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Texts :: theory |
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A review of Vadim Damier's 'Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th Century' |
by Jared Davidson
Previously published: libcom.org |
08 Jun 2010
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For those who can read Russian, Vadim Damier’s two-volume study of the International Workers’ Association (IWA) is a comprehensive history of the worldwide anarchist labour movement in the early 20th Century. For the rest of us, Malcom Archibald has translated what is essentially a streamlined version of Damier’s larger work into English. Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th Century is a broad survey of a movement often marginalised by Marxist academics, and is a welcome addition to the existing literature on anarcho-syndicalism. As Damier illustrates, anarcho-syndicalism was far from a outmoded, ineffective or petty-bourgeois movement — the practice of direct action and revolutionary struggle controlled and self-managed by the workers themselves extended to all countries of the world. |
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Texts :: theory |
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Strategy and struggle - anarcho-syndicalism in the 21st century |
by Brighton Solidarity Federation-IWA
Previously published: Brighton Solfed |
09 Feb 2009
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Anarcho-syndicalism is a specific tendency within the wider workers’ movement. As a tendency, it has a history of its own dating back over a century. In contemporary discussions many - self-identified advocates and critics alike – take the tradition as it was 50, 70 or 100 years ago as definitive of the tradition as a whole. There is also the fact that the tradition is a plural one, and its core principles have allowed varied, sometimes conflicting practices at differing times in its history. The anarcho-syndicalism of the CNT of 1930 was not the same as the CNT of 1980. The anarcho-syndicalism of the Friends of Durruti was different yet again. As was that of the FORA. And so on. |
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Texts :: theory |
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The Labor Party Illusion |
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by Sam Dolgoff |
03 Jan 2006
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The Labor Party Illusion
By Sam Dolgoff ("Sam Weiner"), c. 1971
Originally written in the United States some 32 years ago, this essay was as relevant then as it is today. At the time, Sam Dolgoff went by the pseudonym "Sam Weiner" in his writings. |
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Texts :: theory |
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Anarcho-syndicalism |
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by Tom Wetzel |
30 Dec 2005
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Text of talk given in New York City, October 2002 |
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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 :: theory |
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Marx and Anarchism |
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by Rudolf Rocker |
08 Oct 2005
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"Marx wanted to conceal from everyone just what he owed to Proudhon and any means to that end was admissible. There can be no other possible explanation; the means Marx later used in his contest with Bakunin are evidence that he was not very scrupulous in his choice " ... The state is based on the contradiction between public and private life, on the contradiction between general interests and private interests. Hence the administration has to confine itself to a formal and negative activity, for where civil life and its labour begin, there the power of the administration ends ... " This essentially anarchist interpretation of the nature of the state, which seems so odd in the context of Marx's later teachings, is clear proof of the anarchistic roots of his early socialist evolution." |
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Texts :: theory |
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Anarchism and Sovietism |
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by Rudolf Rocker |
08 Oct 2005
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"The idea of "soviets" is a well defined expression of what we take to be social revolution, being an element belonging entirely to the constructive side of socialism. The origin of the notion of dictatorship is wholly bourgeois and as such, has nothing to do with socialism. It is possible to harness the two terms together artificially, if it is so desired, but all one would get would be a very poor caricature of the original idea of soviets, amounting, as such, to a subversion of the basic notion of socialism." |
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Texts :: theory |
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The Relevance of Anarchism |
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by Sam Dolgoff |
27 Sep 2005
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"Meaningful discussion about the relevance of anarchist ideas to modern
industrialized societies must first, for the sake of clarity, outline the dif-
ference between today's "neo-anarchism" and the classical anarchism of
Proudhon, Kroptkin, Malatesta and their successors. With rare exceptions one
is stuck by the mediocre and superficial character of the ideas advanced by
modern writers on anarchism." |
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Texts :: theory : history |
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Founding of the Worker's International |
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by Mikhail Bakunin |
23 Sep 2005
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"Only individuals, and a small number of them at that, can be carried away by an abstract and "pure" idea. The millions, the masses, not only of the proletariat but also of the enlightened and privileged classes, are carried away only by the power and logic of "facts," apprehending and envisaging most of the time only their immediate interests or moved only by their monetary, more or less blind, passions. Therefore, in order to interest and draw the whole proletariat into the work of the International, it is necessary approach it not with general and abstract ideas, but with a living tangible comprehension of its own pressing problems, of which evils the workers are aware in a concrete manner." |
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Texts :: theory |
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Principles of Syndicalism |
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by Tom Brown |
04 Sep 2005
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"Syndicalism — a theory and movement of trade unionism, originating in France, in which all means of production and distribution are brought under the direct control of their workers by the use of direct action, and organized through federations of labor unions; direct political and economic democracy in the workplace and community organized through labor unions and federations, including the abolition of capitalism, social classes, parliamentary government, bureaucracy and political parties." |
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