“Ed, that’s soldier’s headed our way, we’re gonna have to move”. Sure enough the soldier is trudging down the road towards us, unshouldering his rifle and looking, even from this distance, distinctly narked. Ed doesn’t directly acknowledge my warning, except with a barely discernible movement of the head, focussed as he is on his camera shot. He knows I know that he’s heard me and he knows that as I haven’t yet added the “…now!” intensifier, that he has a few more precious seconds to finish the shot, as the camera pans over the ruins of Eastern Kobane against the backdrop of Mishtenur Hill. It’s 2:30 in the afternoon of Thursday 19 March on the Turkish side of the border with Syria and Kobane.
Region: Asia and Oceania
In July 1914, the Shanghai Association of Anarchist Communist Comrades published its statement of principles, concluding with the resolution that, "the implementation of anarchist communism depends on the strength of our party. If we wish to increase our party’s strength, uniting as a whole body and advancing together is our most important task today. Wherever they are, all our comrades should unite with those who share the same purposes and establish groups in free association.” The key member of this group was a Chinese anarchist known as Shifu who was to die a mere nine months later. Although the group carried on after his death, the core concept of this paragraph was never to be implemented. [Italian translation] [Greek translation] [Dutch translation]
Outside of a few events including the Long March and the Shanghai commune the development of the Chinese revolution is relatively unknown on the western left in comparison with the revolutions in Russia in 1917, Spain in 1936 or even the Paris spring of 1968. Those sections of that left influenced by or proclaiming themselves to be Maoist haven’t helped that situation much. Their histories have tended towards simple tales focusing on the role of one man and collapsed a 100-year history of revolution into the events important to him. [Italian translation]
This article is a preliminary sketch of the Chinese revolutions from an anarchist perspective. It does not set out to be a history of Chinese anarchism although it draws on some of the histories of that movement which for twenty key years dominated the formation of the left in China. A real history of that movement in English will depend not only on the translation of vast quantities of texts from the early twentieth century but also on detailed local research to uncover a history that has both been deliberately buried and forgotten.
Afghanistan: From Tragedy to Comedy
A review of the film Charlie Wilson’s War, discussing what the film did not mention and how the activities of the USA in Afghanistan started before the Soviet invasion and its unintended consequences.
A 60 minute recording of a talk and discussion on the Chinese revolution and the Chinese anarchist movement. It’s available here as google video, mp4 and mp3 formats, the first two are preferred as the viewer will then be able to see the images referenced during the talk.
The 34th G8 summit took place in Japan July 7th to 9th 2008. Andrew Flood interviewed Diane K. a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the (US) Northeast Federation of Anarchist-Communists (NEFAC) who traveled to Japan from New York to take part in the summit protests and counter summit.
Xinhua has reported the death of the Chinese anarchist Ba Jin after a six year battle with cancer. Ba Jin was born Li Yaotang on 1904, in Chengdu, Sichuan Province but changed his name to taking Ba Jin which combines the names of two Russian anarchists. The first syllable in Chinese is that of the surname of Mikhail Bakunin and the last syllable that of Kropotkin. He translated Kropotkin’s work into Chinese.
Internationally there is a long and close historical relationship between anarchism and what in English is often referred to as syndicalism or revolutionary unionism. Such unions have no bureaucracy, all decisions being made by their membership and include among their aims the abolition of capitalism and its replacement with libertarian communism. Recently we received details of one of the newer syndicalist unions, the Siberian Confederation of Labour (SKT).
Saturday November 4th saw a large anti war demonstration march through Dublin city centre. This reflects growing opposition to the US war against Afghanistan following the bombing of Red Cross warehouses, a hospital and dozens of homes. The march also saw the first appearance of the new Anarchist Against the War banner.
An anti war rally in Dublin last night confirmed that opposition to Bush’s war is growing as fast in Ireland as it is internationally. The room booked for the meeting was full five minutes before it was due to start with 160 sitting but with at least another 100 people leaning against every available wall.