Exploring American Anarchism

A closing message

2009-12-03T12:12:00.000-08:00

Some time has passed since my last update and I suppose a new post, or more appropriately a closing of past work, is perhaps in order. A bit of a warning though, I may go a good deal into some personal information, nothing about anarchists in 1889 or anything like that.

I feel as though I have grown quite a bit in the past year or so, I assume like most people. Changes in my attitude towards the world, something of a spirtual journey, and a change in my actions. These changes are ongoing, like all life, though by now I can already look back and recognize the transition.

Right now, I am in the process of purging myself of all destructive, unneccessary things, which comes as a result of this spiritual connection I am finding with nature and the environment, which I've long thought, but never really rocked my core until I've experienced ego-death/ego-loss as I have on a few occassions in the past number of months. I suppose if I were to explain this tendency, this spirtual feeling, it would come closest to Taoist ideas on life and the environment, though I believe even that definition can be limiting and destructive.

So I am taking an indefinite break from Anarchist history and am beginning a new blog on sustainability, green building, gardening, the environment, and all related topics.

In the coming years, I am attempting to seperate myself from all destructive tendencies; outside food-sources, a home built by destructive means, electricity (or at least that not generated by simple devices) which in turn would do away with television, microwaves, refrigeration, and even the blog that I'd be talking about all of this. Little that is on this planet today will live should people continue the lives we all have been living, which includes even the radical left and its high-philosophy of human nature. Even should the factories be collectivized and the workshops be communal, life can not continue down this road. My first post on my other blog will most likely be about this. So in closing, I leave with this message;

"Whatever befalls the Earth, befalls the people on the Earth. Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.” - Chief Seattle

http://sustaintoledo.blogspot.com/

More on the Russian Revolution

2009-08-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

"For the Anarchists declared, if 'power' really should belong to the soviets, it could not belong to the Bolshevik party, and if it should belong to that Party, as the Bolsheviks envisaged, it could not belong to the soviets." - Voline, Unknown Revolution

Within six-weeks of the October Revolution, all opposition parties were banned from the Soviets. This occured after an extended attack against the opposition, mostly in the gerry-mandered 2nd and 5th All-Russian Congresses. By 1920, the Bolsheviks were busy organizing outside worker-groups to combat the increasing level of disdain and "growing disenchantment of Petrograd workers with economic conditions and the evolving structure and operation of Soviet political institutions." (From "Bolsheviks in Power") A shrinking of party-membership apparently happened at this time.
http://anarchism.pageabode.com/anarcho/review-the-bolsheviks-in-power

Back to Toledo Grows... I wish I had the time to write!

"http://libcom.org/forums/history-culture/trotskys-history-russian-revolution-21102008"

"http://eng.anarchopedia.org/An_Anarchist_FAQ_-_Did_the_Bolsheviks_really_aim_for_Soviet_power%3F"

"http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/jul/04.htm"

Quotes for Marxism & Anarchism pt 2

2009-08-12T18:02:00.000-07:00

"It seems to me that this attempt to build a communist republic on the basis of a strongly centralized state, under the iron law of the dictatorship of one party, has ended in a terrible fiasco. Russia teaches us how not to impose communism." - Peter Kropotkin

Socialism is when "proletariat seized political power and turns the means of production into state property."- Engels

In the case of the Bolsheviki this tyranny is masked by a world-stirring slogan . . . Just because I am a revolutionist I refuse to side with the master class, which in Russia is called the Communist Party." - Emma Goldman

Until the 'higher' phase of communism arrives, the Socialists demand the strictest control, by society and by the state, of the amount of labor and of consumption - Lenin

In its struggle against the collective power of the propertied classes the proletariat cannot act as a class except by constituting itself a political party, distinct from and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes . . . The conquest of political power has therefore become the great duty of the working class. - Hague Conference, First International

"Communist Manifesto had already proclaimed the winning of universal suffrage, of democracy, as one of the first and most important tasks of the militant proletariat" - Engels, 1895

Marxism as Revolutionary-Reformism; Pt. 2

2009-08-10T13:18:00.000-07:00

--Table of Contents (probably will be reworked)-- I really can go two directions, a historical look, or a theoretical. I need a synthesis of the two, but how that will work, I'm not entirely sure. Perhaps get that through a lot at the beginning in the early debates? Hmm...

Introduction
History of Socialism & its varieties leading to The First International (Harsh reactions from the First International led to a lull in revolutionary organizing, brought back to life later on)
Paris Commune & the reworking of Marxist ideas
History of The State, a History of Capitalism (linked from the International by Engel's quote of the difference of the Anarchists and the Marxists)
Russian Revolution, Kronstadt, Makhnovists
The Socialist Labor Parties & the Reaction of the Communists
Spanish Revolution
Hungary, France, and today's Greece
An Attempted Synthesis

Other issues to discuss include:
The Problem with a Pure Economic Focus/ Economic Determinism (and a lack of a critique of hierarchy and the State) "The rule of heaven and the rule of nature – angels, spirits, devils, molecules, atoms, ether, the laws of God-Heaven and the laws of Nature, forces, the influence of one body on another – all this is invented, formed, created by society. Marxism is the new scientific Christianity, designed to conquer the bourgeois world by deceiving the people, the proletariat, just as Christianity deceived the feudal world. —Abba and V.L. Gordin, The Russian Anarchists (Nationalism and Culture, Chapter 1 touches on this idea a lot too)
The State (Marx may have wished to touch on this idea, though he died, so it didn't happen)
A Critique of Capitalist "Progress"
Reforming the State

Interesting essay for me to read later: http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/bio/robertson-ann.htm

Marxism as 'Revolutionary-Reformism' (work in progress)

2009-08-08T09:07:00.000-07:00

Belbaltlag; Soviet Labor Camp (GULAG) - 1932

Marxism as 'Revolutionary-Reformism'

Marx is long dead and the historical heirs of his theories have become bloated corpses of the mass worker movements they once were. The few still clinging to life have resorted to finishing what they began 150 years ago: destroying the radical-autonomous and revolutionary elements of the world's working-class.

In practically every single revolutionary moment, in every opportunity for the downtrodden to do away with their oppressors, Marxists of varying varieties have been at the forefront of reactionary, repressive deeds. This has placed Marxists at odds with many other socialists, from the parliamentary-reformists of the Labor and Socialist Parties, to the Libertarian wings of Anarchism, Council Communism, and even elements of Marxists.

(rework this shit)

This essay attempts to hammer one of the final nails in the coffin of 'Revolutionary-Reformism' by detailing its theories, its history, and its inevitable fall (not satisfied with that last sentence).

A Potential Warning

Detractors from this text are likely to find notes of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, or any other Marxist disputing that said claims. I suppose they may be somewhat correct. The problem with this view is much like the problem in debating Christians. Should anyone argue against the True One, snippets telling the opposite will be recited, regardless if the counter-argument would better anything aside from one-upping me. It is easy to find such thins when you have with you such contradictory elements of the same story. Where there is the God of Love, there is also the God responsible for the great floods and "how blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock." Where there is the libertarian Marx, "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready made State machinery and weld it for its own purposes" there also exists the tyrant Marx, "[the proletarian] must employ coercive measures, that is, governmental measures; so long it is still a class itself, and the economic conditions which give rise to the class struggle and the existence of classes have not yet disappeared and must be forcibly removed…"

Its internationalism, (by careful to not do away with 'internationalism though... need new wording) in theory was necessary to save the fleeting Soviet Republic. Instead, it became its own imperial force, spreading revolution itself. But rather than coming from the grassroots, it came down with an iron fist. (remember the soviets failed to spread revolution, when it had an easy chance, into Finland but stopped to create a pact with the Finland government, essentially doing away with the radical Finnish movement)
Even should the desire for a completely communal lifestyle exist, it is necessary for the preservation of the autonomous individual, to choose, to craft in one's own, the practice of freedom. Abusive relationships tend to create abusive tendencies, not so much a liberation of desires and the expansion of mutual aid.

When World War I began, many of the socialist parties resorted to a mainstream nationalism to their countries of origin, doing away with the previous goals of worker internationalism.

Even the Marxist sects focused on Workers Democracy remind us, "Without some form of state, how could the trains run on time, how could the harmonious development of the economy, of society that socialism represents be planned." http://www.marxist.com/marxism-state-apparatus-army-police1994.htm (There's another quote by Engels who said something similar; find it!)

(Obsession with Industrialism, Industry; created by capital!)

(For the history of the Paris Commune, http://question-everything.mahost.org/History/ParisCommune.html)

For me later: http://struggle.ws/rbr/rbr1_marxstat.html

Quotes for Marxism & Anarchism

2009-08-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

"A radical social revolution’ said Marx, “is connected with certain historical conditions of economic development; the latter are its presupposition. Therefore it is possible only where the industrial proletariat, together with capitalist production, occupies at least a substantial place in the mass of the people.’ Marx continues: ‘He [Mikhail Bakunin] understands absolutely nothing about social revolution ... For him economic requisites do not exist...He wants a European social revolution, resting on the economic foundation of capitalist production, to take place on the level of the Russian or Slavic agricultural and pastoral peoples ... Will power and not economic conditions is the basis for his social revolution."

"Bakunin maintains that it is the state which has created capital, that the capitalist has his capital only by the grace of the state. As, therefore, the state is the chief evil, it is above all the state which must be done away with and then capitalism will go to blazes of itself. We, on the contrary, say: Do away with capital, the concentration of the means of production in the hands of the few, and the state will fall of itself.’ - Engels

They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship — their dictatorship, of course — can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up. - Bakunin

"Anarchism or freedom is the aim, while the state and dictatorship is the means, and so, [for Marxists] in order to free the masses, they have first to be enslaved" - Bakunin

Nationalism and Culture; pt 1?

2009-08-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

"State capitalism, the most dangerous antithesis of real socialism, demands the surrender of all social activities to the state. It is the triumph of the machine over the spirit, the rationalization of all thought, action and feeling according to the fixed norms of authority, and consequently the end of all real intellectual culture." - Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture.

If ya'll don't know, the last quote was also Rocker, and if you didn't get the connection, I'm reading Nationalism and Culture right now. Probably one of the better books I've read in a long time. Basically, Rudolf Rocker, author of Anarcho-Syndicalism and Pioneers of American Freedom (a series of essays on a number of Americans such as Thoreau, Benjamin Tucker, William Lloyd Garrison; comparing and contrasting a number of liberal thinkers to the later N-American Anarchist movement; can't find a copy to save my life though). For a good overview of Nationalism and Culture, see the wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism_and_Culture) or most of the book found here (http://www.anarchosyndicalism.net/rocker/nc.htm).

I hope a later discussion on the topic. Though I do have three ideas that are also running through my head. At work I wrote (in my head) a perspective eulogy, talking about how without death, life could not exist (as well as the irony of being at a funeral for a person who spent their entire life giving life, only to have it taken away; sounds rough but I'm a weird one). The second is me fantasizing of a good lashing on the authoritarian strands of Marxism, taking in everything from Marx's theory of history to the rise and fall of the various Marxist camps (I think I'll close with some good words on the libertarian trends of Marxism though). Third is a theory I've been hammering out, mostly thanks to some personal conversation with someone, a few readings of Autonomist Marxist ideas, and the quote from yesterday (refresher: "The peoples owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength." -Rudolf Rocker) The third will probably be written first and I already had an argument/discussion with my mom about it (she seemed interested, I think). Also apart of that process is a discussion on the ongoing nature of revolutionary success and how it relates to a rise of tyrannical forces (worker groups led to fascism, successes of peasants and later unions gave way to "primitive accumulation" and later what N-Americans know as "globalization.")

2009-08-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

"The peoples owe all the political rights and privileges which we enjoy today in greater or lesser measure, not to the good will of their governments, but to their own strength."

Union of Russian Workers

2009-07-29T12:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.marxisthistory.org/history/usa/parties/urw/1919/0408-speer-unionrusworkers.pdf

"The Union of Russian Workers deny any form of power and Government because where Government begins, Revolution ends and where there is Revolution there is no place for Government."

--Preamble of the Union of Russian Workers--
Present society is divided into two opposing classes: the downtrodden Workers and Peasants, on the one side, producing by their work all the riches of the world; the rich people, on the other side, who have grabbed all the riches into their hands.

Many a time the Class of the Oppressed stood up against the rich parasites and their faithful servant and protector — the Government — to conquer its full Liberation from the yoke of Capitalism and Political Power; but every time it suffered defeat, not being fully conscious of its own final goal and means, by which victory can be accomplished, thus remaining only a weapon in the hands of its enemies.

The struggle between these two classes is being fought also at the present time and will end only when the Toiling Masses, organized as a class, will understand their true interests and will make themselves masters of all the riches of the world by means of a violent Social Revolution. Having accomplished such a change and having annihilated at the same time all the institutions of the
Government and State, the class of the disowned must establish the Society of Free Producers, aiming at satisfying the needs of every individual person who, on its side, is giving to the Society their labor and their knowledge.

For the attainment of these aims, we consider as of primary importance the necessity of building up a wide Revolutionary Organization of Toilers which, by conducting a direct struggle with all the Institutions of Capitalism and Government, must train the Working Class to initiative and
independent action in all its acts, thus educating it in the consciousness of the absolute necessity of a General Strike — of the Social Revolution.

STATUTES OF THE UNION OF RUSSIAN WORKERS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA, UNITED IN FEDERATION.

Aims of the Federation.
1. To unite all Organizations of Russian Workers in the US and Canada for the common struggle against Capitalism and Government (State).

2. To aid the movement of liberation in Russia.

3. To help the revolutionary actions of the American Workers.

4. The moral and material aid to the Organ of the Federation, Nabat.

5. To build up Organizations where there are none and to aid those already in existence.

Mutual Relationship of the Organization.
Every member of a Union is at the same time entitled to equal membership in every other Union which forms part of the Federation.

All Organizations belonging to the Federation enjoy full autonomy and should help each other materially and morally, in the fullest measure.

Means of the Federation.
The means of the Federation are composed of the 10¢ monthly contributions of the members of the Organization and of voluntary contributions.

The Management of the Federation.
For the management of the functions of the Federation are designated a Secretary and treasurer, who performs all the correspondence for the Federation.

The Pittsburgh Proclamation; 1883

2009-07-28T12:26:00.000-07:00

Leading up to the upcoming G20, I figured I'd highlight a short little series on Pittsburgh Anarchist history. Some local Pittsburgh types might be able to do this a little better than I would, but nevertheless, I think my contribution may be of some interest to those studying, attending, or just watching the demonstrations this September.

In 1881, the International Working People's Association (IWPA) was founded by a small circle of Anarchists in England--Not to be confused with the International Workingmen's Association (the "First International" - destroyed by in-fighting and a claim of power by Marx-oriented groups) mind you. Its second congress was held in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, in 1883.

1883 marks perhaps better than any other year (arguably maybe 1886, but I'd lean towards the former) the beginnings of the Anarchist-Communist, Anarcho-Syndicalist, Socialist-Anarchist wings of American Anarchism. Written by ardent-militant German-born Johann Most, Victor Drury (a refugee from the Paris Commune,) Albert Parsons, Joseph Reifgraber (Editor of ‘Die Parole’, St. Louis) and August Spies. Before I get to that, I need to talk about the IWPA a little more. The IWPA was intesely militant, all wings of it, as you will see in the upcoming manifesto. There were splits between the trade-union oriented sectors (such as Chicago) and other insurrectionary types such as Most. Interestingly enough, the Chicago, trade-union oriented groups were much larger than the militant-as-fuck crews. (yea yea yea, I wouldn't write that in a book, whatever). The anarchists organized cigarmakers, cabinetmakers, metal-workers, etc. Their early campaign, though not all anarchists were entirely supportive (for reasons I can explain if ya'll are interested) was a push for the 8-hour day, as well as organizing many of the Midwest's unemployed (or as Lucy Parsons called, "tramps"). The Chicago movement was much more vigourous than the Pittsburgh, but hey, fuck you. I mean, in Chicago alone, they had a German daily paper, 2 weekly papers, an English fortnightly paper, and a weekly (I believe, check the second link) Now the manifesto and a couple of links for me later:
http://www.lucyparsonsproject.org/aboutlucy/dawley_iwpa.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=6-ipiV20WEkC&pg=PA396&lpg=PA396&dq=1883+pittsburgh+anarchist&source=bl&ots=4gAyKFDMB0&sig=sgJLvCeHrPSvXUWxLxvOeSMWvbY&hl=en&ei=1VBvSv32F4fslAeCkOW-BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5

Comrades!

In the Declaration of Independence of the United States we read: "When in a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security."

Has the moment not arrived to heed the advice of Thomas Jefferson, the true founder of the American Republic? Has government not become oppression?

And is our government anything but a conspiracy of the ruling classes against the people -- against you?

Comrades! Hear what we have to say. Read our manifesto [this Proclamation], written in your interest and for the welfare of your wives and children and toward the good of humanity and progress.

Our present society is founded upon the exploitation of the property-less class by the propertied. This exploitation is such that the propertied (capitalists) buy the working force body and soul of the property-less, for the price of the mere cost of existence (wages) and take for themselves, i.e., steal the amount of new values (products) which exceeds the price, whereby wages are made to represent the necessities instead of the earnings of the wage-laborer.

As the non-possessing classes are forced by their poverty to offer for sale to the propertied their working forces, and as our present production on a grand scale enforces technical development with immense rapidity, so that by the application of an always decreasing number of [the] human working force, an always increasing amount of products is created; so does the supply of working force increase constantly, while the demand therefor decreases. This is the reason why the workers compete more and more intensely in selling themselves, causing their wages to sink, or at least on the average, never raising them above the margin necessary for keeping intact their working ability.

Whilst by this process the property-less are entirely debarred from entering the ranks of the propertied, even by the most strenuous exertions, the propertied, by means of an ever increasing plunder of the working class, are becoming richer day by day, without in any way being themselves productive.

If now and then one of the property-less class become rich it is not by their own labor but from opportunities which they have to speculate upon, and absorb the labor- product of others.
With the accumulation of individual wealth, the greed and power of the propertied grows. They use all the means of competing among themselves for the robbery of the people. In this struggle generally the less-propertied (middle class) are overcome, while the great capitalists, par excellence, swell their wealth enormously, concentrate entire branches of production as well as trade and intercommunication into their hands and develop into monopolists. The increase of products, accompanied by the simultaneous decrease of the average income of the working mass of the people, leads to so called "business" and "commercial" crises, when the misery of the wage workers is forced to the extreme.

For illustration: the last census of the United States shows that after deducting the cost of raw material, interest, rents, risks, etc., the propertied class have absorbed -- i.e., stolen -- more than five-eighths of all the products, leaving scarcely three-eighths to the producers. The propertied class, being scarcely one-tenth of our population, and in spite of their luxury and extravagance, and unable to consume their enormous "profits," and the producers, unable to consume more than they receive -- three-eighths -- so-called "over-productions" must necessarily take place. The terrible results of panics are well known.

The increasing eradication of the working forces from the productive process annually increases the percentage of the property-less population, which becomes pauperized and is driven to "crime," vagabondage, prostitution, suicide, starvation and general depravity. This system is unjust, insane, and murderous. It is therefore necessary to totally destroy it with and by all means, and with the greatest energy on the part of everyone who suffers by it, and who does not want to be made culpable for its continued existence by his inactivity.

Agitation for the purpose of organization; organization for the purpose of rebellion. In these few words the ways are marked which the workers must take if they want to be rid of their chains; as the economic condition is the same in all countries of so-called "civilization"; as the governments of all the Monarchies and Republics work hand in hand for the purpose of opposing all movements of the thinking part of the workers; as finally the victory in the decisive combat of the proletarians against their oppressors can only be gained by the simultaneous struggle along the whole line of the bourgeois (capitalistic) society, so therefore the international fraternity of people as expressed in the International Working Peoples' Association presents itself a self-evident necessity.

True order should take its place. This can only be achieved when all implements of labor, the soil and other premises of production, in short, capital produced by labor, is changed into societary. Only by this presupposition is destroyed every possibility of the future spoliation of man by man. Only by common, undivided capital can all be enabled to enjoy in their fullness the fruits of the common toil. Only by the impossibility of accumulating personal (private) capital can everyone be compelled to work who makes a demand to live.

This order of things allows production to regulate itself according to the demand of the whole people, so that nobody need work more than a few hours a day, and that all nevertheless can satisfy their needs. Hereby time and opportunity are given for opening to the people the highest possible civilization; the privileges of higher intelligence fall with the privileges of higher birth. To the achievement of such a system the political organizations of the capitalistic classes -- be they Monarchies or Republics -- form barriers. These political structures (States), which are completely in the hands of the propertied, have no other purpose the upholding of the present disorder of exploitation.

All laws are directed against the working people. In so far as the opposite appears to be the case, they [laws] serve on one hand to blind the worker, while on the other hand they are simply evaded. Even the school serves only the purpose of furnishing the offspring of the wealthy with those qualities necessary to uphold their class domination. The children of the poor scarcely get a formal elementary training, and this, too, is mainly directed to such branches as tend to producing prejudices, arrogance, and servility; in short, want of sense. The Church finally seeks to make complete idiots out of the mass and to make them forgo the paradise on Earth by promising a fictitious Heaven. The capitalistic press, on the other hand, takes care of the confusion of spirits in public life. All these institutions, far from aiding in the education of the masses, have for their object the keeping in ignorance of the people. They are all in the pay of and under the direct control of the capitalistic classes. The workers can therefore expect no help from any capitalistic party in their struggle against the existing system. They must achieve their own liberation by their own efforts. As in former times a privileged class never surrendered its tyranny, neither can it be expected that the capitalists of this age will give up their rulership without being forced to do it.

If there ever could have been any question on this point it should long ago have been dispelled by the brutalities which the bourgeoisie of all countries -- in America as well as in Europe -- constantly commits, as often as the proletariat anywhere energetically move to better their condition. It becomes, therefore, self-evident that the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie must have a violent revolutionary character.

We could show by scores of illustrations that all attempts in the past to reform this monstrous system by peaceable means, such as the ballot, have been futile, and all such efforts in the future must necessarily be so, for the following reasons:

The political institutions of our time are the agencies of the propertied class; their mission is the upholding of the privileges of their masters; any reform in your behalf would curtail these privileges. To this they will not and cannot consent, for it would be suicidal to themselves.

That they will not resign their privileges voluntarily we know; that they will make no concessions to us we likewise know. Since we must then rely upon the kindness of our masters for whatever redress we have, and knowing that from them no good may be expected, there remains but one recourse -- FORCE! Our forefathers have not only told us that against despots force is justifiable because it is the only means, but they themselves have set the immemorial example.

By force our ancestors liberated themselves from political oppression, by force their children will have to liberate themselves from economic bondage. "It is, therefore, your right, it is your duty," says Jefferson, "to arm!"

What we would achieve is, therefore, plainly and simply:

First: -Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, i.e., by energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and international action.

Second: -Establishment of a free society based on co-operative means of production.

Third: -Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the productive organizations without commerce and profit-mongery.

Fourth: -Organization of education on a secular, scientific, and equal basis for both sexes.

Fifth: -Equal rights for all without regard to sex or race.

Sixth: -Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between the autonomous (independent) communes and associations, resting on a federalistic basis.

Whoever agrees with this ideal let him grasp our outstretched brother hands!

Proletarians of all countries untie!

Fellow-workmen, all we need for the achievement of this great end is ORGANIZATION and UNITY!

There exists now no great obstacle to that unity. The work of peaceful education and revolutionary conspiracy well can and ought to run in parallel lines.

The day has come for solidarity. Join our ranks! Let the drum beat defiantly the roll of battle: "Workmen of all countries unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains, you have a world to win!"

Tremble oppressors of the world! Not far beyond your purblind sight there dawns the scarlet and sable lights of the JUDGEMENT DAY!

few thoughts...

2009-05-13T07:14:00.000-07:00

Attempting to write an essay is difficult. I'm not entirely sure why it was a good idea to write an entire book. It's been over a year and my progress is laughable. Most research is just taking everyone else's research and posting it together. I've spent more time writing on this blog than actually composing it together into something worth reading.

It's not as though it'd be impossible, though with the work being done here in Toledo and the maintaining of my relationships here, taking a breather to write a book is probably impossible at this current moment. I just love my life right now a little too much.

An interesting break has occurred I guess. Any time I've slowed or quit what I was doing in the past, I think it's because I was caught up with negativity and depression. Now, I have too much to do, too much fun to be had.

I realize I do some fucked up stuff. I get upset over small things and allow those things to control my other actions, even if its only for a few hours. I take aggression out on other people for little to no reason. I find less fault with people for their behavior, even if I choose to disassociate myself from them. We're all products of a fucked up culture, or fucked up parents, or the unfortunate victim of unfortunate circumstances due to someone else's fucked up up-bringing. We're an entirely irrational society and I can't remember a day where I wasn't constantly reminded of how absurd our actions are. An old anecdote of the French Revolution tells us that the most important step in the transition from civilians to revolutionaries was the ability to laugh at the absurdity of the actions of the state.

The space looks good. Things don't have an "energy" though I'm at a loss for words in describing the general feeling people have when coming in and out of the collective. The people in the community love the idea of this place, even if we have a number of issues to deal with. I'm not sure if you've felt it too, but people feel open to revolutionary ideas.

Where the radical labor movement of the 1860's-20's sprung from the destruction of the agrarian/artisan style of organization, perhaps now we're seeing the displacement of people due to the new techno-industrial/globalized style of capital. Unlike other times in the past, it would be insane to say that major revolutions AREN'T going to happen in our lifetime.

We're living in interesting times comrades, perhaps writings books on what happened in 1875 in Mexico is of no relevance to us anymore...

The Rio Blanco Textile Strike and the formation of revolutionary syndicalism

2009-05-05T16:51:00.001-07:00

In 1901, workers at the Rio Blanco textile mill had organized themselves from secret resistance cells to outright worker organizing. At the time, the textile plant at Rio Blanco was one of the largest industrial complexes, along with the Cananea plant (as I believe we talked on earlier?). Much like the earlier labor dispute, hostility to the foreigners controlling the company (better wages, treatment, more decision making). After a major strike in 1903, the PLM began organizing the workers in the Spring of 1906, 27 workers formed Gran Circulo de Obreros Libres (GCOL) on April 2nd, and elected a PLM organizer its president. The group published La Revolucion Social that "denounced Church and government as corrupt and called for workers' self-management and social revolution and promised to 'tumble that arrogant Frenchman (the owner) out of the clouds.' They also organized the nearby Santa Rosa and Nogales factories." (Rev. Syndicalism; Hart)

Damn, distracted again...

Revolutionary Syndicalism in Mexico; Opening of the Black Cherry

2009-05-02T17:12:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the grand opening of the Anarchist Community space here in Toledo called the Black Cherry. It's going to be awesome. Just saying.

Today's work is based on John Hart's "Revolutionary Syndicalism in Mexico". http://libcom.org/library/revolutionary-syndicalism-mexico-john-m-hart

From 1899 to 1931 (32 years), Mexican workers developed the largest revolutionary syndicalist movement in the Northern Hemisphere, numbering 150,000 (according to Revolutionary Syndicalism - An International Perspective', ed. by Marcel van de Linden & Wayne Thorpe; Scolar Press, UK, 1990.: "The Mexican revolutionary syndicalists: their form of organization - anarchosyndicalist; their leadership - artisan and professional; their numbers - 150 000; their goals - the seizure and operation of the means of production and the onset of worldwide proletarian revolution; their means - revolutionary war against capitalism by workers' militias and the general strike.")

Casa del Obrero Mundial (Casa) (House of the Workers of the World) was one of the most prominant anarcho-syndicalist organizations created in 1910 during the beginning of the Mexican Revolution (though I guess it's debatable if they were "anarchists" later on...) By 1916, the Casa had been wiped out. This trend continued with the death of the radical edge of the Confederation General de Trabajadores (CGT - General Confederation of Workers) when the organization accepted the state's demands of licensing workers' organisations, authorizing strikes, mandatory arbitration, and the virtually direct administration of syndicates by the state.

From the beginning, the mass of urban proletariat were at a severe disadvantage for wielding power towards social revolutionary change. In 1910, 80% of Mexican workers were rural workers, [as stated previously, something like 50% still worked on 'Haciendas' for pittance of wages].

"During the 1860s and 1870s Mexican anarchist organizers, led by radical artisans, mobilized a labour movement highlighted by the appearance of the first workers' council in Mexico City (the Circulo Proletario) in 1869, the second workers' council (the Gran Circulo de Obreros de Mexico) in 1871, which eventually had 15 000 anarchist-led members in its affiliates, and finally the General Congress of Mexican Workers (Congreso General de Obreros Mexicanos) in 1876, which counted over 50 000 members in 1880 when it claimed affiliation with the 'Black' International in Amsterdam."

The early 1900's; PLM's early struggles and Liberalism

2009-04-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

(Striking workers in Cananea confront U.S. soldiers protecting the company store; 1906)

With the publication of the 1906 Manifesto, Ricardo Flores Magon and a number of those within the Junta were effectively anarchists. While promoting a basically social-democratic (yet still intensely radical) program, Anarchism still aimed Magon and the Junta in a radical direction, allowing for an interesting contradiction. This contradiction was explained in a personal letter in 1908, from Ricardo Flores Magon to his brother Enrique and Praxedis Guerrero. (sections borrowed from Magonismo: An Overview; http://www.newformulation.org/4Morse.htm)

“In order to obtain great benefits for the people, effective benefits, to work as anarchists would easily crush us...all is reduced to a conception of mere tactics. If from the first we had called ourselves anarchists no one, or not but a few, would have listened to us. Without calling ourselves anarchists we have gone on planting in mind ideas of hatred against the possessing class and against the governmental caste…this has been achieved without saying that we are anarchists…all, then, is a question of tactics.

We must give land to the people in the course of the revolution; so that the poor will not be deceived…in order not to turn the entire nation against us, we must follow the same tactics that we have practiced with such success: we will continue calling ourselves liberals in the course of the revolution but in reality we will be propagating anarchy and executing anarchistic acts.

Only the anarchists will know that we are anarchists. And we will advise them not to call us anarchists in order not to scare such imbeciles that in the depths of their consciousness harbor ideas like ours, but without knowing that they are anarchist ideals, therefore they are accustomed to hear talk about the anarchists in unfavorable terms.”

Esparza Valdivia explains in El fenomeno magonista en Mexico y en Estados Unidos 1905-1908 p. 182, "the Magonistas took their public discourse from liberalism and their strategy from anarchism."

---
The PLM was never truly entrenched within the urban labor movement. While its moderate ties to major strikes such as the 1906 strikes of miners in Canenea as well as the textile workers rebellion in Rio Blanco. Primarily the PLM spread propaganda and outright revolutionary action against the Diaz government.

June 1st, 1906, workers at the Cananea Copper Company (in the state of Sonora, just South of Arizona, east of Baja) initiated their strike demanding a higher minimum wage, an eight-hour work day, and resistance to racism against Mexicans. American-born workers of the same plant were paid significantly more, almost twice as much, as Mexicans working the same jobs; 5,360 Mexicans were working at the mines. During the strike, a group of American owners fired on the workers, killing 3; the crowd responded and lynched the attackers. The American Rangers were sent to protect the company, and after 4 days of insurrection (2 days riots, 2 days armed), the strike ended. According to Colonel Green the "trouble was incited by a Socialistic organization that has been formed [in Cananea] by malcontents opposed to the Díaz government." In the incident 23 people died (from the ranks of both labor and management), 22 were injured, and more than 50 were arrested.

Later links for me

2009-04-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

Work becomes very difficult when you come across 3 sources all telling you different numbers and ideas.

http://hormigalibertaria.blogspot.com/2008/07/la-casa-del-obrero-mundial.html

more specifically:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://hormigalibertaria.blogspot.com/2008/07/la-casa-del-obrero-mundial.html&ei=OnXWSd2uHtzelQfprZnZDA&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3DCasa%2Bdel%2BObrero%2Bmundial%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D10

I wish my Spanish were a bit better.

Notes from yesterday (more from Mexico)

2009-03-27T09:41:00.000-07:00

These are some notes from yesterday I scribbled on the back of my gardening worksheets which I'm probably going to lose so I figured I'd just toss it all up here and sort it all out later.

Rhodakanty founded and directed a school in Chalco near Mexico City where Julio Chavez Lopez was inspired. Same school Rhodakanty "retreated" off to when the movement turned towards violence. Chavez's movement grew to 1500 strong and inspired a number of similar uprisings. Francisco Zalacosta spread anarchist ideals among rural populations (majority of Mexicans at the time). Santiago Villa spread these ideas among industrial workers.

Casa del Obrero founded in 1912. Diaz dictatorship was pretty fucked up. Basically he created a system of feudal rule of governors and mayors (district political bosses). These local bosses seized natural resources and sold them off to foreign investors for their personal profit. Enrique Creel, governor of Chihuahua personally owned 2 million acres of land. His clan, Terrazas-Creel family, owned 70 million acres including numerous industries ( mines, steel and iron mills, sugar refineries, breweries, meat plants, railroads, phone companies). Ley Fuga (Fugitive Law) allowed police to execute citizens freely under the guise that the victims were "trying to escape." Suppression of newspapers throughout Mexico with the use of tough prison sentences, shutting papers down.

Catholic Church had nearly free reign, reappropriating property and extorting money from civilians. Church used "science"/racism to justify rule over Indigenous and mixed-blood populations. Communal lands (ejidos) were seized. Seizures began in 1856. By 1910, half of the nation's land belonged to fewer than 3,000 families. 1/2 the population were forced to work on haciendas. Debt was passed onto kin, forcing new populations into slavery.

At its height, Regeneracion had 30,000 subscribers (I've heard alternative numbers, this is not certain). Congress of the Liberal Party in 1901 began with Diodoro Batalla quoting Max Stirner "Tyrants appear great because we come to them on our knees. Let us rise!" Regeneracion was distributed to border towns in the states Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and then smuggled them across the border. By 1905, Antonia Diaz Soto y Gama noted that Regeneracion "We were all completely anarchists." By 1906, Diaz called Magon a "dangerous anarchist."

While it has already been noted that the PLM Organizing Junta was "entirely anarchist," the PLM would release in 1906 its most socially powerful, yet relatively tame (asking for moderate reforms, entirely social democratic). It inspired numerous groups and individuals, among them Zapata, Madero, and Francisco J. Mujica (who worked for Regeneracion at one time) who then drafted the nations constitution in 1917, touting one of the most radical labor codes at the time (article 123 of the manifesto). 15,000 copies were sent to liberal clubs around Mexico. It's motto, "Reforma, Libertad, y Justicia." In very basic terms, the manifesto would limit the powers of the executive, limit the president to a 4 year term with no re-election, require all officials to be honest and fair, abolition of the death penalty, prisons replaced with agricultural penal colonies, reform of the courts, equality for women, free and universal education for children, freedom of the press, limit the workday, Sunday as day of rest, and a minimum wage with pension benefits, promoted unions, outlawed child labor, required decent working conditions, return land illegal confiscated from native tribes and other peasant communities, land distributed among peasants, loans from agricultural banks allow people to purchase land, and allowed the government to confiscate and distribute unused land.

Early Anarchist Organizing in Mexican Society

2009-03-25T08:10:00.000-07:00

(References for today: Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class 1860-1931 by John H. Hart)

By the mid-1800's, industrialism had changed the face of labor. Old agrarian societies were forced by a variety of forces into city centers, creating large populations of exploited industrial working-class. By 1890, this rate of industrialization had entrenched the industrial giants such as U.S. Steel, General Electric, and others. This changed the face of radical organization as well, as seen with the birth of Marxism, Anarchism, Liberalism, and other social movements gaining momentum at that time. The radical ideas of Fourier, Proudhon and Hegel influenced entire populations, including one scholar by the name of Plotino Rhodakanaty. (What's interesting is that the organization of numerous social movements can be pointed to the hard work of just a handful of individuals. This is the case with Spain, as well as Mexico)

Convinced that the agrarian and labor reforms in Mexico should be organized in a Fourier and Proudhonian fashion, Rhodakanaty traveled to Mexico to organize and propagandize his ideas. His plan was to build a system of socialist agrarian colonies would be spread by Rhodakanaty's writings and speeches. His early attempts, such as the publishing of Cartilla socailista failed, forcing him to move on to using a teaching position at the Colegio de San Ildefonso in Mexico City as a soap-box for his ideas. This teaching led to the first anarchist organization in Mexico called the Club Socialista de Estudiantes (CSE). Roughly in English meaning "Socialist Club for Students" in 1863. The organization had become intensily interested in the anarchist-collectivist ideas of Mikhail Bakunin, whom the group used as its ideological basis.

"People! No more governments, down with tyrannies, on to social guarantees!"- Plotino Rhodakanaty, 1861.

By the mid-1860's, the group had revived the defunct Mutualist organization Le Sociedad Particular de Socorros Mutuos (artisans in the hat making industry). Rhodakanaty continued to publish works, such as the Neopanteismo, where he called for complete emancipation and "individual liberty from all restrictions."

Rhodakanaty continued to organize for his ideals. In order to effectively spread the anarchist cause, Rhodakanaty supported the creation of Bakuninesque secret-societies, named La Social, founded in 1865. In Rhodakanaty's words, La Social intented to "undoing the relationship between the state and the economic system, the reorganization of property, the abolition of politics and political parties, the complete destruction of the feudal system, and expedition of the agrarian reform laws. This is socialism and this is what we want."

Group organized anarchist labor unions amongst working class which led to the first strike in Mexican history on June 10, 1865 at the San Ildefonso plant. The next day, they were joined by counterparts at La Colmena. The Mexican state responded with 25 armed men who opened fire on the crowd, wounding several strikers. The work of Rhodakanaty was now being passed on to a new group of radicals, among them Chavez Lopez.

"...I am a communist-socialist. I am a socialist because I am the enemy of all governments, and I am a communist because my brothers wish to work the lands in common." - Lopez. The militancy of the new organizers pushed the peacefulness of Rhodakanaty aside, who now retreated back to teaching. Shortly after the departure of Rhodakanaty, Lopez gathered a small band of followers and began to raid haciendas (haciendas are estates, typically large ranches). He soon extended his activities from Chalco and Texacoco to the south in Morelos, east to San Martin Texmelucan, and west to Tlalpan. Success after success led to his forces growing, frightening the state with every move they made.

"Julio Chavez and his gang of thugs are creating tremendous problems, as much for the Supreme Government as for state officials. He is recruiting the indigenous class with promises of hacienda lands. His successes are such that, if you do not take opportun, energetic, and violent measures immediately, it will be too late. Of course you are aware that the indigenous people are a vast majority of the population in the countryside. Until recently I was not greatly disturbed, but the rebel forces continue to grow and if they are not dealt with soon their strength will be overwhelming....These rebels started out in Chalco and have recently raided Coatepec, Acuantla, and other places, each time recruiting more individuals of a like mind." -March 1868, Antonio Flores, prefect of Texcoco in a warning to the government. The government responded with a "scorched-earth" campaign in the Chalco-Texcoco region, leading to a considerable amount of lives being lost, many innocents were also deported from the region including entire pueblos and populations.

Chavez Lopez's uprising was a dramatic turning point in the history of Mexico. It marked a break from liberal political reforms, the non-violence advocated by earlier radicals such as Fourier and Rhodakanaty, and marked a transition from nonpolitical rioting and pillaging to one backed by radical ideas. Lopez's manifestos also provided some of the earliest concepts of class struggle, and for the national government to be replaced by autonomous village councils, a thread to be carried out in later years in a number of agrarian revolutions, from the Anarchists to Zapatas forces.

Chavez Lopez also introduced the radical concept of taking all money and burning municipal records when a town was captured, a trend that has continued with the Zapatista uprising of 1994. Lopez continued to organize armies and spread revolutionary activities until his capture and execution by firing squad on September 1st, 1869, where his final words were yelled, "Long live socialism!"

=======================

Later to discuss: Organized among Indian communities in Southern Mexico. Following the CSE began La Social, which included activists from the Paris Commune, decentralized across Mexico reaching a peak of 62 separate member organizations.

Baja California Rebellion, 1911

2009-03-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

I'd like to apologize first and foremost about the awful writing today. It's been sorta hectic, lack of sleep, nerves, but I figured I needed to get some more research done. I will rework a lot of this, with a number of more direct sources. Sources so far include Lawrence Taylor's "The Magonista Revolt in Baja California," "Anarchist Influences on the Mexican Revolution" by Jason Wehling, and Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores Magon Reader edited by Chaz Bufe and Mitchell Cowen Verter.

The Revolution of Baja California officially began with the capture of the border town Mexicali on January 29th, 1911. The small force of 18 easily took the town. Within three days, the force grew to 120 revolutionaries, 40 of whom were Wobblies of the Industrial Workers of the World. On February 5th, Jack London (White Fang, Call of the Wild) wrote humorously "we are socialists, anarchists, hobos, chicken theives, outlaws and undesirable citizens of the U.S. are with you heart and soul." In all, the force in Baja numbered 500, 100 of which were Wobblies including Frank Little and Joe Hill.

The rebellion called for immediate retalliation by the Mexican state. Colonel Celso Vega, governor of the region, sent a force of nearly 100 to defeat the revolutionary Magonistas. A large number of dissertions alongside some major logistical errors led to Magonistas routing his forces in February. With the defeat of the army, Magonistas spread the revolution across the region.

On February 8, Magonistas captured Guadalupe, Chihuahua and took a number of munitions and supplies. More forces, numbering 200, would capture Sasabe, Hermisillo, Arizpe, and Bacoachi, though this dispatch of forces were not as successful as their counterparts in Chihuahua or Northern Baja; the force, led by Jose Cardoza, was defeated in March, leading to the execution of Cardoza and 27 others.

By late May, the realities of revolution hit the Magonistas/PLM hard. Exhausted from lack of provisions and weapons, many forces were defeated or deserted. The lack of arms and support, combined with the revolution's internal issues, would lead to its eventual defeat.

While the vast majority of militants in Baja fought for an anarchist vision of society, the rebellion attracted its share of opportunists who used the rebellion for their own personal gains.

A number of profiteers sold "day-passes" to San Diego tourists who freely looted Mexican shops. Of the most prominent Capitalist profiteers was a man by the name of Richard "Dick" Ferris. For years, Ferris held interest in the Baja California for the resources the region annexed and controlled by the United States. On June 2nd, 1911, Ferris held a meeting and declared himself president of the new "Republic of Baja California." The antics of Ferris angered many Wobblies and anarchists, leading Magon to title him "millionaire Ferris," though Ferris is unlikely to have actually had much wealth, merely a poor profiteer.

These internal issues, combined with the external pressures from media, wealthy landowners, and government involvement (from the United States in addition to the brutal Mexican governments) led to the destruction of the Magonistas.

Harrison Gray Otis was among the most direct opponents of the Baja Insurrection. Otis, along with his son-in-law, owned large land holdings in the San Fernando Valley. A vicious capitalist, Otis operated the Los Angeles Times, taking the paper from a small-time operation into a prominant newspaper in the region. With the paper under his control, Otis used the Times to enforce and expand his control. Apart of the San Fernando Syndicate, a group of investors that bought land across the valley, Otis used the Times to lie to its readers of an imminent drought, pushing them to support the Los Angeles aqueduct. For years, Otis pressured his connections in Washington to crush the Magonista uprising, with mild results. Alongside this pressure, Otis spent thousands in protecting his interests in the region.

In August of 1907, a large portion of the PLM Junta were arrested by the Furlong Detective Agency, hired by industrialist William Greene, with the backing of US and Mexican government. The arrests continued well into and following the insurrection of Baja California. In trials in the United States, Magon and other revolutionaries were on trial not because of crimes against any living thing, but for the act of revolutionary propaganda. Enrique Magon (Ricardo's brother), closed his final arguments in stating, "the court may choose between law and justice."

During the summer of 1911, the PLM was defeated on nearly every front. Assimilation into government by a number of forces, the Magon brothers jailed, and the oncoming onslaught by federal forces were coming to a dramatic conclusion. For years the Magonistas had struggled and organized militant-"Liberal" groups advocating the overthrow of the Diaz dictatorship, and by May 21st, 1911, Madero had defeated the weak federal army of Diaz. The forces were then turned against the Magonistas.

On June 17th, the rebel "First Division" at Mexicali surrendered to federal forces. Less than a week later, on June 22nd, 200 rebels under the leadership of IWW member Jack Mosby met some 600 federal soldiers on the onskirts of Tijuana. Equipped with six machine guns and led by Colonel Celso Vega, the federal troops outguned and outmanuevered the small PLM force who held for a three-hour battle. Many U.S. born rebels returned to the United States, while many Mexican and Indian born rebels retreated into the hills. This marked the final major defeat of PLM/Magonista forces in the Baja campaign.

While no lasting anarchist society or practice formed, the revolution formed a major impetus for the Mexican Revolution. The ongoing defeats of federal forces for a number of months led many in Mexico to realize the vulnerability of the Mexican state, giving the Madero revolt a major push; without, it is possible that the revolution may ultimately have been unsuccessful.

Photos of the Baja California Rebellion; 1911

2009-03-24T12:58:00.000-07:00

(May 1911 - a posed photo of Magonista forces somewhere in Baja California)

(Mexicali, Mexican Magonistas pose for photo - 1911)

(Tijuana, Magonista Militants stand armed; 1911)

(Tijuana, Militants stand armed with the Magonista flag flying, reading "Tierra y Libertad" - "Land and Freedom" - 1911)

(Newspaper in San Diego declaring the capture of Tijuana; May 1911)

(Magonistas in Tijuana - May 1911)

I realize the photos are a little off centered, but if you click them they'll take you to their website. If that fails, copy it into another program and the photo comes out full. I'm worried that the photos will go offline eventually, leaving me without neat little pictures to add to stuff.

More photos here: http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/99winter/photosw99.htm

Magonismo, Magonistas, and the Revolt of Baja California

2009-03-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

Over the next week, a whole lot of work is going to be done on the Magonista revolt on Baja California. This is going to include a bit of digging into actual works of Regeneracion, a publication founded by the Magon brothers (Ricardo Flores Magon, Jesus Flores Magon) and Licenciado Antonio Horcasitas, several writings on the revolution itself by historians, critics and comrades, and a countless other works. I've done a bit of the ground work before and as long as I can find my old notebooks this will be a lot easier than before. It's a shame I don't live closer to campus though, I love free printing...

The Magonista revolt began in its most direct way with the establishment of the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM), known in English as the Mexican Liberal Party. Its lineage extends much further than this, though I'll have to dive into a history of Mexico and radicalism within Mexico at another time (mostly because of its relationship the changing face of capitalism and industrialism across the world). Originally founded as a Liberal opposition to the Diaz dictatorship (again, this will have to be in the context of the rest of Mexican radical history), it developed from the early years to an outright extension of Anarchist-Communist thought (the extent of this radicalism can be found within the writings of Regeneracion--PLM's paper; and the 1911 Manifesto of the Party). In perhaps its most simplistic goal, the Manifesto of 1911 demands, "The Organising Junta of the Mexican Liberal Party has solemnly declared war against Authority, war against Capital, and war against the Church."

Liberal groups organized overwhelmingly by the PLM began its direct attacks against the Mexican state-capitalist system in 1906 with a series of assaults on the towns of Jimenez, Coahuila, Camargo, Tamaulipas, Acayucan and other communities in Veracruz. Ricardo Flores Magon blamed these failures on the lack of ammunition and weapons, though the campaign was also burdened with a lack of recruits, funding, and the attacks carried out by the Diaz and American governments against prominant members. Over the next few years, hundreds of radical PLM groups were founded, more major coordinated attacks against the Diaz dictatorship (all failed for similar reasons), led to the imprisonment of nearly all the major organizers of the PLM.

By 1910, the PLM was virtually bankrupt, causing it to change gears in its revolutionary struggle. While groups continued to be organized throughout Mexico, its focus was now directed to Baja California and the southern United States (Regeneracion's office relocated to southern California). To raise funds, the group turned to a number of worker organizations, ranging from Socialist groups, the AFL, and a powerful supporting player, the Industrial Workers of the World (a number of IWW members would join the PLM, taking part in smuggling arms and in the armed struggle itself). I know I'm missing a lot here, but we're going to jump ahead to 1911.

On January 29th, 1911, the PLM captured the city of Mexicali, beginning the Revolt of Baja California. The rebellion then spread across the region to villages and cities such as Tijuana. The revolt would continue outright until June, though liberal groups continued to stage raids well into 1914.

To be continued...

Response to the International Socialist Review

2009-03-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

There exists a gulf between Anarchist and Marxist movements, a gulf constantly debated by both camps ad-nauseum. This is not to say such debates are unnecessary, simply that such debates are too often founded in misunderstanding or even outright lies. From which these two possibilities Paul D'Amato's criticisms ("Refusing to be ruled over" and "A Marxist View of the State") of the Anarchist movement springs forth I'm not entirely sure, nevertheless, steps must be taken in order to ensure the accuracy and possible validity of D'Amato's statements.

First I would like to mention my sincere feelings of apology for D'Amato's unfortunate dealings within the Anarchist movement. Just as with any group, there exist dimwitted, uninteresting, uncaring people. That being said, simply because one deals with two asshats with no trust in fellow human beings' desire to survive under the brutal mechanism of capital, should not create a great distrust in a worldwide movement. If we were to distance ourselves from movements or ideas merely because of the contribution of a very, very small group (in this case two people), then we might as well hole ourselves in caves and watch this world eat itself alive; something I am not willing to do.

Throughout both articles, D'Amato creates an odd caricature of anarchists, perhaps derived from his unfortunate run-ins with immature radicals, hopefully not for insincere purposes. As noted in "Refusing to be ruled over," D'Amato has some idea of anarchist ideals, though the extent of this understanding is unknown. But surely if D'Amato should understand something of the movement, it is that anarchism is by no means a homogeneous movement. Just as the divisions between Marxist sects occur (Autonomist Marxism, Maoism, Marxist-Leninism, etc.), there exist sects within Anarchism (Syndicalism, Anarcho-Communism, Post-Left, etc.).

Within the Anarchist movement, debates are held all the time over the critiques being issued by D'Amato. In 1995 with the publishing of "Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm," Murray Bookchin critiqued the same "Lifestylist" and "consensus" attitudes D'Amato condemns.

"If a left-libertarian vision of a future society is not to disappear in a bohemian and lumpen demimonde, it must offer a resolution to social problems, not flit arrogantly from slogan to slogan, shielding itself from rationality with bad poetry and vulgar graphics. Democracy is not antithetical to anarchism, nor is majority rule and non-consensual decisions incommensurable with a libertarian society."

Rather than discuss practical organizational or theoretical differences, time is spent making underhanded comments on “vegetarianism,” “collectives,” and “affinity groups.” I’m not exactly sure what D’Amato means in his attack on “collectives,” as I’ve never had an issue with a group of people meeting for similar goals and interests, nor do I see the attack on the lifestyle choice of not eating meat as a part of the debate. The critique of squatting and affinity groups on the other hand, must be discussed.

Squatting has been a practice for radical movements for a long time now and the failure to see how squatting “could pose any real challenge to the system,” is missing major pieces of revolutionary history. The Diggers of Medieval England, for example, were squatters that incited revolutionary change for a number of left-wing movements, from Marxism to Anarchism. The Autonomist movements of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s used squatting as a creation of social space that promoted feminism, provided shelter for countless homeless women and men, and was perhaps the most powerful and successful of all the anti-nuclear movements on the past 40 years. Should squatting be the only route of revolutionary change? Certainly not, but to deny it as a powerful practice is a powerful and disastrous mistake.

Where I really begin to question D'Amato's truthfulness on Anarchism (again, I am making no judgment as of yet, merely a question) is most prominent when discussing the Friends of Durruti Group. As noted in "Refusing to be ruled over," D'Amato claims the Friends of Durruti "were a group of revolutionary anarchists who had become critical of the main anarchist trade union group, the CNT, for refusing to take state power...” Let’s hold it right there.

For one, the FoD were organized as an "affinity group," as D'Amato had already underhandedly critiqued in a previous paragraph. To use a group organized in a fashion inconsistent with your ideals as proof of your ideals strikes me as odd. Even worse is the confusion that the FoD demanded the CNT to enter or create government, rather than its actual mission, to restore the CNT to its truly revolutionary anarchist goals, instead of its acceptance within the Republican government for the reason of "anti-fascist unity."

By 1937, the CNT had developed a leadership falling into bureaucracy, though its rank-and-file was militant and revolutionary as ever as made especially clear by the Friends of Durruti. From Agustin Guillamón, author of Friends of Durruti Group 1937-1939, “The Friends of Durruti Group were simply an opposition to the CNT's leadership's collaborationist policy, making their stand within the organization and upon anarcho-syndicalist ideology. […] At all times the group articulated an anarcho-syndicalist ideology, although it also voiced radical criticism of the CNT and FAI leadership. But it is a huge leap from that to claiming that the Group espoused Marxist positions." At best, one can point to the collaborationist elements of the CNT, though again, one must be honest in discussing the debates within anarchist circles on this collaboration.

What is most surprising of the Spanish Revolution is the tremendous progress and power was proved by the radical working-class, especially in such a so-called "backwards country." Within an incredibly short amount of time, 2-3rds of the land in Republic land was collectivized, numerous factories and shops operated by the workers themselves, health-care given to millions without coverage, and democratic columns of militants were keeping fascists at bay against all odds. Abraham Guillen writes of the collectives, "Despite their limitations, the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists established libertarian collectives where the means of production and exchange were socialised, through direct management by the workers and not through imposition by the state. Economic surplus was also self-managed. Also, and once again in contrast to the USSR, the workers of the collectives were rewarded equally, without productivity falling or initiative lacking. The bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy believe that if there is not a large wage differential, initiative and interest in increasing production will be lost. This idea was shown to be false in the Spanish libertarian collectives, where solidarity between the collectivists made self-government function satisfactorily." The Spanish Anarchists did not disprove anarchist theory, instead they lived it, breathed it, and fought to the death in defense of it. For anyone to argue that the anarchists denied their ideas in the face of general revolution is denying the reality of the Spanish collectives and does a great disservice to those who died in the defense of the revolution.

In later life, it seems possible that Marx had been flirting with such conclusions. One finds an interesting rethinking of Marx following the Paris Commune. Nearly all the prerequisites Marx and Engels thought necessary for dismantling the state were proven incorrect by the commune and the surprising power of the working-class with its immediate assault on state power, opening way for a communal and democratic system of organization. Surprised by the power of the Commune, a re-working of the Communist Manifesto was required and noted in the 1872 preface for the German Communist Manifesto, "this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune: that the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes."

This point was proven in the degradation of the Russian Revolution. In one of Lenin’s final writings to the world in 1923: “With the exception of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, our state apparatus is to a considerable extent a survival of the past, and has undergone hardly any serious change. It has only been slightly touched up on the surface, but in all other respects it is a most typical relic of our old state machine.” This showed in its most direct way how correct Bakunin was, "Either one destroys the State or one must accept the vilest and most fearful lie of our century: the red bureaucracy."

As noted by D'Amato, the differences of Anarchism and Marxism rely mostly on the “means.” For Marxists, means can be separated from the ends, a startling conclusion that pushed me towards Anarchism. Today, we create democratic structures to enjoy a world of democracy. We fight against systems of government and capitalism because we wish government and capitalism to be wiped from the planet. We do not vote left politicians into power because we know the apparatus of the state is destructive, regardless of how great of a heart our rulers happens to have. If Stalin proved anything, it is that through the very same mechanisms of the state we wish to wield to dismantle capitalism we will provide the very same structure new tyrants and rulers will come about and destroy a viable, revolutionary workers movement.

Zapatista quotes I like

2009-01-21T13:19:00.000-08:00

"…It is perhaps for this reason–the lack of interest in power–that the word of the Zapatistas has been well received in other countries across the globe, above all in Europe. It has not just been because it is new or novel, but rather because it is proposing this, which is to say, to separate the political problem from the problem of taking power, and take it to another terrain. Our work is going to end, if it ends, in the construction of this space for new political relationships. What follows is going to be a product of the efforts of other people, with another way of thinking and acting. And there we are not going to work; instead, we would be a disturbance. "

" We do not want others, more or less of the right, center or left, to decide for us. We want to participate directly in the decisions which concern us, to control those who govern us, without regard to their political affiliation, and oblige them to "rule by obeying". We do not struggle to take power, we struggle for democracy, liberty, and justice. Our political proposal is the most radical in Mexico (perhaps in the world, but it is still too soon to say). It is so radical that all the traditional political spectrum (right, center left and those of one or the other extreme) criticize us and walk away from our delirium. It is not our arms which make us radical; it is the new political practice which we propose and in which we are immersed with thousands of men and women in Mexico and the world: the construction of a political practice which does not seek the taking of power but the organization of society. Intellectuals and political leadership, of all sizes, of the ultraright, of the right, the center, of the left and the ultraleft, national and international criticize our proposal. We are so radical that we do not fit in the parameters of "modern political science". We are not bragging … we are pointing out the facts. Is there anything more radical than to propose to change the world? You know this because you share this dream with us, and because, though the truth be repeated, we dream it together."

"What we seek, what we need and want is that all those people without a party and organization make agreements about what they want and do not want and become organized in order to achieve it (preferably through civil and peaceful means), not to take power, but to exercise it. I know you will say this is utopian and unorthodox, but this is the way of the Zapatistas. Too bad. ... …You struggle for power. We struggle for democracy, liberty and justice. This is not the same thing. Though you may be successful and conquer power, we will continue struggling for democracy, liberty and justice. It does not matter who is in power, the Zapatistas are and have always struggle for democracy, liberty and justice."

"That we will make a collective network of all our particular struggles and resistance’s. An intercontinental network of resistance against neoliberalism, an intercontinental network of resistance for humanity. This intercontinental network of resistance, recognising differences and acknowledging similarities, will search to find itself with other resistance’s around the world. This intercontinental network of resistance will be the medium in which distinct resistance’s may support one another. This intercontinental network of resistance is not an organising structure; it doesn’t have a central head or decision maker; it has no central command or hierarchies. We are the network, all of us who resist."

"The autonomous municipalities are made up by the indigenous communities within an area defined by zapatista influence. The communities of an indigenous zone or area are the ones who decide, at an assembly of all their members, whether or not they will belong to the autonomous municipality. The autonomous municipalities, parallel to the constitutional ones, do not receive any financing from the state, nor do they collect taxes. It is the communities who elect their representatives for the Autonomous Municipal Council, which is the authority for the municipality. Each representative is chosen for one area of administration within the autonomous municipality, and they may be removed if they do not fully comply with the communities’ mandates. Generally, a Council is made up of a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary, a Minister of Justice, a person in charge of Agrarian Matters, a Health Committee and a director for the Civil Registry. Each members’ powers are clearly defined within their appointment, and they function in a collegial manner, with the advice of previous authorities or of the Council of Elders. The Councils are elected and renewed every one or two years, according to the municipality. The activities and the responsibilities of each autonomous municipality are dependent on the will of their members, and on their level of consolidation. They do not manage public resources, and their budget, if it exists at all, is very limited, and due to the cooperation of some of their members. Those who hold a position on the Municipal Council do not receive a salary for it, although their expenses should be paid by the same communities who request their presence, through cooperation among the members. In some cases, members of the Council are supported in their farm work, so they can dedicate themselves to their [Council] work, and not have to go the fields. The autonomous municipalities resolve local problems of coexistence, relations and exchanges between communities, and they attend to minor crimes. The application of justice is based on customary law. For example, in cases of common crimes, the punishment imposed by the Autonomous Council is reparation of the damages: instead of punishment by jail or fines, a sentence is imposed of working for the community, or for the aggrieved family. In the autonomous municipality of Polho, in Chenalho, where thousands of war displaced are found, the Autonomous Council receives national and international humanitarian aid, and it distributes it to the camps through the Supply Committee."

"A political force whose members do not exert nor aspire to hold elective positions or government offices in any of its levels. A political force which does not aspire to take power. A force which is not a political party. A political force which can organize the demands and proposals of those citizens and is willing to give direction through obedience. A political force which can organize a solution to the collective problems without the intervention of political parties and of the government. We do not need permission in order to be free. The role of the government is the prerogative of society and it is its right to exert that function. A political force which struggles against the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few and against the centralization of power. A political force whose members do not have any other privilege than the satisfaction of having fulfilled its commitment."

"It should already be evident, but I want to remark: I shit on all the revolutionary vanguards of this planet."

The practical problem thrown up by the need for inter community co-ordination saw the formation of regional councils. These are known as autonomous municipalities. 100 communities for instance make up the autonomous municipality named after the Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magon. Tierra y Libertad, on the border with Guatemala contains a total of 120 communities.8

"Within the newly created municipal structures, the communities name their authorities, community teachers, local health promoters, indigenous parliaments, and elaborate their own laws based on social, economic, political and gender equality among the inhabitants of diverse ethnic communities."9

A Mexican NGO in detailing the government's attempts to smash these communities explains how they function;

"The communities of an indigenous zone or area are the ones who decide, at an assembly of all their members, whether or not they will belong to the autonomous municipality ... It is the communities who elect their representatives for the Autonomous Municipal Council, which is the authority for the municipality. Each representative is chosen for one area of administration within the autonomous municipality, and they may be removed if they do not fully comply with the communities' mandates ... Those who hold a position on the Municipal Council do not receive a salary for it, although their expenses should be paid by the same communities who request their presence, through co-operation among the members. In some cases, members of the Council are supported in their farm work, so they can dedicate themselves to their [Council] work, and not have to go the fields."10

"There are certainly very strong traces in the autonomous municipalities; we need only think that one of the most important Zapatista communities is called Flores Magon, named after the Mexican anarchist who was most representative of the libertarian side of the Mexican revolution. The municipalities are an experience that links up with the indigenous community tradition. While in other South American guerrilla wars of a Marxist mould there are orthodox links with models used at any latitude and with any culture, with forced collectivization of the land, in the Zapatista case, each community decides for itself, creating a large variety of situations, with communities that have decided on completely communal ownership of the land and others where a mixed system is in force, with common land and individual land; in some cases a couple that has married receives a piece of land from the community. All through direct forms of democracy, without decisions from above."

“Capitalism means that there are a few who have great wealth, but they did not win a prize, or find a treasure, or inherit from a parent. They obtained that wealth, rather, by exploiting the work of the many. So capitalism is based on the exploitation of the workers, which means they exploit the workers and take out all the profits they can. This is done unjustly, because they do not pay the worker what this work is worth. Instead they give him a salary that barely allows him to eat a little and to rest for a bit, and the next day he goes back to work in exploitation, whether in the countryside or in the cities”.

In 2005, with the 6th Declaration, Zapatistas explicitly described anti-capitalism and organized the five new Good Governmnet Juntas.

Zapatista Links

2009-01-19T18:48:00.001-08:00

The sign reads, "You are in Zapatista rebel territory. Here the people give the orders and the government obeys."

What Every Anarchist Should Know About the Zapatista Rebellion: http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/anarchist.html

What's Different About the Zapatistas: http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/comment/andrew_diff_feb01.html

A Commune in Chiapas?: http://www.chanfles.com/chiapas.htm

Zapatistas, Anarcho-Capitalists, and a bit about myself

2009-01-19T17:57:00.000-08:00

Life has been hectic, to say the least. A few updates from the personal front, then a bit on Individualism vs. Anarcho-Capitalism, then a bit on the Zapatistas.

So the recent battle with depression has been a rocky slope. At least now I'm taking control of the situation, rather than letting it completely control me (though, depression does take control, that's the point of depression, innit?). Every night I've managed to keep myself occupied, keep my mind active, keep my body moving, and it helps keep the negative away. If I spend small amounts of money every night by going out to eat, going to shows, or whathaveyou, it also allows me to save more money come the end of the month (making me pretty close to a car, 800 in so far!). I've always been a self-contained person, but I've really been fighting that lately, and it's helped in many ways, though sometimes, the loneliness creeps in and consumes me. The loneliness especially creeps at night, making sleep difficult, but I've been adapting. I've been forcing myself 3-4 meals a day, even if they aren't the healthiest, they're better than nothing (yes, I do mean "force"). I'm now taking a multi-vitamin, 5-htp, valerian root, and perhaps a smoke before I go to bed has surprisingly beneficial results, and I feel much better that I control my treatment, rather than dosing myself with nasty, addictive pharmaceuticals. Sometimes, I'll still fall into negative thought cycles, but I've been much more able to handle it than in the past. I've also been journaling, just started that recently, to mark progress and to just express what I think. I'm not sure why it works, or even how, but it has calming effects (but again, can lead to negative spirals).

The worst part about the process is how I've fallen out with some people, a couple in particular. I think it's a combination of my being upset about the way they've treated the situation and them simply not caring. I can't carry on conversations with them, I can't hang out with them without this overwhelming silence to consume everything. But they fucked up, and I'm not sure I can just accept that. Sure, they'd be apologetic, but if you're not there when I needed you the most, if the best alternative to the situation is "well, sorry kid," then I don't need you. In fact, my life is better off without such things influencing negative behavior. Still, it's a difficult situation to comprehend when everyone around me is telling me to go back, and their answer to my explanation of the events is, "that's stupid, you should go back."

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Egalitarianism and the Revolt Against Nature has some interesting feedback into the differences between classic Individualist Anarchism and the current ideals of Anarcho-Capitalism. Here is the book in PDF, begin reading around chapter 13. Chapter 12 is a critique of Anarcho-Communism, which falls far behind anything useful. Sounds like elementary criticisms I heard in high-school, "Well the USSR failed, thus all communism is bad!" I was hoping for better. Nevertheless, chapter 13 is interesting and includes these gems:

"It is true that the theory of our Constitution is, that all taxes are paid voluntarily; that our government is a mutual insurance company, voluntarily entered into by the peoplewith each other. . . . But this theory of our government is wholly different from the practical fact. The fact is that the government, like a highwayman, says to a man: “Your money or your life.” And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.

The government does not, indeed, waylay a man in a lonely place, spring upon him from the roadside, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is nonetheless a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful. The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a “protector,” and that he takes men’s money against their will, merely to enable him to “protect” those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will, assuming to be your rightful “sovereign”; on account of the “protection” he affords you. He does not keep “protecting” you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave. The proceedings of those robbers and murderers, who call themselves “the government,” are directly the opposite of those of the single highwayman." - Lysander Spooner, No Treason

For anarcho-capitalists, there are some major differences between Individualism and Anarcho-Capitalism, for Rothbard, these are mostly economic. "I am, therefore, strongly tempted to call myself an “individualist anarchist,” except for the fact that Spooner and Tucker have in a sense preempted that name for their doctrine and that from that doctrine I have certain differences. Politically, these differences are minor, and therefore the system that I advocate is very close to theirs; but economically, the differences are substantial, and this means that my view of the consequences of putting our more or less common system into practice is very far from theirs."

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I am giving a presentation on the Zapatista uprising at UT soon, if all goes according to plan. It's been 15 years since the rebellion began. I'll be talking a bunch soon on the Zapatistas, hopefully. My power-point is almost done and I'll post the PDF here when I'm complete.

Alright, I'm back;

2008-12-26T07:40:00.000-08:00

I know you missed me. I missed me. (Oh, something so profound in that statement, eh?)

Anarchism is apart of the Socialist tradition, as far as the terms Socialism and Anarchism can be used to define trends within movements and thought (which I'd argue is probably problematic, but perhaps necessary). While perhaps easier to argue that the left-wing variants of Anarchism are "socialist," (trends such as collectivism, communism, syndicalism), the market-based varients (mutualism, individualism) of anarchism are nevertheless "socialist."

For Benjamin Tucker - "the bottom claim of Socialism....[is that] labour should be put in possession of its own." And for labor organizer Joseph Labadie, Individualist Anarchism "has for its object the changing of the present status of property and the relations one person or class holds to another. In other words, any movement which has for its aim the changing of social relations, of companionships, of associations, of powers of one class over another class, is Socialism."

Even the class struggle aspect of socialism is found within the Individualist writers, here from Benjamin Tucker, "the labourer in these days [as] a soldier. . . His employer is . . . a member of an opposing army. The whole industrial and commercial world is in a state of internecine war, in which the proletaires are massed on one side and the proprietors on the other." (I really like this quote)

Taking A Break

2008-12-09T18:47:00.001-08:00

I'm taking a break for a while. From meetings, writing, research, reading. It's all just too much for me now.

Individualist Anarchism III; Benjamin Tucker

2008-11-16T09:25:00.000-08:00

Anarchism in America developed over the years in two segments: the communal systems of the Syndicalists, Communists, and Collectivists and the Individualists, Mutualists, and Pacifist Christian Anarchists.

Warren helped create the ideas before even Pierre Proudhon had developed and released his ideas of anarchism in France, leading to a specific tradition of mutualist economics. This tradition became developed among the radical anti-slavery Christians and economic resisters. A few names: William B. Greene, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Lysander Spooner, Ezra Haywood, and Benjamin Tucker. I'll be getting into these folks soon, but for now, a quote from Tucker:

"Free access to the world of matter, abolishing land monopoly: free access to the world of mind, abolishing idea monopoly; free access to an untaxed and unprivileged market, abolishing tariff monopoly and money monopoly, - secure these, and all the rest shall be added unto you. For liberty is the remedy of every social evil, and to Anarchy the world must look at last for any enduring guarantee of social order."

Cincinnatti Time Store; Warren's Mutualism in Practice

2008-11-16T08:59:00.000-08:00

The most successful of Warren's economic model was his Cincinnatti Time Store. Founded in 1827, the store operated for 3 more years, until Warren moved onto other projects, after believing the project proved its original purpose.

For Warren, the value of a commodity is the amount of labor that goes into producing it or acquiring it, any attempts to charge more than a products cost is unethical. The next paragraph stolen from Wikipedia, adequately sums the ideas of the Time Store:

In the store, customers could purchase goods with "labor notes" which represented an agreement to perform labor. The items in the store were initially marked up 7% to account for the labor required to bring them to market with the price increasing the longer the time that a customer spent with the shopkeeper, as measured by a timer dial; later this markup was reduced to 4%. Corn was used as a standard, with 12 pounds of corn being exchangeable with one hour of labor. The result of the system was that no one was able to profit from the labor of another --every individual ostensibly received the "full produce" of his labor. Adjustments were made for the difficulty and disagreeableness of the work performed, so that time was not the only factor taken into consideration. Warren also set up boards on the wall where individuals could post what kind of services they were seeking or had to sell so that others could respond, and trade among each other using labor notes.

After a rough initial period, the store proved to be very successful. Warren's goods were much cheaper than competitors', though he maintained that he was not trying to put other stores out of business. Another store in the neighborhood converted to Warren's methods. The fact that prices for goods rose the more time a customer spent with Warren resulted in very efficient transactions. Warren said that he was doing more business in one hour than normal businesses do in one day, leading him to close shop part of the day to rest. Though the store was successful, the problem of equal labor times for different difficulties of work was a concern for Warren. He was never able to reconcile the objectivity of his "labor for labor" prescription with the subjectivity employed in determining how much time used for one type labor entailed the same amount of work exerted during a different amount of time performing another type of labor. He settled to simply credit it with being a matter of individual judgement. Warren closed the store in May 1830 in order to depart to set up colonies based upon the labor-cost principle, convinced that the store was a successful experiment in "Cost the limit of price."

From Warren's own words, he published a great work in the process of Mutualist economics titled "EQUITABLE COMMERCE: A New Development of Principles As Substitutes For Laws And Governments, For the Harmonious Adjustment and Regulation of the Pecuniary, Intellectual, And Moral Intercoruse of Mankind Proposed as Elements of A New Society." People in those days liked really long titles. Equitable Commerce

Individualist Anarchism pt.I; Mutualism in Cuba; etc.

2008-11-15T14:35:00.001-08:00

Anarchism first came to Cuba in the 1860's with the works of Proudhon, popularized by Saturnine Martinez. From there, through workers councils and other mutual aid associations. By the 1880s, the movement worldwide began to be influenced by the Libertarian/Anarchist sections of the First Internationale. Here's a work by one of the editors of the Cuban anarchist press El Productor. http://robertgraham.wordpress.com/2008/11/11/enrique-roig-de-san-martin-the-motherland-and-the-workers-1889/

Understanding the history of N-American Anarchism has led me to challenge many ideas I had previously held on Anarchism. Anarchism, as a whole, can be taken as a general critique of society, against all rulers and authoritarian structures. Only its practical considerations are of development, including those who believe in rigid communal structures, and those that are adament market-based philosophers. America, specifically, shows how varied anarchism can truly be. Where in other nations or regions, philsophies of anti-state combined with a wide-variety of other ideas, it is in the Americas that they truly come to fruition. I am speaking specifically of Individualist Anarchism.

Originally, I was hesitant to consider market-based anarchism apart of the general anarchist philosophy. From my understanding, market economics meant American capitalism, perhaps with variation--its boss-worker relationships would be maintained, only the environmental and anti-corporate laws would be revoked allowing for unbriddled corporate control over society. Then I began to understand that different models of organization, so long as they're anti-authoritarian in practice, ought to be accepted under the anarchist umbrella. Much like the bell hooks classic, Feminism is for Everybody, anarchism must be seen as a philsophy that everyone can accept. Anarchism is for Everybody. Some other friends, critics, potential comrades of ours should not feel alienated because they do not wish to live under rigid communal systems; just as we should not accept rigid market-based economies. Should we not wish to impose, we should be willing to accept alterative models of organization, and through their practice can we better determine their ability to free humanity from the yoke of authoritarian rule.

Individualist Anarchism is namely an American phenomena, quite clearly advocated by Benjamin Tucker, if the individual has the right to govern himself, all external government is tyranny." Where indigenous Magonistas find freedom through community, for others, it is through the individual, and an individuals will and practice, and true freedom is obtained. From the states, this realization of the support of the individual came through the practice and life of two communities, experienced personally by Josiah Warren.

"New Harmony" was established in 1825 and collapsed in 1829, due to internal struggles between various groups. Josiah Warren argued that the commune collapsed due to the community not being supportive of individual sovereignity or property rights. "those who advocated any type of communism with connected property, interests, and responsibilities were doomed to failure because of the individuality of the persons involved in such an experiment." Warren expanded upon these views:

Society must be so converted as to preserve the SOVEREIGNTY OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL inviolate. That it must avoid all combinations and connections of persons and interests, and all other arrangements which will not leave every individual at all times at liberty to dispose of his or her person, and time, and property in any manner in which his or her feelings or judgment may dictate, WITHOUT INVOLVING THE PERSONS OR INTERESTS OF OTHERS.

This is not to say that Warren advocated a radically pro-capitalist system. Founded through the classical communist-socialist Labor Theory of Value, believed that the use of labor must be traded equally, and that through a market system, the only price for products must be based on its emotional, physical, and timely cost. To ensure that "the cost be the limit of price," Warren advocated the use of Labor Notes based on hours of labor of certain jobs. This actually led Warren to define himself apart of the socialist tradition, even though his economics were accepting of "markets."

Warren would publish the first anarchist periodical in the Americas, The Peaceful Revolutionist. Of his works, his most clear treatment of the anarchist doctrine, is titled Manifesto. Within, Warren argues:

[T]he forming of societies or any other artificial combinations IS the first, greatest, and most fatal mistake ever committed by legislators and by reformers. That all these combinations require the surrender of the natural sovereignty of the INDIVIDUAL over her or his person, time, property and responsibilities, to the government of the combination. That this tends to prostrate the individual-To reduce him to a mere piece of a machine ; involving others in responsibility for his acts, and being involved in responsibilities for the acts and sentiments of his associates ; he lives & acts, without proper control over his own affairs, without certainty as to the results of his actions, and almost without brains that he dares to use on his own account; and consequently never realizes the great objects for which society is professedly formed.

More soon on the individualist anarchist movement.

Asian Anarchism, Part II

2008-10-26T08:18:00.001-07:00

It should be said that this next section is largely a copy of some other works, little of it is my own. This blog has been largely for my own uses and it definitely helps keep my actual work separate from my sources.

The decline of anarchism in Japan did not destroy anarchism as a whole within the Asian nations.

In 1894, Japan had invaded the Koreas under the guise of protecting Korea from the threats of China. The independence movement for Korea became the focus for radicals and revolutionaries, particularly those organized around anarchist ideals and practice.

The Japanese government was particularly brutal towards the Koreans. Sex slavery of Korean females—also known as “comfort women”—continued into World War II, wholesale slaughter of entire villages suspected of aiding rebels, bans on Korean cultural practices and religions, confiscation of land, control of media, and forced name changes were commonplace across Korea. This forced many to emigrate from Korea to outlying Manchuria, China, or to forcibly resist Japanese occupation.

Within Japan, (I guess this may be deleted if I go into detail on what was actually happening in Japan at the time) anarchists organized through the Osaka Common People's Newspaper, advocated against Japanese rule over Korea as well as Japans participation in the Russo-Japanese War, leading to the summary executions of hundreds of anarchist radicals.

At this time in 1919, the Korean Independence movement had reached a tipping point. On March 1st, massive demonstrations were held across Korea proclaiming a formal rejection of Japanese encroachment into Korea, with its participants demanding “self-determination” for the Korean people. Demonstrations would occur for over a month, formally ending by April 11th. By its end, some 7,000 people had been killed by Japanese soldiers and police. Japanese authorities blamed anarchists for the events, leading to the persecution of many within Japan itself, even going so far as to blame anarchists for the earthquake of 1923.

Anarchist groups had begun to formalize out of the ruins of the “Three-One” movement, in particular, the Korean Anarchist Federation in China, which was formed in April of 1924 with its manifesto, “The Korean Revolution Manifesto.” The manifesto declared, “that the burglar politics of Japan is the enemy for our nation's existence and that it is our proper right to overthrow the imperialist Japan by a revolutionary means.” It went onto stress that no new ruling class could change the situation, that only a thoroughly anarchistic-social revolution was required to bring complete liberation for the Korean people. The Federation grew and began to publish newspapers entitled “Recapture” and “Justice Bulletin.”

By 1928, anarchist ideas had spread across Asia, made solid by the formation of the Eastern Anarchist Federation with members from China, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan. The group took the Manifesto as its programme along with its paper “The East,” it supported and created a revolutionary situation across Asia. Along with the Eastern Anarchist Federation, the Korean Anarchist Communist Federation was formed as a national organization devoted towards the independence of Korea from Japanese rule. The formal organizations were but a fraction of the revolutionary situation, as numerous groups across Asia went underground and devoted itself to the destruction of government. Hundreds were jailed for production of documents similar to the The Korean Revolution Manifesto, so many so that Japan accepted the death-penalty for groups advocating the “changing the national structure.”

Worker and student cooperatives were set up in direct confrontation with the states at large, with many organized “according to the free federation principle based upon the spontaneous free will of man.” The anarchist organization of many workers soon came in direct confrontation with Stalinists who were also actively organizing across the Koreas, who denounced anarchists as “tyrants.” The Stalinist powers were not effective in organizing the masses, though their activity put a wrench in the abilities of the anarchists in many ways.

By 1929, in Shinmin—one of the provinces of Manchuria—anarchists had gained such that the entire region was called the Korean People's Association in Manchuria, identifying itself as “an independent self-governing cooperative system of the Korean people who assembled their full power to save our nation by struggling against Japan.” The structure was federal, with local workplaces and communities deciding democratically its functions, upwards through the entire region. Local administrations of other anti-Japanese fighters voluntarily dissolved into the larger anarchist organizations. Much of the Korean Anarchist Communist Federation soon began devoting almost all of its energy towards the revolutionary movement there, with many relocating to the providence.

The province was eventually crushed in 1931 by an onslaught of outside Stalinist forces from the north and Japanese armies from the south. Stalinists began murdering both anarchist organizers and sympathizers, leaving many dead in their path towards Stalinist hegemony.

Kim Jwa-jin (the Korean Makhno) --

Kim Jwa-Jin’s pen name was Baekya and he was born in Hyangsan-Ri, Galsan-Myeon on Nov. 24, 1889 of the lunar calendar (26th year of King Gojong’s reign).

He made a record of the first emancipation of slaves in Korea when he was 18 years old. At the age of 15, he sold a house with over 80 rooms where his family had lived from generation to generation and moved to a small house. After this, he founded the Homyeong School and opened a way to learn new knowledge. He opened a way for learning the modern sciences in local areas, the first in Korea but he was never satisfied with this achievement. He founded the scholarship foundation “Giho Heunghakhoe” and selected and sent promising young people from local areas to Seoul. At the age of 20, he founded an orphanage in Seoul with Yi Bong-Chang to raise orphans. He founded a dye works in Sinuiju and the Echang foreign business firm on the site of the previous Daegwanwon in Gwancheol-Dong as well as working as the director of the Hanseong Newspaper.

At the age of 31, he lured 3,000 Japanese soldiers lead by Regimental Commander Kano in the battle fields of Siberia to Cheongsan-Ri Hwaryong-Hyeon, where he killed 1,200 Japanese soldiers, including Regimental Commander Kano, and wounded thousands of other Japanese soliders. This was the famous battle, the “Cheongsan-Ri Operation”, of Oct. 21, 1910. He was appointed as the chairman of an executive committee at the age of 38 and attempted to integrate the Independence Movement groups in Manchuria; however, this attempt failed. At the age of 40, he was appointed as Gunmuseodokbyeon (military service), Commander in Chief of Military Administration in North Manchuria, and President of the Korean Association. He concentrated on education and the livelihood of people in Manchuria and formed a united front with the anti-Japanese force of China. While he had prepared for resisting Japan, he was shot by a member of the Young Korean Communist Party in a rice mill near Sansi Station in Jungdong at 2 p.m. on Jan. 24, 1930. The fortunate adventures that comprised Baekya Kim Jwa-Jin’s life were brought to a close by an assassin bullet. (quoted from http://hongseong.go.kr/english/hs/hs_05_04.html)

Anarchism in Asia

2008-10-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

Working quite a bit on Anarchism throughout Asia from about 1900 - 1931. It's interesting, because the 1919 revolution in Russia had turned many worker associations throughout the world towards an authoritarian Marxist-Leninist viewpoint; exceptions include Korea, Japan, China, and Manchuria in Asia, and Spain in Europe. Certainly the changes occurred, as made evident in lives of the founders of the Communist Party of Japan (1922), Arahata Kanson and Yamakawa Hitoshi (who at one time even helped translate Kropotkin's "Conquest of Bread"). The Communist International (ComIntern) even financially supported a paper "Labor Movement" to help spur revolutionary action. Ironically, by the late 20's, the paper had become nearly 100% anarchist, completely against the ideals of Bolsheviks and Vanguardism.

One interesting about Japan is the influence not of the Europeans, but of the American workers. Typically American radicalism is attributed to outside influence, when that assumption is flipped, well, I think it's interesting. The combination of Kropotkin's works such as Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories, and Workshops, as well as the practice of the Industrial Workers of the World in the Americas.

To say that anarchism is ALWAYS non-violent, I think, is unfortunate. It's easier, certainly, but there has been a fair level of violence. You can see the similarities when you look at the Japanese and Chinese anarchists, many were influenced by the Nihilist movements of Russia as well as the anti-state, anti-hierarchal ideas of Anarchism. One journal in Japan, Kakumei (Revolution), claimed, "The sole means is the bomb. The means whereby the revolution can be funded too is the bomb. The means to destroy the bourgeois class is the bomb."

By the 20's, the movement was very powerful, with numerous national anarchist unions, including participation within the Asian-wide Eastern Anarchist Federation. In Japan, two organizations of significance to anarchists were Kokuren and Zenkoku Jiren. Kokuren was deeply Anarchist-Communist, with the Zenkoku Jiren clearly anarcho-syndicalist. As the Zenkoku Jiren's program advocates:

--We take the class struggle as the basis for the movement to liberate the workers and tenant farmers.
--We reject all political movements and insist on economic action alone.
--We advocate libertarian federation organised industry by industry and we reject centralised authoritarianism.
--We oppose imperialist aggression and advocate the international solidarity of the working class.
Over the next number of years, the antagonism between these two anarchist variants: Communism and Syndicalism, grew. Distrust of both the industrial system, namely industrial methods of organization, led anarchists such as Hatta Shûzô who argued:

In a society which is based on the division of labor, those engaged in vital production (since it forms the basis of production) would have more power over the machinery of coordination than those engaged in other lines of production. There would therefore be a real danger of the appearance of classes. [...] If we understand...that the class struggle and the revolution are different things, then we are forced to say that it is a major mistake to declare, as the syndicalists do, that the revolution will be brought about by the class struggle. Even if a change in society came about by means of the class struggle, it would not mean that a genuine revolution had occurred.

The Kokuren group began to carry this thought out into practice, and soon became the dominant trend within Japan. In its journal "Black Youth," the group declared, "The anarchist movement is progressing a great deal in Japan at the present time. In other countries we find an anarchist movement which links up with the syndicalists. But in this country we do not approve of them, driving them away just as we do the bolsheviks. We are even against anarchist syndicalism and we adhere to anarchist communism."

The schism was of concern to anarchists worldwide. Secretary of the Syndicalist based International Workers' Association (IWA) Augustin Souchy, wrote a letter to the Zenkoku Jiren during its second conference:

Comrades! We have heard something about a current theoretical dispute between the pure anarchists and pure syndicalists within the Japanese libertarian labour movement. If we might express our opinion, now is not really the time for a dispute over such an issue. It has taken on an entirely theoretical character. On this occasion, we would like to draw your attention to Argentina and to the South American countries in general. In these countries the labour movement acts in the spirit of Mikhail Bakunin and also, at the same time, is under the spiritual guidance of our indomitable pioneer Errico Malatesta. In these countries, all anarchists heroically take part in the syndicalist movement, while, at the same time, all syndicalists are fighting to abolish the oppressive machinery of the state and to resist capitalist exploitation. In Spain too, anarchists and syndicalists apportion between them concern for economic questions and for the spiritual side of things in such a way that theoretical disputes do not arise.

The split could not be stopped, and was soon destroyed by not only its internal differences, but by the force and violence carried out by the Japanese state.

(To be continued)

Classical Anarchism pt. 1

2008-09-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

Classical Anarchism by George Crowder, Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. 1991.

"The liberty of man consists solely in this: that he obeys natural laws because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual." - Mikhail Bakunin.

To answer my earlier question, I'm going to begin with Chapter 5, The Anarchist Case.

"The central argument of the classical anarchist tradition is founded on a theory of the nature and value of social freedom. Freedom in its most significant sense is to be understood as moral self-direction: self-direction in accordance with the will of the true of perfected self, which is the rational and right-willing part of the personality. Freedom in this sense possesses an inviolable value since it is definitive of true humanity. The State is evil and ought to be abolished because, of its nature, it violates moral self-direction. Existing and past States have done this in several ways: by upholding conditions of corruption in economic relations, be encouraging people to form habits of unquestioning obedience, and so on. But any State will do so in virtue of the defining feature of government, namely organized coercion. The coercive State is a positive evil. It is also, or will also become, unnecessary. Mankind is capable of being ruled by moral rules along, without the need of enforcement, indeed is already tending inexorably in that direction..." p. 170. (Crowder).

"Even assuming the continuation into the foreseeable future of the existing industrial and social framework, there may still be room for a less ambitious form of anarchist thought. This is the approach preferred, for example, by Colin Ward, who describes his version of anarchism as follows: 'far from being a speculative vision of a future society, it is a description of a mode of human organization, rooted in the experience of everyday life, which operates side by side with, and in spite of, the dominant authoritarian trends of our society.' Rather than redesigning the world in accordance with the ideals of Godwin and the others, Ward tries to show anarchist principles and insights can be applied under prevailing conditions in a way that many who are non-anarchists would find attractive. The object is no longer to create 'the anarchist society,' that allusive Golden Age of the future, but to gain practical influence over current institutions and individuals. Ward himself has done much to show how this is possible in the field of urban planning in particular, where he as examined the practical stes by which people can gain greater control over their own living environment without direction from government and developers..." p. 196, (Crowder).

How do you justify Anarchism?

2008-09-12T21:15:00.000-07:00

So, how do you justify/explain Anarchism to someone who does not know anything of the theory and practice? Do you justify/explain Anarchism differently to those who have reservations of the theory/practice? If so, what do you explain differently to those who know basic theory, but still refuse the idea wholeheartedly?

Bakunin

2008-09-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

Few personal updates: I haven't been to a meeting in some time. Aside from the feds, the incredible police presence at the RNC (which I was not apart of), and a miriad of other issues, people haven't been making it out. For me, I've just had so much on my plate. I've already dropped one class, Spanish isn't going too well (they expect us to already have some history in the language...), Cultural Anthropology is so interesting but the teacher just kills it with her long tirades about nothing (she ruined a talk about the !Kung, I mean, come on...), so history is the only class I enjoy. In history, I get to write a research topic, one of the listed acceptable topics is, of all people, Mikhail Bakunin, so I jumped on that. I'll have a much longer section about him soon. I also went on a date-thing last night, which was a lot of fun. It's been a long time since I've been on something like that and I definitely enjoyed myself.

4 books about Bakunin:
Bakunin by Anthony Masters. Ph 258-9 talks about the influence into the Americas, "However Michael's influence was mainly felt in Mexico, in Cuba, and in Argentina where his theories were first transported in the 1870's."

Bakunin on Anarchism by Sam Dolgoff.

The Political Philosophy of Bakunin which includes essays and introductions by Max Nettlau and Rudolf Rocker.

The Social and Political Thought of Michael Bakunin by Richard B. Saltman.

Lastly, I found a book tying all the Europeans together in a solid theoretical standpoint, Classical Anarchism by George Crowder.

I'm soooooooooooooooooo late for work.

Makhno links

2008-09-02T15:17:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhno

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhnovism

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20070607225040457

http://struggle.ws/platform/plat_preface.html

http://libcom.org/library/struggle-against-state-other-essays-makhno

http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/makfaq.html

http://www.ditext.com/avrich/7.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Territory_(Ukraine)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Insurrectionary_Army_of_Ukraine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_(1917)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1917#World_War_I

http://www.ditext.com/arshinov/appendix.html

http://libcom.org/history/makhno-nestor-1889-1934

New Work (Introduction; Kropotkin; Section I almost complete)

2008-08-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

I am close to nearing the completion (at least in first-draft form) of Section I. Most of the holes not cannot be filled until later (references towards a later section, data or quote lacking here and there, ideas not fully developed), and I'm damned excited. We're looking at 40 pages with 118 footnotes so far, (a number of those are Ibid. to a different page or section), which is pretty lengthy itself.

I'm not beginning the section with a sort of all encompassing anarchist treatise. There have been so many out there, so it's difficult to fully explain the ideas of anarchism very quickly; that's probably why Right-Wingers win so many propaganda battles, eh? This introduction will give a better idea into what the fuck I'm talking about, and give some direction in the history (especially the first section, it's difficult to understand the development of an idea that you don't have a vague idea of in the first place). That way, the history and the current movement blend together, supporting one another.

Aside from the Introduction chapter/section, I finished up the Kropotkin chapter. At 7+ pages, it's the longest section so far based on a single person or series of events. I'll lead from Kropotkin into the Russian Revolution, namely the Makhnovists and some differences of Marxism and Anarchism. From Makhno, the debate over the "platform" ties well into Italy and Malatesta (as well as his world revolutionary practice). From Malatesta, jump to Spain and the Spanish Revolution. I don't have a transition from Spain into another yet, but I'll also include Asian anarchists (Japan as well as the massive Mongolian-Chinese revolutionary movements/communes) and African anarchism. From there, into the fall and "rebirth" of anarchism across the world. Then into Section II, about Anarchists before Anarchism in N-America (not the actual title) which will include long sections on the indigenous organizations, early land-banks and anti-state radicals, into the Revolutionary War. Section III will be the Revolution into the variety of abolitionist societies and slave rebellions, worked into the growth of a workers movement worldwide with a focus on early individualist anarchism (all tieing in the world scene as well). Section IV will begin with massive workers movements, propganda by the deed, world revolution, the death of individualist anarchism, and the great purging of the anarchist movement. Section V will be based from the "rebirth" of anarchism, beginning when anarchism wasn't a "mass movement" anymore (40's) into its rebirth of ideas beginning in the 50's, namely the 60's. From there, into the 1980's re-organization of the movement (actual anarchist groups), re-evaluating the movement from a theoretical position, "the movement gets green," anarchist ideas taken up by many different groups (anti-nuke, anti-war, anti-globalization) and the birth of Love and Rage, the Zapatistas, up until the present day. Section VI: giant closer, Anarchism as the future radical movement.

A few quotes from recent work:

"While “there is no single defining position that all anarchists hold, beyond their rejection of compulsory government, and those considered anarchists at best share a certain family resemblance.”¹ This “family resemblance” can be broken to three major points of unity.

a) a solid rejection of constituted authority

b) a rejection of reform or hierarchal order as a long-term strategy

c) a promotion of non-coercive systems as a substitute for present world systems²

1Oxford Companion to Philosophy. 2007, p. 31. “Anarchism.”

2Modified from Men Against The State p. 4

Anarchism can be understood as the generic social and political idea that expresses negation of all power, sovereignty, domination, and hierarchical division, and a will to their dissolution. . . Anarchism is therefore more than anti-statism . . . [even if] government (the state) . . . is, appropriately, the central focus of anarchist critique.¹

1Reinventing Anarchy, p. 139.

Free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely constituted for the sake of production and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being. In a society developed on these lines, the voluntary associations which already now begin to cover all the fields of human activity would take a still greater extension so as to substitute themselves for the state in all its functions.¹

1Kropotkin; Encyclopedia Britannica, 1910, “Anarchism.”

Etymologically speaking, the term is derived from the Greek language, though its usage may be found to be much sooner. Its prefix 'an' meaning “the absence of,” or “the lack of,” plus archos, meaning “ruler,” “chief,” or “authority,” taken in whole described as “the absence of authority.”¹ Similar uses are found in various etymology dictionaries, describing “anarkhia” as the "lack of a leader," or society being "ruler-less.”²

1Anarchist FAQ Section A.1.1. Accessed March 28, 2008.

2 Online Etymology Dictionary at http://www.etymonline.com/ states, “1539, from M.L. anarchia, from Gk. anarkhia "lack of a leader," noun of state from anarkhos "rulerless," from an- "without" + arkhos "leader" (see archon). Anarchist (1678) got a boost into modernity from the French Revolution. Anarcho-syndicalism is first recorded 1913.” Accessed March 28, 2008.

It is Anarchist Communism, Communism without government—the Communism of the free. It is the synthesis of the two ideals pursued by humanity throughout the ages—Economic and Political Liberty. [...] the tendency of the human race is to reduce Government interference to zero; in face, to abolish the state, the personification of injustice, oppression and monopoly.¹

1 Chapter 3, Conquest of Bread. Peter Kropotkin.

With all of its serious deficiencies—and I, as you know, see them well—the October Revolution brought about enormous progress. It has demonstrated that social revolution is not impossible, as people in Western Europe had begun to think. And, for all its defects, it is bringing about progress in the direction of equality, which will not be corroded by attempts to return to the past. Why then, push the revolution on a path leading to its destruction, primarily because of defects which are not at all inherent in socialism or communism, but represent the survival of the old order and old disturbances, of an unlimited omnivorous authority? ¹

Rather than lose hope, Kropotkin continued to throw his support behind the worker councils until his death.

The idea of Soviets, that is to say, of councils of workers and peasants [...] the idea of such councils controlling the economic and political life of the country is a great idea. All the more so, since it necessarily follows that these councils should be composed of all who take a real part in the production of national wealth by their own efforts. But as long as the country is governed by a party dictatorship, the workers' and peasants' councils evidently lose their entire significance. [...] Naturally, the usual excuse is that a dictatorship is inevitable in order to combat the old regime. But such a state of affairs is evidently a step backwards, since the revolution is committed to the construction of a new society on a new economic base. It means the death-knell of the new system.²

1 Kropotkin's Letter to Lenin, December 21, 1920.

2The Russian Revolution and the Soviet Government, written on April 28, 1919, published in Labour Leader, July 22, 1920.

Lenin admitting defeat?:

With the exception of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, our state apparatus is to a considerable extent a survival of the past, and has undergone hardly any serious change. It has only been slightly touched up on the surface, but in all other respects it is a most typical relic of our old state machine. ¹

1 “Did Lenin Admit Defeat?” http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/archive/lenin(1970).pdf ; Lenin's Testament (1923)

New Work Today

2008-08-10T19:58:00.000-07:00

I'm finally moved in, still without a job. Ah well. Pandora's "Miles Davis" station can sustain me a while.

Today I've done quite a bit of work on Kropotkin, The Jura Federation, and have in the works a longer section on Joseph Dejacque (the actual founder or origins of modern day anarchist communism). Problem with Dejacque, I have to translate all of his works and bibliographies of him! I've never spoken French in my life and I definitely don't know anyone that has fluent French speaking and reading abilities. Much time over the next few weeks will be putting paragraph after paragraph into a translation website (or through Google translation page), then correcting the work. There isn't any Dejacque in English as far as I'm aware, aside from a chapter in Volume I of Anarchism: History of Libertarian Ideas, and a small page in Wikipedia. He created the ground work in a number if locales, wrote some of the first anarchist manifestos, and didn't take shit from anyone (he challenged Proudhon's economic ideas, his sexism, and his racism).

Over the past couple weeks, I've been in the midst of an argument with a comrade of mine. It's interesting, our disagreements. I'm not of the school of thought that believe human beings are genuinely "good" or even "logical." I'm not of the school of thought that believes in a Utopia, just as I don't believe in the giant pie in the sky when we die, or eternal damnation for simply saying "fucking cock" just before I get hit by a bus. That said, I believe that organizations and systems of order must be put into place to deal with a variety of social ills: rape, violence, even laziness when that laziness affects the life and rights of others. I come through this conclusion through the use of anarchism or anarchy in past anarchic societies. Many of us are starving now, but come a serious revolution, a whole lot more of us may be in a whole lot worse position than we currently are. Simply shrugging this question off until said situations arise, or arguing that things will simply be done, "if people are starving, people will just have to grow food," the argument did not gain much ground. In fact, it led to a few thoughts of mine.

I wonder how serious the current anarchist revolution is today. How realistic is this movement? Looking at the past, comrades were faced with deportations, prison, outright murder. In the Jewish Anarchists, strikers would be arrested numerous times in one day, all to be released and jump right onto the picket line. I've yet to see such serious commitment from today's anarchists. Still, there has been a major resurgence of anarchist sentiment, or anarchist practice within the past, say 30 years alone. Following the anarchist demonstrations at the Republican National Convention, it'll be interesting to see where we go from here. In the region, Michigan and Ohio within this region, there has been talk of more solidified anarchist organizations. I've proposed these for at least the past three years with very little support. So hopefully, these will come to light. It's definitely time for some serious anarchist organizing to occur.

Labadie Collection - Pamphlets

2008-07-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

For all you other super-nerds, pamphlets from the Labadie collection in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

http://flickr.com/photos/17984487@N00/sets/

New stuff added

2008-07-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

The Diggers, Proudhon section finished, Bakunin section in the works, making my work so far about 25 solid pages.

The Diggers:

In the Beginning of time, the great creator Reason made the earth to be a common treasury... not one word was spoken in the beginning that one branch of mankind should rule over another.¹

.... the power of the murdering and thieving sword formerly as well as now of late years hath set up a government and maintains that government; for what are prisons and putting others to death, but the power of the Sword to enforce people to that Government which was got by Conquest and sword and cannot stand of itself but by the same murdering power.²

... the Kingly power sets up a Law and Rule of government to walk by; and here Justice is pretended but the full strength of the Law is to uphold the conquering Sword and to preserve his son Propriety... For though they say the Law doth punish yet indeed the Law is but the strength, life and marrow of the Kingly power upholding the Conquest still, hedging some into the Earth, hedging out others; giving the Earth to some and denying the Earth to others, which is contrary to the Law of Righteousness who made the Earth at first as free for one as for another... Truly most Laws are but to enslave the Poor to the Rich and so they uphold the Conquest and are Laws of the great Red Dragons. ³

1Winstanley, The True Levellers Standard Advanced, 1649.

2Winstaley, A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England, 1649.

3Winstanley, A New Years Gift for the Parliament and the Army.

Proudhon:

To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.¹

1General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, 1851. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

Let me say to M. Blanc: you desire neither Catholicism nor monarchy nor nobility, but you must have a God, a religion, a dictatorship, a censorship, a hierarchy, distinctions, and ranks. For my part, I deny your God, your authority, your sovereignty, your judicial State, and all your representative mystifications.¹

Bakunin:

They [the Marxists] maintain that only a dictatorship—their dictatorship, of course—can create the will of the people, while our answer to this is: No dictatorship can have any other aim but that of self-perpetuation, and it can beget only slavery in the people tolerating it; freedom can be created only by freedom, that is, by a universal rebellion on the part of the people and free organization of the toiling masses from the bottom up.¹

1Statism and Anarchism, Bakunin.

The Anarchist St. Imer International, 1868:

[t]hat the aspirations of the proletariat can have no other aim than the creation of an absolutely free economic organisation and federation based upon work and equality and wholly independent of any political government, and that such an organisation or federation can only come into being through the spontaneous action of the proletariat itself, through its trade societies, and through self-governing communes.¹

1Steklov, G.M., History of the First International, part 2, chapter 2

Work in the last month

2008-07-16T11:49:00.000-07:00

You'd think not having a job would lead to more work on your grand project. Actually, it's done the exact opposite. The prospect of being forced to relocate at every turn of the month, combined with the feeling of worthlessness due to my lack of workplace skills (McDonalds has turned me down), having to borrow more money on top of more money, has led to a significant depression. This doesn't even include my personal relationship issues.

Anyways, I've been charting the intellectual developments of anarchism across the world, leading up to the implementation of anarchism here in North America. What's interesting is the that most of these movements or ideas had no relationship to one another, yet they constantly use similar rhetoric and ideas. Proudhon's 'spontaneous order' comes about nearly 2,000 years his former in China with works of ancient Taoists. The Greek philosophers condemn state power, slavery, and argue for a society based upon reason rather than authority, over 1,000 years before Godwin wrote his Enquiry of Political Justice. This also leads to an interesting problem, why do we give focus to some, but not others? Is it because the first ideas did not create a solid movement towards anarchism? If so, then what exactly split action and philosophy? Were these movements simply crushed, or simply a small segment of ideas that have luckily survived all these years?

What I have so far: Taoists, Greek Philosophers, The Diggers, European Enlightenment Thinkers (Rousseau, Von Humboldt), William Godwin, to French Revolutionaries, to Proudhon. Major sections are still missing, as I'm skipping a lot, but that'll be added in as I go. Before this section, I believe I'll document the issues of writing a history of anarchism, as well as my intentions in writing, but that'll probably have to wait until completion.

A few selections:
Godwin, Summary of Principles:

Government was intended to suppress injustice, but it offers new occasions and temptations for the commission of it. By concentrating the force of the community, it gives occasion to wild projects of calamity, to oppression, despotism, war and conquest. By perpetuating and aggravating the inequality of property, it fosters many injurious passions, and excites men to the practice of robbery and fraud. Government was intended to suppress injustice, but its effect has been to embody and perpetuate it.

Taoists:

And just as Lao-Tzu developed the original ideas of limiting or opposing state-rule, Chuang-Tzu redeveloped these ideas, even going so far as to determine that the world “does not need governing; in fact it should not be governed.”

Greeks:

Epictetus, a Stoic, wrote in his book Discources, “Each human being is primarily a citizen of his own commonwealth; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, where of the city political is only a copy.”¹ This echoed Socrate's view, “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.”²

1Epictetus, Discourses, ii. 5. 26

2Epictetus, Discourses, i. 9. 1

Rousseau:

He condemned those who

do nothing but boast incessantly of the peace and repose they enjoy in their chains.... But when I see the others sacrifice pleasures, repose, wealth, power, and life itself for the preservation of this sole good which is so disdained by those who have lost it; when I see animals born free and despising captivity break their heads against the bars of their prison; when I see multitudes of entirely naked savages scorn European voluptuousness and endure hunger, fire, the sword, and death to preserve only their independence, I feel that it does not behoove slaves to reason about freedom.

Von Humboldt:

Nothing promotes this ripeness for freedom so much as freedom itself. This truth, perhaps, may not be acknowledged by those who have so often used this unripeness as an excuse for continuing repression. But it seems to me to follow unquestionably from the very nature of man. The incapacity for freedom can only arise from a want of moral and intellectual power; to heighten this power is the only way to supply this want; but to do this presupposes the exercise of the power, and this exercise presupposes the freedom which awakens spontaneous activity. Only it is clear we cannot call it giving freedom, when bonds are relaxed which are not felt as such by him who wears them. But of no man on earth--however neglected by nature, and however degraded by circumstances--is this true of all the bonds which oppress him. Let us undo them one by one, as the feeling of freedom awakens in men's hearts, and we shall hasten progress at every step.

Attack used against the French Enrage's:

Laws that are not carried into effect, authorities without force and despised, crime unpunished, property attacked, the safety of the individual violated, the morality of the people corrupted, no constitution, no government, no justice, these are the features of anarchy.

Proudhon:

...just as man looks for justice in equality, so society looks for order in anarchy. Anarchy, absence of master, of sovereign—that is the form of government to which we draw closer day by day, and which the inveterate habit of mistaking the man for the rule and his will for the law makes us regard as the last word in disorder and the exemplification of chaos.

That's enough for today.

Cuban Revolution

2008-06-17T09:33:00.001-07:00

Libertarian Association of Cuba to the International Anarchist Movement. Havana, June, 1959"
"The Communist Party of Cuba is just as dangerous for the revolution as are the extreme nationalists and upper echelons of the Church. Fortunately, their influence is limited because they are discredited by their association with Batista and their servility to the Russian totalitarian dictatorship. Hiding behind the banner of liberalism, patriotism, mutual tolerance and the coexistence of all anti-Batista forces, they have been able to infiltrate a number of organizations and some sectors of the labor movement. Though small in number, the Communists are skillful connivers, well-organized and totally unscrupulous; their counterrevolutionary potential must not be underestimated."

"We are alarmed that the allegedly "temporary" administrations of the unions and their officials are being installed without consultation or agreement of the membership or of the various organizations that made the Revolution... In the midst of the revolutionary turmoil, we do not expect everything, including the labor organizations, to function normally in so short a time. But it is our duty, and the duty of all workers, by militant action, to see to it that the democratic procedures, the freedoms, and the rights gained by us with the triumph of the Revolution are respected..." - January 18, 1959; Manifesto from the Libertarian Association of Cuba

And from the Cuban Constitution: "Article 66: Starting from the local, municipal and provincial Assemblies of People's Power, the Council of Ministers and the Council of State, supreme power is ultimately personified in a single dictator: The President of the Council of State."

Monday, June 16

2008-06-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

I have a nasty cold. The Chinese food last night tore me up. Puking up Sweet and Sour sauce is the worst. Anyways...

Some work done on the introduction, detailing the philosophical ideas of the European movements, then eventually condemning them for being Eurocentrist and unfit for anarchist ideals. Coming up with a solid transition is incredibly difficult, as is finding first hand references aside from Wikipedia or other such nonsense.

Quite basically, you see philosophical anarchism coming about through the French Revolution > William Godwin > Proudhon > Stirner > Bakunin > Kropotkin. By now, anarchism has spread the world, mostly through Proudhon's specifics in dealing with an actual movement and Bakuninist organizing among the Internationale and groups across the globe.

I'd work on this stuff so much more if I got paid for it.

Plan de San Diego

2008-06-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

Two books recommendations on the Plan De San Diego given to me at the recent Great Lakes Anarchist Gathering. The later books are possible good books as they're of the same or similar situations.

Rebellion in the Borderlands: Anarchism and the Plan of San Diego, 1904-1923 by James Sardos.

Revolution in Texas: How a Forgotten Rebellion and Its Bloody Suppression Turned Mexicans into Americans by Benjamin Haber Johnson.

Catarino Garza's Revolution on the Texas-Mexico Border by Elliott Young.The Making of the Mexican Border: The State, Capitalism, and Society in Nuevo León, 1848-1910 by Juan Mora-Torres. Class-struggle around Northern Mexico leading up to the Mexican revolution.

The Texas Rangers and the Mexican Revolution: The Bloodiest Decade, 1910-1920 by Charles H. III (Harris).

The Mexican Revolution: A People's History by Adolfo Gilly (Howard Zinn series editor).

Wikipedia of Dejacque

2008-06-03T14:08:00.001-07:00

Of unknown origins, Déjacque was first heard of when arrested as part of the revolutionary upheavals in France in 1848. Imprisoned for a time for socialist agitation, he was released but rearrested in 1851 and sentenced for two years for his collection of poems "Les Lazaréennes, Fables et Poésies Sociales". He escaped to London around the time of the December 2, 1851 coup d'état. While in Jersey between 1852 and 1853 he published "La question révolutionnaire", an exposition of anarchism. ^[2] From there he passed on the USA where he spoke to workers associations in New York and was a signatory to the programme of the First International there in 1855.^{[citation needed]}

Whilst staying in New Orleans from 1856 to 1858, he wrote his famous anarchist utopia "L'Humanisphère, Utopie anarchique" but could not find a publisher. Returning to New York he was able to serialise his book in his periodical "Le Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement social". Published in 27 issues from June 9, 1858 to February 4, 1861, Le Libertaire was the first anarcho-communist journal published in America. As well as many articles on revolution and current political events both in France and the USA he attacked the hanging of John Brown after the raid on Harpers Ferry and propagandised for the abolitionist cause. His stay in New York ended when his work prospects ran out due to the economic slump occasioned by the outbreak of the American Civil War. He returned to London and then to Paris following the amnesty, where he died a few years later in extreme poverty.

2008-05-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

Holocaust survivor Alexander Kimel wrote: "The youth in the Ghettos dreamed about fighting. I believe that although there were many factors that inhibited our responses, the most important factors were isolation and historical conditioning to accepting martyrdom." http://www.kimel.net/resistance3.html

4 books today

2008-04-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

I love libraries.

First is by some right-wing prick. M. J. Heale. American Anti-communism: Combating the Enemy Within (1830-1970). John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London. 1990. With such lovely chapters as "The Red Menace Reaches Washington" and "The Spectre Emerges"!

Favorite quote EVAR!!! OMG!!! "The periodic destruction of anarchists, socialists, and Communists, and the harassment of labor and liberal causes, may raise questions about the morality of American anticommunism, but it does nothing to impugn its rationality." O RLY? YA RLY!

Early in 1868, German groups in New York formed the Social party, which within a year had been reconstituted as Section I of the International Workingmen's Association in the United States. In 1874, Tompkins Square riot. Later, "Molly Maguire Riots" in Pennsylvania coal-mines.
In Chicago, population by 1890 was over 1 million, 100,00 pre-civil war. German immigrants constituting largest ethnic group. Here's how this prick writer describes Haymarket, "local anarchists called a protest meeting in Haymarket Square, which was addressed by August Spies and other members of the Black International. The police arrived, a bomb was thrown at them and they opened fire on the crowd, a few members of which may have responded in kind." Then quotes the New York Times inflamatory rhetoric "the mob appeared crazed with a frantic desire for blood, and, holding its ground, poured volley after volley into the midst of the officers." Page 30-31. When the Italian king was assassinated in 1900, anarchists in Chicago celebrated the event.

Radicalism in America. Sidney Lens. 1969. Thomas Y. Crowell Company. New York. Neat little book.

First struggles against power were not against the British, but by the aristocracy in the colonies. As late as 1775, only 160,000 of its 9 million settlers were allowed to vote.

Mexican Anarchism after the Revolution. Donald C. Hodges. University of Texas Press. 1995.

Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860-1931. John M. Hart. University of Texas Press. 1978.

Book Suggestions

2008-04-14T22:15:00.000-07:00

Ronald Takaki, Different Mirrors

The Making of American Exceptionalism: The Knights of Labour and Class Formation in the Nineteenth Century by Kim Voss is a comparative breakdown of attempts at mobilizing industrial labourers against horizontally integrated businesses.

or Endless Novelty: Specialty Production and American Industrialization 1865 - 1925 by Philip Scranton. This one is a little out of your period, but the commentary on the age of consumerism would definitely benefit you when discussing Taylorism or Fordism.

Alan Taylor's American Colonies: The Settling of North America

Forrest McDonald's E Pluribus Unum

The Industrial Worker 1840-1860: The Reaction Of American Industrial Society To The Advance Of The Industrial Revolution

Notes from Sunday, April 13th, 2008.

2008-04-13T14:12:00.000-07:00

"Not only does understanding American Anarchism in terms of who we are and where we may be going, in terms of lessons learned and recognizing battles won, but the whole process essentially redefines anarchism and anarchy to a point of reference and understanding to the entire world. If we do away with singular approaches to our struggle, we may find others who are combating the very system we have been opposing, which builds a popular front capable of destroying the old order and replacing this world with a thousand more." Yea, I'm sweet.

William Lloyd Garrison. 1805-1879. Radical anti-slavery advocate. "Declaration of Sentiments Adopted by Peace Convention." Decried government, laws, the constitution and war from a strong Christian viewpoint.

David Lipscomb (1831-1917). Anarchist Christian, had some amazing Christian-Anarchist-Pacificist things to say. Relatively unknown to me as of now.

"The obstacles to anarchism are, in the main, global; only their specifics are determined by local circumstances." Sam Mbah.

First Mexican anarchist organization began in 1863, founded by professor Plotino Rhodakanaty called the Club Socialista de Estudiantes (CSE). Roughly in English meaning "Socialist Club for Students." Group organized anarchist labor unions amongst working class which led to the first strike in Mexican history. Organized among Indian communities in Southern Mexico. Following the CSE began La Social, which included activists from the Paris Commune, decentralized across Mexico reaching a peak of 62 separate member organizations. (From "Non-Western Anarchisms")

Henry C. Wright attacks government for being contrary to God. 1797-1870. Abolitionist, pacifist. Ordained minister. "About the same time he gave up his lecturing agency in the American Peace Society, which was also discomfitted by his radicalism, and in 1838 helped found the New England Non-Resistance Society. Nonresistance, the foundation of Wright's reform philosophy, proclaimed the sovereignty of individual conscience and opposed to all forms of coercion, violence, and the dominion of person over person. In practice, Wright condoned violent resistance to slavery, though he personally eschewed violence." http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/wright.htm

Ezra Haywood. Pre-1890. Follower of Benjamin Tucker, influenced by Josiah Warren. Birth control advocate.

Joseph Labadie (1850-1933). Labadie Collection. First president of the Michigan Federation of Labor, first Detroit organizer. In 1883, he embraced Individualist Anarchism and allied himself with Benjamin Tucker.

By 1908, with Benjamin Tucker gone from the states, almost all anarchist embraced anarchist-communism.

"The deportations of 1919 and 1920 ended one phase of the Anarchist movement here in the United States." Page 185, Men Against the State.

German immigration from 1879-1890 rose 244% above the average level of the preceding four-year period as a result of Bismarck's "Exceptional Laws" (1878). 1881-1900, Italian immigrants more than doubled. Its peak was 1901-1910, when 2,045,877 Italians came to America. Russian immigration from 1871-1880 more than 20 times what it had been in 10 years prior, from 1881-1890, 100 times. Page 162, Native American Anarchism.

1883, October. Johann Most writes the manifesto of the IWPA (International Working People's Association).

Ideas fade and die in one epoch; they spring up in the next, perhaps in a new form, but from the same seed. They are sometimes healthier, more vigorous in one period than another, but the idea never dies. (Page 164, Native American Anarchism).

Mass Conversions of Christianity in 1820's to 1850's? Led to number of Christian anti-state, anti-law, abolitionists. Apart of the Romantic period, which is one of extreme individualism.

Gilded Age (1870's-1900) led to destruction of artisanry and establishment of industry. Mass wealth in hands of a few. Mass strikes.

Haymarket strike was also called because cops had just killed several strikers the day before? (Beer and Revolution, Introduction).

Anarchy in Action, "an anarchist society, a society that sees itself without authority, is always in existence, like a seed beneath the snow, buried under the weight of the state and its bureaucracies, capitalism and its waste, privilege, and its injustices, nationalism and its suicidal loyalties, religious differences and their superstitious separatism." page 11.

European threat of revolt from 1789 to uprisings of 1830 and 1848? Paris Commune, 1871.

Before 1880's, German dissident socialists called themselves "social revolutionaries." Same time (1880-1890's) Communism replaced Collectivism as the dominant economic vision.

Kropotkin, Malatesta, and Elisee Reclus criticized Bakunin for being too abstract.

15 Periodicals by German-Anarchists in New York City area during late 1800's. They created a network throughout Northern New Jersey, Manhattan, Brooklyn, of beerhalls, bakeries, groceries, and labor halls. These began to open in the early 1880's.

In 1890, four out of five New Yorkers were either born abroad or of foreign parentage. page 19, Beer and Revolution.

"Anarchism does not wipe out nationality." -Israel Ostroff.

"We had little contact with other anarchist groups," said Spaniard Marcelino Garcia, "the biggest mistake we ever made in this country."

"It was the American experience of struggle that made them anarchists." -Vincezo Ferrero (all from "Introduction-Ethnic Anarchists from Anarchist Voices by Paul Avrich). This last quote ties in the reason why so many German anarchists that were not radicals when they arrived, but quickly became anarchists.

Italian anarchists are a "shadowy subject." Luigi Galleani published Cronaca Sovversive (Subversive Chronicle). Sacco and Vanzetti were the rallying of Italian Anarchists. Much anti-fascist work (Mussolini came to power in 1922). Carlo Tresca's "Il Martello," Aldino Felician's "Contro corrente" and Raffaele Schiavina's "L'Adunata dei Refrattari."

Union of Russian Workers. Attacked by US's Palmer Raids. Expelled from the states to Russia, became the victims of both Red Scare and Bolshevik Red Terror.

U.S. Anarchist Bibliography from Anarchy Archives. http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_Archives/worldwidemovements/usbiblio.html

Birth of the Industrial Era

2008-04-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

By the 1840's and 50's, the United States was witnessing massive industrialization across the board. This massive urbanization, this massive industrialism, concentrated many into a few urban areas. New York City, Mexico City, and many others saw millions of workers being driven from their countryside lands into intolerable conditions. Disease, chronic economic and political instability, and the unbearable working conditions within the new factories, gave birth to the labor movement. All over the world, workers were now organizing in virtual self-defense of their lives.

By the 1860's, free currency, free exchange, free trade, and free soil were being articulated by the anarchist-individualists/mutualists, in reaction to this destruction of the artisanry. The first Mutualist-Anarchist groups were established in Cuba and Mexico at this time (1860's). The Cuban anarchist movement would have its influences in what is now Southern Florida. The Mexican movement's ideas spread across what is now the United State's southwest.

The American Civil War led to one the largest concentrations of urbanization/industrialization, and by 1880, these same cries for free-trade, anti-monopoly, free-land, were now taken as the rallying cries of reformers. This is where the Anarchist Communists would now make their claim.

Immigration and the American Anarchist Movement

2008-04-10T13:58:00.001-07:00

Immigration, as well as migration, has a profound affect on all society, whether that effects our social conditions or political distinctions. Here in the Americas, immigration has major impacts on all distinctions within the big-tent of Anarchism.

Proudhon is said to have an influence in the Americas by the mass emigration of Europeans following the Revolution of 1848. (pages 122-on in Native American Anarchism; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-Eighters). By 1850, Proudhon's works were of heavy influence on people such as William Batchelder Greene, who combined Proudhon's "Bank of the People" and mutualist economic views, with his vision of Christianity. Albert Brisbane, one of the first to introduce Fourist ideas into the United States (according to NAA, which I'm going to look into because I'm doubting this...), came following the '48 Revolution.

Yiddish/Jewish Anarchists (Free Voice of Labor), Mexican Immigrants (Pre-revolution, revolutionary ideas of Magon/Magonistas), Italian, German, Russian anarchists throughout the years building the Anarchist-Communist and Insurrectionist ideas here in the states.

More notes to myself: A frenchman by the name of Joseph Déjacque, the man who first used the term "Libertarian" in print, was one of the New York chapter of the Internationale', was publishing some magazines critical but strongly influenced by Proudhon (Libertaire, magazine, 1858-61; and L'Humanisphere Utopie Anarchquie, 58-59). He worked with the Internationale and was a signatory of the Programme in 1855. Eventually became an anarchist-communist.

Also Elisee Reclus, of Anarcho-Communist founding fame, traveled around the Midwest from around 1853 to 1856, his ideas of the time were still very Proudhon influenced. By 1880's, he was firmly Anarchist-Communist.

Immigration patterns in the USA: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAimmigration.htm

Christian Anarchism

2008-03-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

One of the most interesting things I have encountered in my study of American Anarchism are groups of Christian Anarchists, or as the new website/group calls themselves, Jesus Radicals. From my understanding, aside from the large number of anarchistic indigenous groups, Christians are among the first to denounce (and practice) a no-state, anti-hierarchal method of organization.

For a number of anarchists today, the idea of religion and Christianity being compatible seems absolutely ridiculous. So much Christianity has been taken and used by the worst people on the planet. One major reason why so many Americans are Christians are due to state-run bloodshed, all out genocide. Christianity has been used to justify tyrants during the crusades, the inquisition, genocide of North-American Indigenous peoples, fascism across the world, and numerous other examples. In fact, it has been argued that capitalism owes its entire existence on the elimination of pagan women ("witches") who cared and provided for themselves, their families, their communities, and who had control over their own bodies (through the use of natural birth control).

Still, there exists a strain of Christian thought that differences itself from such acts, and proclaims all acts were purely the use of state-power against the population. "In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful." -Leo Tolstoy.

Within the bible itself, there indeed are quotations and lessons that seem awfully anarchistic. There are doctrines of peace, of non-violence, such as, Exodus 20:13, Mark 12:31, Luke 6:27, Matthew 5:39-40, and others, which perfectly establish a Christian Anarchism (as all governments are built on the practice of violence, governments are against the idea of god. This incidentally gives the Christian Anarchists their non-violence, "non-resistance" approach). Even should one believe that states or governments are not based in violence, there exist other quotes based on absolute rejection of government including Acts 5:29, "We are to obey God rather than men"; 1 Samuel 8 "To seek rule by man is to reject the rule of God"; Ephesians 6:12, "Christians struggle against governments, rulers, and spiritual wickedness"; Judges 9:7-15 The Parable of the Trees, "Honest people are too busy making an honest living to accept political power, so only the corruptible will accept political power"; Matthew 4:8-10 "The devil controls man-made governments"; and Mark 10:42-45, "The gentiles have rulers over them, but it shall not be so among Christians.

Christan Anarchists or "no-government Christians" in the United States include the early Anabaptists, the Catholic Worker movement, numerous people included among the "no-government" abolitionists, Jesus Radicals, and various anti-militarist groups across the nation. Historically, Christian Anarchists will fill the gap between periods of mass-struggle and those of "minimal participation." They take their part in the early Individualist anarchist movements, people like Lysander Spooner, Josiah Warren, and William Lloyd Garrison. They give a bridge from World War I struggles to World War II resistance. They fill in various struggles and without them, the anarchist struggle here in the states would not have been as profound as it has been. Later this year, Jesus Radicals will host a Christianity and Anarchism conference, August 10-11 in Duboque, Iowa.

I would like to mention that in no way am I religious. I say this not to keep the hardline atheists at bay, but simply as a sort of reasoning into possible faulty logic, or as a preemptive apology in speaking for Christian anarchists who disagree with my assessment here.

Colonial Land Banks; Indigenous Anarchism

2008-03-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

Information on Colonial Land Banks thanks to Shawn Wilbur. http://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/landbanks/

Information on the Sioux (Lakota) peoples from Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. http://www.amazon.com/Great-Nation-Sitting-Judgment-America/dp/B000IX2CSW/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205712952&sr=1-8

Information on the anarchist tendencies of the Iroquois. http://www.nefac.net/anarchiststudyofiroquois

Further studies on anarchistic tendencies of various American indigenous groups from Harold Barclay's People Without Government.

Working Table of Contents

2008-03-12T15:52:00.001-07:00

History of American Anarchism

Preface/Introduction

Anarchy as Ideal and Practice
--Anarchy/anarchism as natural, common, ever-present
--Is there an American Anarchism?
--Attempt to stay away from intellectual European influence (unless useful)
--Anarchism and Anarchy defined by American Anarchists, not Europeans

Native American Anarchism and the Birth of a Nation
-Iroquois, etc.
-Colonial Land Banks (1681-1840)
--New London Society: Connecticut Land Bank, 1732; Andrew McFarland Davis on the Land Banks; The Fund: A Boston Land Bank of 1681; More Land Bank Beginnings: William Potter; The Massachusetts Land Bank of 1740
-State-less ideas within the Revolution and Founders
-Revolution and the Development of Hierarchal Order

Birth and Trials of the Anarchist Ideals
-Failure of the Revolution
-Individualist movement and their trials
-Josiah Warren, Modern Times (1851, Utopia (1844)
-“No-Government” Abolitionists, Transcendentalist attacks on government
-The classics: Proudhon, Stirner, Mikhail Bakunin (1850's-death) ideas spread here

Social Revolution, Individualist Retreat (1860-1900)
-Making of an Industrial Society, Transition from Agrarian to Industrial
-How this relates to the change in anarchist ideas
-Rise in American Social Anarchists, Decline in American Individualism (Johann Most reaches New York City in 1882)
-Labor Struggles (Haymarket, massive worker struggles)
-Modern School Movement
-Coming of a Century

A New Century, The Coming War (1900-1920)
-A new century
-Mexican Revolution, Magon, Trials in Southwest America
-Assassination of a president, anarchist terrorism here and abroad
-World War I
-Anti-war activists
-State repression

Fallout of the Great War (1920-1949)
-Massive Struggles, Great Depression
-Death of movement through state repression (mass deportations)
-World War II and anti-war Activists (more strikes happened during WW2 than WW1?)

American Imperialism, American Revolution (1950-1970's)
-Post-World War II, failure of American economics (again)
-1950's civil-rights struggles
-1960's -anti-war; communes and free space; continued publications, influence; anarchistic groups; influences among leaderless resistance; black power movements and their support from anarchists and new free-market anarchists; War ends, social struggles continue

Intellectual Developments, Continued Resistance (1970's-1990)
- Anarchism's New Face (New Left's influence on the new anarchist movement)
- Millions of new conflicting ideas
- “The greening of the movement”
- Anarchism's ideas made common (spokes-councils, feminist, anti-war, nuclear)
- Transition into advanced technological society
- Continued worker's struggles
- Punk
- New groups (FNB, squatters)

Anarchism as a new social force (1990-2000)
- Intellectual influences?
- Fall of Soviet Bloc, End of History, “Tina”
- Zapatista Rebellion
- New specifically anarchist groups (Love and Rage, etc)
- Anarchist currents within anti-globalizaiton movement
- Battle of Seattle
- Hot-spots ? (Eugene, New York, San Francisco)
- New century

Post-Seattle, Post-September (2001-?)
- Developments of the movement
-Relevance of Anarchism to Modern Society?

Previous works of American Anarchism

2008-03-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

So far, I have came across several collections or histories of American Anarchism. This list will be ongoing according to section of my book being looked at. This is also a documentation of bibliography in case my actual project computer and files crash.

Men Against the State: The Expositors of Individualist Anarchism in America, 1827 to 1908 by James J. Martin. Libertarian Book Club, New York, 1957. (I knew this book would be limited due to the title - limited time-frame, limited ideological framework, focuses much on single people, not the ideas behind them - still a good book).

Native American Anarchism: A Study of Left-Wing American Individualism, by Eunice Minette Schuster. AMS Press, New York, 1932. (Aside from the obvious time-frame and ideological difficulties, this book is immediately opinionated, attacking Individualist Anarchism within the first 5 pages for not using enough force to do away with the present state of affairs, then attacks non-Individualists for being brought by immigrants, which it claims was the reason for its failures).

Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America by Paul Avrich. AK Press, Oakland, 2005. (The book is massive, being the unabridged version of some 200 interviews conducted by Paul over 30 years. Still, being only oral histories, it is a great starting point, but not a final product. Also, I dislike the incredible amount of interviews given about Emma Goldman and Sacco and Vanzetti when there are millions of other people and events to discuss. Still, damn good and damn expensive.)

Also, numerous essays and books I will add later.

Beginning a long and difficult journey

2008-03-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

This post so begins my attempt in studying, writing, and establishing a history of American Anarchist practice and ideas. To this day, very few surveys of American Anarchism exist. Those that do exist and lacking in at least one major aspect. Some are extremely old, being written in the early 1900's, which leaves out some of the most beautiful years of anarchist struggle, as well as denying necessary time to understand the historical impacts of events. Others were focused on only one ideological development within anarchism, specifically Individualist Anarchism. The rest are simply collections of interviews or anthologies of works by American Anarchists.

As I stand today, my writing stands like a glider at the edge of a cliff, ready to be pushed to sail as the wind will carry it. Facing the winds of social pressures and the gravity of personal decisions, this project may fail and fall into the great chasm of many failed projects, though I hope and will work to ensure that this work indeed will carry forward the idea of American Anarchism.