Workers Solidarity Movement

On this page we have archived educationals and talks given to WSM meetings dealing with the anarchist movement in general. Specific topics include arguments for political organising, analyses of contemporary prospects for revolution, travellers' accounts of anarchism in Africa and South America and others. Some of the pieces are useful only for historical purposes, but most are still relevant today. We hope you find it useful.

Prospects for Revolution - " We are living in a time of great change for the left...the statists have had most of a century to put their ideas into practice and they have failed miserably."
 Talk given by Andrew Flood to a WSM meeting in 1994.

The Tasks Facing Anarchists in Ireland - "...We do not confuse the response to injustice with injustice itself. However we say again and again that individual acts of violence are not the way to change society. It is not heroism, courage or audacity that are in short supply. What is lacking is a large working class movement armed with anarchist politics. And there is no substitute for such a movement."
 Speech by Alan MacSimóin to the Belfast Class Struggle Anarchist Group public meeting, (the other speaker was from the British Class War Federation) August 17th, 1991. Re-posted here for historical purposes, as well as the continued validity of many of the ideas expressed.

Organising for Anarchism - "In 1991 with four others I joined the WSM. At that time, the WSM was just two people, not very many. Why did I bother? I bothered because I realised that as an individual, there is very little I could do to win people to anarchism. I could try and try to convince friends and work mates, but generally that is a long and lonely process, and after a few months, or years, on my own I'd be burnt out. I didn't want my anarchism to be just pub talk. I wanted to turn my dreams into reality."
 Speech by Aileen O'Carroll at the WSM's 'Ideas and Action' Meeting, May 2002.

Anarchy and Organisation - "For anarchists the starting point about any discussion on organisation is our end-goal; a free egalitarian and self-managed society. Because we see means and ends as intrinsically linked, we try to foster as much of that end-goal in the here and now as possible. That means creating organisations that are run directly by those participating and that everyone has an equal say in how things are done."
 Speech by a WSM member to the Irish Social Forum 2004.

Building Anarchism in Ireland - "There are two choices. You can either be a participant or observer. You can either take part in the struggle, fight for what you believe in or you watch as others play games with your life."
 Speech by Aileen O'Carroll to a WSM public meeting in 2001.

The History of Anarchism in Ireland - "Irish anarchism has no historical tradition, as a movement it is only coming into existence. We do not yet enjoy the popular understanding of and respect for anarchist ideas that can be found among thousands of militants in countries like Sweden, Spain, France, Italy or Korea. But that is not to say that we have no history at all. We are beginning to uncover forgotten events..."
 Text of a talk given to a WSM meeting by Alan MacSimoin

Anarchism in South America - "There is a strong history of anarchist struggle in South America. Anarchist ideas were first brought to South America during the 1880's and 1890's through the influence of european immigrants. Anarchist ideas found fertile ground and during the first two decades of the 20th century anarcho-syndicalism was the most important current in the latin amercian labour movement."
 Information about the anarchist tradition in South America, talk given by Deirdre in 2001.

Anarchism in Africa
"...Despite these difficulties, there is good potential in Africa for the growth of anarchism. This is because in Africa people are much more open to new ideas about how society should be run than in the first world. Capitalist ideology is not nearly so deeply entrenched in the minds of people. In Africa the complete failure of capitalism to provide even the most basic necessities such as education, healthcare and even in many places water and food is blatantly obvious. People have to believe that there is an alternative way to organise society because the current system is unbearable."
 Observations about anarchism in Africa, a talk given by Deirdre in 2001.