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Texts :: history |
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Maximoff on the Russian Counter-Revolution |
by G.P. Mximoff
Previously published: Vanguard Vol. 11, No. 5 Oct.- Nov. 1935 (New York,New York) |
02 Oct 2005
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Texts :: articles |
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Michael Bakunin: Ideas on Social Organization |
by James Guillaume
Previously published: Source: Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff |
29 Oct 2005
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Bakunin was above all preoccupied with the theory and practice of revolution and wrote very little about how the everyday practical problems of social reconstruction would be handled immediately following a successful revolution. Nevertheless, these problems were intensively discussed in Bakunin’s circle and among the anti-authoritarian sections of the International. In “Ideas on Social Organization”, Guillaume discusses the transition from capitalism to anarchism – a synthesis of “Bakuninist” ideas on how this transition could be effected without the restoration of authoritarian institutions.” |
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Texts :: articles |
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Misconceptions of Anarchism |
by Sam Dolgoff
Previously published: From |
29 Oct 2005
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This talk by noted anarchist Sam Dolgoff discussed the main principles of constructive anarchism. |
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Texts :: history |
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My Disillusionment in Russia (Afterword) |
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by Emma Goldman |
27 Sep 2005
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Emma Godman's views and criticism of the Russian Revolution. |
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Texts :: theory |
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My Social Credo |
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by G.P. Maximoff |
03 Sep 2005
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"I believe that it behooves every honest individual to urge the toiling masses not to let the flames of revolution be extinguished. On the contrary, their orbit should be widened, through a stimulated alertness and independence and the creation of free labour institutions. These should be of a type suitable to take into the workers' own hands, on the overthrow of capitalism, the organisation of a free life upon the just principles of dignified work." |
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Texts :: theory |
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Nationalism and Culture |
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by Rudolf Rocker |
08 Oct 2005
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"We have increased and developed our technical ability to a degree which appears almost fantastic, and yet man has not become richer thereby; on the contrary he has become poorer. Our whole industry is in a state of constant insecurity. And while billions of wealth are criminally destroyed in order to maintain prices, in every country millions of men live in the most frightful poverty or perish miserably in a world of abundance and so-called "overproduction." The machine, which was to have made work easier for men, has made it harder and has gradually changed its inventor himself into a machine who must adjust himself to every motion of the steel gears and levers. And just as they calculate the capacity of the marvellous mechanism to the tiniest fraction, they also calculate the muscle and nerve force of the living producers by definite scientific methods and will not realise that thereby they rob him of his soul and most deeply defile his humanity. We have come more and more under the dominance of mechanics and sacrificed living humanity to the dead rhythm of the machine without most of us even being conscious of the monstrosity of the procedure. Hence we frequently deal with such matters with indifference and in cold blood as if we handled dead things and not the destinies of men ... To maintain this state of things we make all our achievements in science and technology serve organised mass murder; we educate our youth into uniformed killers, deliver the people to the soulless tyranny of a bureaucracy, put men from the cradle to the grave under police supervision, erect everywhere jails and penitentiaries, and fill every land with whole armies of informers and spies. Should not such "order," from whose infected womb are born eternally brutal power, injustice, lies, crime and moral rottennesslike poisonous germs of destructive plaguesgradually convince even conservative minds that it is order too dearly bought?" |
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Texts :: documents |
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New SAC Statement of Principles 2009 |
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by SAC |
05 Nov 2009
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A new statement of principles which was adopted by the Swedish syndicalist union SAC (Central Organisation of Swedish Workers) on the first day of its 29th Congress, held in October 2009. |
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Texts :: analysis |
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Notes on NAFTA: "The Masters of Man" |
by Noam Chomsky
Previously published: The Nation, March 1993 |
29 Aug 2005
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"Throughout history, Adam Smith observed, we find the workings of "the vile maxim of the masters of mankind": "All for ourselves, and nothing for other People." He had few illusions about the consequences. The invisible hand, he wrote, will destroy the possibility of a decent human existence "unless government takes pains to prevent" this outcome, as must be assured in "every improved and civilized society." It will destroy community, the environment and human values generally -- and even the masters themselves, which is why the business classes have regularly called for state intervention to protect them from market forces." |
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Texts :: history |
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On the International Workingmen's Association and Karl Marx |
by Mikhail Bakunin
Previously published: Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff |
03 Jan 2006
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This selection was written when the decisive struggle in the International Workingmen’s International had reached its climax with the expulsion of Bakunin from the International by the Hague Congress in 1872. The first part concerns Marx’s conduct in the International and concerns the differences of principle and tactics between the two opposing factions. It also deals with the basic principles of revolutionary syndicalism, including a critique of Marxism, particularly in relation to the labor movement. Bakunin takes up such matters as 1) non-worker members of the International; 2) should the General Council assume dictatorial powers over the International; 3) should the International be a model of the new society it is trying to build, or a replica of the State; 4) the relatively prosperous “semi-bourgeois caste of crafts and industrial workers” who could easily constitute the “fourth governing class” (the other three being the Church, the State bureaucracy, and the capitalists); and 5) Bakunin’s confidence in the revolutionary potential of the most oppressed, poorest, and alienated masses whom he calls “the flower of the proletariat.”
The second part deals primarily with Bakunin’s criticism of Marx’s historical materialism and political economy. |
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Texts :: theory : documents |
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One Big Union |
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by Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) |
03 Sep 2005
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"The purpose of the IWW is to establish union democracy in our everyday life on the job. Its practical policies are directed towards that end, and are essential to its achievement. They are determined by two basic principles: solidarity, and democracy within the union. It is necessary to avoid any practises that will interfere with the unity of our class, and it is even more necessary to make sure that the union, instead of running its members, is run by them. To leave democracy out of an organisation such as the IWW would leave it a device for fascism, and tremendous handicap to labour. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Trotsky, Lenin and their heirs and cohorts found it necessary to herd labour into an organisation very much of that sort. The mighty weapon of the One Big Union must be wielded by us, not over us." |
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