Workers Solidarity Movement

The publication of No Logo was perfectly, if unintentionally, timed. Just as the N30 demonstrations in Seattle made headlines around the world, No Logo arrived to explain some of the reasons for that movement. So although Naomi Klein has made it clear that she is not an 'official' spokesperson for the movement - that this movement has no official spokespeople - at a time when observers (and even some participants) wondered what was going on, No Logo provided some answers.

No Logo - by Naomi Klein (Flamingo Press, ~ €14/stg£8.99)

It's good to know that more than porn and adverts for jobs exist on the internet. Coming fresh off the presses -"What is Anarchism - the anarchist FAQ" is the first pamphlet in a series that will attempt to answer all the questions that you wanted to know about anarchism but never got a chance to ask. This pamphlet is section A of the FAQ, the other sections are as yet only available on the internet.

A guide to 'The Organisational Platform of the libertarian communists'

The Friends of Durruti organisation, which arose from the ranks of anarchist militants during the Spanish Civil War, condemned the CNT and FAI members who joined the anti-Franco government. For their pains they were accused of wanting to establish an "anarchist dictatorship". Alan MacSimóin reviews the first English language book about them, and looks at the lessons to be learnt from Spain. The 'Friends of Durruti' appear in just about every book on the Spanish Civil War, especially in relation to the 1937 May Days in Barcelona. They get mentioned but we are told very little about their politics or activities. Some organisations, like the Workers Solidarity Movement, see their political stance as important to the tradition of revolutionary anarchism. Other anarchists, most notably sections of the syndicalist movement, condemn them for 'flirting with Bolshevism/Leninism/Trotskyism' or for 'advocating an anarchist dictatorship'. So who were they, where did they come from, what did they say, and what did they do?

Purchase's proposal for more ecologically integrated communities usually meets with most scepticism when it is imagined applied to cities. Even a relatively small city, like Dublin, is almost completely dependent on food from neighbouring regions, and its ecosystem is made up of cars, people and concrete. If a city like New York or Mexico was sealed off from the rest of the world, it would die within days; the only question is whether it would be from starvation or asphyxiation. Given the number of such large cities around the world, and the fact that, even if it were possible, given the size of the earth's population, for everyone to live in small towns and rural communities, many would not want to, how can cities be accommodated within an environmentally sound anarchist society?

At the beginning of Fight Club, the unnamed narrator is cracking up. His job is meaningless, his life is empty, and his attempts to fill it by accumulating stuff - Ikea furniture, Calvin Klein clothes - are failing. His constant travelling, and acute insomnia, mean he's no longer sure where, why, or who he is anymore.

Leninists are fond of quoting from the writing of Victor Serge, as a means of getting a libertarian rubber stamp for the actions of the Bolsheviks during the October revolution and the subsequent events. In his keynote article "In defence of October"[1] John Rees uses no less than 8 quotes from Serge's writings within the space of 70 pages. Poor old Lenin only managed to clock up 4 original quotes, while Tony Cliff's dubious interpretation of all these events manages to get more quotes in than one could possibly count. To a certain extent, what the Leninists of today are trying to tell us is that Serge was a practical man, and he knew that the only way for the revolution to succeed was to row in behind the Bolsheviks. So, with this in mind, we take a look at Serge's' autobiography "Memoirs of a Revolutionary".

Graham Purchase is one of the most prolific writers in the Australian anarchist movement, and in books such as 'Anarchist Society & its Practical Realisation', has made a serious contribution to the debate on the future of the anarchist movement, and how our ideas can best be put into practice today. Here, we review his latest book, 'Anarchism and Environmental Survival'.

IT HAD BEEN some time since I'd read any science fiction when my partner started buying the whole series chronologically. Once I read the first I was hooked. Banks has created a very attractive fictional society, the Culture. That it was instantly attractive and obviously anarchist is, perhaps, more interesting because the main character in Consider Phlebas, Horza, is antagonistic towards it. So, we see the first glimpse of this galactic anarchy through the eyes of one who has chosen to fight it.

• Consider Phlebas
• The Player of Games
• Use of Weapons
• The State of the Art
• Excession
• Inversions

A SURPRISING BEST SELLER last year was 'Stalingrad' by the same author. His publishers have obviously re-released this book, first published in 1982, to cash in on this. As you might expect, it is primarily a military history of the Spanish Revolution. But it is a very welcome break from the normal pattern of mainstream military histories of the Spanish Revolution. For the most part these fail to discuss the revolution within the civil war, the thousands of collectives or the role of the anarchists. If they are mentioned, they are usually portrayed as an obstruction to the efficient military pursuit of the war by the republican side.