💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › benjamin-franks-anarchism-in-britain.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 07:58:29. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-06-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Anarchism in Britain Author: Benjamin Franks Date: 2009 Language: en Topics: British anarchism, United Kingdom, history Source: Franks, Benjamin. “Anarchism, Britain.” In The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present, edited by Immanuel Ness, 108–110. Vol. 1. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.
As far back as the nineteenth century there was a significant division
between class struggle, social anarchism, and the alternative,
individualist version of libertarianism. In the UK context this latter
branch of anarchism was associated with Henry Seymour, a “disciple” of
Benjamin Tucker. Seymour, who some claim edited the first anarchist
newspaper in Britain, The Anarchist (1885), briefly collaborated with
Peter Kropotkin, but their partnership soon folded because of
philosophical differences (individualism vs. mainstream socialist
versions of anarchism). Kropotkin departed to set up his own
anti-capitalist anarchist paper, Freedom.
Kropotkin’s Freedom group also supported the radical organization of
largely Jewish immigrants, based around Der Arbeiter Fraint (The
Workers’ Friend) newspaper, which was originally a non-aligned socialist
periodical but increasingly identified itself as anarchist. With the
assistance of the anarchosyndicalist Rudolf Rocker, the group helped to
form unions of Jewish immigrant textile workers, and by 1912 organized a
successful mass strike of thousands of tailors from across London’s
communities.
The first decades of the twentieth century saw a considerable increase
in agitation within British industry. By 1907 the growth was such that
Freedom was producing its own syndicalist journal, The Voice of Labor,
edited by the shop steward John Turner, a former colleague of William
Morris. This intensified militancy did not originate from
anarchosyndicalists, but did confirm the relevance of such tactics. The
extent of syndicalist thinking in the more mainstream workers’ movement
was demonstrated by the document produced by members of the unofficial
rank-and-file committee of the Miners’ Federation of Britain (a
forerunner of the National Union of Mineworkers). This plan, The Miners’
Next Step, was a lucid proposal of federal organization in order to wage
effective class warfare. Even after the rise of Leninism in the Welsh
coalfields, Albert Meltzer, a later class struggle anarchist, noted with
pleasure that a small pocket of syndicalism continued there for decades.
After the Bolshevik Revolution, however, state communism began to
dominate the non-social democratic wings of the British labor movement
at the expense of more heterodox forms of socialism. The apparent
vindication of Lenin’s centralized and “disciplined” methods in the
October Revolution, along with the use of Russia’s financial reserves to
provide a competitive advantage to revolutionaries who conformed to
Lenin’s strategy, marginalized alternative radical movements. As
Leninism and Stalinism dominated, the discourse of Marxism came to be
associated with the increasingly odious rationalizations for
totalitarian governance.
Despite the hegemony of Leninism over the use of Marxist terminology,
there was a consistent, recognizable section of British anarchists that
retained an insistence on identifying with the economically oppressed
class. From World War II until the 1980s these tended to be, but were
not exclusively, from syndicalist or quasi-syndicalist sections of
anarchism, which, as a result, placed priority on radical action at the
point of production. This syndicalist strand can be traced from the
1940s’ Anarchist Federation of Britain and Syndicalist Workers
Federation, to Black Flag in the 1960s, the Direct Action Movement of
the late 1970s and 1980s, to the present-day Solidarity Federation and
the anarchist-influenced Industrial Workers of the World. There were
(and are) other class struggle groups whose orientation was not confined
to the syndicalist strategy of developing structures for waging
industrial warfare at the point of production. Among the longest running
of these were Solidarity (1960–92), Class War (1983–), and the Anarchist
Communist Federation, now known simply as the Anarchist Federation
(1986–).
By the mid-1960s the rift between class struggle anarchists and the
increasingly liberal anarchist movement became more apparent. This
liberal turn was identified with Freedom, a paper which lay claim to
being the linear successor to Kropotkin, and produced an edition
celebrating the “first century”; however, between 1932 and 1944 there
was a break in publication. The new Freedom and Colin Ward’s influential
1960s magazine Anarchy took anarchist ideas and revised and reapplied
them to a host of concerns not previously covered by libertarian
publications. With the rise of the counterculture, these publications
took a more liberal, less class-oriented approach, aiming to influence
policy-makers and white-collar employees rather than foment
revolutionary change.
The division between the counterculture and class-based politics was
permeable, as the squatting movements of the 1960s and 1970s and later
punk-inspired milieus were to demonstrate. Nonetheless, the apparent
shift away from class-based action was opposed by militants such as
Stuart Christie; he sought more direct engagement with working-class
opposition, and was famously caught smuggling explosives to the
anti-Franco resistance. From the 1960s onwards other concerns that were
not directly related to the extraction of surplus labor came to the
political fore, such as campaigns against colonialism, promotion of
environmental concerns including animal rights, and advocacy of feminism
and sexual liberation. Some of these issues and forms of organizing sat
uncomfortably with a more programmatic, class-based approach.
By the time of the Miners’ Strike in 1984, anarchism had minimal
influence on – and in – working-class structures of resistance. The
experience of the Miners’ Strike, shortly followed by the intense print
workers dispute, however, played an influential role in resurrecting
class-struggle anarchism in Britain. The main anarchist groups, as a
result of the engagement in the strike (and its subsequent defeat),
developed a more robust and coherent conception of the agency for
libertarian social change, and helped to create social structures more
consistent with the anti-hierarchical principles of anarchism. Whilst
class oppression was not always the sole or main structure of
subjugation, in many contexts (if not all) it was increasingly
recognized as having a substantial role.
The various categories of British anarchism have shared a remarkable
consistency in iconography, targets, and critical discourse: they have
rejected the state, used the language of “resistance” and “liberation,”
promoted self-activity, engaged in direct action, and used and adapted
long-established symbols of revolt. More recently, however, degrees of
convergence have come to the fore. Class-based anarchists have
recognized that not all forms of oppression are reducible to class
alone, while those involved in issue-centered campaigns (such as the
environmental movement) have recognized the class feature inherent in
many of these issues. Networks of solidarity between disparate groups
became a prominent characteristic of anarchist organization and were a
significant feature of the global justice movement (also referred to as
the anti-capitalist and anti-globalization movement).
SEE ALSO: Anarchism ; Anarchocommunism ; Anarchosyndicalism ; Britain,
Trade Union Movement ; Britain, Post-World War II Political Protest ;
British Miners’ Strike, 1984–1985 ; Class Identity and Protest ; Class
Struggle
Aufheben (1998) The Politics of Anti-Road Struggle and the Struggles of
Anti-Road Politics: The Case of the No M11 Link Road Campaign. In G.
McKay (Ed.), DIY Culture: Party and Protest in Nineties Britain. London:
Verso.
Christie, S. (1980) The Christie File. Sanday: Cienfuegos Press.
Communist Party (1957) Inner Party Democracy. London: Communist Party.
Dangerfield, G. (1997) The Strange Death of Liberal England. London:
Serif.
Gordon, U. (2005) Anarchism and Political Theory: Contemporary Problems.
Doctoral thesis, Mansfield College, Oxford University.
Kendall, W. (1969) The Revolutionary Movement in Britain. London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Woodcock, G. (1975) Anarchism. London: Penguin.