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Title: Obituary: George Woodcock
Author: Kevin Doyle
Date: 1995
Language: en
Topics: George Woodcock, obituary, Workers Solidarity
Source: Retrieved on 26th November 2021 from http://struggle.ws/ws95/woodcock45.html
Notes: Published in Workers Solidarity No. 45 — Summer 1995.

Kevin Doyle

Obituary: George Woodcock

GEORGE WOODCOCK, author of two well known and widely available books on

anarchism — Anarchism and The Anarchist Reader — has died, aged 82. Born

in Winnipeg, Canada on May 8^(th), 1912 his life spanned some of the

highest and lowest moments of the movement he came to chronicle. He

first became active in Anarchist politics in the 1930s when his family

returned to England from Canada to escape poverty. For a long period he

was editor of the anti-war paper, War Commentary and the anarchist

newspaper, Freedom.

His political involvement in the years leading up the Second World War

coincided with the great achievements of the Spanish anarchist movement

in 1936–37. Woodcock, like most of his contemporaries — George Orwell

and Herbert Read among others — sought to raise awareness of the

revolution in Spain and of what was being achieved by the Spanish

working class against great odds. He was a firm believer in the working

class’s ability to reorganise society along fundamentally democratic and

egalitarian lines. The defeat of the Spanish anarchist movement came,

accordingly, as a bitter blow.

Even so, Woodcock’s own support for anarchism and the anarchist idea

continued. While his contribution to other areas grew on his return to

Canada, most notably creative writing, he remained, nonetheless,

committed to encouraging a better understanding of what anarchism stood

for and its continuing relevance to movements for social change. For a

long period his two best known books were the only comprehensive guides

widely available about anarchism in the English language, and for this

reason alone he will be remembered.

Anarchism, which was first published in 1962, has been criticised,

rightly, for it’s emphasis on anarchism as a movement of the past.

Reflecting on the period in which he had lived, Woodcock saw the passing

of anarchism as a mass working class force as an irreversible feature of

modern political life. His later contributions impressed anarchism’s

relevance on areas such as ecology and feminism.

The Anarchist Reader, in contrast, is a book which will stand the test

of time. Emphasising the theory and practice of anarchism, it draws on

an array of people associated with anarchism over the years, giving a

comprehensive and accessible introduction to the breadth and relevance

of anarchist ideas. Noting the revival of interest in anarchism since

the 1960s, Woodcock wrote in his introduction “Anarchism, in summary, is

a phoenix in an awakening desert, an idea that has revived for the only

reason ideas revive — that they respond to some need felt deeply by

people”. George Woodcock died on January 28^(th), 1995 aged eighty two.