Workers Solidarity Movement

“Human nature being what it is, you could never have an anarchist society – not one in which both individual freedom and co-operation exist anyway”.  How often have people who are fighting for real change heard statements like that?

2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the National Confederation of Labour (CNT), a militant anarchist union in Spain.

When General Franco led his fascist revolt in 1936 workers rose up throughout the country, Where anarchist ideas were popular (as in Catalonia and Aragon) a social revolution occurred, showing that society could indeed function along anarchist lines. In hospitals, factories, mills, bus & train services, water & electricity, the workers of the CNT reorganised and administered production, distribution, and public services without bosses, managers, or the authority of the state.

 Thirty years on from the end of the dictatorship many people who suffered repression are still afraid to speak.  And that in part is because repression became a taboo subject for many families.  This of course is what the dictatorship wanted.

In July 1914, the Shanghai Association of Anarchist Communist Comrades published its statement of principles, concluding with the resolution that, "the implementation of anarchist communism depends on the strength of our party. If we wish to increase our party's strength, uniting as a whole body and advancing together is our most important task today. Wherever they are, all our comrades should unite with those who share the same purposes and establish groups in free association.” The key member of this group was a Chinese anarchist known as Shifu who was to die a mere nine months later. Although the group carried on after his death, the core concept of this paragraph was never to be implemented.

One of the best known French anarchists, Georges Fontenis, died on August 9th at the age of 90.

Our comrades of Alternative Libertaire described him as “an untiring fighter for libertarian communism, a supporter of the Algerian independence fighters, a trade unionist, one of the leading figures of May 1968 in Tours and a pillar of the Freethought movement”.   Until the very end he was also a member of Alternative Libertaire.

The ‘Manifesto of Libertarian Communism’ was written in 1953 by Georges Fontenis for the Federation Communiste Libertaire of France. It is one of the key texts of the anarchist-communist current. It was preceded by the best work of Bakunin, Guillaume, Malatesta, Berneri, the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists written by Makhno, Arshinov and Matt, which sprang from the defeats of the Russian Revolution, and the statements of the Friends of Durruti, also a result of another defeat, that of the Spanish Revolution.

Saturday the 29th of May saw the return of the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair to Liberty Hall. It is the 5th Bookfair to be held in the city and what started out as a small event in a community hall in the Liberties is now one of the landmark events in the calendar of the Irish left, organised by the Workers Solidarity Movement.

Saturday the 29^thof May saw the return of the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair to Liberty Hall. It is the 5^th Bookfair to be held in the city (organised by the Workers Solidarity Movement),and from what started out as a small event in a community hall in the Liberties is now one of the landmark events in the calendar of the Irish left.

The state is a central concept in the political philosophy of Anarchism. Anarchism is often defined as being an anti-state ideology. While this is sometimes a useful way to distinguish anarchists from other state socialists it also leads to a fair bit of confusion. We will look at the source of this confusion with the aim of showing that anarchism is in its essence opposed to rulers and is not a naive or idealistic form of anti-statism.