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Talk by Alan MacSimin at WSM meeting, Wexford, October 1992 Do we need an anarchist federation? The collapse of the East European Stalinist dictatorships has caused enormously important changes on the left. After this collapse the only real alternative that many radicals see is the mortally ill Castro regime in Cuba, where it is only a matter of time before the "gone out of business" sign is put up; the Chinese police state; and the quasi-religious Orwellian dynasty in North Korea. Certainly not an inspiring alternative. On the negative side it has led many to believe that no alternative to American-style capitalism is possible. This is reflected in a generally high level of cynicism and suppressed anger combined with a low level of classstruggle. We can see the effect of this in that throughout the world the Communist Parties have gone into crisis. In Britain the Stalinists have lost practically all of their influence among radical workers. The biggest fragment of the disintegrated CPGB has given up, closing its magazine and renaming itself Democratic Left - with a programme that calls for the Labour Party to enter a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. The Trotskyists have done little better. The Workers Revolutionary Party, which was the largest Trotskyist organisation - the only one in the world to be able to publish a daily paper - has disintegrated into at least seven competing and politically irrelevant factions. The Militant group has split. The Socialist Workers Party maintains its level of membership by recruiting disillusioned Labour Party supporters and young people who previously would have had several viable Trotskyist parties to choose from. In Ireland we have seen the Communist Party, which was never much of a force outside sections of the trade union bureaucracy, reduced to supporting itself from the proceeds of an illegal drinking club. It has become incapable of even producing a regular newsletter for its rapidly dwindling collection of supporters and fellow travellers. The Workers Party has split, with the majority leaving home to set up a more explicitly social democratic party. One effect of all this has been not just the decline of these particular groups but also a marked decline in the number of non-aligned activists who are involved in campaigning for change. To many it must seem that Western style capitalism is invincible. The positive side of things is seen in the fact that ever increasing numbers are critical of the present system, or at least of some of its effects. There is little confidence at present in peoples' ability to do anything about it but that alienation from the system is there. For the first time since the 1930s anarchism does not have to play second fiddle to Leninism among workers and young people looking for an alternative. It is now a lot easier to find an audience willing to listen to our anti-authoritarian views, willing to listen to us when we explain how Leninism did lead to Stalinism. Our task is to step up this work, leading to a situation where ever increasing numbers see anarchism as providing not only a desirable goal but also the means of reaching it. The objective prospects for establishing anarchism as the leading ideas on the Left are better than they have been for 50 years. However, in Ireland, our numbers are very small and most comrades have little political experience. Few have been through years of struggling and learning in the trade unions and campaigns. We are a very weak and inexperienced movement. It must seem worthwhile to investigate the possibility of uniting in an Irish Anarchist Federation. This would mean that we could produce a regular paper, co-ordinate activities in several cities and towns, create a greater awareness of our existence and ideas, move away from being seen as small and irrelevant groupings. It is an attractive idea, but could it work? For any organisation to survive, yet alone develop and grow, it must be in agreement not just about what it wants at the end of the day but about how it can achieve it goal. A political organisation has little purpose if its component parts are doing different, contradictory things. It would soon disappear - as happened to the Anarchist Federation of Britain and its successor the Confederation of British Anarchists in the late 60s/early 70s. That is so obvious it hardly needs to be stated. There are several tendencies within Irish anarchism, or at least embryonic tendencies. One is the lifestylism which emerged from the post-punk culture and was represented by bands like Crass, causes like animal liberation and tactics which were popularised by the Stop the City protests in London. Determined to avoid anything that smacked of boredom they decided to "re-invent anarchy". These people constantly sought to do and say things that were "alternative" to what the rest of the Left was doing. The emphasis was on the personal, the "old fashioned" concept of classstruggle was to be left to the Trots and other party builders. Activity meant producing fanzines and setting up cheap cafes and rehearsal rooms. Penny Rimbaud of Crass summed it up as "anarchists believe that if each individual can learn to act out of conscience, rather than greed, the machinery of power will collapse." Anarchism became, for them, less a political movement, more a semi-religious sect. Rimbaud went on to talk about the need to "give back to life what we have taken from it.... to understand the seasons, the weather, the soil... to eject the grey filth and shit." Get rid of the mystical nonsense and what are we left with but personal politics. The revolution begins ...and ends within each of us. Whether or not you agree with this it is, as Nigel Fox said in Socialism from Below, "about as revolutionary and anarchist as sharing your last rolo with someone you love." There is nothing wrong with trying to be a nicer person or growing your own organic vegetables but it won't get rid of capitalism, and until we can overthrow capitalism we are stuck with authoritarianism, poverty, unemployment, wars, and all the other things that are part and parcel of it. As Bakunin pointed out "the serious realisation of liberty, justice and peace will not be possible whilst the majority of the population remains dispossessed." Where this tendency engages in activity outside its own sub-culture it often unconsciously adopts a Leninist-type role. It does things for people rather than with them. Supergluing locks or vandalising a bank cashpoint machine is exiting but is essentially elitist, and little more than adventurism. You are more likely to find such an anarchist running around late at night with a spraycan than on a picket line or at an anti-local charges meeting. I have spoken for a few minutes about this as I find that a loose tendency like lifestylism rarely throws up people who will openly put forward its positions. Maybe my remarks will lead to some responses. Another tendency in Ireland is syndicalism. These comrades place great emphasis on structure, genuinely democratic structure. They hope to organise the majority of workers into syndicalist unions as the way towards revolution. In Britain their strategy revolves around the formation of networks in different industries which they hope can become the basis for the revolutionary unions of the future. There are those who believe that the most immediate task is to build local anarchist groups which will begin to co-operate with each other as they appear in more cities and towns. Then there is the WSM, which asserts that there is a need for a national organisation with clear politics and unified activity. If you don't have a good idea of where we stand, you will by the end of the weekend so I'll say nothing more about it at this stage. I do not believe that there is any basis for a federation at present. There are real and very important differences among Irish anarchists. There are comrades who have not yet worked out what they feel needs to done. This does not mean that we all have to agree on everything before we can work together but we do need something more than a vague aspiration towards some undefined anarchism. United action means we have to agree where to put our limited energies and resources. What strategies do we put forward? How do we relate to other tendencies on the Left? What do we believe is possible in conditions facing us today. Without such agreement any artificial unity would collapse within months, if not weeks. In concrete terms this would be posed in the upcoming referendum on abortion information & travel, in our activity within the trade unions, in the stand we take on the fight against unemployment, on the question of republicanism. How would we intervene in the debate among republican sympathisers about a possible ceasefire? What would we say to Green Party sympathisers about zero-growth of the world economy and anti-industrialisation? However this is not to say that unity is impossible. We all share some basic anarchist ideas. Let us build on this by discussing and debating with each other, by attending each others meetings where this is possible, by working together on specific issues where find that we have enough agreement to do this. There are groups or potential groups in Belfast, Cork, Derry and Dublin. There are ones and twos in Ballymena, Drogheda, Galway, Fermoy, Wexford and probably other towns. Let us not try to run before we can walk but let us also begin to clarify our ideas so that we can move further along the road towards making anarchism the leading movement among those who want to see an end to capitalism and the beginning of a truly free society. THIS IS THE TEXT OF A TALK GIVEN AT AN ANARCHIST SUMMER SCHOOL ORGANISED BY THE WORKERS SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT. FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE WSM WRITE TO WSM PO BOX 1528 DUBLIN 8 IRELAND.