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Total Failure of Class War Politics in Britain

Tool Kit | 29.09.2011 00:02 | Public sector cuts | Workers' Movements

The title of this post is meant to be ironic, as the Class War as it's fought both in Britain today and world-wide has been wildly successful, but Class War anarchism is a boat that's sunk...






1. 38 Degrees petition against stealth privatisation of and cuts to the NHS - 439,166 signatures
2. Class War anarchist Ian Bone's petition against Eton private school - 20 signatures
3. Class War anarchist group closes in May 2011 (with just 5 members)
4. Poll which found 71% of Britons now see themselves as Middle Class

The title of this post is meant to be ironic, as the Class War as it's fought both in Britain today and world-wide has been wildly successful. The ruling class seek to destroy the historic achievements of working-class and liberal-reformist political movements, by wrecking public services, creating unemployment (to use unemployment as a selective and strategic political weapon), and using the tax revenues that fund any remaining services to steer billions into the private corporations which they own and which they use to replace the Welfare State's traditional service providers.

Working-class acquiescence to, and (even worse) support for this programme, was achieved by a culturally sophisticated political strategy, which, rather than stealing from the rich to give to the poor, after the model immortalised in traditional British popular culture, instead stole from the State to give to poor, through a daring sleight-of-hand in which the British proletariat were tricked into buying Council Houses which (in theory at least) they already owned. Despite the damage inflicted on the working-class by public service cuts and unemployment, the Monetarist programme was so successful that it was able keep the Tory government that implemented it in power for 18 years, and able to ensure that their New Labour and Coalition successors continue the same basic programme. As the Situationists showed, part of the success of the long-term ruling-class project has been to convince workers that the ruling-class has become (to a degree) democratic, by exaggerating the extent to which, rather than being aristocratic, the ruling-class now appears to be at least partly meritocratic.

In contrast, Anarchist ideas are respected by a significant minority of British people, as a profoundly idealistic expression of the best aspects of human nature, but mocked in equal measure for their failure to realistically address problems of anti-social crime or to address practical issues of social infrastructure. Most Anarchist ideology was forged in the heat of Victorian-era industrialisations, when the State oppressed and taxed without providing public services, but today Anarchist thinking is out of touch with pragmatic realities of the Welfare State, democratic liberalism and consumer society. Faced as we are with crises in part created by the rapid erosion of that Welfare State, Anarchist dogma hasn't even caught-up enough to resolve the contradiction between opposing the State and supporting Welfare, leaving potential supporters confused, alienated and even worse just plain bored by such self-evidently contradictory aspects of Anarchist thinking.

As a case in point, the first issue of Ian Bone's Class War newspaper suggested that "most Anarchists are just liberals (and) those of us who believe in class war shouldn't hesitate to give them the boot", and, as shown above, the long-term political results of that strategy speak for themselves. The American writer T.E. Carhart reports a French aphorism that "life is a river, and we all have to find a boat that floats". Class War anarchism is a boat that's sunk. The purpose of this post is not however to promote division, disillusionment or apathy - the purpose of this post is to encourage radicals to throw their weight behind political strategies that stand the best chance of actually working.
____________________________________________

State strategies to wreck UK Uncut, Dale Farm & March 26 etc...
 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/09/485095.html

The Anti-Cuts movement will succeed if it defends true democracy...
 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/09/485130.html

Occupy! Manchester - 2nd October Tory Party Conference...
 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/09/484933.html?c=on#comments

Tool Kit

Comments

Hide the following 37 comments

If Anarchism ever changed anything they'd make it illegal

29.09.2011 00:44

It's often said that if voting ever changed anything they'd make it illegal, but voting created the NHS and Welfare State, and Thatcher's attempts to impose the Poll Tax and the current Coalition scheme to discourage inner city communities from voting by gerrymandering electoral boundaries are near-as-dammit attempts to make voting illegal

The US gave African Americans the vote in I believe 1870, but (according to Wikipedia) from 1890 onwards many Southern states passed constitutions that disfranchised blacks, also many poor whites, while govt dirty tricks and KKK violence were used to prevent black people from voting, right up to and including all the "hanging chad" stuff that got George Bush elected (so traditional anarchist wisdom on this subject is simplistic to put it mildly)

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

Ian Stone


what is to be done?

29.09.2011 00:58

what if both anarchism and marxism have reached a practical dead end? I mean, realistically speaking, none of the marxist groups swp etc nor the anarchist groups have a real plan about what to do next or how to take it to the next level. this is the issue. doing what we have been doing so far has only gotten us to where we are now, with next to no influence amongst wider society. which way forward?

the anarchist lenin


What is to be done

29.09.2011 01:34

At the very least anarchists can still go on all the marches, make banners, donate to campaign groups, get involved in (within reason) militant protests, non-violent direct action, post on-line, do e-mail and leaflet campaigns, fly-post, try and influence the media and MPs etc (I'd recommend anonymously), do graffiti, banner drops, set-up street stalls, hell even just talk to people - personally I think meetings are time that could be better spent putting the message/s across however so I just do stuff directly I rarely go to political meetings

I hate the SWP ideologically but credit due at least they're together enough to actually organise the protests that so many anarchos bitch and moan about, but it's an open question whether their core ideology alienates more protestors than it attracts. As it happens I posted on Indymedia suggesting radicals support a different group that has 12,000+ members, as opposed to Class War's 5 (now 0) members, but Indymedia spiked it for supporting a "hierarchical" group. At the risk of getting spiked again other groups that seem to doing the business include UK Uncut, Coalition of Resistance, Keep our NHS Public and 38 Degrees - no-one's ever above criticism but on balance these groups seem mostly excellent

Oi Oi


Re: Oi Oi

29.09.2011 02:28

Yes, I think I know the post you're referring to, the reason it was removed was because it read like a soft propaganda flyer for The Green Party who are indeed a hierarchical group, a pleasant bunch of middle class hippies with fairly spot on social beliefs, but still a part of the oppressive and rotten parliamentary system.

The reason we use indymedia to avoid the wittering of these useless liberals, the quote from good ol' crazy Uncle Ian Bone at the end of the original article would seem to relate to you rather well...

Anon


First as facrce never as tragedy

29.09.2011 09:53

1. shouldn't conflate bone with anarchism. Bone's anarchism is a kind of rugged social diffusion. Class as angst. Pub rock anarchism, with comedy sketches between the songs.

2. The fact the bone can colonise, granted an ever decreasing corner, an anarchist aesthetic and call it his own is bewildering.

3. Most anarchists are radical liberals

4. class struggle anarchism is an much a lifestyle as any other form of lifestyle politics

5. Class happens, anarchism does not.

6. It's comedy, freddie starr slapstick, desperate to attain the ultimate in class war politics - a mention in the tabloids/broadsheets.

7. Ian Bone is an unpaid publicity agent for Ian Bone. Anarchism is simply his tool of choice for that endeavour

Miners sons


Troll?

29.09.2011 09:58

"The purpose of this post is not however to promote division, disillusionment or apathy..."

Yeah, right. It's doing a very good job of it though.

anon


anarchism today

29.09.2011 10:35

Ian Bone is likely to be a paid agent-provocateur working for CI5 to bring about an apathy within the ranks of the working class people. The very idea that he puts himself as some kind of father of anarchism figure is typical of imperialism controlling the masses via a puppet dictator.

SWP for all their faults are at least showing clear unity and action in the face of the state's repression.

anarchist


soooo?

29.09.2011 13:17

I don't actually understand, what this writing tries to suggest. Let's go through quickly of your initial list:

1. 38 Degrees petition against stealth privatisation of and cuts to the NHS - 439,166 signatures

Voices of against NHS privatisation were echoed in many mainstream leftist medium, such as Guardian. The privatisation of public services is one of the kind of topic, that is always gets media attention, because in the grand scheme of things, capitalism are usually associated with private companies and the state is never seen as a major capital owner. So, we have been taught that the less government run business there are, the "more capitalism" we have. Easy equation for the democratically anesthetised masses. You know, there a tendency, that economical, political books are sold in fewer numbers, than "How To Be a Millionaire for Dummies". Let's just do a quick reality check of Marx: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force." Check. If the ruling class sets the ideological premises of capitalism, "anti-capitalism" of the masses will also use the same ideological scheme, even if in the opposite direction.
Strategically speaking, communism should be constituted by actions that sabotages the very premises of the ruling ideology, that is, the categories of capitalist ideology.

2. Class War anarchist Ian Bone's petition against Eton private school - 20 signatures
Who is Ian Bone (poetic question). For one, he isn't anything to anarchism, neither me, neither Kropotkin, neither Marx. Anarchism is a set of practices of those, who wishes to abolish capitalist relations, and bring about a community based society. For second: Such a petition is already doomed to fail, because it involves only a few. If Ian Bone's petition is considered as the highest impact action of anarchists in the UK in the recent times, it certainly poor performance. But, Ian Bone, and the practices of Class War Federation are that of the past, and there are many other kind of organisations, strains, and movements which constitutes the majority of of this "significant minority" of anarchism. In the recent year we witnessed the rising of the anarchist activities, the appearance of black bloc tactic, rioting, identifying the police as enemy and so on. These are considerably part of the anarchist movement and even if they don't form coherent organisations, they had more impact than this petition. Yeah, Class War perhaps is dead, but class war is still going on as you noticed, and class war minded anarchists perhaps doesn't care about Ian Bone at all. Including me.

3. Class War anarchist group closes in May 2011 (with just 5 members)
Every organisation has its life time. Class War had its peak in the early 90's, and as organisation usually do, they stuck with their organisation as a their holy cow, and that kills the movement. I'm not entirely anti-org here, but it definitely true, that sticking to organisations is the way of strangle a movement. So, RIP CW, it was a good joke. We need different tools now!

4. Poll which found 71% of Britons now see themselves as Middle Class
Refer to the #1. Middle class ideology that pestered mostly the "developed industrial societies" in order create a living shield for the bosses. And it is working, because of the caste structure of the class societies. Being working class is a shame: one only could wish for a more sophisticated existence than that.

Following your arguments, I was under the impression although you reveal some of the contradiction of the anarchist organisations (defending Welfare State but actions against the State), but you fail to give any analysis or strategical overview of the situation. Let's just pick the Welfare State issue.

In terms of class war, the Welfare State wasn't a gain but a weapon against the working class militancy. It isn't a gain because it isn't eliminate the wage work by any means, neither it gives a perspective to this goal. Thus welfare state was practical weapon, that helped to raise a fence between the working class and the ruling class with the help of a massive credit system which successfully isolated the strategical aims in the disguise of purely economical shift. Credit is a curious construct as it has already a built-in classification mechanism, where financial institutions are screening the applicants by their credit-worthiness and create layers of good debtors and bad debtors. Middle class can be more or less identified with the credit-worthy layer of the society who has none, or too little profit income to support herself without labour. There are many methods out there for the same purpose, but most of them can be traced back to this very mechanism. Welfare state was created out of sovereign debt as an investment and one way or an other, is maintained as taxation distributes the price of these services (the product) similarly to the trade union cash reserves for pension or health care. It is an enterprise that was set up in order to keep the working class militancy in check by restraining the effects of overexploitation (which is always occur without cross-bourgeois intervention and endanger the existence of the very working class that supposed to produce surplus and profit, and in addition, it was good classification system that united all capitalist interest in central institutions. The tax paying, interest paying working class, which made dependent not only to the wage labour, but of the state's public services, is the ideal exploited. Raising the life-expectancy of the working class people meant that intensive exploitation could go further than it could ever go during the 19th century, like the one that Marx describes as the natural limit of the working day. Without going in to further details of this complex process [in the framework of this comment], we can identify the Welfare State with all its credit scam as a weapon, an opium, which, if it is been cutting off from the masses, will end up in huge impact on the working class, and the middle class. This is the particular reason why most of the (non-Labour) left is in defense against the cuts, and committed to fight for it. Communism has no such a delusion, but there's an other force that impose itself upon the Welfare State: Democracy.

If anything is wrong with the organisational anarchism, that is the fetish of democracy, even if it gets it's modifier, like Real or Direct. Democracy as a tool or a particular ideological stream, is the expression of alienated relationships and as such, is dominated by quantitative practices, underlined in the "decision making". This of course neglect the fact the decision making and productive activities have to be somehow separated in our fight, and the hopefully coming next epoch. The quantitative thinking is a huge pressure especially groups who commit themselves to democratic rhetoric. You can read like this: "We want to raise the working class consciousness therefore we need to deal with their immediate issues. Communism is such a big project that it can't touch the reality of the working class individual as of yet, so participating in their defensive movements certainly gives us opportunity to get in touch with larger crowds of them." Now, you can see their point there, however, it leads to that orgs who are for class war anarchism, ending up as a special kind of activist layers within the democratic mechanisms. On the same end, where SWP, UK Uncut, etc.. So, as from the perspective of a class war advocate, I could conclude that it is not the trouble of class war analysis, it is the issue with the lack of wider strategical considerations. Seeking support, or acting directly (towards communism). The anticut movement is only seeking to end the tory government but to carry on with the more relaxed social policy of capitalism, therefore anarchism/communism supposed to ride the waves, but not getting flushed with it. We need to _act_ directly, but not against the government, not against the cuts, but for communism. Action instead of reaction. Sounds sectarian? Well, perhaps it is, but it is more effective, than seeking democratic consensus within the capitalist framework. Social-democracy anyone? You said that anarchism fails to address the real issues of the working class. Anarchism never was about that. It is addressing the need for communism and the lack of focus on this results a contradictory, weak, almost social-democrat scene.

Shelter of Crime


another interpretation

29.09.2011 16:07

"1. 38 Degrees petition against stealth privatisation of and cuts to the NHS - 439,166 signatures
2. Class War anarchist Ian Bone's petition against Eton private school - 20 signatures"

Maybe it's just a sign that the kind of people who would agree with the Class War petition don't have much faith in petitions as a tool for change, and therefore didn't bother signing?

c


Reply to Anon Re - The Green Party

29.09.2011 17:44

The reason for suggesting that radicals should consider supporting the Greens is that for all the "wittering" of these "useless" liberals, even the Greens aren't anywhere near as useless as groups like Class War and the other microscopic class-struggle sects like Sol-Fed and Anarchist Federation etc

And yes it would be a mistake to conflate Ian Bone with Anarchism, his ideas do however characterise a particularly unsuccessful strain of Anarchist thought, which alienates far more people than it attracts.

Whether Ian Bone is (as was widely rumoured in the late 80s) an MI5 plant is an open question, but IMHO he almost completely destroyed Anarchism as a meaningful protest movement in the UK.

Reading Ian Bone's book (which IS good btw) I'm struck by how many of his stunts required dutch courage to see them through. You wouldn't drink-drive a car, so why drink-drive a political movement? Unless of course you WANT that movement to crash?



Oi Oi


Reply to Anon, re - promoting division

29.09.2011 17:51

Even if it is true that this post is "doing a very good job" of promoting division, it's nowhere near as good a job as Class War did in the 1980s (.... thanks for your input Ian)

In fact however what this post is doing is trying to stop misguided activists actively pissing-off idealistic young people for the crime of no longer being part of a culture that sees itself as being working-class

Oi Oi


Reply to Shelter of Crime

29.09.2011 18:14

Shelter of Crime's response is long but hinges on one really silly statement - "in terms of class war, the Welfare State wasn't a gain but a weapon against the working class militancy". Tell that to the tens of millions of people whose life expectancy dramatically increased thanks to being given access to free healthcare!! What a load of naive middle-class shit

Obviously there's quite alot more to your analysis, but if it STARTS with utter nonsense there's really no need to pick through all the rest of it, but, finally, if you really think the NHS was just a ploy to keep the workers pliant and prevent the glorious revolution, then please have the courage of your convictions NEVER use NHS services yourself

Star Trek


Re: Oi Oi - The Greens vs Class War

30.09.2011 01:32

Class War politicised a generation of young punks who could otherwise have ended up being apathetic twats. I know at least a couple of people whose (continued) belief in anarchism was inspired originally by Bone's honest, aggressive Class War politics. It's very fashionable at the moment to slag off Class War UK and I'm not sure that it's all entirely fair.

And to clarify on the issue of The Greens, as I said, they mostly seem like well meaning, pleasant people but they're a POLITICAL PARTY! As an anarchist that means they pretty much turn me off. They can be as fluffy and liberal as they like but as a political party they're just wannabe oppressors as far as I'm concerned. If this is a tricky concept maybe try moving over to The Guardian's forums or something.

No Gods. No Masters.

Anon


Culture of Failure

30.09.2011 09:34

- Class War politicised a generation of young punks who could otherwise have ended up being apathetic twats?

Ian Bone admits in his book that Class War's strategy (as I remember very well from the time) was to influence young punks who'd ALREADY been politicised by the anarchist/pacifist punk bank Crass, and turn them away from pacifism. To be fair, Class War was a brilliant newspaper, but the political philosophy it represents sucks. It may be that some people were "converted" to anarchism as well but a/ did that achieve anything? and b/ how many more people were actively put off?

The answer to that last question is in the screen-grabs at the top of this page

- If this is a tricky concept maybe try moving over to The Guardian's forums or something?

What, you mean if it's been shown that a particular Anarchist strategy has completely failed then Indymedia's way of dealing with that should be to insist anyone who wants to debate that failure shouldn't post on Indymedia? That, in itself, is another way perpetuating failure.

Oi Boy


I always liked the old Class War

30.09.2011 10:11

I must admit I always found the old Class War a breath of fresh air, it certainly introduced me to anarchism.

It went downhill in the 90s when it tried to go all intellectual with long boring articles on political theory.

But all good things come to an end, there is lots of excellent anarchist activity to replace it.

anon


Is Ian Bone a State plant?

30.09.2011 10:14

It seems all 14 people who supported Ian Bone's protest against Eton College had a merry old time debating class politics with public school boys. If however their "Behold Your Future Executioners" banner makes it onto the front page of the Daily Mail (particularly in the wake of Anders Breivik and the Mail's coverage of anarchists at Dale Farm), an "Anarchists Threaten to Murder School Kids" headline will totally marginalise British anarchism for another 30 years

Which is why Ian took it there in the first place?!

If Ian takes openly homicidal banners to Eton again, in my opinion that proves he's a State plant, if he doesn't, then good luck to him

Growbag


Re: Oi Boy

30.09.2011 10:35

You took that second quote out of context and you well know it, that was in reference to the Green Party and the fact that they are not a group an anarchist would support. I'm more than happy to debate about strategy, hell we're doing it now but I think what we all as anarchists can agree that the strategy should not be supporting political parties who want to maintain the existence of the state. No?

As for Ian, I really don't know anymore. I've heard every fucking theory from MI5 plant to mental old bastard and I don't know what to think.

Anon


Star Trek and the Welfare State

30.09.2011 10:52

I think, my comment was really too long for you. I went further than that "silly" statement. I would not argue against the raising of life expectancy, (as I already stated in my post above), I am arguing against the political consequences of the Welfare State. But to say, it is only this particular organisation of society that provides the necessary conditions of life, is bollocks too. And you see: as the working class militancy faded away, the wf state started to decline, and getting dismantled. My argument however was about that the while the public services has been built, it was a capitalist decision, and mostly in those countries, where the working class was the most organised and threatening. But in the long term, welfare of the working class only depends on ourselves, and one can find the evidence in the current state of affairs. Cuts goes so easily forward, because there isn't any organised resistance to capitalism itself (anti-cuts movement is reactive, without any further prospect of renewing the human condition and as far as capitalist thinking goes, it is harmless)

BTW: "middle class bullshit" ... "don't use NHS" ... calm down, read and argue instead of throwing random abuses.

Shelter of Crime


Shelter of Crime

30.09.2011 11:46

There's nothing "random" about pointing out that Shelter's starting premise was bullshit. My dad was seriously ill as a young (working class) man at the end of 1940s, he was saved from death by NHS treatments that would have been inaccessible to him under the pre-war system dominated by aristocratic Tories. It's a given that easing people's living conditions reduces militancy, but, reductio-ad-absurdum (emphasis on the "absurd" bit) you'd be equally right to argue that access to FOOD reduced working-class militancy (as William Cobbett said "I defy you to agitate a man on a full stomach"). The Welfare State was NOT "a weapon against the working class militancy" any more than food is a "a weapon against the working class militancy". By the same logic you could argue that sunny days and trips to the seaside are weapons against working-class militancy.

The Welfare State is a set of institutions that the working-class movement created to use the resources that the State had taken from them to their own advantage. As for the rest of your argument, statements like "if anything is wrong with the organisational anarchism, that is the fetish of democracy, even if it gets it's modifier, like Real or Direct" (sic) are so flippin' garbled it's impossible to work out what it is you're even trying to say ....

Corn Dolly


325

30.09.2011 11:48

The problem with 325 type analysis is a/ they're trustafarians b/ their insights are informed by a fondness for ketamine

C_F_


On the NHS things

30.09.2011 12:43

I would respectfully disagree. The comparison of the food and the NHS is absurd not because both improve the living condition of the working class, but how you get them. Food or health care is a need, but food tickets and NHS isn't. I would like to take your word, and ask for further details: How exactly was welfare state a collective working class action? Oh yeah, because it was a Labour government in power at the time... and again, let me just repeat my self: I am not against health care, I'm against capitalist relations, and fighting for NHS does not bring us any closer to that goal. But carry on, argue for the NHS and vote for Labour, Greens or what ever bastard you find sympathetic. The whole topic is about anarchism and how does it failed to address "real problems", I guess for your view the real problem is, which capitalist owns the healthcare and the issue with anarchists that we don't recognise the anti-cut fight as the only way to gain health care, freedom, and community. This is the root of the problem. Many anarchist get involved in the anti-cut movement, but also try contribute to this movement to push itself further on the universal abolition of exploitation itself. Workers are defending their beloved welfare state and have no weapon in this fight. Communism does not offer weapon for defending the bits you think you gain, it harshly points out that it was the welfare state the undermined the militancy of the workers, and thus created a situation where workers can even give up on their welfare system because its already established the condition of impotency for the proletariat and integrate the working class to the interests of the different fractions of bourgeois.

Shelter of Crime


325 type

30.09.2011 12:51

Ok, now I'm officially sick of you people here. If you have nothing else to say just musing on my or other comrades supposed character (well, I'm not rich certainly, I work for living, and don't use ketamine. Just try that country unemployed once where I'm from...)

SoC


Shelter

30.09.2011 12:59

"Food or health care is a need, but food tickets and NHS isn't"? "Workers are defending their beloved welfare state and have no weapon in this fight"?

Honestly, I give up mate, your posts are so bizarre I can't see how attempting rational debate will produce anything else from you except more incoherent weirdness

Julie Andrews


325

30.09.2011 13:03

Ok, so the guess about 325 and SoC was right then?

C_F_


Advice to Ian Bone

30.09.2011 13:13


I wouldn't mind Ian Bone spiking my posts if he'd had the intelligence to act on the advice, but since he didn't, here it is again, screen captured for posterity

Ian, please remove those photos from your blog now and please don't take those banners to your next protest at Eton (unless you're actually working for the Daily Mail that is?!)

Fabric Live


Bizarreness and weirdness

30.09.2011 13:23

Julie: What is bizarre on the statement that food ticket, or NHS isn't a need? I just tried put this absurd comparison in context, why it is failed. I didn't say at all, that satisfying a need is a the problem (such as health care), the problem for me is if someone would like depict the NHS as a need, like food. The original post has mentioned that anarchists are against the cuts, but still going against the state. I tried to explain: I do not wish for people loosing their access to health care, by any means, if we just defending some particular issue within the capitalist framework, we end up in this infinite reproduction of the issues themselves. But dead workers are not good fighters either, so I'm not arguing against immediate issues, but in the long term it is not anarchist view to defend the welfare state. That was my point there.

As long as workers are re-acting, we don't have any weapon in the class war, even the "single issues" are doomed to fail. Consider if a union wins the battle over payment, it is for sure that there gonna be some layoffs.

C_F_: No, I'm not member of 325, but it seemed that you addressed your post to me. However, even if you did not the post it self is just mindless labeling.

SoC


Anarchists who joined the Greens...

30.09.2011 15:29

To respond to Anon, Anarchists who joined the Greens include legendary activist and now Green Party MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit (who was the most prominent, though certainly not only, figurehead of the French uprising of May 1968). Cohn-Bendit co-founded a group called Revolutionary Struggle alongside a steel-worker called Joschka Fischer. Fischer founded a full-on street-fighting crew called Proletarian Union for Terror and Destruction (no kidding), before the actions by the the Red Army Faction (led, as it was, by now "out" Nazi Horst Mahler) prompted him to renounce violence and join the Greens. Fischer went on to become Germany's Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor (!) and is now regarded as one of Germany's most popular politicians.

The Spanish Anarchist CNT formed an alliance government in the early 1930s, and, AFTER the revolution in 1936, anarchists like Federica Montseny become Health Minister, Juan García Oliver become Minister of Justice, Joan Peiró become Minister of Industry, Segundo Blanco become Education Minister, and Melchor Rodríguez become head of prisons in Madrid. The Channel 4 documentary series on the Spanish Civil War interviewed the former Anarchist Minister of Finance, a lovely old lady who, at the time of interview, owned a stall on the fruit and veg market in Barcelona, sadly I forget her name. Similarly several Anarchists were leading figures in the revolutionary government set-up Fidel Castro. In the UK, Anarchist opposition to the State rarely stopped Anarchists from collecting State benefits or using the NHS, likewise, given that Anarchist dogma is clearly contributing not much to changing our present political situation here in the UK, maybe it's time to sacrifice a few holy cows and consider a re-think?

Carlisle


socialist worker burqa

30.09.2011 23:10

its ok to wear a burqa
just buy a copy
of socialist worker!

socialist ed


Re: Carlisle

02.10.2011 03:55

Although many of the people you mention are very admirable, as an anarchist I dont want to see a kinder state, a fluffier state or a slightly less capitalist state; I want to live in a stateless society. One without the intrinsic oppression brought about heirachy. If the day comes when the Trots get their shit together and start a revolution then I'll consider compromising my libertarian principles but until then I'm staying firm.

Bakunin comes to mind:
"Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice, socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality."

To be honest I think saying that the desire for an autonomous world is an anarchist "Holy Cow" suggests academic lack of understanding of anarchism that doesn't tally with your clear level of knowledge on various individuals. Not a disillusioned anarchist giving in to liberalism I hope!


Anon


Autonomous world

02.10.2011 09:55

This post never said that "the desire for an autonomous world is an anarchist Holy Cow", what this post (and comments following) are arguing - and I'll express this a practical example rather than theoretical argument - is that one reason the CNT was, in 1930s Spain, the largest and most successful anarchist organisation ever, was not just because of the easily romanticised actions of people like Buenaventura Durruti, but also because large sections of CNT worked with and engaged in dialogue with progressive elements in the rest of society, including the numerous anarchists who actually became ministers in government. The desire for an autonomous world is not the issue. The Holy Cow bit is whether Anarchists should continue willfully painting themselves into the corner of almost total political and cultural isolation.

Tools


Expanding the floor of the cage

02.10.2011 10:08

"The Holy Cow bit is whether Anarchists should continue willfully painting themselves into the corner of almost total political and cultural isolation."

Or become 'ministers in government'?

Perhaps we should be promoting anarchist ideals more, as it seems most people know politicians and banks are the problem but can't see any alternatives.

abf


re voting

02.10.2011 13:43

The Welfare state was actually created because after 2 world wars they were afraid of us rather than the ct of voting every 4 years.
1000s Demobbed and homeless and squatting - plenty of pissed off working class people who knew how to fight and many with guns.
Why do you think they also shifted the population out of the centre of London...
The state were also expecting a revolution aroungd the first world war.
Also why the fuck you having a go at 325 unless there is a load of liberal troll state wankers on Indymedia wanking in front of their fucking computers.
fuck me what a website. supposed to be indymedia not reposting the historical lies of corporate capitalism ( aka fascism) and statism.
an awful lot of trolls/state/corporate funded shit stirrers on here.

long term unemployed and very pissed off anarchist


Reply to pissed-off

02.10.2011 17:18

I couldn't care less whether you've got a job or not (the post which discusses that has nothing to do with me), but the reason for being hostile to 325 magazine is, if you look at other threads discussing that fucking stupid magazine, eg - that 325 prints articles openly advocating the murder of named medical scientists, not for indulging in cruel animal experiments or anything like that, but for the crime of developing medical treatments that they themselves admit are safe, but which 325 object to on the grounds that public health-care programs reduce working-class militancy! This is some new kind of anarcho-Nazism, where anything that improves working-class people's health or standard or living is considered to be an offence meriting assassination. 325 are either insane or State trolls, possibly both, and if you support them, then please FUCK OFF

As for your attacks on Indymedia, get a life you prat. Just because you're "very pissed off" doesn't mean your statements are actually right

 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/09/485178.html?c=on#comments

Clockwork


State Asset?

03.10.2011 12:48

"Whether Ian Bone is (as was widely rumoured in the late 80s) an MI5 plant is an open question, but IMHO he almost completely destroyed Anarchism as a meaningful protest movement in the UK. "

"]Ian Bone is likely to be a paid agent-provocateur working for CI5 to bring about an apathy within the ranks of the working class people."

"As for Ian, I really don't know anymore. I've heard every fucking theory from MI5 plant to mental old bastard and I don't know what to think."

I have never heard any rumours that Ian Bone was a state asset. I was active in the anarchist movement in London in the late 80s, and they certainly weren't widely spread enough for me to hear them.

There were rumours about one person in the orbit of Class War, which in my opinion had some substance behind them. It wasn't Ian though.

I know Ian personally, as I would imagine most people who were anarchists in London in the late 80s would, but have never been in agreement with his politics and have often been extremely critical of them.

To be honest, I find it highly doubtful that there were rumours circulating to this effect in the late 1980s, and think that it is pretty libelous to suggest that there were.

Devrim Valerian

Devrim Valerian


CI5 is a fictional organisation from the TV Series The Professionals

03.10.2011 18:56

Headed up by Cowley with Bodie and Doyle running around solving crimes.

"Ian Bone is likely to be a paid agent-provocateur working for CI5 to bring about an apathy within the ranks of the working class people."

Statements like this just make Anarchists look like a laughing stock. Please stop.

anarchist


Ian Bone propaganda FAIL

22.10.2011 11:20


81 likes, 394 dislikes

Doyle


488,977 signatures

22.10.2011 19:30

Today, the 38 Degrees petition has increased to 488,977 signatures

Get down to the occupations in London

Iggy Pop