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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (1)

A

Revolution A magazine of libertarian communism Number 4

Red & Black

1798

AnarchismAnarchismAnarchismAnarchismAnarchismo ro ro ro ro rbarbarism?barbarism?barbarism?barbarism?barbarism?

TheTheTheTheThe

choice ischoice ischoice ischoice ischoice isyours!yours!yours!yours!yours!

Rebellion

in Ireland

Racism & ClassStruggle

PDF version

Nov 2000

http://surf.to/anarchism

PDF version

Nov 2000

http://surf.to/anarchism

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (2)

members are involved in t heir tra de unions;

we’ve fought for abortion rights a nd a gainst

the presence of the B ritish sta te in NorthernIreland; we’ve also been involved in cam-

paigns in support of workers from countries

as f ar apar t as Nepal , Peru and South Afr ica .

Alongside this, we have produced over fifty

issues of our paper Work ers Soli dari ty , and awide ran ge of pamphlets . In 1986, we organ -

ised a speaking tour of Ireland by an anar-

chist veteran of the Spanish Civil War , Ernesto

Nadal, to commemorate the 50th anniver-sary of the revolution there.

As anarchists we see ourselves as part of along tradi t ion that has fought agains t a l lforms of aut horitaria nism and exploita tion, a

tra dition tha t s t rongly influenced one of the

most successful and far reaching revolutions

in th is century - in Spa in in 1936 - 37. The

value of this tradition cannot be underesti-ma ted today. With the fall of the Soviet

Un ion t here is renewed interest in our ideas

an d in the tr adition of l ibertaria n socialism

genera lly. We hope to encoura ge this interestwith Red & Bla ckRevolution . We believe tha t

anarchists and libertarian socialists should

debate and discuss their ideas, that they

should popularise their history a nd str uggle,

and help point to a new wa y forward . I f you are

interested in finding out

more about ana rchism orthe WSM, contact us at

PO Box 1528, Dublin 8,

Ire land .

About the WSMThe Workers Sol idar i ty Movement wasfounded in Dublin, I relan d in 1984 follow ing

discussions by a number of local anarchistgroups on the need for a national anarchist

organisat ion. At tha t time, with unemploy-

ment a nd inequa lity on the rise, there seemed

every rea son to argue for ana rchism and for a

revolutiona ry cha nge in Irish society. Thishas not changed.

Like most socialists we sha re a funda menta l

belief th at capit a lism is th e problem. Webelieve that as a system it must be ended,

that the wealth of society should be com-

monly owned an d tha t i ts resources should beused to serve the needs of humanity as awhole and not those of a sma ll greedy minor-

ity. But , just as importan tly, we see this

struggle against capitalism as also being a

str uggle for freedom. We believe tha t social-

ism and freedom must go together, that wecannot ha ve one without th e other. As Mikha il

Bakunin, the Russ ian anarchis t said , “So- 

cial ism wi thout freedom is tyranny and bru- 

ta l i ty” .

Anarchism has always stood for individual

freedom. But i t a lso sta nds for democracy.

We believe in democratising the workplacean d in workers ta king control of all industry.

We believe tha t t his is the only real alterna -tive to capitalism w ith its on going reliance on

hiera rchy a nd oppression a nd its depletion ofth e world’s resources.

In the years since our formation, we’ve been

involved in a wide range of struggles - our

Comment

Back IssuesA limited number of copies of 

Issue 1, 2 & 3 are still available.

Send 2 pounds/ 3 dollars for a

single copy. Bulk discount of 1/3

applies for orders of 3 copies or

more.

R & B R 1 featured articles on the

collapse of the left, Russia 1917-21, Marx

& the state, the EZLN & more.

R & B R 2 included Russian Anarchism

today, Chomsky on Anarchism, Twosouls of the unions etc

R & BR3 included Anarchism in South

Africa and Italy, The anti Water Charges

struggle, the early Irish left etc

Permission is given for revolutionary

publications to reprint any of the articles

contained in this issue. But please do

two things;

• Tell us you are re-printing and send us

a copy of the publication it appears in.

• If you are also translating an article,

please send us a copy of the translation

on computer disk so we can add it to our

electronic archive.

Reprints

A AWelcome to issue 4 of “Red and 

Bl ack Revolut i on”.

In this issue, we follow in the

footst eps of the 3 previous issues’

w i t h a b a l a n c e o f a r t i c l e s o f

historica l and present -da y interest.

The 1798 rebellion in Irela nd h a s

been marked throughout Ireland

in th i s , the year o f i t s 200th

anniversary, with the launch of

pamphle t s , T .V. programmes ,

S u m m e r S c h o o l s a n d r e -

e n a c t m e n t s o f b a t t l e s . I n t h econt ext of th e Irish ‘peace process’

and the Good Friday Agreement,

the 1798 commemorations have

taken on added significance. We

look at how 1798 is remembered,

and indeed how large parts of its

legacy are deliberately forgotten

or distort ed. We also ta ke a look a t

how th e left in I rela nd ha ve rea cted

to recent events in th e North a nd

th e ‘w indow of opport unit y’ w hich

ha s opened up with th e silencing of

the guns.

I re land 1998 has seen a huge

growth in naked r ac i sm. The

a rriva l on the shores of th e ‘Celtic

Tiger’ of a few thousand asylum

seekers has been met by h yst eria

about "scroungers"   and a naked

attempt by sections of the media

a nd the politica l esta blishment to

whip up racism. This is of course

not a uniquely Irish phenomenon,

so we are delighted to carry ana rticle from the Work ers Soli dar it y 

Federation   in South Afica, which

l o o k s a t t h e i r a n a l y s i s a n d

experiences of fight ing ra cism.

Since the launch of Red & Bl ack 

Revolution, we have at tempted to

a n a l y s e p a s t a n d c u r r e n t

developments in a na rchism. In this

t r a d i t i o n , w e l o o k a t t h e

Organ isa t iona l Pla t fo rm of the 

L ibert ar i an Comm uni sts , both in

a historical context and in the

cont ext of its r elevan ce toda y. We

also carry an interview with the

Sol idar i ta organisa t ion in the

C z e c h R e p u b l i c a b o u t t h e i r

e x p e r i e n c e s i n d e v e l o p i n g

a na rchism in the post-Soviet era .

W e h o p e t h a t y o u w i l l f i n d

something of interest t o you in this

edition. We don’t cla im t o know a llt h e a n s w e r s , r a t h e r w e a r e

a tt empting to provoke a nd stimula tedebate on some o f the crucia lquest ions facing us. I f there is

an ything you agree or disagree with,we w ould love to hear from y ou. It isthr ough debate an d discussion tha t

idea s can be developed.

This is our contribution to thatdevelopment of ideas. Read and

enjoy!

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (3)

1998 - 99

Contents

Red & Black Revo lu t i on  is published by the Workers Solidarity Movement. The deadline for the next issue isApril 1999. Submissions are welcome and should be sent either as 'text only' files on Mac or PC format computerdisks or typed on plain white paper. Disks are preferred. Letters are also welcome. All correspondence shouldbe sent to Red & Black Revo l u t i on , PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland.

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/wsm.html

Page 33

With ra cism on the rise in Irelan d, it ha s become more importa nt t ha n ever

for ant i-ra cist activists t o examine w here such idea s come from a nd how 

they can be fought. In t his ar t icle, the South African an archist organisa-

tion, the WSF, puts forwa rd i ts view tha t the f ight a gainst ra cism and theclass-stru ggle are inextricably linked.

Racism: Where it

comes from, How we

should fight it

Anarchism with a

future - The Czech

Republic

Environmentalism

Hobson's choice

The "Good Friday

Agreement" & the

Irish Left

Victor Serge

The 1798 Rebellion

The Friends of 

Durruti

Page 4

Page 7

Page 11

Page 15

Page 18

Page 27

Page 29The Platform

The Friends of Durruti organisation, which arose from the ranks of

an archist mil i tant s during the S panish Civil War , condemned the CNT

a nd FAI members who joined the ant i-Fra nco government. For their

pains they w ere accused of wa nting to establish an “anar chist di ctator- 

ship” . Alan MacSimóin reviews the f irst E nglish language book a boutthem, a nd looks at the lessons to be learnt from Spa in.

Kevin Doyle ta lks to Vadim Barák  of the Sol idar i ta organisation in theCzech Republic about t he problems a nd possibilities facing a na rchists in

th e process of rebuilding a revolutiona ry m ovement.

In J une of 1795 several I r ish P rotesta nts ga thered on top of Ca ve Hil l,

overlooking B elfast . They sw ore " never to desist in our effort s unti l we had 

subvert ed t he authori ty of Engl and over our countr y and assert ed our 

independence" . Three years la ter 100,000 rose a ga inst B rita in in the first

Irish republican insurrection. Andrew Flood examines wha t t hey weref ighting for a nd h ow th ey inf luenced modern Ir ish nat ionalism.

So you want to cha nge the world? Wha t next? Unsurprisingly this simple

question has provoked much discussion among anarchists. AileenO'Carroll an d Alan MacSimóin look at t he an sw er provided by someRussians.

Ana rchism is often seen as being broadly linked with t he rad ical wing of

th e En v i r on m en ta l m ov em en t . Ray Cunningham  in rev iewing‘Ana rchism a nd Environmenta l Survival ’ considers these l inks a nd t heinfluence of these movements on ea ch other.

The "G ood Frida y Agreement" wa s passed by an overwhelming ma jority

of voters North a nd South . The agreement presented something of aHobson's C hoice for the I rish w orking-class - which route t o an entrench-

ment of secta r ianism do you wa nt to ta ke? Here Gregor Kerr looks at thereactions to the agreement of the Irish left.

Letters Readers views on some controversy generat ed with the la st issue Page 26

One time a na rchist Victor S erge joined t he B olsheviks in 1918 an d is oftenquoted by Leninist s toda y to justify their repression of the left. DermotSreenan looks at his later writ ings and f inds a S erge unha ppy with ma nyaspects of Bolshevik rule but unable to break with them because of the

a pparent success of the Russia n Revolution.

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Q: What’s your view of the old‘Communist’ system that existedin the Czech Republic until1989? Had it any positivefeatures?

It should be remembered that unlike inHungary , Poland and Eastern Germanywhere the Communist Par ty (CP) wereinstalled into government by the Soviet

milita ry forces, here in Czechoslovakia t heycame t o power by win ning democra tic elec-tions with an overwhelming majority of

votes. Bu t wh at you call the ‘old Commu-nist syst em’ ha d nothing in common withtrue socialism. The regime we had unt il

1989 had all the faults that the CzechAna rchists at the beginning of the centurypredicted it would have. The Communist

P art y bureaucracy took over the stat e power

in the na me of workers. They slaught eredleft an d right oppositions, destroyed ba sic

civil and huma n rights t o prevent ordina rypeople from organising themselves inde-pendent of the P ar ty a nd from expressingopinions hostile to “the most perf ect d emoc- racy in the worl d” . Industries were notnationalised under workers' control butunder central bureaucratic management.

Agriculture w as collectivised w ith bruta lforce. The centr a lised undem ocra tic pla n-ning t ha t became th e norm here, fulfilled

the interests of the nomenklat ura 1 and nottha t of the whole society. As time went onit became more and more inefficient.

Q: Was there anarchist activityin Czechoslovakia in the lead upto the Velvet Revolution(1989)?

A: Yes, there wa s an a na rchist minority inan illegal pa rty called the Left Alternat ive.

This party was very small and composedmainly of intellectuals and students whobelonged to va rious currents of democra tic

a nd revolutiona ry socialism. They opposedthe Communist regime an d pursued a pro-gramme of socialism based on workers’

self-management and direct democracy.As freedom of speech and association did

not exist, the LA remained confined tobeing a more or less discussional plat form,not an organisa tion active am ong workingclass people.

Durin g th e Velvet Revolution the LA gained

some credibility among ordinary people,

an d in P ra gue - the centre of the revolution- it made significant steps to becoming areal w orking-class a lternat ive. In t he first

local election s, 10,000 people voted for t heLA in Pra gue. Bu t by then the revolution

had been usurped by careerist dissidentintellectuals and former Communist bu-reaucrats. They took over a movement ofCit izens’ Forums and the sta te apparat us,

and by means of a massive propagandacampa ign succeeded in persua ding peopletha t w e could not ha ve socialism w ith de-

mocracy - tha t t he only wa y wa s the west-ern ‘market economy’ idea.

This new situa tion sa w the LA once morein a position of isolated discussional cir-

cles. This time it was fatal. Some of itsleading figures were moving towards apro-ma rket position, sectar ian ism occurred

and in the end its internal conflicts de-stroyed it.

 Q: What sort of history doanarchist ideas have in theCzech Republic?

Ana rchism sta rted here in th e 1880s a s ayouth section of a patriotic and liberalmovement against the Austro-Hungarian

monarchy. When the Social DemocraticPar ty was established, i ts lef t wing wasrepresented by Libertaria n S ocialists, but

after several years they were forced tobreak a wa y. Un til WW1 the most powerfulcurrent of Libertarianism was Anarcho-

Syn dica list. A stronghold of Czech Anarcho-Syndicalism wa s in the Northern Bohemianmining regions. Ana rcho-Syn dicalists w ere

soon organising their own union federa-tion, the Czech General Un ion Federat ion(the CG UF ). Repression by the sta te stra n-gled the CGUF in 1908, but could not

destroy the Syndicalist spirit among w ork-ers and new Syndicalist unions like theRegiona l Miners Unit y w ere formed.

 B y 1914 th e Federat ion of Czech Anarcho-

Communists (the FCAC) was also welle s t a b l i s h e d a m o n g C z e c h w o r k e r s .Syndicalists and Anarchists published a

lot of papers such a s The Proletar ian . An-archists established some consumers’ co-ops. During WW1 there was a general

clampdown on the Czech Liberta rian m ove-ment - a lot of militant s were either jailedor marched to the front; ma ny w ere killed.

Unlike Syndicalism the FCAC survivedthe war .

In 1918, on 14th October, t he FC AC’s mili-

ta nts, together with left Social Democra ts,organised a 24-hour general strike tha t infact ma rked the end of the Austro-Hun gar-

ian empire’s domina tion of our na tion. Thisevent m ade C zech na tionalist politicians,who did not w ant to break a wa y from the

empire unti l that moment, s ta r t n egotia-tions wit h t he empire about our independ-ence. Strikers were demanding our right t onational independence and a creation of

th e Czechoslova k Socialist R epublic. Aftera da y the strike wa s called off by the SocialDemocratic leadership. On 28th October

ordinary people - mainly in Prague - roseup aga in to finish off the decaying Austro-Hungar ia n a uthorit ies.

At that time the leading Anarchist-Com-

munist int ellectua ls were already movingtowa rds Leninism. One of them becam e anMP in t he parliament of the new republic

and another was a minister of the f irstgovernment. On t he other han d it t ells a lotabout Ana rchist-Communist influence at

th e time. In 1918 th e Anarchist -Comm u-nists became the left w ing of the Czecho-slovak S ocialist P ar ty (the CSS P ). In 1923

Ana rchist-Commun ists w ere expelled fromthe CSS P and their leaders manoeuvredthem int o a la st st ep before an open unifi-

cation with the CP, which had alreadybeen established in 1921 by left SocialDemocra ts a nd left Ana rchist-Communists,who openly converted to Bolshevism. (In

fact they w ere the f irst here to tra nslate

Lenin’s works.) This last step led to theformation of the Independent Socialist

Party (the ISP). In 1925 the ISP, despiteresistance from the last remnan ts of syndi-calism - the Association of Czechoslovak

Miners, which was tied to the Anarchist-Communists - abandoned federalism andother Anarchist principles and joined the

C P .

Q: Tell us a little about yourformation. Is Solidarita acompletely new organisation ordid you develop from anotherorganisation?

Solidarita developed from the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation (the ASF), whose

roots rea ch to th e LA. After 1990, in a t imeof greatest i l lusions about the marketeconomy and consequently the greatest

isolat ion of the left (no mat ter w hether pro-

Anarchism

with a futureKevin Doyle talks to Vadim Barák of the So l i d a r i t a organisation in theCzech Republic about the problems and possibilities facing anarchists inthe process of rebuilding a revolutionary movement.

- the Czech Republic -

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (5)

ma rket or socialist), the ASF san k into adeep secta rianism an d dogmat ism - which

it ha s not recovered from yet.

But af ter this interval , there was a change:The first union struggles occurred; stu-dents fought back aga inst th e introduction

of fees for educat ion at universities; th erewa s more an d more support am ong peoplefor environmentalist campaigns; in gen-

eral t he discontent of the w orking popula-tion wa s growing. A minority in the ASFdid its best t o be involved in this ferment

an d tried to tra nslat e its experience fromthose struggles into an int ernal debat e inthe ASF. Tha t debat e should have changedthe ASF int o an active a nd effective liber-

tarian organisation. However, the major-ity in the ASF refused to discuss ourproposals and w e had t o leave. Since tha t

tim e (1996) Solida rita ha s been workin g tobuild itself . Our theoretical and organisa -tional development is not finished yet.

Through continuous involvement in localas well as national struggles of workers

and young people, and through discus-sions, we ar e accumulating experience an dclarifyin g our idea s. We describe ourselveseither as a na rcho-syndicalists or Liberta r-

ian Socialists.

Q: What other Anarchistorganisations are there?

In t he last w hile there has been quite a bitof change. Un til about a year ago, there

were three main organ isat ions - the newlyformed Northern Bohemian LibertarianFederation (NBLF), the Czechoslovak An-

archist Federation (the CSAF) and the

Czechoslovak Federation of RevolutionaryAnarchists (the CSFRA).

 The CS FRA derives from th e ASF (who I

mentioned above). As far a s we ar e con-cerned it is an organisation riven withdogmatist s and sectaria nism. The CS FRA

doesn’t base its politics on reality, so wedon’t ha ve much to do with it.

In contra st both the NBLF a nd the CSAFwere federations tha t sought to unite vari-

ous current s of a na rchism. This is oneimporta nt difference we in Solidarita ha dwit h these groups. Solidarita is an organi-

sation united in its theory and practice.We are pulled together by a common pro-gram me and w e are all equally responsible

for implementation of our organisation’spolitics. B ut th ere wa s some overlap be-tw een Solidarita an d both of these organi-sations - the NBLF and CSAF - joint

membership for example.

La st yea r th e CSAF split, giving rise to anew gr oup ca lled the FS A - th e Federat ion

of Social Anarchists. Since then th e FSAhas gone through a significant develop-ment. They’ve adopted the Pla tform2 a s a nimporta nt pa rt of their political att itudes.

This puts them in a similar position toSolidarita . The FSA carr ies out int ensivepropaganda work and are currently in-

volved in ongoing discussion with us a ndother Czech syndicalists with a view tounit ing. Also involved in th ese discussionsar e a n umber of ex members of the NB LF

(The NBLF ceased to exist because of aspilt betw een syndicalists and green ana r-

chists).

The outcome of all th is ma y well be a new anarcho-syndicalist organisation, whichwould be a major step forward for class-

struggle anarchism.

Q: What sort of unions exist inthe Czech Republic at themoment?

We have standard bureaucratic pro-mar-

ket unions tha t believe in social pa rtner-ship. They rely on endless and mostlyfruitless negotiat ions w ith t he government

and employers. They organise about 40%of our workforce and are divided into sev-eral union federa tions tha t come from the

old Communist Revolutionary U nion Move-ment. The CP still has a sma ll union fed-eration, but it is absolutely passive and

unimportan t. Now t he most powerful fed-erat ion is the Czech and Morovian C ha m-ber of Trade Unions (the CMCTU). A

smaller federation worth mentioning isth e Tra de Un ion of Agricultur a l Workers.All th e CMCTU’s unions claim t o be inde-

pendent of all political parties, but theCMCTU’s leadership adm its th at its poli-tics a re close to th ose of Social Democra cy.A good number (of th e leadership) also ra n

as candidat es of Social D emocracy in elec-tions to both houses of parliament.

The remarkable exception to all this isTra de Union Associat ion of Railw a y Work-

ers (the TUARW), which is really inde-

pendent of political pa rties a nd sa ys “No!”to the introduction of market principles

into public services an d t o privatisa tion ofthe ra ilwa ys. In F ebruary 1997 the TUARWled the most importan t st rike in th e post-

1989 period and are surely the most ad-va nced union in our countr y. The CMC TU’sleadersh ip ha s a ccused t he TUARW of be-

ing Ana rcho-Syndicalist! Other living un-ions in the CMCTU which a re getting more

an d more able and rea dy to fight back, arethe miners, steelworkers and teachers’unions.

The rest are dying unions, which still be-ha ve like th e old Commu nist un ions. Their

only concern is t o collect enough m oney tofeed the bureaucracy and to buy Christ-mas presents and holiday trips for their

ran k and file. For example in Healt h Ca re.Right now t he government wa nts t o close20%of hospita ls an d decrease w ages, but

the Health Care Workers Trade Union(HCWTU) will not do anything about it.They will just join the CMCTU’s demon-

strat ion a gainst the government’s a uster-ity politics, but no more. No wonder workersare deserting them! In fact there is notra dition of self-activity for decades in the

CP unions - people wait on their leaders todo something for them and, as I said, theHCWTU leaders do nothing.

Q: What is Solidarita’s positionrelative to the unions? Do youfavour the formation of newsyndicalist unions?

• Increases in rents a nd the price of

electr ici ty, ga s a nd h eating, a nnounced

on J uly 1st 1998 ha s put tw o-third s of

th e C zech popula tion (2m households)on

the poverty line.

• Un employment ha s now climbed from

zero to 7%(350,000), a nd is set to w orsen

further .

• New interest rates forced through by

the Czech Republic’s IMF ‘managers’

earlier in the yea r will cause the collapse

of 40-60%of Czech en ter prises over t henext year .

'Free-Market' Madness in the Czech Republic

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (6)

Despite all the problems w ith t he present

unions - some of which I ’ve outlined a bove- we believe in working inside them. Webelieve they a re real w orking class orga ni-sa tions. Within them we ar gue for a

syndicalist alternative of combative anddemocra tic unions run ‘by w orkers for w ork-ers’, w here all delegat es would be immedi-

ately recallable so that workers wouldcontrol t heir own st ruggles. Unions shouldbe active not only in a w orkplace, but also

in communit ies. They should take part instruggle against racism and fascism, inenvironmenta l campaigns. Their fina l goal

should be tra nsformat ion of t his society ofmarket dic tatorship into a Liber tar ian

Socialist society of socia l justice, workers’self-management and grassroots democ-racy.

 Tha t kin d of union can come into existenceonly through our active participation in

present day unions and through a rankand file movement in these unions forcontrol over their organisa tions and fights.

It is also interesting to note that the or-

ganisation I mentioned above, the FSA,ha s also moved towa rds a position were itsees the necessity of working within the

‘here a nd now’ unions. This is a n impor-

tant development.Q: How has the change to a‘market-style economy’ affectedCzech workers?

The ma rket economy ha s not fulfilled a nyof people’s hopes for a decent a nd fr ee life.Sure we can buy more products and now 

there a re no shorta ges of essential goodslike bread or toilet paper, but everything isvery expensive. Generally our living st and-

ard is worse than i t w as under the Commu-nist dictat orship. Our wa ges and pensionsare lower than in 1990 - when economic

transformation star ted - and we have to

pay high ta xes. B esides, now w e also haveto pay for many services that used to bepaid for from t a xes e.g. a lot of medicines,

textbooks for children, dentist trea tmentetc. Till [shop] prices a re growing fa sterthan incomes. An average wage is about

£200 a month , but 62% of workers getwa ges lower tha n the a verage and only 5%

get wages higher than £400 per month -these are the managers and the directorsof compa nies.

Q: There has also been a massiveround of privatisation. Whathas happened here?

Working class people were persuaded by

pro-ma rket political forces tha t privatisa -tion would solve all the problems an d wouldbring a bout a society w here everybody is arich share-holder. Everyone was going to

become prosperous and production wouldbe ecologically har mless! Nothing of th atsort has happened. Privatised companies

either ended up in hands of state-ownedbanks or in the ha nds of foreign investors,who bought only the best enterprises (i.e.

those which were highly profitable evenunder the Communist s ta te mana gement;e.g. Volkswa gen bought Skoda). B ut ma ny

compa nies also ended up in the ha nds of ‘a

new agg ressive class of owners ’. Thesepeople gained enormous w ealth from, basi-

cally, stealing. The government ha s beenturn ing a blind eye on this. I am ta lkingabout the people who were charged withmana ging banks, industr ies a nd pr ivati-

sa tion funds. The amount of stolen prop-erty a rising from privatisa tion is estima tedto be in t he region of hundr eds of billions of

Czech Crowns. J ust to give you an idea ofhow large a n a mounts of capita l this is, itshould be enough to say that the Czech

GMP is CC1600 billion.

  It also needs to be said that the govern-

ment is following the a dvice of the IMF t orestrict spending on public services, on

doles, pensions an d all social benefits. TheIMF /G overnment h a s also cancelled subsi-dies towards heating, electricity and gas

for households. They ha ve pushed for adecrease in wages and for structural ad-justments of industry. This means tha t

tens of th ousan ds of public sector workerswill lose their jobs; hospitals, schools andra ilway s a re being closed down; unemploy-

ment is growing. No wonder that moretha n 50%of the population believe tha t t heStal inist economy was bad, but that thefree market one is not much bett er!

Q: In what way have peopleresisted the attack on livingstandards

The CMLIU organised a big demonstra-

tion against the government’s austeritypolicy in Nov. 1997. B ut th e a tt a ck onliving standa rds wa s also one of the princi-

pal reasons why this right-wing govern-ment of Klaus got kicked out of office earlierin the year. Bu t while people might be

looking for some solution electorally - itwon’t come. The Social Democra ts ha veaba ndoned all of its ra dical promises, an d

in fact only just won in the most recentparliam enta ry elections despite th e hugedissat isfaction with Klaus. In the af ter-ma th of tha t election the SD s entered into

an ‘allian ce’ wit h Kla us an d his free-ma r-ket cronies - wh ich wa s a h uge stab in t he

ba ck for th ose people wh o had vot ed for the

SD s in good fait h.

There is a long w a y to go but w e see our rolea s one of gett ing involved. We’ve beeninvolved in the initiative for a General

St rike (the IG S) launched by a num ber ofsocia list groups. We’ve also been doingwork on the matter of rent increases.

Solidarita has distributed leaflets calling

for the non-paym ent of higher rents a gain stgovernment and local councils that areincreasing rent s. As we get more of a ba se

in th e larger t owns a nd cities, more oppor-tunities will arise for us to be effective inthis regard. It is importan t to recognise

tha t people in communities here are at om-ised and without any tradition of self-ac-tivity - from the years of Stalinism. There

is much work t o be done, but we a re hopefulwh ile being rea listic.

Q: How is anarchism seen in theCzech Republic? Are you everconfused with the old

Communists!Yes, quite often, but people soon realisetha t we are different. But also, now it isn’t

so much th e big problem it u sed to be [beingconfused with t he CP]. P ro-ma rket illu-sions a re heavily shatt ered here now, and

anti-Communist hysteria is gone. Peoplear e willing to consider your ideas an d a c-tivities with respect even if t hey presume

you a re a C ommunis t. A lot of people seemto believe that the only positive thing a boutcapitalism is it s relat ive freedom, but from

a n economic point of view it does not ma t-ter w hether you live under Communism or

Ca pitalism. Solidarita believes liberta r-ian socialism is a clear alternative: free-dom + socialism We fight ha rd to get itsideas of social justice, workers’ self-man-agement a nd gra ssroots democracy over to

ordinary people.

Our colleagues, classm a tes an d neighbourssee the difference: “You are active among

us, you really try to do something; th e CPis just sitt ing in the parliam ent!” We standa good chance to gain a leading position foranarchist ideas if we can be even more

active, doing clear an d reasona ble libertar-ian politics.

SOLID ARITA can be contacted a t P O B ox

13, Cerná Hora, 67921, The CZECH RE-P UB LIC . To obta in a copy of their interna -tional new sletter, enclose a donat ion.

1 The extended hierarchy of the Communist

Party. The name nomenklatura derives from the

system adopted at the 9th Party Congress of the

CPSU (Bolsheviks) which put in place a system

where the party would keep a list of those whom it

considered ‘suitable’ for office. In time, the

nomenklatura system came to represent those who

were in the Party and/or followed its orders.2 The Organisational Platform of the Libertarian

Communists - a pamphlet written in the mid 20s

by anarchists who had fought in the Russian

Revolution. It argues for the unity of theory and

practice in the anarchist organisation, and for

collective responsibility around a definite

programme. (See page 29)

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (7)Guest Writer

Alongside the classical anarchist struc-tures of unions an d tra ditionally ‘political’

organisa tions, an ar chists ar e increasinglyto be found in the environmental move-ment. This is hardly surprising given tha t,

alt hough one wing of the green movementhas entered mainstream par l iamentarypolitics, there is still a w ide base of grass-

roots activism some of which, in its met h-

ods and organisation, is very c lose toan archism. Wha t’s more, the more radical

environmenta lists are becoming a wa re tha ttheir demands cannot be accommodatedby capita lism, and a re beginning to makeconnections betw een their campaigns a nd

other issues. Why th en are the links be-tw een ana rchism a nd environmental ismnot much stronger? And what a re the

issues that still divide them?

Mutineers on the Titanic?Most anarchists have some idea of the

serious state of environmental degrada-tion cau sed by capita lism. You don’t ha veto be politically a ctive to know about t he

hole in the ozone layer, or the choppingdown of the rainforest, and the pollutioncaused by a tra nsport system based on cars

is obvious to anyone who lives in a city.Ana rchist groups rarely see these a s issuesto be campaigned on, like women’s rights

or trade union struggles. B ut environmen-ta l issues effect the w orking class dispro-portiona tely. They are the least a ble to

escape t he effects of environmenta l da m-age, a nd th e most likely to bear the bruntin terms of disease, ma lnutrit ion a nd so on.

We know that poverty-level wages and

poor housing in t he developing world a re aresult of capitalism. The fact that t heslums this creates are the hardest hit by

flooding, for exam ple, is an other sympt omof ca pita lism putt ing profits before people.B ut campa igns aga inst this sort of indirect

oppression a re thin on t he ground.

One possible reason w hy a na rchists don’tcampaign as much on environmental is-sues is the gradua l nat ure of environmen-

ta l problems. Unlike other struggles wh erethere is a clear line that is crossed, anobvious point t o focus on - wheth er it be a

repressive piece of legisla tion or a str ike -

pollution, for example, is incrementa l. Theproblem is generally not t ha t one factory

opens a nd suddenly t he air is visibly pol-luted. The level of pollution tends t o in-crease stea dily over time, and it is har d to

get excited over a difference tha t you can’t

see. Of course t here a re exceptions - a few years a go in Cork a part icularly bad t oxic

spill led to calls for stricter controls onchemical production a nd sa fety (see Work- ers Soli dar ity 41 for deta ils). B ut , in gen-

e r a l , w e b e c om e a c c u s t om e d t o t h edegrada tion of our environment if it ha p-pens slowly enough.

The final, a nd most importa nt problem, foranarchists in tackling environmental is-sues is that we disagree with most of thesolutions on offer. The main str eam green

line on the environment is that we ar e all,more or less equally, to blame for its de-struction, and w e must a ll, again more or

less equa lly, ma ke sacrifices if the ecosys-tem is to survive - this when the poorest20%of th e popula tion produce only 3%of

carbon dioxide emissions. Even more radi-cal greens, though they do realise thatcorporat ions a nd capita lism are doing mostof the damage, insist that we must al l

reduce our consumption and simplify our

lives. They also say t ha t industria lisation,in itself , is a ba d thing, no ma tt er who is in

cont rol. Anarchist s, on th e otherha nd, think tha t everyone shouldhave more of what they want,

not less. There are problemswit h how production is organ -ised, an d certa inly if things

are produced for need andnot profit a lot of wastewill be cut out. B ut most

of the world has a st and-ar d of living far below wha twesterners would take for

granted a nd, as a n a bsolute mini-mum, this ha s to be addr essed.

A World DividedThe history of this century hasbeen of deepening divisions in h u-ma nity. The gap betw een richan d poor ha s widened enor-

mously, today 225 peopleown more tha n th e poorest50%earn in a year . Eightyfour  people are togetherw e a l t h i e r t h a n C h i n a ,three people wealthierthan the poorest 48

countries. The wea lth iest 20%of theglobal populat ion consum es 60%of the

energy, 45%of the meat and fish, andowns 87%of the vehicles1. This is not tosa y th at everyone in th e ‘developed’ world

is well off, of course. Within th e richer

countries th e gap betw een rich a nd poor is

also growing, with the figures for home-lessness, unemployment a nd ma lnutrition

rising all the time. In the last decade,diseases like tuberculosis, caused essen-tia lly by poverty, ha ve reappeared, having

been eradicat ed ear lier this century. TheUS ma y be the w orld’s biggest consumer,but it a lso ha s the highest per capita prison

population, a nd 16.5% of its populat ionlives in poverty.

On a global level, th e picture is of a south-ern hemisphere owned, controlled and ex-

ploited by the north. Raw ma terials -minerals and food - are produced in the

south and consumed in the north. Theenvironment al problems in th e north/westare ma inly those cau sed by over a centuryof industrial production - pollution hasbecome a fa ct of life. The ear th , the air , the

rain, all have been contaminated.

The south ma y not ha ve as long a hist ory ofindustr ial isat ion as the north, but as far a senvironmental damage goes it is gaining

ra pidly. When a corporat ion shift s produc-tion to the developing world, it does so toescape not just t ra de unions, but a lso envi-

ronmenta l regulations. Workers in thesouth a re not just lower-paid, t hey’re sub-

ject to much more dan gerous working con-ditions, and much more damage to their

Anarchism & EnvironmentalSurvival

Graham Purchase is one of the most prolific writers in the Australian

anarchist movement, and in books such as ‘Anarchist Society & its Practi-cal Realisation’, has made a serious contribution to the debate on thefuture of the anarchist movement, and how our ideas can best be put intopractice today. Here, we review his latest book, ‘Anarchism and Environ-mental Survival’.

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (8)

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environment, than workers in the north.As well as industry, agriculture is mademore dam aging. Leaving aside the use of

insecticides a nd fertilisers tha t h ave beenbanned in the north, the trend towardslarge-scale monoculture farming means

the soil becomes exhaust ed an d prone toerosion. The need to expan d the area ofland under cultivation means t he destruc-

tion of wilderness area s an d deforesta tion,w hich also causes soil erosion. This in tu rn

causes flooding, which destroys people’shomes and crops under cultivation, lead-ing to more pressure on t he land.

The worldwide increase in th e huma n popu-lat ion a nd th e level of (industria l and a gri-

cultural) production means t ha t t he poten-tial impact of humanity on the environ-ment continues to grow. At th e moment,

this impa ct is enormous because, often, t hepeople who are making environmentallysensitive decisions are shielded from the

result s. Wheth er this is because of moneyor dista nce, the end result is tha t, no mat -ter how da ma ging their decisions ma y be,

they can be sure the damage will be tosomeone else, and so are free to continue

their pursuit of profit.

Making the ConnectionsGraham Purchase’s book, Anarch ism and 

Envir onmenta l Survi va l , is an at tempt to

br ing anarchist and green theories to-

gether, a nd propose a m odel for a possiblepost-revolutiona ry society. His a na rchism

is based on the idea tha t decisions mustbe made by those who are effected byth em. The basic social unit of society,

then, is the community. Your communit yis where you live and w ork, the particulararea you identify yourself with . Depend-

ing on the context, this could be yourimmediate surroundings - a village or

suburb - or a n extended a rea - a county orcity.

Ea ch community is linked to a pa rticularplace, alth ough the borders of th is regiona re ra rely clearly defined. You coulddraw the limits of a town w here its build-

ings end, or include land cultiva ted by itsinha bitan ts. Sometimes these are usefuldefinitions, but the people themselves,

when talking about ‘their land’ may in-clude nearby forests, la kes or mountains(an d a gain, since the size of a communit y

varies depending on the context, t his re-gion can a lso vary in size). Communities

are made up, then, not just of relation-ships betw een people, but of the relat ion-

Vegetarianism and environmental ism

often go ha nd in ha nd. This is pa rtly

because the consumption of large live-

stock has itself an effect on the environ-

ment. I t t akes seven pounds of grain toproduce one pound of beef - if we w ere a ll

to become vegetarian, so the argument

goes, much less land would have to be

used for agr iculture. This is true to a

certa in extent, but the grain:meat ra t io

leaves out ma ny things. For exam ple, a

cow produces not just meat, but milk,leather a nd dung (a fert i l iser , soil sta bi-

liser, a nd even fuel source). Wool, feat h-

ers a nd eggs a re a ll useful ‘by-products’

o f an imal husbandry tha t ha ve to taken

into account .

Even so, raising anima ls is not t he mostefficient use of a gricultura l lan d. B ut a

lot of lan d is not suita ble for other forms

of a griculture. Anima ls ca n be raised in

forests, or on the side of mounta ins, an d

in a reas wh ere the soil is too poor for crop

production. Ma ny a nimals can be reared

alongside crops, and others, like poul-

try, a re well suited to sma ll scale farm-

ing. Turning over wh ole prairies t o cows

for grazing is certainly inefficient, buttha t ’s not the only wa y to farm a nimals.

The tendency in a griculture (a s in indus-

try) in the last century has been for

specialisa tion, a nd for the production ofsmaller herds, made up of larger ani-

ma ls. P urcha se goes into some detail on

the virtues of microlivestock - smaller,

more adaptable, and general ly hardier

versions of the more common modern

an imals. Such an imals are more pro-

ductive - the great er number that can beraised on a given a rea of lan d ma kes up

for their small size - and it's easier tomatch the size of the herd to the land

a va ilable. All of these factors ma ke

them ideal for the kind of small-scale

mixed farming he proposes should be

Meat ‘n’ Veg ‘n’ Microlivestock  (re-)int roduced t o our cities.The qu estion of efficiency is not t he onlyreason so many environmental ists are

also vegeta rian. After al l , the battery

farm is perha ps th e epitome of efficiency,

and that has few fr iends in the green

movement. There is also a moral argu -

ment, tha t w e should try to reduce the

effects of huma nity on the plan et, an d onthe anima ls that l ive alongside us. P ur-

chase qu otes Elisee Reclus, a w ell known

an archist of the 19th century, “ for t he

great majori ty of vegetarians. . . the im-

portant point is the recognition of the

bond of a ffection an d goodw ill tha t links

ma n to the so-called lower an ima ls, and

the extension to these our brothers of thesentiment which ha s already put a st op

to cannibalism among men”1. You w ill

have to judge the merits of this argu-ment for yourself , Purchase shows th at

it is not necessar ily relevan t to a discus-

sion of the environment, and t hat a meat-

eat ing society can s till be green.

1 “On Vegetarianism”, 1901

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (9)

ship between the people and the land.This, P urcha se feels, is the key to environ-

menta l protection.

With the globalisat ion of t he economy, a ndsociety in general, the current t rend is tota ckle environmenta l problems on a global

level. This appears t o make sense with anissue like the destru ction of the ozone lay er,but it can often become ridiculous - as

when the Earth Summit’s decision to fixth e level of global emiss ions merely led tothe creat ion of a new ma rket. Developing

count ries can now s ell some of th eir ‘pollu-tion quota ’ to richer count ries. Most prob-lems, says P urchase, are bett er tackled atth e local level, but th is mean s some cha nges

in the wa y production is organ ised. E arlierI t alked about how money can shield youfrom the effects of environmental da ma ge

- th e same is tr ue of dista nce. Those of uswh o live in urban a reas know t he problemsthat industrial concentration has caused

locally, but only get second or third-handreports of the problems of intensive food

production, for example.

Small is Beautiful?If you think of the global economy as afactory, w ith ea ch worker/commun ity ma k-

ing only one part of a complex machine,and depending on the others to make allthe other pa rts, you can see how difficult it

is for one w orker/commu nit y t o chan gewh at th ey’re doing. P urchase proposestha t w e shift from th e current, locally spe-

cialised and globally interdependent soci-ety, to a society ma de up of more bala nced,self-sufficient commun ities (individua l ar-

tisa ns, if you like). Thus w e would imme-diately deal with some of the problemsoverconcentra ted production h as caused,like pollution an d soil erosion. We would

eliminate some, at least, of the costs oftransport between these production cen-tr es. We would also make it eas ier for each

communit y to deal with t he problems thatar ise in t heir own region.

When Purchase talks of increasing localindependence in this way, he does not

mean these communit ies would be entirelyself-sufficient . The fa ct th a t some a rea sare richer in minerals, or more suited to

growing certain foods, means there willalways be a certain degree of specialisa-tion. Nor does it follow t ha t, if there is a

shift towards food production in urbanareas, for example, that each rural areahas to include a certain amount of facto-

ries. Fina lly, self-sufficiency should not beconfused w ith isolat ionism - th e commun i-ties Pur chase describes are start ing points

for federations, not a retur n to feudalism.Even if it is just on the basis of commonenvironmenta l influences, a sha red river,or mounta in ra nge, or coastline, communi-

ties w ould obviously come togeth er to dis-cuss things that affect them in common.

And in an an archist society, based on theidea of our common huma nity, t here wouldsurely be an abunda nce of regiona l, conti-nental and global projects, covering every

aspect of science and culture.

Purchase’s proposal for more ecologi-

cal ly integrated communities usuallymeets with most scepticism when it is

ima gined applied to cities. Even a rela-

tively small city, like Dublin, is almost

completely dependent on food from neigh-bouring regions, and its ecosystem is

ma de up of cars, people a nd concrete. If

a city like New York or Mexico was

sealed off from the rest of the world, itwould die within da ys; the only question

is whether i t would be from sta rvat ion or

a sphyxiat ion. G iven th e number of such

large ci t ies around the world, and the

fact t ha t, even if it were possible, given

the size of the earth’s population, for

everyone to live in sma ll towns a nd rura lcommunities, many w ould not wa nt t o,

how can cities be a ccommodat ed with in

an environmenta l ly sound a na rchist so-ciety?

It’s an obvious point, but cities did not

spring int o existence fully formed, wit h

all their support netw orks intact . Like

a ny commun ity, initia lly they produced

most of their food themselves, but a s the

industr ial base increased, the demand

for land for industry and accommoda-tion for th e workforce grew, forcing food

production into the hint erland . Most

cities, even up to recently, would have

ha d sma ll farms compara tively close to

the t own centre. The supercities of to-day are only possible because of ad-

vances in food preservation (through

chemical ad ditives a nd refrigeration) an dtra nsport . Before these ad vances, the

pressure for a city to grow in size was

met by the necessity to have enough

far ms, nea r enough, to produce th e food.

Nor is the ejection of agriculture from

the city irreversible - during t he Second

World Wa r, for example, food short a gesin B ri tain led to a n immense drive to-

wa rds sma ll-plot urba n fa rming, some-

thing of which has continued to this da y

in t he ‘allotment s’ scheme.

Cities, in Purchase’s model would con-

tinue to exist, but agriculture would be

reint roduced to the resident ia l/commer-

cial mix. There are different wa ys ofdoing this - you could divide th e city into

sectors, with each concentrating on aparticular use of the land, aiming at

sufficiency on a city-wide scale. Or, an d

this is more in line with the overall

project, ea ch sector would be a commu-

nity in itself , diversity being brought

down t o a more loca l level. (‘Su fficiency’

is used here as a n ideal, not expected tobe rea ched. Cities would still be more

densely populated tha n other areas, a nd

so more likely to be a ba se for indust ry

a nd other la bour-intensive activities, the

a im is to reduce the dependence on othera rea s for food.) Food production would

be integrated into th e city - catt le gra z-ing on green spaces, law ns turn ed into

vegeta ble pa tches, sma ll neighbourhood

farms. Betw een the demands of indus-

try and accommodation, argues Pur-

chase , there are spaces which in a

properly plann ed city could be filled wit h

life.

The immediat e question is wh ether th is

could ever be more tha n a gest ure. Sure,

some farming could be integrated into

urba n life, but could it ever come close tomeeting the needs of those who live inthe city? I f we are to continu e to ha ve the

same population density, a nd the sa me

concentration of industry in our cities,

can these urban fa rms ever be more tha n

a supplement t o large-scale farm ing else-

wh ere, a token ‘greening’ of th e city? If

cities were to seriously approach self-sufficiency, wouldn’t this necessitate a

huge expansion in their size, or a funda -

mental change in the nature of urban

life? D o we w an t, or need, such a cha nge?

Cities of the future?

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (10)

Equal Wealth, not Shared

PovertyThere is still a clear sticking point in any

attempt to integrate anarchist and envi-ronmenta l positions, an d tha t is the ques-tion of levels of production. Depending on

how far down the path of self-sufficiencyyou go, you rule out more concentrated,specialised production, and so reduce the

possible output . (Or at leas t, reduce effi-ciency - you can build a train in a work-shop, but it’s a lot easier to do it in a

factory). In an a na rchist society, a lot ofw ork will be recognised as socially un nec-essary, a nd it’s hard to overestimat e how much effort goes into keeping t he a ppara -

tus of international capital ism and thena tion sta te going. When money goes, weget rid of the banking industry a nd finan-

cial exchanges. Without sta tes, there is noneed for armies and the whole weaponsindustry - a sizeable part of most western

economies - becomes defun ct. When pro-

duction is ba sed on need, we w ill be rid ofmost a dvertising, and t he useless duplica-

tion of identical goods it was created tohide. There w ill be no more built-in obso-lescence, because who would build some-

thing th ey know is going to fall apart ra thertha n something tha t w il l last , i f i t wasn’tfor their boss’s desire for high er profits.

The produc t ion tha t remains wi l l be

changed. No rat ional society would basetheir tra nsport system on cars. A goodpublic transport system would improve

the quality of most people’s lives immeas-ura bly. The benefits in terms of lives

saved, public healt h, a nd countless otherar eas a re obvious, and w ell-known. Over-

dependence on cars is a result of the pur-suit of profit, and it is profit tha t ma kes ourindust ries so pollut ing. Clea ner sources of

energy, like solar and wind power, areava ilable but not profita ble. Scrubbersand filters for chemical outflows, biode-

gradable, recycled and non-toxic materi-a ls, a ll of these could be used in most of ourfactories. B ut a s long as control of produc-

tion is in the ha nds of those who do not feelthe effects of pollution, they will be over-looked in fa vour of the chea per, more prof-

i table a l ternative.

By eliminating, or greening, all of theseprocesses, w e would go a long w ay to reduc-ing our ecological footprint. But elimina t-

ing useless production is only part of thestory, an anarchist society would also in-crease useful production. Even in the de-

veloped West, far too many fall below thepoverty line - we need more homes, moreschools, more hospitals, enough to meeteveryone’s basic needs - a nd t hen w e must

go further. An ana rchist society will wa ntto have more tha n just the bare essentials,surely we wa nt t o improve everyone’s sta nd-

a rd of living. Some ma y choose to live a life

of auster i ty , but most of us want a new world because we want more of the good

things in life, not less.

In the developing world, the ga p betweenwha t people have and wha t t hey need is

even bigger. The southern hemisph ere ha sbeen exploited ruthlessly by t he north, one

of the first priorities for an a na rchist soci-ety must be to redress tha t ba lance, an dthe enormity of tha t ta sk can not be under-

estima ted. Millions of people don’t evenha ve a clean source of drinking wa ter, wew a n t everyone to have a standa rd of l iv-ing beyond  the current avera ge for an in-dustria lised country . There is no way t his

can be accomplished without increasing current levels of production.

These ar e major problems w ith t he idea ofself-sufficient commu nit ies. On the oneh a n d , w e n e e d a g l ob a l l y i n t e g r a t e d

economy, for th e foreseeable future at least ,because of the vast gap between the wea lthof a community in Na mibia, for example,

an d one in Oregon. At th e same time, wecan’t afford the relative inefficiency thatsmall-scale, localised production implies.Even if w e decide tha t decentralising pro-

duction is a good th ing, it can ’t be our firstpriority. And is it necessa ry?

A World Without BordersAnarchism has alwa ys been international ,ha s alw ay s stressed the importa nce of ourshared humanity over all those things -

na tionality, la ngua ge, race, religion, gen-der - th e ruling class t ries to use to divideus. We str ess the import a nce of democ-

ra cy, of people having a say in th e decisionstha t a ffect them. We also realise that somedecisions are too far-ranging in their ef-

fects, too intertwined w ith t he situa tions ofothers to be ma de at a local level. Tha t iswhy large anarchist groups often operate

as federations, and a lot of thought hasgone into creating structures - like man -dat ing delegat es, rota ting positions, mini-mising th e need for full-time bureaucra ts -

tha t a llow decisions to be ma de democrati-cally, with mass participation, involvingth ousan ds, or millions, of people.

After all, there will alw ay s be a clash be-

tw een the needs of society a nd t he needs ofa particular a rea, the only question is abouthow to balance them. Fa ctories ha ve to be

built, an d food grown, somewhere. Nu-clear power ma y be unnecessar y, but goldisn’t2, and you can’t mine it without dam-

aging t he local environment. We will al-w a y s h a ve t o w a l k t h e l i n e b e t w e e ndecisions being made by groups far-re-

moved from their effects, and the NIMB Ytendency - do wha t you like, but not in mybackyard. The difference, in a n a na rchist

society , is in whom a k e s t h e d e c i -sions, and why.

Capitalism is no-

toriously short-t e r m i s t ,

decisions a re ma de based on t heir immedi-at e profitability, thinking even a few years

ah ead is unusua l. Wha t other kind ofsociety w ould build nuclear power st at ionswithout knowing how to dispose of the

wa ste sa fely? Why else would the economybe based on non-renewable fossil fuels,wh en the only question is when, not if , they

wil l run out? If the ear th is an uninhabit-able wa steland in 100 years, w ha t does it

ma tt er, as long as the profits a re good? Allthe green consumerism in the w orld won’t

f ix this insane system, i f we want a ra-tional economy we’re going to have to runit ourselves.

Agriculture and industry need not be asdama ging to the environment as they areat the moment - we a lready know of cleanerand safer wa ys of doing things, that aren’t

used because they aren’t profita ble. How much can we change things if , as well asusing the technology we know of now, sci-

ence is directed towa rds cleanin g up pollu-tion instea d of wea pons research? If

research wa s done on minimising the da m-age of intensive farming, inst ead of devel-oping ‘Termina tor’ genes? We don’t ha veto believe tha t science has a ll the answ ers

to know that there is a lot of room forimprovement.

As ana rchists we have always a rgued that ,from union struggles to environmental

protest, from communit y organ ising to revo-lution, the best way to victory is throughma ss participation and democracy. When-

ever they seize the opportu nity , people arewell capable of organ ising their own lives,and t heir own movements, better tha n a ny

‘wise’ leader, or ‘benevolent’ dicta tor. Weshould be more confident that a free anddemocratic society will handle the prob-lems of environmental damage, and the

questions of local autonomy and globalinterdependence, in a just and fair way.After the anarchist revolution, do we re-

ally n eed a green revolution?

1 United Nations Human Development report,

19982 ibid3 Gold is not just decorative, it has many

important industrial uses, but you must use

cyanide in the mining and purification process.

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (11)

Racism &

Class struggle How can racism be defeated?

An answer to this question requires anexamina tion of the forces which ga ve riseto, and continue to reproduce, racism. It

also requires a careful analysis of whichsocial forces benefit from racial oppres-sion.

By racism is meant ei ther an at t i tude de-

nying th e equa lity of all human beings, oreconomic, political and social discrimina-tion against racial groups.

The roots of racismCapitalism developed as a world systemba sed on th e exploita tion of workers, sla ves

and peasants - black, brown, yellow, andwhite. In the sixteenth and seventeenthcentur ies, the young capita list system cen-

tred mainly on western Europe an d theAmericas. In the eighteenth a nd nineteenthcenturies Africa and Asia were broughtincreasingly into the ambit of capitalist

power.

In the Americas, vast plantation systemswere set up. Based on slavery, they were

capitalist enterprises exporting agricul-tura l goods.

It was in the system of slavery that thegenesis of racism is to be found. In the

words of Ca ribbean scholar, Eric Williams,“Slavery was not born of racism: rath er,

r acism w as the consequence of slavery” 1.

Initially, the slave plantations were not

organised on ra cial lines.

Although the first slaves in the Spanishpossessions in the Americas were gener-ally native Americans, slavery was re-stricted (at least officially) to those wh o did

not convert to Christianity.

The native Americans were succeeded bypoor Europeans. Many of these workers

were only enslaved for a limited period, asindentured servants serving contracts ofup to ten or more years. Ot hers were con-victs sentenced for crimes such a s st ealing

cloth, or prisoners of war from uprisingsan d the colonisat ion of area s such as Ire-land and Scotland. However, there were

also a substa ntia l number of life-long Eu-ropean slaves, and even amongst the in-

dentured a substa ntial number ha d beenkidnapped and sold into bondage. 2

Conditions on the “M id dl e Passage”   (thetrip across the Atlantic) for these inden-

tured servan ts a nd slaves were, in William s’words, so bad th at they should “banish an y 

id eas that t he horr ors of th e slave ship ar e 

to be in any w ay account ed for by th e fact 

th at t he victim s were Negroes” 3.

More than half the English immigrants t othe American colonies in the sixteenth

century were indentured servants4, anduntil t he 1690s th ere were still far more

unfree Europeans on the plant at ions of theAmerican South than Black slaves 5.

Ra cist ideas w ere developed in th e contextof the slave trade of the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries. In this period, Afri-can people came to be the main source of

slaves for the plantations.

The systems of social control establishedfor American an d E uropean unfree labourwa s now a pplied to the African s.

The ma in reason for th is shift t o African

slaves was tha t such slaves were obta inedcheaply enough, and in sufficient num-bers, to meet the expanding needs of the

p l a n t a t i on c a p i t a l i s t s 6. Afr ican ruling

classes played a centra l role in t he highlyprofita ble slave tra de: “Th e tr ade was ... an Afr ican tr ade unti l it reached t he coast.

Only very rar ely were Eur opeans di rectly 

involved in procuring slaves, and that 

lar gely in An gola”  7.

It in the seventeenth century tha t racistideology bega n t o be developed for th e firsttime by such groups as “Br it i sh sugar plant - ers in the Cari bbean, and their m outh- 

pieces in Br itai n”   who fast ened ontodifferences in physical appearance to de-

velop the myt h th at B lack people were sub-huma n a nd deserved to be enslaved: “here 

is an i deology, a system of f al se id eas ser v- in g class in terests” 8.

Racism wa s used to justify the capt ure andperpetual enslavement of millions of peo-ple for the purposes of capitalism. Theenslavement of nat ive American s ha d been

justified as being on the grounds of theirheathen beliefs; Eu-

ropean servi tude

was justified asbeing the lot of

Racial oppression remains a defining feature of the modern capitalistworld. It is manifest most spectacularly in violent attacks on immigrantsand minorities by fascist gangs. More important to the fate of thesecommunities has been the systematic and increasing discrimination bycapitalist states, manifest in attacks on the rights of immigrants, cuts inwelfare services, and racist police and court systems.

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (12)

in fer ior s ; B lack s lavery was jus t i f iedthrough racism.

Once developed, racist ideas came to beused more broadly as a justification for

oppression. J ewish people, for exam ple,came to be oppressed a s a ra cial minorityrather than as a religious group.

The beneficia ries of slavery w ere not Eu ro-

peans in general, but the capita list rulingclasses of western Europe. African rulingclasses also received substa ntia l benefits.

There were of course the vast numbers ofEuropeans indentured or ensla ved. Therewere also the sa ilors on the “M id dl e Pas- 

sage”   whose condi t ions , accord ing toWilliams , were themselves scarcely distin-guishable from slavery. Finally, th ere werevast numbers of “poor Whi te”  peasant farm-

ers of the Americas (some of whom wereformer indentured servan ts) who w ere out-competed and driven to the ma rgins by the

giant slave planta t ions.9 The vast ma jorityof European s never owned sla ves: only 6per cent of whites owned slaves in the

America n S outh in 1860.10 There were alsoAfrican-American and native Americanslave-owners.

Race and EmpireRacism was thus born of the slavery ofearly capitalism. However, having been

once creat ed, subsequent developments incapital ism would sustain and rear thiscreat ure of the ruling class.

The extens ion of ca pita list pow er over Af-

rica a nd Asia took place largely from t heseventeenth century onwa rds in the formof imperialism 11. Initially, imperial con-

quest was often undertaken directly bylarge corporations such as t he British E astIndia Company (in India) and the DutchEast India Company (in South Afr ica,

am ong other places). La ter capita list gov-ernments took a direct ha nd, notably in theconqu est of most of Africa from th e 1880s.

Imperialism in t his period wa s driven byth e sea rch for profits: initia lly, profits fromcontrol of trade; later by big corporations’

need for cheap sources of labour and raw materials, and by the need to find new ma rkets to sell manufa ctured goods.

Ra cist ideas w ere again pressed into serv-

ice to justify the process of imperial con-ques t and rule . Imper ia l control wasjustified on the supposed grounds that

Africans and Asians (and for that matterother colonised peoples such as the Irish)were unable to govern or develop them-

selves, a nd n eeded to be ruled by externa lforces - namely the ruling classes of west-ern Europe and J apan 12. Equa l r ights werenot seen as even being possible in this

world view.Em pire did not benefit workers in t he colo-nies, nor in th e imperialist count ries. Theprofits of empire accrued to the capitalist

class13. Meanw hile, the methods and forcesof colonial repression were deployed a ga instworkers in t he imperialist count ries (most

nota bly, the use of colonia l troops to crushthe S panish R evolution), wh ilst lives a ndma terial resources were w ast ed on impe-

rial a dventures. Today, mult i-na tional com-panies cut jobs and wages by shifting torepressive Third World client regimes.

Racism todayClearly, capitalism gave birth to racism.Racism as an idea helped justify empire

an d slavery. Ra cism a s a form of discrimi-na tion or oppression facilita ted high levelsof exploita tion, and ha s thus been an im-

porta nt factor in t he development of capi-tal ism.

Today, both slavery and the formal em-pires have been overthrown - this has

largely been the result of struggles by mil-l ions of workers, peasants and slavesaga inst oppression. Sla ve revolts a re part

of the history of class struggle against

capita l ism. Peasa nt and worker resist-a nce to colonialism a re equally so, alth oughit must be noted that most anti-colonial

struggles were prevented from reachingth eir necessary conclusion- socia list r evo-lution- by th e determina tion of local elites

to reach a deal with capita lism and impe-rialism.

However , a l though these struggles re-

moved the formally racist structures ofslavery and empire they have not buriedracism.

Racism -as a n idea a nd a s a practice- con-

tinues to serve two key functions undercapitalism.

First, it allows the capitalists to securesources of cheap, u norganised, a nd h ighly

exploita ble labour. Key examples a re im-migran ts a nd minorities. Subject t o racistdiscriminat ion, th ey form a segment of the

working class that has been described as

“super-exploited” , providing high levels ofprofit for capita lists. In times of capitalist

crisis (such as today) these segments a remost readily deprived of political and so-cial rights, the first to fall in the overall

assault on the working c lass that takesplace.

Secondly, ra cism a llows the capita list rul-ing class to divide and rule the exploited

classes.

Across the planet, billions of workers andpeasants suffer the lashes of capitalism.Racism is used t o foster divisions w ithin

the w orking class t o help keep the rulingclass in power.

Pra xedis Guerrero, a great Mexican ana r-chist, described th e process as follow s 14:

“Racia l p re j ud i ce and na t i ona l i t y ,

clearl y man aged by t he capital ist and 

tyr ant s, prevent peoples liv in g sid e by 

side in a fr atern al man ner...

A ri ver, a mountai n, a lin e of smal l 

monum ents suffice to mai ntai n foreign- 

er s and ma ke enemi es of t wo peoples,

both l ivi ng in m istru st and envy of one 

anoth er because of th e acts of past gen- 

erat ions. Each nat ionali ty pr etends to 

be above th e other i n some kin d of w ay,

and th e domi nat in g classes, the keeper s 

of education an d t he wealth of nati ons,

feed th e pr oletar ia t w it h th e beli ef of 

stupid superi ority and pr id e to make 

im possible the union of all nati ons who 

ar e separ ately fi ghti ng t o fr ee themselves 

from Capi ta l….

If all the workers of the different ...

nat ions had dir ect part ic ipat ion i n al l 

questi ons of social i mpor tan ce wh ich 

affect one or mor e pr oletar ia n group s 

th ese questi ons would be happ il y and 

pr omptl y solved by th e wor kers them- 

sel ves.” 

It ha ppens between ma jority populat ionsand super-exploited minorities, but alsobetween the working classes of differentcountries. Workers are told to blame and

ha te other workers- distinguished by cul-

ture, language, skin colour, or some otherar bitrar y feat ure- for their misery. A clas-

sic example is the scape-goating of immi-gran ts a nd refugees for “taki ng away j obs and housing” .

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (13)

 from Workers Solidarity Bookservice, PO

 Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland.

* rate from outside Europe

£1/$2* each including post and packing.

Other pamphlets:

  Parliament or Democracy

  Stalin didn't fall from the Moon!

Pamphlets from the

Workers Solidarity Movement

Anarchism & Ireland(3rd reprint)

£2/$4* each including post and 

 packing, or all 3 for £5/$10*

Also: Anarchism in Action:The Spanish Civil War

Ireland & British Imperialism

In this way, workers’ anger is deflectedonto other workers (with whom th ey have

almost everything in common) rat her tha nbeing directed against capitalists ( withwh om workers have n othing in common).

An appearance of common interest is cre-at ed betw een w orkers a nd bosses of a givenra ce or nat ion.

Who benefits?Ra cism does not benefit a ny w orkers. Evenworkers wh o are n ot th emselves directly

oppressed by racism lose out from racismbecause it divides the w orking class. Whit eAmerican workers, for exam ple, in n o wa y

benefit from the existence of an impover-ished and oppressed minority of AfricanAmerican workers who can be used toundercut wages, and working and living

conditions.

In a ddit ion, racist a t t i tudes make i t verydifficult t o unite workers aga inst t he capi-

ta lists to challenge the overall distribut ionof wealth a nd power in society. Ra cism ha sbeen used a gain a nd a gain to break work-

ers’ struggles.

The more the working cla ss is divided, theworse its overall condition will be. Thispoint, which was repeatedly made by the

classical anarchist movement15

, has beenconfirmed in a study by a n American soci-ologist who set out to test the proposition

that white workers gain from racism 16.

Comparing t he situat ion of White an d Bla ckworkers in all f if ty US states, he found,firstly, that the less wage discrimination

there was aga inst B lack workers, the bet-ter were the wages that White workersreceived. Secondly, he found tha t the exist-ence of a subst an tia l nat ionally oppressed

group of poor workers reduced the wagesof White workers (but did not affect theearn ings of middle an d upper-class Whites

very much). Finally, he found that themore intense racial discrimination was,the more poverty th ere was for lower class

Whites.

Such facts fly in t he face of political st rat -egies which claim that majority popula-tion w orkers receive mat erial benefits from

racism. The logic of this a rgument is th atthese privileges must be “renounced”  b e-fore working class un ity is possible. Such

an argument assumes tha t capi ta l i s t swould adopt a strategy that systemati-cally benefits t he ma jority of w orkers, a

most unlikely (an d as w e saw above, un-

sustainable) notion. In addition, this ar-g u m e n t i m p l i e s t h a t t h e i m m e d i a t e

political t ask is a redistribution of wea lthamong w orkers a s opposed to a class strug-gle aga inst capita lism. Tha t is to say, itcalls on the ma jority of workers to fight on

principle for w orse condit ions.

Fina lly, this approach mixes up two verydifferent th ings: oppression an d privilege.

While it is obviously tr ue tha t some work-ers do not directly experience racial op-pression, it does not follow tha t t hey benefitfrom it. The tw o terms a re distinct: while

it is oppressive to be subject to low w a ges,

it is not a privilege to have a living wa ge.

Why racist ideas are acceptedNone of the a rguments ma de so far in t hisart icle deny t he possibility t ha t m inoritiesof the working class may receive tempo-

rary benefits from racial oppression inspecific circumstances. A case in pointwould be the small wh ite working class in

South Africa between th e 1920s a nd t he1980s, which received real benefits fromapart heid. But, a s a general rule, racial

oppression is fundamentally against theinterests of the ma jority of workers of allcolours.

To recognise the prim ar y role of ca pita list

ruling classes (aided by their states) inpromoting a nd benefiting from ra cial op-pression is not to deny that ma ny working

class people often su pport ra cism. Racismis often very w idespread. H owever, such

support for racism is a n exam ple of work-ing class people acting against their owninterests, rath er than evidence tha t work-

ers benefit from ra cism.

How ever, if racism provides no benefits forworkers, how can we explain such supportfor the essentia lly irrationa l ideas of ra c-

ism?The answer is that there are very realma terial forces in capita list society w hichoperate to foster support for these ideas.

The first factor is capitalist control over

ideas. Capitalists do not simply rule byforce, they a lso rule by promoting a capital-ist w orld-view. Here w e must consider, as

P raxedis argued above, how “the dominat - 

i ng cla sses, the keepers of edu cati on an d 

th e wealt h of n ati ons” … “feed t he prole- 

tar iat w ith the beli ef of stupi d superi ority 

and pri de” : the role of the schools, themedia, literat ure an d so forth. The impact

of this propaganda cannot be underesti-mated.

The second factor is the material condi-tions of the working class itself . Under

capitalism, t he working class suffers pov-er ty , a l ienat ion a nd misery . In t he sameway that workers may take solace from

religion, they may a lso seek the imagina rycompensa tion of supposed ra cial superior-ity, “th e beli ef of stu pid superi ori ty and pride”  (in Praxedis’ words).

In a ddition, w orking class people are lockedin bitter competition for a limited amount

of jobs, housing and other resources. Inthis situa tion, they may blam e other groupsin t he w orking class for t heir plight. Wherethe other groups are culturally or physi-

cally distinct in appearance, this resent-ment a nd competition ma y be expressed inracist t erms. Hence the view, for example,

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Red & Black Revo l u t i on (14)

1 Eric Williams, 1944, Capitalism and Slavery. Andre

Deutsch. p. 17. See also Peter Fryer, 1988, Black 

People in the British Empire. Pluto Press. chapter 11.

2 Williams does not take sufficient account of the

institution of life-long slavery among Whites.

3 Williams, p. 14.

4 Williams, p. 10.

5 Leo Huberman, 1947, We, the People: the drama of 

America. Monthly Review Press. p. 161.

6 Williams, pp. 18-9, 23-29.

7 Bill Freund, 1984, The Making of Contemporary

Africa: the development of African society since

1800. Indiana University Press. p. 51.

8 Fryer, p. 64.

9 Williams, pp. 23-6; Huberman, p. 167-8.

10 Huberman, p. 167.

11 See Freund for a discussion of the African

experience.

12 Fryer, pp. 61-81; Freund.13 And not to workers as Fryer claims, pp. 54-5.

These arguments are criticised in greater detail in the

WSF Position Paper on “Anti- Imperialism”, online at

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/africa.html.14 Programa de la Liga Pan-Americana del Trabajo

in Articulos de Combate, p. 124-5, cited in D. Poole,

“The Anarchists and the Mexican Revolution, part 2:

Praxedis G. Geurrero 1882-1910”, Anarchist Review.

No. 4. Cienfuegos Press.

15 For example, Ricardo Flores Magon and others,

To the Workers of the United States, November 1914,

reproduced as Appendix A, in Colin Maclachlan,

1991, Anarchism and the Mexican Revolution: the

political trials of Ricardo Flores Magon in the United

States. University of California Press. p. 123.

16 Al Szymanski, 1976, “Racial Discrimination and

White Gain”, in American Sociological Review, 41.

17 N. Chomsky, 1994, Keeping the Rabble in Line.

AK Press. pp. 105-6.

18 See on this point, “Race, Class and Organisation:

the view from the Workers Solidarity Federation

(South Africa)”, 1997, Black Flag, no. 212. Online athttp://flag.blackened.net/revolt/africa/wsfother/bf_race_org.html

tha t 'they' are 'ta king our jobs'.

The Oppressed dividedFrom the a bove, it is clear tha t ra cism is aproduct of capita lism, and funda menta llyagainst the interests of the working class

and peasantry .

Are capita lists from oppressed groups reli-able allies in the struggle aga inst ra cism?

The short a nswer is, no, they a re not.

The effects of racism are fundamentallymediated by class position. Taking thecase of the United States: a l though na-tional averages of White and Black in-

comes show a vast gulf between the two,wh en class is ta ken into account the ma te-rial inequa lities between White an d Bla ck

workers are shown to be quite limited;ta ken from an other angle, the gap betw eenth e conditions of both sets of workers, on

one side, and those of the upper class, onthe other , are yawning 17.

Micha el J ackson may st ill face racism, buthis wealth a nd power as a capita list shields

him from th e worst effects of ra cism. P ri-vate schools, lawyers, high incomes - allthese factors cann ot be ignored.

P erhaps more important ly, the class inter-

ests of such elites tie them into supportingthe capitalist system itself . Black policechiefs, mayors, and army officers are as

much defenders of capita lism as their Whitecounterpa rts. Such stra ta will readily com-promise with t he powers-tha t-be if it w ill

give them a cha nce to be 'in the ra cket a ndin the run ning'.

Fighting racismIt is capita lism that continually generatesthe conditions for racist oppression andideology. It follows th at the struggle aga inst

ra cism can only be consistently carried outby the working c lass and peasantry : theonly forces capable of overthrowing thecapitalist system. The overthrow of capi-

talism will in and of itself fundamentallyundermine the social sources of racism.The overthrow of capitalism however, re-

quires the un ificat ion of the w orking classand peasa ntry internat ional ly , across al llines of colour a nd na tionality.

In addition, the crushing of capitalism,

and the establishment of libertarian so-cialism will allow the vast resources cur-rently chained to the

n e e d s o fprofiteering by a

rich few to be placed under the control ofthe working and poor people of the whole

globe. Under libertarian communism itwill be possible to use these resources tocreat e social a nd economic equa lity for a ll,

thus finally enabling th e disfigurements ofracial oppression to be scoured from theface of the eart h.

However, this art icle is in no wa y arguing

tha t t he f ight a gainst ra cism must be de-ferred unt il after th e revolution. Instea d, itis arguing that on the one hand, only a

united working class can defeat racisman d capitalism; on th e other, a u nited work-ing class can only be built on t he basis of

opposing a ll forms of oppression an d preju-dice, thereby winning the support of allsectors of the broad working class.

Firstly, it is clear t ha t ra cism can only be

fought on a class basis. It is in the interestof all workers to support the struggleaga inst ra cism. Racism is a working classissue beca use it a ffects t he condit ions of a ll

workers, because most people affected byra cism ar e working class, a nd because, a sindicated above, it is the working class

members of racially oppressed groups wh oar e the most severely affected by ra cism.

Working class un ity is a lso in the interestsof ra cially oppressed segments of the work-

ing class, as alliances with the broaderworking class not only strengthen theirown position, but also help lay t he basis for

the assault on capitalism. Without deny-ing in the least t he heroism, and, in somecases, radicalising role played by minority

movements, it is qu ite obvious that a mi-

nority of, say, 10 per cent of the populat ionlacks the ability t o overthrow t he existing

conditions on its own 18. Such unity is par-

ticularly vita l in the workplace, wh ere it isalmost impossible for unions of minorityworkers to function.

Secondly, working class unity can, how-ever, clearly only be built on t he basis of aresolute opposition t o all forms of racism. Ifother sections of the working class do not

oppose racism, they create a situation inwhich national ists can t ie racial ly op-pressed segments to Black and other mi-

nority capitalists in the futile games of

'Buy Black' campaigns and voting blocs.Class-based and anarchist a l ternatives

must present a viable alternative if theyar e to win support.

Our tasksAnti-ra cist work sh ould occupy a h igh pri-ority in th e activities of all class st ruggle

an archists. This is importa nt not simply

because we always oppose all oppres-sion, and because anarchists have

long been opponents of ra cism. It

is also because such w ork is anessential to the vital task ofunifying an d conscientising the

working class - a unit y wit houtwhich neither ra cism nor capi-ta lism can be consigned to thehistory books.

At a general level, we can a pproach t hesetasks by active work in anti-racist strug-

gles and campa igns, including work along-side non-anarchist forces (without, ofcourse, surrendering our political inde-

pendence), and by continual propagandaa g a i n s t r a c i s m i n o u r p u b l i c a t i o n s ,workplaces, unions a nd communit ies.

The workplace and t he union ar e part icu-

larly importan t sites for activity: it is herethat capitalism creates the greatest pres-sure for workers’ unity across all bar riers,

an d it is here tha t t he workers’ movementsta nds or falls on th e basis of its ability toaddress the needs of its whole constitu-ency.

We can a pproach t hese tasks by raising, onthe one hand, demands t hat apply equallyto all workers (better wages, full union

right s, opposition to social part nersh ip etc.),and by raising, on the other, demandswhich specifically address the needs ofra cially oppressed segments of t he w ork-

ing class (equal schooling, equal housing,no to colour bar s in indus tr y etc.). Thus, w eshould fight for “Better H ousin g for A ll ! No to Segregati on!” , to ta ke one example. Theta rget of such deman ds w ould, of course,be the