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.
Topic: Anarchist movement
Categories
Democracy is undemocratic
A defence of anarchist organisation (i.e., self-management) against Leninist claims that it is “undemocratic.” It shows that the logical position of this so-called critique is centralised rule by one person.
Article from 1992 looking at the prospects for a growth in anarchism following the collapse of socialism. The tradition in which the anarchists stand is one that socialists need to identify with. For many on the left this will be a difficult process. They were weaned on a diet of slander when it came to anarchism, either being told that anarchists were police agents or that they were not real socialists at all and wanted a return to feudalism. We must resist the temptation to avoid this problem by going "beyond anarchism". The state has been the Achilles heel of 20th century socialism, it is not an issue to be fudged.
There is a long tradition of personal autobiographies written by ageing activists in the anarchist movement about their experiences and motivations. This is the recently published autobiography of Albert Meltzer, a British anarchist whose life has taken him from the fights against Mosley and support for Spain in the 1930’s through fringe involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler, the Cairo mutiny after WWII, supporting the Spanish resistance, to the Angry Brigade trials and fighting the National Front in the 1970’s.
A review of an excellent new biography of Bakunin.
Categories
The Revolutionary Ideas of Bakunin
An introduction to the ideas of Bakunin, one of the founders of anarchist thought and movement.
A reply to Leninists distortions about Bakunin. Includes a summary of his key anarchist ideas and anarchism’s key difference with Leninism.
A lengthy critique of the SWP’s attempt to rewrite the history of the resistance to Italian fascism in the early 1920s as well as the revolutionary Red Years after World War I. An important, if not well known, bit of anarchist history.
Categories
On the Bolshevik Myth
An anarchist critique of an ISO attack on the Makhnovists. Corrects the distortions and shows how the Makhnovists show that Bolshevik authoritarian had its roots in Leninist ideology and cannot be solely explained by the civil war. Also refutes claims that the Haymarket Martyrs were Marxists as well as correcting the usual distortions about Kronstadt.
Categories
How Revolutions must not be made
A review of Goldman’s account of her experiences in Russia, plus a review of a classic collection of Kropotkin’ essays. Both contain much wisdom for modern revolutionaries.