In the Tradition of May Day...Resistance and Alternatives to Cuts... This years Bristol Bookfair takes place just after May Day, the historic international workers day when people remember and celebrate struggles past and present. Since the Haymarket Martyrs struggle for a 40 hour week in Chicago in 1886, working people have won many reforms to improve their daily lives, both at work and in society as a whole. But as we gather for this year's Bookfair many of those gains are being torn from our grasp by the ideologically driven ConDem Coalition. With inflation & unemployment rising, cuts in jobs & services gathering pace, privatisation for profit rampant, and an increasingly authoritarian state going to war with its civilian population, 2011 is shaping up as being one of the most critical years in Britain for decades.

The UK's student & youth protests of late 2010 energised a faltering campaign against cuts. But still the cuts keep coming, not just here but around the world. An international crisis demands an international resistance, one that is built from the bottom up, beginning locally. The Bristol Bookfair hopes to play its part in helping that resistance grow.

Anarchists have no illusions about the intentions of bosses and the state - they profit from our labours and try to control our daily lives. Whilst we engage with our neighbours and fellow workers in local struggles to better our daily lives, our ultimate aim is not small scale reform but total social revolution, not in the distant future but right here and now.

The Bookfair will focus on resistance to the cuts & crisis, and on theoretical and real alternatives, happening right now. We invite YOU - workers & unemployed, students & youth, anarchists, friends, radicals and other freethinkers to participate as equals at the Bookfair. To share ideas & experiences, discuss & debate, plot & plan. Whether you are new to anarchist ideas and practices, or a long-term activist, you will find something for everyone at the Bristol Bookfair. As we gather the many strands of anarchism into one large melting pot, and stir gently - come along and see what's cooking!

Social Change Not Regime Change