euman-isphere. He seerns to have published nothingafter I 86I.

Bo+h-Qgeurderoy and D6jacque began witha fierce critique of the socialist leaders whohad betrayed the I848 revolution - The Barrierof the Cornbat and The Revolutionarv Ouestionare rerniniscent of post-revolutionary anarch-ist polemics over a period of rnore than a cen-tury; frorn the Paris Cornrnurre of 18?l to theParis rrevents" of 1968, taking in Russia andSpain on the way. But frorn that point they.diver ge.

Coeurderoy was an ernotional and fre-quentLy a hysterical writer, .and all hisworks are rnarked by the use of intenserhetoric and irnpassioned violence. Hequickly despaired of the social rnovernentin France and in all other so-calIed civilisedcountries, and instead he looked forward tothe invasion of barbarians frorn the East -especially the "Cossacksrr frorn Russia - and

jthe destruction oi all established institutionsin a storrn of fire and death. Here rnay be1".".

"r, attitude which closely resernbled that

,of the Russian Slavophiles and of theit succes-,sor in the anarchist rnovernent, Bakunin, andwhich reappears in libertarian thought several.'tirnes afterwards - in the early Kropotkin, in,many Spanish figures (especially Durruti), andin the conternporary Situationists.

'DEJACQUE on revolution

'rPrinciple s:Liberty, equality, fraternity.

C ons equence s :

Abolition of governrnent in all its forrns,rnonarchical or republican, suprernacy ofan individual or of majorities;

But anarchy, individuaL sovereignty, corn-p1ete, unlimited, absolute freedom to do ev-erything, everything that is in the nature ofa hurnan being.

Abolition of religion, Catholic, Protestant,Hebrew or anything else. Abolition of clergy

1e

rnd of church, of prieet, vicar or pope, min-lrter or rebbi, of dtwlnity, idol ln onr. o?thrcc pereon*, univercal autocrrcy oroligarchy;

But man, at once creature and crcttor.hardng oaly lrrtutc for god, science fo?rellglon, humeatty for church.

Abolltlon of peraonal propertyr PtoPclt7in laad, buildiag, factoty, shop, propc*, laevery lagtrument of labour, productioa orconsumptioa;

But collective liroperty, one and tndivlalble,possession in comrnon.

Abolition of the farnily, based on rnarriage,on paternal or rnarital authority, on heredity;

But the great hurnan farnily, one and indi-visible, like property.

Liberation of wornan, ernancipation of thechiLd.

Finally, abolition of duthority, of privi-lege, of antagonisrn;

But liberty, equality, fraternity ernbodiedin hurnanityi

But a1.1 the consequences of this triple for-rnula brought frorn theoretical abstractioninto practical reality, into positivisrn.

. That is to say, Harmony, that oasis of ourdrearns, ceasing to fly like a rnirage beforethe caravan of the generations and-offering toeach and to all, rrnder its fraternal shade andin universal unity, the sources of happiness,the fruits of liberty: a life of delight, at last,after an agony of rnore than eighteen centuriesin the barren desert of civilisation!"

The Revolutionary Question (1854)

D6jacque was equally inclined to praise ofviolence, but he was rnore interested in thework of construction following the necessarydestruction. He called for srnalI groups tosrr-rash present society by secret conspirator-ia1 violence, but he also looked forward to thefuture society that would ernerge. The Hu-rnanisphere, an rrAnarchist Utopiarr whichwasnrt published in book forrn until 1899 (andthen was purged of its rnore ferocious pas-sages), 'looked a thousand years into thefuture and cornbined the best ideas of I'ourierand of Proudhon. Here rnay be seen an atti-tude which also reappears in libertarianthought several tim.es afterwards - in theLater Kropotkin, in Williarn Morris, in therevolutionary syndicalists, and in the con-ternporary Under ground.

NicoLas Walter

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oN mDAV-11'EPROPERTY

SPECULATOR

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22

WHAT's WRONG

UVITH

WHEN I WAS at school, back in days alrnostlost in the rnists of tirne - sornewhere il thelate 1950s - I iroticed an advert in the NewStatesrnan for Fregdorn - the anarchist weekly,ft was concerned with a carnpaign to save theThird prograrune and it rnakes rne srnile torernernber this because it surns up in a waythe paper and the people who have given sornuch tirne and energy towards its weekly ap-pearance. Quality not quantity ie perhaps itsparticular stance and although a certain syrn-pathy with the approach is reaeonable, therecorrres a time when the rnost beautiful peoplenurnber but a score and the irnpact on theworld is rather less than the flapping of a wetflag in the wind on a faintLy breezy day. In-deed, taking our logic out of the window,rrqu::lity not quantity" consists at its finesthour of one person reading his own irnpec-cabLe Lines again and again.

One would not suggest that Freedorn hasquite reached that position but ltve taken tornistaking the writing on a postage starnp forthe weekly dose frorn Whitechapei High Street.Syrnbolic that, for the portrait of the Queenrernilds one o{ the rnessages frorn Freedornrspresent editors: 'rMy husband and 1.. . . It

Oh dearl What has becorne of us? Irvebeen 'rinvolved'r as they say with Freedornfor sorne 15 years, on and off, and Irve alwaysliked rnost of the people Irve rnet associatedwith the anarchist rnovernent. W?ren I startedto consider writing this piece I hesitated along tirne but things are becorning too irnpor-tant (and too bad) for silence to have anyeffe ct.

Personal rerniniscence is one way to enterinto the subject. I rernernber Lilian 'Wolfe,

for instance, who corrt'sponded with rne inAfrica and worked for rnany years at FreedomPress, whether at Red Lion Street, Maxwel1Street or in Whitechapel - the tangible histor-ical connection with the Freedorn of her corn-panion Torn Keele *ho .ilIGlE-Kropotkin inFreedom over his attitude to the First WorldWar. A gentler person than Lilian would behard to irnagine; I can see her as being inJ. B. Priestleyts rnind (along with HerbertRead) when he voiced his views on a BBCradio prograrrrrne called "The Gent1e Anarch-istsrr years ago. It was Lil.ian who first rnaderne think about vegetarianisrn and I can recallher laugh when I adrnitted rny dilficulty wasthat I like rneat. The wornents lib paper Shrewdevoted two pages recently to Lilian W-"ff.l.raone should knou,that she still works {or theWar Resisters International at 90 odd and thatJean and Tony Srnythe accornrnodate her intheir house. I rnention this because rny quar-re1 with pacifists is ideo1ogi.cal, not personal.Their exarnple is not lightly to be disrnissedand we need thern to rernind us of their posi-tion when others pu1l in opposite directions.

From there we step onto rnore contentiouspaths: to those who have shaped Freedomsince the war. Four editors of Freedorn,after the split in the libertari..rIoiGJnt .tthe end of the war, were arrested and triedfor offences associated with suggesting sol-diers should not give up their arrns on beingdemobbed frorn the services. Sorne charit-able people suggest that the split in the rnove-rnent caused a requirernent for a dernonstra-tion ofthe Freedorn grouprs convictions. Thisdoes not bear up to exarnination: the plaintruth seerns to be that personal squabbles hadoccurred after actions which rnight have led toarrest had been taken rnany tirnes during thewar. \Yhatever the case Vernon Richards,John Hewetson, Philip Sansorn and MarieLouise Berneri were tried for causing disaf-fection among rnernbers of HM Forces underDefence Regulation 39,{. The three rrren re-ceived prison sentences of nine rnonths but onthe technicality that Marie Louise was Rich-ards' wife and thus could not conspire with herhusband, she was acquitted.

Herbert Read in a courageous speech afterthe conviction of the three rnen deliberatelybroke Regulation 39A again when he declaredpublicly: 'rLet the nation rernain a people inarfrs - stick to your arrns, we say to the

ta

people, rather than deliver thenr lilj i r, .1 :i! '

gang which takes it upon itself tL, s1r,..ii' rn the,narne of a new State. I' Read trr rk, t irr. lauwith rrgieat pleasure.. only to shr,v* lir.rt r. .rr,by no rneans intimidated by u,hat has happr'nt"rl.. . 'W'e are not rnoved one inch f ronr ourcourse'r. Justice Birkett at thr.i.ri;,rl went sofar as to describe the anarchist.. ;-i r. of thehighest character and said he was quite pre-pared to believe they were actuated by thehighest rnotives. (See "Freedorn: Is it aCrirne ? ", two speeches by Herbert Read. )

Marie Louise Berneri and Ceorge Woodcockcontinued to edit Freedorn until the others werereleased. W-oodcock has written of this periodin his recent biography of Read The Strearn andthe Source, for it was Read, George Orwelland Woodcock who were prorninent in the Free-dorn Defence Cornrnittee that not only defendedthe Freedorn editors but becarne a body whichprovoked the National Council for Civil Liber-ties to sorne extent.

IIve never rnet John Hewetson and the tragicdeath of Marie Louise occurred before rnytirne, although her spirit Iives on in her mGm-orable book Journey Through Utopia, butPhilip Sansom and Vero Richards I have metand their devotion to anarchisrn could not bequestioned. Philip Sansorn is a great oratoras anyone who has heard hirn, on {orrn, inH1.de Park knows - his position is closer t<:syndicalisrn than the othcrs intirnately con-rected with Freedorn Press; indeed he workedon a paper called The Syndicalist r,r'ith Albert-\ieltzer for a while and I rernember his ap-pearance with the two chief opponents of theFreedorn Croup - Torn Bro-,x.'n and Ken Hawkes- at one of those July mernoriaLs to the Spanishrevolution arranged by the Syndicalist WorkersF ed er ation.

To those who were not part of the split ofthe Anarchist Federation of Britain the episodeis a rnystery" Suffice to say 1 donrt know forsure realIy what happened or why, but Irrnunder the irnpression it had a fair arnount todo with a personality conflict between Richardsand Brown. As with his cornpanion MarieLouise, Verors father originally carne frornItaly and was also the child of a rnilitantanarchist (his father was a close cornradeof Malatesta). Marie Louisers father CarnilloBerneri was assassinated by Cornrnunists inSpain during the civil war in I937 and Vero

3t

with Marie Louise carne to Britain to inspirethe rather redundant anarchist rnovernent and

set uo Spain and the World. This is irnportantbecause Freedorn clairns a continuous publica-tion frorn 1886 when the paper was founded by

Charlotte Wilson and Kropotkin - i:r-fact be-tween the I920s and 1935 there was littleanarchist propagandist activity and it is reas-onable to insist that the publication of Spainand the World was a fresh irnpact on thei archist scene. Yet it was a significantirnpact as was the in{luence of the war PaPerof ihe group entitled War Cornrnentarv whichthey edited with Torn Brown and AlbertMeltzer. Figures like Herbert Read, GeorgeOrwell, Alex ComJort and George Woodcockbecarne part of the libertarian rnilieu and theyoung Jorno Kenyatta was persuaded to con-

tribute to the anarchist press. Working classsyndicalists developed vital industrial con-tacts and the Anarchist Federation of Britainwas undoubtedly on the social and politicalrnap at the end of the war. The split, how-

ever, with its violence and bitterness (corn-rnented on by Ethel Mannin fictionally l1'-l ilComrade O Cornrade) created a situation whichir*"t Ui.ations even today. Ken Hawkes ano

Torn Brown, who set up the Syndicalist Work-ers Federation and published Direct Action,later World Labour News and Direct Actiononce rncre' were on good terrns with somegroups of Spanish refugees - thought by sorne

to be the Spanish refugees who had "cornpro-rnisedtr - and whenever I visited their office Ican vouch for a fraternity in the operation oftheir paper which rnany have felt to be lackingwith Freedorn. I rernernber WynJord Hickst"ltittg rt. terd been asked to write the head-

line for the paper the first ti-rne they had everrnet hirn and I was part of editorial decisionsat any tirne I bothered to go to their srnalloffice. Thinking back it is interesting to note

that Tony Srnythe, Wynford Hicks, BiIl Chris-topher, Nicolas Walter and I all contributed

"rti"I"" to the SWF publications with Torn

Brownr s fascinating pages frorn working classhistory. We have this link with the SWF along

with Colin Wilson who prior to writing The

O..tsider was often falling off the S'WF platformin Hyde Park.

Vernon Richards and Torn Brown were

never the best of friends. In a cloak of suP-

posed innocence I once suggested to Richardsthat Torn Brown would give a useful workingclass angle iJ he could be persuaded to writefor Freedorn. The reaction was unJavourable

and I recall being reminded of things that haP-pened when I ttwas in short pants" with yetanother tale to add to the list of "what hap-pened at the.tirne of the split't. Those who

have worked with Vero have a great respectfor hirn and there is no doubt that he has spenta lot of tirne working for the journal - his twobooks Lessons of the Spanish Revolution(praised by Chomsky) and MalatePta - His Lifeand Ideas (praised by The Tirnesl) -are

out-

"t"trairrg contributions to the anarchist rnove-

rnent on an international scale and his weeklyeditoriats in the sixties in Freedorn (usefullyavailable in Freedom selections) were as vig-ourous and engaging as it is possible to be'Before we get to disagreernents it is as wellto rnake it clear that I think hers a great rnanand lrrn aware that I'rn not alone with thisopinion.

The other figures attached to Fgeedorn Itveknown are Colia Ward, Jack Robinson, TonyGibson and Frances Sokolov. Itve rnet RitaMilton, Johl Rety and others but Itd say theonlv forrner editor of Freedorn Irve knownwelt is Jack Stevenson. Colin lf,ardrs contri-bution in editing Anarchv for ten years looksrnoie and rnore forrnidable every tirne I referback to Past issues of the rnorrthly. It wasduring its hey-day that Anarchv began toachieve the influence of the earlier anarchistpublications of the 1940s. Tony Cibson, who

iras not as yet produced anything on anarchisrnwhich dernonstrates his real ability, is the

orthodox Psychologist to put against the Reich-ian influence within anarchist circles (or'should I say boxes ? ). I can recall beingtouched and surprised when Tony gleefullyshook rny hand after a rneeting at which Jack

Robinson, Rita Milton, Dona1d Roourn, PhilipSansorn and I had spoken. Shaking rny hand he

just said 'tThank you"; as rny contribution had'

i fuittty recollect, been pretty slight and veryrninor in such cornpany, I was a bit non-

plus s ed..

Arthur Uloth and Peter Turnet are' of

course, two other stalwarts and I suppose

Nicolas Walter's part of the sarne crowd'

Peter Turnerrs the syndicalist fiJth columnist

in fr..ao",rrs midst but the cyriics think hets

*"IiGali-.ontr ol, Artbur I s the wide-rangingliberal and rnore of Nick'Walter later'

So whatrs wrong? You rnay well ask' Per-

haps itrs concentrated inthis: - Duringthetirne Irve written for Freedo4g''at tirnes frorn

Rhodesia when I did so at sorne personal risk,also as IGli and other pseudonyms whilst acomrnunity relations officer prejudicing rnyernploymel.r1, al..var,,..s as a person prepared tocriticise or praise feLlow anarchists and will_ing to question anarchic conventional wisdorn,over this period now amounting to fifteenyears lrve never been asked if I'd like to helpedit the paper. Now, I would have refusedsuch an offer in any case and before refusingwould have asked a lot of pertinent questions;if Itd been an editor Ird have dissented frornallowing Jack Robi-r.:.sonrs views on the AngryBrigade to be printed rvhen they were andwould have j.nsisted on cuttilg some of Nick'W'alterrs w'riting on the sarne rnatter. IndeedI have been shocked by reading a 1etter pub-lished in the Arnerican anarchist paper Match,lfrorn Freedornrs editors which in one sentenceclairns it does not print abusive Ietters and inanother with no evidence, and groundlessly,abuses those in Britain who are supposedlygetting young people sent to jaiI. IncidentallyFreedornrs editors clairn they have receivedlitt1e criticisrn for their appalling record onthe Angry Brigade whilst in Freedorn (g,IZ,72)they write of ,trnany cornrades,, arinoyed by theso-called critical support shown by Freedornfor the Stoke Newington Eight. As regardsabuse i:r Freedorn M. C. was able to abusethis writer in its colurnns recently withouthindrance - although I would not personallyobjec\to being abused since it tends to dis-'credit the other party.

During the tirne f tve been associated withl3--!"", Irve seen editors corne and go - oneor two recently very rapidly whose contribu-tion to the paper is perhaps best described asbrief. When it is realised that such editors

25

can turn down articleE frorn regular contrib-utors to Freedorn I think it would be unimagin-ative to ignore the poesibility of rererfment.

Now, to avoid misunderstanding let me bequite clear: (a) f ao not want to be an editor ofFreedorn and am not writing this because ofsorne personal grudge. (b) tuty contribution isby no rneans irnrnense and consists alrnost en-tirely of writing articles; Itve seldorn been torneetings or conferences.. W'hat I do rnaintainis that a paper like Freedorn should have atIeast enquired, at sorne stage, about how Itdfeel about being an editor sirnply frorn thepoint of view of the paperts developrnent.

This poirrt I arn rnaking is irnportarf be-cause it does not just apply to rne but to quitea nurnber of other cornrades and it Iends cred-ence to the view that Freedorn is run by anelite of "special people't who are rather abovethe average throng of rank and fi.le anarchists.

This I deplore, since rny place is alwayswith the rank and file and I dislike all thosewho set thernselves up as being superior. Irecall a disagreernent with Vero Richardsabout Freedom being calIed the anarchistweekly, since there are other we'eklies evenif not in the English language.

Recently tr'reedorn has cornpletely alien-ated a fair section of active anarchists inBritain, rnostly young, rnostly working class,who have established a nurnber of periodicals:Black Flag, Libertarian Struggle, Black ?ndRed Outlook, Inside Story, Anarchv - alt lib-ertarian, none friendly to Freedorn and it isrnost encouraging to have anarchist viewsavailable frorn a nurnber of sources. Yetthese events have largely occurred as a reac-tion frorn Freedorn because the paper wasfailing the anarchist rnovernent.

In the last few rnonths Freedorn has takento publishing letters which other papers havechosen not to print - one which Tilne Out infact used and a telephone call *iffiaG ."-tablished that they were going to do so. It isworth rnentioning because if anyone collectedtogether the letters not published by Freedornit would take several volurnes to facilitate pub-lication. It is not.'rny practice to keep copiesof letters very often but I can rernernberthree particular tirnes when Freedorn has notpublished letters of rnine *hiEaEaused

26

sorrre consternatioi on rny part. Both JackRobinsonrs articles on the Angry Brigade,which between thern were possibly the rnostdisgraceful writings ever attributed to ananarchist in Britain, received replies fromrny pen. Neither appeared, but I was allowedto criticise Nick Vy'alter whose views the edi-tors of Freedom share as they publicly statein their letter to Matchi. Nickrs articlesnever sank to Robinsonrs level but whilst Nickhas disclairned any association with Robinsonrspieces he has failed to do rnore. The Cuardianpublished a vehernent attack on an editorial intheir paper about the Angry Brigade by Nick -"Once again the Guardian has disgraceditself.. .'r - strong words which the Guardianfairly published; rnilder criticisrn of Freedorneditorials has bitten the dust rnany tirnes.

The third exarnple of Freedomts non-publication consists of a reply to N. W.rsclaim that he had criticised the Angry Bri-gade but had never attacked those standingtrial as the Stoke Newington Eight. Nick,who was once arrrong those not wholly disas-sociated frorn the Angry Young Men and whosepowers of rnemory after irnbibing alcoholleave sornething to be desired, is a very con-fused individual. Trialists at the Stoke New-i.ngton trial expressed sympathy u'ith the AB,in the public rnincl (rightly or wrongty) theywere seen as the Angry Brigade and the posi-tion of N. W. and Freedorn subverted thespirit of those who were supporting peoplefaced with 15 or 20 years in prison iJ convic-ted. Whilst this sniping was going on ESSggrnclairned to be assisting the Stoke NewingtonDefence Comrnittee. In order that in the{uture and internationally today anarchistsshall know that Fteedorn has been discredi,ted

within the anarchist rnovernent we rnust writethese words and publish thern.

I have said little of Jack Robinson and hiscornpanion Mary Canipa but Itve eeen Jackcarting Freedorn around London for rnany ayear and I know that to him anarchisrn is avision and his entire life. But his toleranceof those he considers 'rthe enemies of anarch-isrn'r is not great - J suppose if such peoplewere enerrries this would not be surprising;what is surprising rather is the use of sucha description.

So, is Freedorn run by an elite who are outof touch and steadily grinding to a halt? Is theinitiative of anarchisrn in Britain passing awayfrorn Freedorn to a nurnber of other sources?Ird say 'ryes'r to both those questions. In theeditorial celebration of the so-called 70 yearsof Freedorn Press in I955 the editorial inrebutting Ceorge Woodcockrs defeatisrn quotesa paragraph frorn Herbert Readrs Anarchy andOrder in which Read refers to his earlyessays: rrI have not atternpted to give an airof caution to the irnpetuous voice of youth. In-deed, I now envy those generous occasions".The editorial asks "Is the judgernent of rniddleage all that rnuch rnore reliable and objectivethan the '!apocalyptic enthusiasrn' of onersyouth ?'l

I have one final question. Should the ener-gies and finances of anarchists be now devotedto building the ilfluence of the libertarianjournals other than Freedom? I hope Irveshown that it is not bitterness, personalgrudge or dislike that leads rne to answerin the affirrnative, but an awareness of therequirernents of the future.

Jerry We stall

The following letter frorn the editors of theAnarchist weekly newspaper FREEDOM' is a

reply which had been solicited by THE MATCHconcerning certain allegations being rnade byMarcus Graharn. Specifically those allegationswer e:

(i) That Freedom Press had attacked thedefendants just as the latter were about to goto triaI,

(2) That the editors of FREEDOM sup-ported such an attack.

(3) That FREEDOM had suppressed all

pr()t('sts .,'r lii. ii .111;I('k",(4) Tlr..t i !:,. llritish ;ruthorities prosecuting

the case \L'cre able to 'ruse'r the FREEDOMarticle rragainst'r the accused, in sorne inex-plicable way,

(5) That because the defendants were ontrial, this was ipso facto cause to believe thatthey actually had carried out the bornbingswith which they were accused, and therefore,cause to proclairn thern rtheroes'r.

The staternent by the FREEDOM editorscorroborates entirely our belief that theattack on FREEDOM by Marcus Graharn wasbased upon fanciful or faulty appraisal of thefacts, and that therefore THE MATCH was inevery way justified in declining to print theunsubstantiated and baseless attack.

FREEDOM PRESSI STATEMENT

Editor:

In view of the attacks upon us that arebeing rnade in the United States the editors ofFREEDOM wish to rnake it clear that:

1) In the April 22nd issue, in the article onthe Angry Brigade by Nicolas Walter, to whichexception has been taken, the point was madeby the writer, with which the editors concur,that the carnpai.gn of bornbing did harrn ratherthan good.

rrlt can surely be argued, rr wrote N. W.,rrthat the Angry Brigade, far frorn represent-ing (let alone sornehow being) the rnovernent,has actually alienated itself frorn the rnove-rnent by its rnethods, and has indeed injuredthe movernent by opening it up to internal dis-trust and division and to external pressureand persecution. "

There is no suggestion that the StokeNewington Eight were rnernbers of the AngryBrigade however.

2) When a writer in FREEDOM puts hisnarne, pseudonyrn, or initials at the bottorn ofhis article it rneans he takes responsibility forit. OnIy unsigned articles represent the viewsof the editors as a group, and such articlesare rare. Nevertheless the editors do, inthis case, share the views of N. 1{.

3) We have not had rrnurrerousrr letters ofprotest as a result of the 22nd of April article.

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4) So far as we know the governrnent pros-ecution rnade no use of the ZZnd of April arti-cle, nor do we see how they could.

5) The defendants were brave. They didnot clairn to be heroes. They clairned thatthey were innocent. We believe they werearrested because of their associations,Stuart Christie because of his Spanish ex-ploit rnany years ago, not because of anythingthey did. The condernnation of four and theacquittal of four was purely arbitrary. Theidea uas to frighten people away frorn revolu-tionary ideas,

One cannot clairn they were heroes trecausethey sought to resist the State with violence,if in fact they did nothing of the kind.

\\-e believe that today there is a rornanticcult of violence developing on the Left, as wellas on the Right. We fear lest it clajrn rnorevictirns. But perhaps it is heroes and rnartyrsthat the rornantics want. If so we feel that itis irnpossible to condernn too strongly thewicked irresponsibility of these people whoare encouraging this cult (often they are quiteold, interestingly enough), and getting youngpeople sent to jai1.

THE FREEDOM EDITORSJack Robinson Peter Turner John Brent

The above letter frorn the editors of Freedornu,as printed by The Match, an anarchist paperin the States. Previous to printing this letterThe Match had printed a fuI1 page editorial inreply to Marcus Graharnrs letter.

Along with everybody else in the rnove-rnent, I donrt know what Marcus Graharnwrote in his letter, because the Match editor-ial and Freedorn'ls letter ,r. r"frllTo .letter WHICH THEY HAVE NEVERPUBLISHED. I suppose it is easier toattack ideas which you do not allow anybodyto hear first hand.

28

Pive of the rnost relevant writings to whatrnight be terrned Post-68 Anarchisrn arereviewed below. Thete have been other bookswhich are not mentioned but those below coverbetween thern areas of anarchist thought whichare grappling with anarchisrn here and now,rather than with Spain thirty years ago o"Russia sixty years ago (although this is not tode-cry such subjects). The contention.ofanarchists is that we not only rnake a rnean-ingful irnpact on the world but that out analy-sis is the only one to get to those core sub-jects of libertarian thought: the State and

individual freedom, coupled with the organi-sation of collective life which eschewaauthoritarian methods of behaviour. AprilCarterrs pabifism, Colin Wardre wideranging libertarianism, Guerinrs invllvementwith organisational questions, Bookchinreserninal and daring revolutionary ecology,Meltzer and Christiers gut anarchism - theyall have their contribution to make. Book-chinrs Post Scarcitv Anarchisrn is probablythe rnost brilliant alrrong thern but to obtai:ra flavour of Anarchy today one needs to teadtherr aI1.

Anarchv in Action (Al1en & Unwin f l. 75) byColin'Ward

The editor of the 'roId Anarchyrr for ten years,Colin Ward, has collected together a nurnberof his articles along with sorne which he previ-ously wrote for Freedorn. It is a useful bookwhich justifies the anarchist credo in terrns ofreferences to rnany sources, a good nurnbernon-anarchist, and which points to the desira-bility of organising society without authority.

A nurnber of vital areas are covered and thesections on planning, housing, school and playare particularly good. However, there is avery bad ornission in the lack of a discussionon violence/non-violence and the class strug-gle which is all the rnore striking for theobvious regard shown for presenting anarch-isrn as a tenable philosophy for the presentworld. Albert Meltzer and Stuart Christie atleast tackle these issues in their book Flood-gates of Anarchy (Sphere 35p), which repre-sents the guts of anarchisrn as CoLin W'ardrepresents the cerebral lobes. It would be

well worthwhile to use Anarchv in Actionalongside Floodgates of Anarchv for they atethe bedrock of rnuch anarchist post-68 theory.

Colin 'W'ard, perhaps lacking the eruditionof Kropotkin, the fire of Bakunin or the ilcis-ive wisdorn of Malatesta, does none the leesprovide a substantial source for the frrturedeveloprnent of rnodern anarchisrn. The tra-dition of British libertarian thought that hasdwelt on the twin attributes of Herbert Readaud Alex Corn{ort is given a jolt which bringsour subject down to earth and gains an air ofpractical reality that is good to see. 'W'e

should not underestirnate the hard work andvalue of such an exercise.

Personally I donrt think either Colin Wardrsbook or the Meltzer/Christie one are ae out-standing as Readrs Anarchv or Otder esaayeor Cornfort'"Modern State but they are inrl'crtail to Blitishanarchisrn and deserve to be widely read.

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Jerry Westall

Direct Action and Liberal Dernoi:rac(Routledge & Kegan Paul f,1.40) by AprilCarter

ApriI Carter, whose earlier book The politicalTheorv of Anarchisrn was a "orrrp"Ei--achievement, has not accornplished a sirnilartarget with this long diatribe on the argurnentfor non-violent'direct action. Like rnany pac-ifists she adopts a position on direct actionwhich ensures the rninirnurn of rniddle-classcriticisrn. Although direct action rrrnust bedistinguished frorn constitutional and parlia-rnentary styles of activity'r and the rnajorinfluence is deerned to be anarcho-syndicalisrnit has nothing to do with "arrned insurrection'land sabotage is rra borderline case',. AprilCarter is honest enough to adrnit rtthe reasonsfor adopting non-violence can stern frornweakness and an accornpanying prudence;frorn a desire to prove respectability and wirrliberal syrnpathy; frorn a concern to tone downthe rnilitance of direct action in order to pla-cate public opilion". The feeling that MsCarter looked ilto the rnirror as she wrotethose words is urrrnistakable as one picks apath between the Black Panthers, studentactivists and the Angry Brigade. The "AB inBritai-n, Baader-Meinhoff in Gerrnany arernore rerniniscent of the anarchist 'propagandaby deedr than of a genuine guerrilla rnovernentttand guerrilla warfare also is not the sort ofdirect action Ms Carter includes in her def-inition of the terrn.

Extraordinary as it rnay seert for sorneonewho states that I'the anarchist and syndicalisttraditions are perhaps the earliest, but rnostcontinuously significant, contributibn to thepresent theory of direct acti.onrt there is notone rnention of anarcho-syndicalisrn in Spainand although condernrr.ation abounds for BlackPower tacticians there is no rnention of resist-ance by direct action in Southern Afrj.ca. AprilCarter is content to comrnent that ,,terror,, isI'the psychological counterpart of violentaction'r - whatever that rneans and seerns toadvocate the unarrned slaughter at Sharpevilleas it won so rnuch syrrrpathy for the Africannationalist cause.

29

Anarchisn+ (Monthly Rer..':erz I-,..ess f l. i0) byDaniel Gu6rin, introduction by Noah Chornsky

This booh is well worth reading, probably thebest of the books titled Anarchv or Anarchisrn.As the author clairns in the prefa..l,i:lru r"rd",will be presented in turn with the rnain con-structive themes of anarchisrn and not withpersonalitiesrr. In fact the book is really intwo rnain parts, the first a study of the con-structive thernes, the theory and basis ofanarchisrn. He quotes directly frorn proud-hon, Bakunin, Stirner, Malatesta, Voline andSantillan. The second the practice: theRussian Revolution L)L7, ItaTy after 191g, theSpanish Revolutiorr I 936.

The book starts with the staternent that allanarchists are socialists but all socialists arenot anarchists. Gu6rin hirnself obviously pre-fers the terrn libertarian socialist to anarchistas .it is far rnore self-explanatory. He keepsthe issues clear and unrnuddled, by concen-trating on the rnain thernes and not gettingsidetracked by the personalities thus the rnes-sage cornes across clearly. One is alwaysaw'are the basic choice is Libertarian orAuthoritarian. One the status quo, the otherthe alternative.

Anarchisrn rnakes rnany points that areirnportant in todayrs struggle but above all theone that cornes over clearer than the others isthe irnportance of rernernberilg the socialistpart of anarchisrn. The necessity of beingactive within the class struggle, within thearea now covered by the trade unions and theCP. In a very powerfully argued sectj.on ofthe book, Gu6rin points out that when firstdivorced frorn the working class, anarchisrnsplit into cliques and even accused Bakunin ofhaving been 'rtoo coloured by Marxisrnr'. Heshows .cl.early that when anarchisrn has beeninvolved with the rnass working class rnove-rnents, its words and theory have been accep-ted and always led into a rnass upsurge ofrevolutionary spirit, However today the factis that all trade unions represent authoritarianorganisation; the factory worker of today isface.l by authoritarian organisation at everyturn, the firrn, the union, the CP etc. Noalternative is in sight. The book is involvedthroughout with workers I control (rnanagernent/councils ).

Tirere is no doubt that today workersr par-;ipation is a popular issue, the Labour

Jerry W'estall

3U

Pa1ty, the Liberal Party, etc. all give it lipservice, but without a libertarian structure,the authoritarian will corrupt even workersrcontrol until it is no rnore revolutionary thanthe annual wage dernand and strike.

In case I have given a too one-sided 1ook atCu6rinrs book, it is worth saying he has a con-structive look at Stirner, putting hirn in con-text. Stirner does not go uncriticised for hisexcesses, but he shows Stirner to be the greatthinker he undoubtedly was, and surns Stirnerup by saying 'rhis entire work was a .search fora synthesis, or rather an requilibriurnr be-tween concern for the individual and theinterests of society, between individual powerand collective powertr.

His ending on workerst control in Algeriaand Yugoslavia was I thought optirnistic andunconvincing.

As an introduction to anarchisrn, there isin rny opinion no better book; as a guide or abook to rernind you of the basics it is wellworth the effort of reading.

f'loodgates of Anarchv (Sphere Books 35p),by Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer

There are a great rnany books on socialisrnand anarchisrn which are totally unreadable;rnany authors conceal their rneaning as i.f theywere writing in code to avoid persecution bythe authorities, and rnaybe in a sense theyare. \{hen they write on rnarxisrn they clairnto be giving a progralrurre for the workingc1ass, written in language no worker couldunderstand - and which he would reject i-f hedid. In a sense such authors airn at a dictat.orship by the educated and sorne clairn thatbecause the worker could not read or writein the language of the econornists he cannotby hirnself obtain his liberation.

Vfhen it cornes to anarchisrn the tenderrcy isto write in grand oratorical phrases (certainlyamong Spanish writers) which can be r:lder-stood well enough, but have the rnerit ofrneaning p::ec isely nothing.

The rrclassicalrr anarchist writers wrotesirnply enough about the problerns of eocial-ism, but there is very tittle one can think of

written in the language of today about theproblerns of today to explain anarchisrn, iterelevance and how it can be achieved.

This is done in Floodgates of Anarchw bvStuart Christie

""a@appearing in Spanish with the titLe Anar-quisrno v lucha de clases - Arrar.hlilandClass Struggle) which not only lucidly ex-plains anarchisrn, but casts a clear lighton other politicat views.

Many of the problerns of revolution can beevaded by speaking in the language of econor-rl-ics or of idealisrn. By writing in the 1anguageof everyday life, they have produced a bookerninently readable and one that carries apunch. The chapter on rtviolence and Terror-isrnrr shouLd sweep away a lot of cobwebs -how rrany tirne.s do we hear 'tviolencerldenoulced when it is clear that what isdenounced is only Irthe violence the Statedeplores'r and not the violence the Statepractise sl

In the book Christie and Meltzer aresornetirne s witty, s ornetirne s bitter, sorrr€-tirnes sarcastic - but they are always honestwith their readers, hiding nothing behind ob-scure language, but ruthlessly analysing

. class society and giving an uncomprornisinganarchist answer. I have worked with bothcornrades in the Anarchist B1ack Cross sincerny release frorn prison (and knew Christieeven before then) and I rnay be prejudiced...but I also know the forceful irnpact this bookhas had on rnany who have read nothing elseexc ept rnarxist rnystification or lib ertar ianflights of oratory, and been repelted by thefotrner and not well satisfied by the latter.They answer too what one should ask of awriter: that he does not shrink in li{e frornthe views he puts on paper.

Miguel Garcia

Post Scarcity.A{rarchisrn (Rarnparts press,San.Francisco, 1971, paperback t1.50), byMurray Bookchin. Including rrListen Marx-istl I r, rrEcolo gy and R evolutionary Thoughtt r,

and other essays on the abolition of power,

This book Like rnost of the relevant llteratureon todayrs problerns cornes frorn Arnerica and

the 'rArnerican Experience'r; as Bookchin eays'rthe centre of the social crisis in the latetwentieth centu::',, is the United States ...Here:, too, is tire centre of the world counter-revolution - and the centre of the socialrevolution that can overthrow hierarchicalsociety as a world-historical systern.'l

The book gives a vision of future societybased on criticisrns of todayrs society andthe dernands of youth; it could be calledUtopian. It adds rnuch to revolutionary theoryanci praxis, but as Bookchin.says rrwhat justi-fies rny Utopian ernphasis is the nearly total

REVIEW

rlnternrnentl (An.,'il Books 75p distributed byRising Free, 197 Kings Cross Road, LondonWCl)by Joirn McCuffin

This is both a personal experience of intern-ment in Northern Ireland and a useful histor-ical resurne of the use of internrnent throughoutIreland over the last fifty years. We have alsodetailed records of escapes frorn prison byIrish nationalists and sorne extrernely ilter-esting and va-luab1e source rnaterial whichshould be essential reference to any objectiveaccormt of rnodern Irish history. Finally comea description of the Civil Resistance rnove-rnent in Northern Ireland, accounts of the useof torture, devastating analysis of the patheticCompton report on the torture allegations, awithering look at the rnedia and Iast of all ahalf alternpt to present the picture at the tirneof writing (March 1973).

Throughout the reading of the book one isobliged to keep a finger in the authorts veryextensive notes and it is a rnost irritatingfeature of the book as the notes are quiteessential to the passage of the book. Irrn

31

lack of material on the potcntial'ties of ourtirne.rr Though a lot of the eaeayt havo beenavailable in England indivldually they corn-bine together to fill, ot rtart to fill, that gap.The book ahould not be rcad as a terlcl ofessays but as an entitcty, for that ia what itis. I have one criticism, and that is hir fatthin the affinity group as now practised.

The book is easily the rnost irnportant,relevant and futuristic reviewed in this sec-tion, and the issues .raised deserve far rnorediscussion than they have had. R.B.

Magilligan watch tower manned by armed guards.

sure rnany notes could have been satisfactorilyintegrated into the book and footnotes rnighthave then been added on the actual page towhich they referred.

Sorne sections of the narrative are out-standingly good, notably the first chapterwhere John McGuffin describes his own arrestand detention without trial, and the descriptionof the Civil Resistance rnovernent, with theexpos6 of the Cornpton report being quite bril-liant. Other chapters tend to bore sirnply bythe relation of lists of narnes and escapesalong the lines of any war book. (To thosewho argue that there is a war I'd agree but Idontt think war is very interesting. )

That said, anarchists shoutd read thisbook. It is the nearest vre have to a libertar-ian lrish voice that knows whatrs going on andunderstands the anarchist analysis of society.John McGuffin used to write for Freedornbefore the utterly appalling lt.tooEiIiTohe has the appeal of being sensitive to issueswe consider irnportant. His own views andproposals often corne across as near asidesthus it has been wrongly stated that the book

32

Iacks practical proposals since there is nornanifesto or prograrrune that clearly sets outa 'r1ine". But in the chapter on the rent andrate strikes the'author rnentions: rtThe

resistance carnpaign did not end internment,but it helped to bring down Storrnont. Evenrnore irnportant, with its resistance councilsit gave rnany people, for the first tirne intheir lives, the chance to see that they couldtseize the tirner; that they could exercise avery real rneasure of control over their jobs,their streets, their areas'r. Again on thernedia McGuffin writes: 'rIJnIess we are satis-fied with the systern today, so accurately des-cribed by Marcuse as rrepressive tolerancer,we rnust fight strenuously to wrest control of

the inJorrnation centres frorn the hands of thepersonally-rnotivated few and place thernfirrnly at the'disposal 6f. a11".

It has been saiil that the British Arrny inUlster is using the experience as a trainingground for what Kitson predicts is to be arevolutionary situation in Britain in 1975-80.'Whether this is fantasy or not John Mccuffintsbook enables us also to learn frorn the exPeri-ences of Northern lreland in preparation forany future struggles.

Jerry Westall

O +t o.+bear Si,rbscrrber/ rvrad lwrovrLh I arrrrchaw revo{^^+rlonarq I corar,ndz I itsfe,r/

brIner I agenY provcc4)l{.1^r I ,oJ cre.Al$or 'l.wnodrth bysfaatd* _,

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c. wavllg wr<.nr.b<.x- "k th- ft.lno.'rf^^{ Cotler-tw1 Y *f^,r,1 dort'k'qor,r, uwt[uctzwd hivrd or,tk t.:her. tf..a n€xk rvr.e-e-t-r,m.3 is..?

4a E Avrx(cH'1 Lc:; t-'cc1\v€ <

Attacking a person they have got isolated inside one of their; pnisons

another of their favounites in this line. They can move in fourteen or fifteenone if the p::isoner'is over, five foot.

.-::'.-e ls a picture ot OtDono:-an -.'s:=, ;;.-.::i :hey kept in ch:ins so rhal

he ha::: -a;::s bnead and skil.Iy off:ne j-::: :: -hatham Gao1.

--.e:eiving rthe treatmentl at t:e :-.:a:.: ::e Jolores Pr:'-ce, LIugh Feeney,

i:ar-a.- l:ice and Genard Ke}ly. These ic-: ..-=:=':==:,:r: hungcr strike since the Ii+'Lh

:i ),:.,'e:':er, deinanding transfer tc;r"1s::s i:.::.: l.:r"'ih of Ireland, in order tose.ve :heir life sen-cences near thei:' i:.:--:-i=. ::- ie-:ast.

Al-1 foun are seriously ill. i''-::. :==:.:,':.as had a heart att.rck and his

handwriting is so weak as io 5e =---.:s: -:.:=::::-:.So not being in too good health i.e: .'.=_:::i:: ::'.'E:.-.r-ent squares up'to the

challenge and is fo:rce feeding t:e:-. -:.-- ::..:: :'.:"rarouver carried out in orCer tosave their lives or irnpr,o.re thei: :..-=-::-, -,.-=:a a:e easier ways to do that.

Ior.ce ieedi::::s ::e::-:..:: -::,-:= a-:ed at breaking yourif it does not

:;. -..::r-: ..i:.: 'l :. :..: '--in irr Septembel- 1"17.._,_:a:;- -:a':) =-3 :-- a----a: ----a:==3 :-Si,3 l--- Ii,i '=:=I :aSPItaIr DUDI

'.!-1-:e: :'-:i::- :,.= :: --:":- l:-.'::,--:=---: =1"= ':- :c:ce feed:lng hunger strikers. )

::::= :e::1--. Z -= -. ..:,. - ' --' -=-:'-:-2 ;'cur- jaws open and pushing a thi-ck

ruicer:1:e :::::-- r"--: .:.:..---, :-::. -_--,-:'---; -:quid dovin it directly into your stomach.

l"lost pe:r-e ::e :--:-'- '-:=.---'-=-::--::1::., -:s1::q':he food just poured in, and endanger-

ing your liie as :.-.'::.=-'.': ::--. -. --":.':-:-r r:uoat and are being held down by warders.

A doctor ove:seei ::.i-. ..::.:-: _::ocedu:'e, a mernben of the same profession

who does not mind exper.i-;e:::----.r::::eascnably he;rlthy adults, but much prefers toexpeniment on mentally i-l ::.:-:::.--::- irrstirutions, cld peoplc in geriatric hosp-

itals or people ill- wiih chro::ic and iataf diseases.

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TO K}IOW THE ENEMY IS TO IIATE THEM.

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GO l/ E R N Al E N T /vt g C H I N F - G Lt N N E R. t N .c pU er Lq LLy W p. E C KE DR.OOA4 /N ONF OF THE .PC.qDEfrIIC FOUHD.qTTONS.

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A i ACHtNE-GUN CRELV /N-FCT/ON; WlrH NU/y,EROUSJq/ilvlUNtTtON BOXES srtCKED tN rHE FOREGROUND.

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i. , i. 'REructes, 'l/lrH THEIR. BEL?NGtNGS'.,. :, :,ir:;;,; QIJ\StOF -g BUILDING wR.ECKED BY Bo/t48.gR.DMENT.' . .:;

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