General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
Pluto Press, 1989 (Translated by John Beverly Robinson (1923))
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Proudhon’s birth, the person who first used the word “anarchist” in a positive light. This was in his 1840 book What is Property? so making anarchism as a named socio-economic theory and movement 170 years old next year.
A series of letters sent to the Weekly Worker on anarchism and Marxism. Most were printed as they were sent, although letter one was cut in half (letter two, which aimed to include the material cut when the first one was published was not if I remember correctly). The letters end up, as usual, discussing the Russian revolution and the Makhnovists).
Two letters sent to the RCG’s paper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! a few years back in response to a disgraceful review of an anarchist pamphlet and their lies on the Makhnovist movement. Neither was published, unsurprisingly.
Two letters on why class analysis is important for anarchism, as well as trying to dispel common misconceptions of what such an analysis means and implies.
Nicholas Walter
David Goodway (editor), Five Leaves Publications, 2007 (£9.99)
Bloody Brilliant! This pamphlet does a remarkable job in summarising the basic ideas of Bakunin, the founder of revolutionary anarchism. It covers his analysis of modern class society, the state, bourgeois democracy and Marxism. On every count, Bakunin has been vindicated.
After two days when the first item on the evening TV news was the brutal Gardai attack on a Reclaim the Streets party it was not surprising that thousands joined a rally against police brutality outside Pearse St police station on Thursday night. The protest passed off peacefully despite paranoia from some quarters that there was ‘bound to be trouble’. (May 9 2002)
The reality of the Orange Order is that it is a counter-revolutionary institution set up and maintained to target not just Catholics but also ‘disloyal’ Protestants. It’s formation and spread was encouraged by the British state in the years leading up to the 1798 rebellion precisely in order to drive a wedge between ordinary Catholics and Protestants. The 12th of July was picked as the key date to provide an alternative attraction to the marking of Bastille day and in itself to mark the sectarian massacre that led to the formation of the Orange Order.
While we should oppose the Orange Orders parades where ever local people reject them (and our ideal would be for ‘Protestant areas’ to also oppose them), there are real problems with the way these campaigns are proceeding. The central problem however is that the residents’ groups are fighting on the sectarian terrain chosen by the Orange Order. With its membership declining and its influence on the state under threat, the Order needs an ‘anti-Protestant’ opposition to justify its continued existence.
THERE IS LITTLE hope of a new IRA ceasefire, the loyalist death squads may restart a full campaign of assassinations and terror. We may be heading back to a situation of bloody murders every other day. After the British government’s carry on during the ‘peace process’, after Drumcree, after the bombs, after Harryville there is a pessimistic mood throughout the six counties. So where do we go from here?