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A review of:
Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World (1870-
1940): The Praxis of National Liberation, Internationalism, and Social Liberation
Edited by Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt; with a Foreword by Benedict
Anderson
Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010; lxxiii+431pages; ISBN 978-90-04-18849-5
__________________________________________________________________
Pradip Baksi
Abstract: The volume under review is a very informative and, an immensely
thought-provoking collection of essays on the history of modern Anarchism and
Syndicalism in some areas of Africa, Eurasia, and, Latin America, for the period
1870-1940. It contains a Preface, an introductory and a concluding essay, plus ten
contributions from twelve contributors. The authors are located in Brazil (2), Hong
Kong, Northern Ireland, Russia, Scotland and, South Africa (1 each) and, the USA
(5). The editors of the volume are from the USA and South Africa. The collection
contains texts on the history of anarchism and syndicalism, for the period under
consideration, in Argentina, Brazil, China, Egypt, Ireland, Korea, Mexico, Peru,
South Africa, the Caribbean and Southern United States and, Ukraine. The history
of emergence and development of modern anarchism and syndicalism over this
vast area in the given period was uneven. The different essays in this volume are of
uneven depth, seriousness and, orientation. The responses to each of them in the
present review are also uneven.
Key Words: Anarchism; Syndicalism; Africa; Eurasia; Latin America; Southern
USA; 1870-1940.
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Preface and Introduction
1. Benedict Anderson outlined his, and perhaps a common, perception about the
theme(s) of this volume in his Preface, when he stated that anarchisms of
Bakunin and Kropotkin stole the hearts and headlines, first with the wave of
spectacularly successful and failed assassinations of heads of states, top politicians
and capitalists (from Buffalo to Harbin); then by the rise of syndicalism with its
signature theme of the revolutionary general strike, discussed by Sorel but in fact
first theorised by the anarchists of the 1870s (xiv). Anderson is aware of
Bakunins remark about Karl Marx being the supreme economic and socialist
thinker of their time (same page, last para), yet he subscribes to the dominant
Marxist or Anarchist-Syndicalist view that does not consider Marx to be one of thetheoreticians of anarchism. For a Marx-scholars view on Marxs relation with
anarchist theory, see: Rubel, 1973; and, for a glimpse of Andersons academic
interest in anarchism in the colonies, see: Anderson, 2005. The rest of the Preface
(xv-xxv) contains Andersons account of the various chapters of the book, ending
with a description of the current political and economic time, which appears to be
dyspeptic (xxviii) from his chair in the Cornell University, NY, USA.
2. The introductory essay by the editors of the book, Rethinking Anarchism and
Syndicalism: The Colonial and Postcolonial Experience, 1870-1940, opens with
the clear statement that this volume examines the history, influence, aspirations
and actions of anarchism and syndicalism (xxxi) over the space and time
indicated in the title of the volume. However, their claim that this volume
transcends Eurocentric narratives runs into the troubled waters of a very
Eurocentric understanding of political history, when they write that the papers in
this volume demonstrate unequivocally that anarchism and syndicalism werefor
most of this period, more important than their Marxist rivals (xxxii). This claim
about the relative ascendancy of Anarchism and Syndicalism in this historicalrivalry is true for the period from 1871 (fall of the Paris Commune) to 1920
(Bolshevik takeover of power in the Russian empire). However, this very assertion
misses a larger historical truth: that as ideologies of human social self-liberation
these rivals were and are inseparable from one another; after 1920 one
(Anarchism-Syndicalism) has come out ideologically victorious through relative
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practical defeat and, the other (Marxism), got ideologically defeated through
relative practical victory, in attaining hegemony over people through that very
state, the sublation of (or transcendence from) which is the declared aim of all
movements oriented towards human social self-emancipation. Thanks to the
painstaking labour of the authors and editors, we see in pages after pages of thisvolume, how all over the world, the Marx-innocent Anarchists and Syndicalists
have organized, influenced and, joined the equally Marx-innocent Marxist or
Communist parties after the Bolshevik takeover of political power in the Russian
Empire in 1917. This Marx-innocence, characteristic of all the trends of the various
Internationals that emerged in Europe, remains almost intact among the leaders,
activists and, academic sympathisers of the labour movements in the world, even
in our time. (For an acquaintance with the current possibilities of Marx-awareness,
please visit the links to the Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels papers and, the Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) project indicated in the References below.)
The editors decision to use a narrow definition of anarchism to organize this
volume (xxxvi) also has some undesirable consequences. This definition traces the
roots of modern anarchism to the debates over the question of the state between
Bakunin and Marx in the First International of the late 1860s. This decision ignores
the fact that if not since the time of first migration of the Homo erectus out of
Africa into Eurasia, then at least starting with the teachings of Siddhartha
Gautama, Confucius and Socrates and the debates around them, all ideologies andall debates originating in a given geographical territory, in a given historical
period, including the above indicated debate within the First International, got
transformed into something else, when they spread into the rest of the world. What
are the evidences to suggest that the history of anarchism is an exception? If that is
not the case, then why insist upon a narrow definition that is bound to smuggle in
Eurocentric paradigms into the studies of non-European history? The history of
spread of modern European liberalisms, socialisms and, anarchisms over very large
territories of our planet, which includes India, China, Central and Western Asia,and Russia, is inextricably connected with and invariably influenced by the
existing well-developed Asian ideologies of the various sects of Hinduism,
Jainism, Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
While discussing the class character of anarchism and syndicalism (pp. xlvii-li) the
editors have correctly pointed out the narrow, partisan and tendentious nature of
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Part One: Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial World
3. Part one of the volume begins with Anthony Gormans account of the
Anarchist Movement in Egypt: 1860-1940; it was a movement diverse in race,
religion and nationalitybut united in aspirations of civil progress. Anarchism
first appeared among the Italian political refugees and workers of Egypt in the
1860s; some of them were followers of Garibaldi and Mazzini. After the split of
the First International in 1872 in the Hague Congress, a section of the anarchist
wing of it was organised in Alexandria in 1876, followed by other sections in
Cairo, Port Said and Ismailia in 1877 (3-5). A European Socialist Study Circle was
established in Alexandria in 1881 (p.8). Some Arabic-speaking Egyptians joined,
perhaps, from the first decade of the 20th Century (9). Anarchist propaganda inEgypt chose Catholicism and (curiously enough) Brahmanism (why? Was it ever
of any consequence in Egypt?) for criticism but, praised Islam for its tolerance
(11). The anarchists of Egypt did not target religion or the state head on; they gave
more attention to social transformation through propaganda, education and workers
associations (12) and, eschewed political assassination and violence (13). Their
publications were in Italian, French and Greek; they had no Arabic newspaper of
their own (15) but, since the 1890s the local Arabic press regularly reported about
the ideas and activities of the anarchists abroad (16). The trial and execution of thefounder of the Modern School Movement Francesco Ferrer i Gurdia in Spain in
1909 created a stir in Alexandria and Cairo. In 1901 Alexandria had its Free
Popular University, providing free evening education to the toiling classes, in
Italian, French and Arabic, about the humanities, natural sciences, workers
associations and, womens status in society. This effort collapsed within a year, its
anarchist founders were removed and, it was transformed into a vocational training
college (18-19). Though the composition of the Egyptian working class of foreign
and domestic origin was heterogenous, it produced an atmosphere of
internationalism. In 1909 single gatherings in Cairo were addressed in Arabic,
French, Greek, Italian and German. There were five Greeks, five Egyptians, two
Syrians, one Italian and an Armenian in a committee of fourteen persons that
constituted the leadership of the shoemakers union (22).
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After World War I, many of those who had been anarchist militants before the
warfinally agreed with their close rivals, the socialists that the Egyptian
Socialist Party, the precursor of the Egyptian Communist Party, which did
embrace parliamentary politics, has become the main vehicle for the radical
challenge to the traditional political order (26-27). During the 1920s-30s thecommunists, anarchists, socialist and radical nationalists were subjected to
repression by the government of Egypt. By the 1940s the labour movement in
Egypt drew ideological support from the communist movement and the Muslim
Brotherhood but it nevertheless still owed something to its anarcho-syndicalist
roots. In Egypt, Nationalism and anarchism became de facto allies, on more
than one occasion, in their fight against imperialism (28). It may be of some
interest to mention here that, for some time now, the relation of anarchism with the
activities of Al-Qaeda is engaging the attention of some historians (Gelvin, 2008).
4. Lucien van der Walts chapter, titled Revolutionary Syndicalism, Communism
and the National Question in South African Socialism, 1886-1928, comes next. It
is about how the anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists confronted the national
question in South Africa during the 1910s, a period of unquestioned syndicalist
hegemony on the revolutionary left (33). This chapter deals with a part of the
issues covered in his much larger Ph.D. dissertation (Van der Walt, 2007). The
author hails from a working class background, earns his bread as a professor and,
is active the labour and anarchist movements of his country.
It may be of some interest to the readers of this volume in England and India that
the anarchist tradition in South Africa may be dated back to the 1880s and the
tireless efforts of Henry Glasse, an Englishman born in Surat in 1857 (46), on the
eve of the 1857-59 rebellion by the Indian soldiers of the English East India
Companys army. Glasse was influenced by the ideas of Kropotkin, translated
some of his texts, distributed his journalKhleb i Volya, Malatestas pamphlets and,
was alert about the use of racial hatred by the ruling elite (47). While living in
South Africa, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi declared for some time that he was a
socialist (53).
In South Africa the syndicalist movement had significant impact on both the
currently ruling African National Congress (1923- ) and, the Communist Party of
South Africa [CPSA] (1921- ), renamed the South African Communist Party
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[SACP] (1953- ), in their formative periods (36). This chapter offers materials
invalidating the claims of the communist party oriented historiography of the early
period of modern working class movement in South Africa to the effect that the
proto-communists and the SACP were the sole champions of the interests of the
working class and toiling people of that country in the period under consideration.It may be mentioned here that even an official party history has conceded that
syndicalist concepts remained within the Communist Party for many years after
its foundation; echoes of their approach and phraseology appear in many
documents and journals (Harmel, 1987: 40; quoted in 88, footnote 328). While
dealing with the widespread communist falsifications of the history working class
in South Africa and its carry over effects on European academic scholarship (63)
and, also while concluding his narrative, Van der Walt justly criticised the
misrepresentations practiced by the influential Communist school of labour andleft history (89). However, he did not raise the issue of Marxism, Leninismand
subsequent derivative ideologies as forms of false consciousness and, hence
obstacles on the path of development of historiography as a discipline and, harmful
for the cause of self-emancipation of the working class in particular and, that of the
toiling and oppressed people of the world in general.
5. Dongyoun Hwang indicated at the very beginning of his text titled Korean
Anarchism before 1945: A Regional and Transnational Approach that the primary
and secondary sources for the study of Korean anarchism are very fragmentaryand limited (95; footnote 2). This chapter contains an examination of the
complex relationship between nationalism and anarchism in Korea annexed by
Japan in 1910 (96).
According to Korean anarchist turned communist Jang Jirak [Kim San] in 1919
Tokyo was a refuge for revolutionaries of many kinds and, Shanghai was a
centre of the nationalist movement where the Korean provisional government was
functioning (98). Quanzhou was also a transitional concentration point for East
Asian anarchists in middle and late 1920s. In these places the Korean anarchists
were able to articulate their national goal with the help of anarchism, and,
conversely, understand anarchism through their national circumstances (99).
Kropotkins idea of mutual aid exerted great influence over the anarchists of East
Asia (102). Korean anarchists acquired their understanding of political revolution
from the Paris Chinese anarchists and, that of modernity from the Tokyo
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Chinese anarchists (103). They learnt much about the harsh realities of Leninist
rule in the Russian empire from the blind Russian anarchist poet Vasilii Eroshenko
(1889-1952), who visited China in the early 1920s (113-14). During the late 1920s
a mad wave of patriotism engulfed the Korean, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese
and Taiwanese anarchists. About 60 anarchists from China, Taiwan, Japan,Korea, Vietnam and Indiagathered in Nanjing in September 1927 to organise an
Eastern Anarchist League. It was decided that the League will have its
headquarter in Shanghai and will publish its journal Dongbang [The East]. The
first issue of the journal appeared on the 20th of August 1928 (121). In 1931 the
Korean anarchists organised a Federation to Save the Nation under conditions of
Japanese invasion, in the French concession in Shanghai (122). Their efforts were
supported by their Chinese and Japanese comrades. Many Korean anarchists
worked with them in the joint anarchist projects like the Shanghai National LabourUniversity (123).
The defeat of the Japanese army in 1945 led to US occupation and division of
Korea. A pro-US imperialist, anti-communist regime was established by Syngman
Rhee in South Korea in 1948. In these new conditions the South Korean anarchists
began to emphasize their nationalist and anti-communist credentials to save their
skins (125). One does not know what happened to their North Korean counterparts:
how many of them perished in police custody and in labour camps and, how many
lived to serve the local communist Kim dynasty.
6. ArifDirliks essayAnarchism and the Question of Place: Thoughts from the
Chinese Experience opens with the still dominant Eurocentric opinion that:
While historically speaking anarchism is clearly a product of European
modernity, anarchists have been quick to discover anarchism in all kinds of places,
from small-scale tribal societies in Africa to ancient Chinese philosophies. This has
served to reinforce anarchist universalism but also rendered anarchism
ideologically ahistorical (131).
Such opinions have their roots in the schooling and academic stereotypes imposed
by the colonizing European powers upon the people of the rest of the world since
the fifteenth century. Let us hope that in the coming six hundred years or less, with
the ongoing decline of the global hegemony of western powers, we shall arrive at a
more informed view of the trajectory of different ideologies on our planet. It is one
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thing to rightly assert that two of the greatest thinkers of anarchism, Michael
Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin were themselves productsof Enlightenment
thinking as it was filtered through the concerns and experiences of imperial Russia
in the middle of the 19th century, (132); it is quite another matter to remain
oblivious about the facts that conceptually speaking that very Enlightenment (see:Clarke, 1997) and, geographically speaking that very Russia (see: the map of
Russia) do have large Asian components. Further, today the mtDNA view of the
peopling of the whole world by Homo sapiens is considered basic information in
paleoanthropology and, it has established the African origin of all the people on
planet earth. That is why it is very pertinent to trace the roots of all components of
human civilisation, anarchism included, to Africa. Deeper awareness about the past
does not necessarily entail giving priority to the burdens of the past over the
demands of the present, about which Dirlik is worried (ibidem). On the contrary,it may release the present and future generations from the ideological beliefs of the
earlier generations and, thus help them chart out new directions unburdened by the
ideological baggage of the last century. A part of such baggage is the failure to
recognise the fact that Leninism was an extension of the Tsarist imperialist
ideology dedicated to the continuation of the Russian empire under a new name
and, then to conclude that Leninist Marxism has become victorious in China,
Korea and Vietnam (133). What has become victorious in China , the two Koreas
and in Vietnam are various forms of peasant nationalism, wherein the ruling
communist parties of China, North Korea and Vietnam used a part of Leninist
Marxist ideology embellished with some local color , while the ruling parties of
Taiwan and South Korea used openly pro-US imperialist, anti-communist
ideology, in the context of the Cold War; all of them were and are trying to
improvise along various roads of industrial development, unknown to the
bourgeois-class-led trajectories of Europe and, its derivative settler capitalisms of
the Americas, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
It is very true that the modern anarchist ideas came to East Asia from modernWestern Europe, representing a different comprehension of political space than
had existed in East Asian societies earlier (135). It is also true that Asia and North
Africa played a very large material, technological, scientific and, intellectual role
in the making of modernity in Europe (see: Lach, 1965-77; Lach and Van Kley,
1993; Halbfass, 1988; Gerlach, 2005; Saliba, 2007; Rahman et al,2008; Bretelle-
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Establet, 2010). In light of the literature indicated above and, Dirliks own
subsequent recognition of advocacy oflaissez-faire government by Confucianism
and Daoism (142), his criticism of those Scholars of anarchism in East Asia
who have made efforts to locate anarchism within various legacies of the past
from neo-Confucianism to Daoism and Buddhism, to the effect that Such effortis more a product of a culturalism that pervades studies of East Asia (ibidem) ,
appears very ahistorically Eurocentric to say the least.
It will be of some interest for the Chinese, Sinologist and, Maoist readers of this
volume to be reminded that in course of the New Culture Movement, by the late
1910s, Among those to come under anarchist influence was Mao Zedong who,
like many later Bolsheviks, expressed enthusiasm at this time for European
anarchists and their ideas. Anarchists also played a part in founding the first
Bolshevik groups in China (139), which would culminate in the founding of the
Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1921.
By 1927, Chinese anarchists, in their anti-Bolshevism, devoted their efforts
mainly to fighting Bolshevik ideological and labour activity, some of them in
collusion with the most reactionary elements in Chinese politics (ibidem). The
anarchists in China joined the anti-communist section of the Guomindang, to
establish a Labour University in Shanghai, whichfor a period of five years sought
to put in practice the anarchist belief in the necessity of combining mental andmanual labour in education. This belief and the Kropotkinite insistence on
combining agriculture and industry in social development had become part of
radical culture during the New Culture Movement. Both trends would reappear
after 1949 and, more forcefully from 1956 to 1976, which began with the great
famine of 1958-62 and culminated in the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. These
events reflect continued existence of some influence of modern anarchism on Mao
Zedong (1893-1976) and, on a part of the then leadership of the CPC (141). They
also had the ancient anarchist heritage of Laozi (6th Century BCE) and Xu Xing
(3rd Century BCE) to draw inspiration from (143). There were Buddhist monks
among the Chinese anarchists. The anarchists of Guangdong led by Shifu were
considerably interested in Buddhism. These interests in the possible indigenous
roots of the principles of anarchism gradually declined under the impact of anti-
traditionalism of the New Culture Movement (144).
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7. Aleksandr Shubin informed us in his essay The Makhnovist Movement and the
National Question in the Ukraine, 1917-1921 thatMakhnovshina had its roots in
a quarter of the small town of Gulyai-Pole in the Aleksandrov district. The history
of this area is associated with Cossack outlaws, agricultural struggle and nomadic
culture. However, by the beginning of the 20th century only the memory of theZaporozhe Cossacks remained. New people with a new way of life had settled in
the local steppe (147-48). One wonders how a descendant of a Ukrainian
Zaporozhe Cossack would react to such charitable prose about his people. We also
learn that Nestor Makhno (1888-1934) did not actually speak Ukrainian (150).
The anarchist movement in Ukraine, as in Russia as a whole (Is Ukraine a part of
Russia, which is the whole? Or, is there an unspoken identification of Russia = the
Russian empire?), originated in the Populist (Why within quotation marks?) or
narodnikmovement of the 1870s and 1880s. However, in the 1880s most of the
narodnik groups moved away from anarchism, or were crushed by the tsarist
regime. The revival of the anarchist movement in the Russian empire began in
1903.In 1904 the anarcho-communists held their all-Russian conference in
Odessa.During the revolution of 1905-1907 there was a powerful surge in socio-
political activity, including the anarchist movement (150).
The revolution of 1905-1907 also affected Gulyai-Pole. On 22 February 1905, the
workers of the Kerner factory went on strike. They were demanding improvedworking conditions, abolition of penalties and, payment for overtime work.
Among the strikers was the young Nestor Makhno. In September 1906 the
terrorist (my italics) Peasant Group of Anarcho-communists (also known as the
Union of Free Grain Growers) began to operate in Gulyai-Pole.Makhno
located the terrorists (again my italics) faster than the police, forced them (How?)
to accept him into their ranks, and by the 14 [th of] October was already
participating in a robbery (151). What kind of historical scholarship calls
revolutionaries terrorists? The tsarist state was then the ultimate terrorist in the
Russian empire. It appears that our author has graduated from the Okhrana School
of historiography.
Here are a few other samples: Makhnos group was influenced by the ideas of
Piotr Kropotkin, albeit in an extremely abstract and simplified form (153). How
polite of you, Your Excellency! Makhno made the mistake of not being born
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among the Tsarist intelligentsia who must have had a very concrete and complex
understanding of the ideas of Kropotkin! Makhno took steps to transform his (my
italics) movement from a destructive peasant uprising(again my italics) to a social
revolutionary movement that embodied supreme power in the territory it
controlled (once again my italics) (165). How can an uprising be someones?What is a constructive uprising by the gentry? If something is a supreme powerin
a territory it controls, then in which sense is it anarchist? How is such anarchism
different from Bolshevism? There was aMakhnovist(my italics) pogromin the
Jewish colony of Gorkaya on the night of 11th-12th May. As early as January
1919 Makhno himself and his officers took part in savage (my italics) killings
although not of the systematic nature to be found in territory controlled by other
regimes (172). How can a pogrom have an anarchist ideological label? The anti-
Jewish pogroms of Russia, Ukraine and Poland had only some xenophobicChristian ideology behind them. What are civilised or humane systematic killings?
The mutual hatred between peasant and gentry civilizations (my italics), based
on a cultural rift that went back to the time of Peter the Great (173). We know that
civilizations had and do have their peasants and gentry; but, can common nouns
denoting social groups be used as adjectives before the word civilization? Was
there no cultural rift between the peasantry and the gentry in Russia before the rule
of Pyotr I began in 1682? Why is he great? For using barbaric methods of
modernization subsequently copied by Lenin and the Bolsheviks? Everyone must
have been equal in Russia before 1682! Were all Russians anarchist then? What
about the period called Kievan Rus from the 9th to the middle of 13th century?
What about the Tsardom from the time of Ivan IV who assumed the title of Tsar in
1547 to 1682? On the last page of his essay our author has used an expression
made famous through one of Lenins well-known statement about the Christian-
anarchist Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy and, called NestorMakhno a mirror of
the whole Russian revolution (190). No comments.
Those who wish to study Nestor Makhnos and Marxist sides of this history mayvisit the Nestor Makhno Archives (links indicated in the References).
8. Emmet OConnorintroduced the Irish syndicalist leader William OBrien to the
readers of his essay Syndicalism, Industrial Unionism and Nationalism in Ireland
as cold and reservedshrewd, capable and ruthless in his ambition (195). We
learn further in the same page that another leader Jim Larkin had charisma and,
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yet another leader James Connolly had interest in theory. In the very next page
we are told that: What Irish syndicalism amounted to was Larkinism and, from
1917 to 1923, Connollys industrial unionism, and these were applied to
structures that were not syndicalist in conception. Irish syndicalism was therefore
amorphous and contingent (196). In the section titled Larkinism we learn that:There was certainly a personality cult, which Jim would promote shamelessly
(199). Larkin made a virtue of necessity (202). In the section titled Syndicalism
Falters we furtherlearn that Larkin had the communists dissolve the Communist
Party of Ireland affiliated to the Comintern in 1924 in favour of his own g roup,
the Irish Worker League. He remained more a syndicalist than a Leninist, but he
never had much interest in theory in any case, and saw communism as the old class
struggle in an apparently more effective format. The Comintern had high hopes of
Larkin, and prospects looked good (219). Larkin was powerful enough, inDublin and Moscow, to ensure that if little could be done with him, nothing would
be done without him. Extraordinary wrangles between himself and Moscow
culminated in a break with the Comintern and Profintern in 1929 (220). In short,
in Ireland, early Bolshevism was an outgrowth of an opportunist and careerist
faction of syndicalism.
Part Two: Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Postcolonial World
9. Steven J. Hirsch opens his survey of Peruvian Anarcho-Syndicalism: Adapting
Transnational Influences and Forging Counterhegemonic Practices, 1905-1930
with statement that: At first glance early 20th century Peru would seem an
unlikely setting for anarcho-syndicalism to flourish. A predominantly agrarian
society, with a large and economically marginal indigenous populationvast areas
of the nation were largely unaffected by capitalist change. With the exception of
Lima-Callaosizable urban economies were conspicuously absent. Not
surprisingly, given the context, the massive influx of European immigrants thatcatalyzed the anarcho-syndicalist labour movements in Argentina and Brazil
bypassed Peru (227).
Yet Peru was not entirely isolated from anarchist currents. Anarchist ideas and
publications circulated widely in Peru by the first decade of the 20th century.
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Manuel Gonzlez Prada, a Peruvian aristocrat and social gadfly, and a handful of
radical immigrant intellectuals based in Lima facilitated the dissemination of
anarchist thought. Simultaneously, a nucleus of self-taught craftsmen and machine-
tenders inspired by the writings of Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin and Malatesta,
spearheaded a movement to organise workers in Lima-Callao based on anarcho-syndicalist doctrine.the influence of anarcho-syndicalismalso spread to
working-class elements along Perus northern coast and central and southern
highland regions (ibidem). There are no national level studies of anarcho-
syndicalism in Peru (227, footnote 1). This chapter examines how anarcho-
syndicalist ideas were adapted to Peruvian contexts, primarily in Lima-Callao and
the southern region of Arequipa, Cuzco, and Puno during the 1910s and 1920s, the
heyday of Peruvian anarcho-syndicalism (228).
Manuel Gonzlez Prada became an anarchist as a result of his contacts with
French and Spanish anarchists during a self-imposed European exile (1891-1898).
He persuaded workers to reject mutualism in favour of anarchist practices and,
also founded Los Parias(The Pariahs), the first anarchist publication in 1904
(229). Other kindred papers followed. Study circles were organised. On October
17, 1909 the Centre of Socialist Studies First of May organised a public protest in
response to the Spanish governments execution of the anarchist and educational
innovator, Francesco Ferrer i Gurdia (230). Anarcho-syndicalism grew firm
roots in Lima-Callao by 1911 and, gained momentum in 1912-13 (230-31). InDecember 1918 workers of Limas textile industry struck work demanding 8 hour
workday; the government accepted the demand on 15 January 1919 (233). In April
a Committee for Cheapening the Prime Necessities was formed. As the President
of the land and the business community refused to accept their demands for
reduction of the prices of basic food-stuffs, a general strike began on May 27. It
continued in the face of governmental brutality for five days. About one hundred
persons died, several hundred were wounded and, between three and five hundred
people were sent to jail. The strike failed (234). In the subsequent period thePeruvian anarcho-syndicalists prioritized forging a counter-hegemonic working-
class culture capable of contesting and supplanting the dominant culture of Perus
ruling elites (235). In 1921 representatives of 23 labour organisations attended the
first congress of the local workers federation, a rationalist library was established
in Lima for the male and female workers of all races (237). Textile and
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construction workers began publishing their own worker-edited papers El Nudito,
El Obrero Textiland,El Constructor. Many Cultural and recreational associations
sprang up in the Lima-Callao region. Among them a workers musical centre, the
Centro Musical Obrero de Lima, founded in 1922 deserves special mention (238-
40). In 1927 a textile union published Cancionero Revolucionaria, a collection ofUniversal Proletarian Hymns and Songs of the Day, in honour of the May Day.
The first workers tree-planting festival was deliberately organised on 25
December 1921, as a secular festival on a day of Christian holiday. Popular
Universities for the education of workers were organised by some reform-minded
students of San Marcos University in Lima and Vitarte in 1921 (240-41). A sign
marked with three eights painted in red and white was placed in the middle of the
proscenium to underscore the support of the Universidad Popular(UP) of Vitarte
for eight hours of work, eight hours of study, and eight hours of rest a positionin accord with the First International. In May 1923 there were mass
demonstrations and pitched battles on the streets against the decision of the
government and the Catholic Church to consecrate Peru to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. A worker and a student died. The government cancelled the decision; but
many of the students and workers linked to the UPs were arrested and deported
(242). Governmental repression was unleashed against workers libraries, presses
and even their musical centre (242-43). In the given context of Peru, espousing a
pragmatic variant of revolutionary syndicalism made sense. The movement also
suffered from the ongoing influence of conservative artisan organisations. They
derived their understanding mainly form the First International and, from the
French and Argentine trades unions of the period. They repudiated party politics
and electoralism in favour of direct action tactics, especially the general strike
(244). In the Lima-Callao region they displayed a keen interest in the
emancipation of women and indigenous workers, including that of the 23, 000
female workers engaged in domestic services in Lima. The Peruvian anarcho-
syndicalists, guided by a keen interest in internationalism, maintained contact with
and, reported news about similar movements in the rest of the Americas and in
Europe. They organised protest strikes against the unfair trial and execution of
Ferdinand Nicola Sacco and Bartolommeo Vanzetti in the United States in
1927(247).
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In the Southern highlands of Peru anarcho-syndicalism drew inspiration from a
radical liberal press, Limas labour movement, immigrant anarchists and, cross-
border ties with Chilean anarcho-syndicalists (248). The security organs of the
government viewed them as Bolsheviks during the 1920s (257-58). An
Indigenous Labour Federation was founded in 1923 (264). There were indigenouspeasant uprisings against the governments policy of conscription for military
service and road construction (265). A nation-wide campaign against the
Conscription Act was organised in February 1926 (266).
The anarcho-syndicalist labour movement of Peru failed to generate matching
counter-hegemony against the state and civil society controlled by Perus agro-
export creole elite and rapidly declined by 1929 (268). During the mid-1920s there
arose complains about bureaucracy in the workers federation, dependence of the
leadership on the governments intervention and, their conciliatory attitude to
Marxist politics (247). Conflicts over ideology, party politics, and union autonomy
erupted within the declining movement in the early 1930s (248). Grounds were
prepared for the next phase by global, regional and local developments. During the
1930s and 1940s many former anarcho-syndicalists joined the social democratic
Peruvian Aprista Party and the Peruvian Communist Party (both founded in 1930)
(268).
This is an exemplary and, perhaps, the first comprehensive, text of historicalscholarship devoted to the history of working-class movement in Peru, for the
period under consideration. Future generations of historians and activists engaged
in the cause of human self-emancipation all over the world will learn a lot from it,
both about the craft of the historian and, about how this craft can be blended with
the spirit of science, human empathy and, solidarity with the working class.
10. Kirk Shaffers essay titled Tropical Libertarians: Anarchist Movements and
Networks in the Caribbean, Southern United States, and Mexico, 1890s-1920s is
about the networks of sporadic anarchist movements of Cuba, Mexico, Panama,
Puerto Rico and Spanish-speaking migrant zones in the southern United States
(273). Our author prefers to describe US imperialism in this region as US military
and economic influence or, as expanding US foreign policy (ibidem). In the
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anarchist networks of the region under consideration the weekly Tierra! (The
Earth orLand) published from Havana played an important role. The Caribbean
network radiating from Havana overlapped with a Mexican network stretched from
Los Angeles to Mexico City (274). The Caribbean network extended from the
islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico to Caribbean Basin mainland in Panama,stretching across the isthmus to the Pacific Ocean and back north to Florida cities
along the Gulf of Mexico and the Straits of Florida. The Mexican network was
bound by the natural land bridge dissected by - the US aggression and occupation
generated - US-Mexico border, reaching north into the central plains of the
united States (Missouri), west to Los Angeles, and south to the urban landscape of
Mexico City (275).
The Cuban anarchist movement arose in the 1870s when cigar makers Enrique
Roig de San Martin and Enrique Messonier established a workers school and
newspaper on the outskirts of Havana (276). Though initially hesitant , by 1895
most anarchists in Cuba, Florida and Spain supported the Cuban struggle for
independence from Spanish imperialism (277). Many among the Cuban
anarchists were Spanish immigrants. As anarchists they supported free movement
of workers. However, unrestricted immigration to the island increased the supply
of labour, kept wages low and, threatened to hamper anarchist organisation among
the existing workers. Anarchists of Cuba were caught in this dilemma (280-81).
The Afro-Cuban workers were slaves freed in 1886. They faced racial and culturaldiscrimination. This situation culminated in the formation of the Partido
Independiente de Color, in 1907 (281). The government outlawed it. The outlawed
party organised a meeting on 20 May 1912 (the Day of formal Independence of
Cuba in 1902 from the US, which still retains an imperial military base there at the
Guantanamo Bay). The government attacked the meeting, killed about 6000 Afro-
Cubans and jailed 900 of them. The anarchists of Cuba failed to take the side of the
Afro-Cubans (282). The Cuban anarchists also failed to appreciate the
improvements in health and sanitation imposed by the first US occupation ofthe island. They believed that real health reforms had to focus on eliminating
poor working conditions and destitute living environments (283). How ungrateful
of them! In those days of early twentieth century Cuba, they were even beholden to
the values of patriarchal family (284-85), which dominates global familial culture
even today! How uncultured of them! With such pro-US imperialist and, time-
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sensitive historians as chroniclers, do the Cuban anarchists need their communist
historian detractors?
After World War I, a new mostly anarcho-syndicalist movement emerged in Cuba.
In the 1920s they organised the National Confederation of Cuban Workers togetherwith the Marxists, including some of the future founders of the Communist Party
of Cuba, like subsequently murdered Julio Antonio Mella (1903-1929). The
anarchist-led Confederation of Workers also organised many financially stable
rationalist schools across the island (285). Some anarcho-communist groups
opposed cooperation with the Marxists. Repression against the working-class
increased during the rule of pro-US president Gerardo Machado (1925-33). In this
period anarchist influence declined but, remained alive supporting the revolt of
1933, the Spanish Republican cause and, the Cuban Revolution of the late 1950s
(286).
The first anarchists came to Florida during the First Cuban War of Independence
(1868-1878). Circular migration of workers between Havana and Tampa formed
the social basis for the regional anarchist network. Anarchist publications first
came from Cuba and then evolved locally. As US imperialist military and
economic interests spread throughout the Caribbean, following US intervention in
Cubas War of Independence, a corresponding growth in the anarchist network
took place in the region, in the face of growing racist violence let loose to dividethe working-class. After the assassination of US president William McKinley in
1901, the anarchists came under heavy repression; workers shifted loyalty to the
American Federation of Labor (AFL) linked International, in part due to their
interest in a solid wage and, in part due to their rejection of puritanical anarchist
social agenda of no beer or rum, no cards, no pool, no paid for female
companionship (287-292).
One year after the US imperialist occupation of Puerto Rico in 1898, some
sympathisers of anarchism had formed a Free Federation of Workers there.However, it quickly came to be absorbed within the AFL (293). Between 1908 and
1910 anarchist publications, study centers and activists continued to criticise US
imperialist rule and AFL hegemony over the workers in Puerto Rico (294-296).
After 1917 the anarcho-communist group organised around the weekly El
Communista supported the Russian Revolution but, opposed the goal of political
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independence from US rule. Anarchist activities on the island died down by 1921
(298).
In 1903 US imperialism purchased the separation of the province of Panama from
Columbia and, in 1904 the US controlled government of Panama ceded to theUnited States a ten-mile wide stretch of land in the heart of the new country (298)
for the construction of a 48 mile long canal, connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the
Pacific Ocean. US control of the Canal Zone continued up to 1999. The
construction project fuelled migration of workers to the area. Some among them
were anarchists. Anarchist literature started coming from Cuba. By 1911 anarchist
activism among the construction workers became noticeable and, that continued till
the end of the construction in 1914. Some journalistic criticism of the Government
of Panama continued up to 1925 when the flame of anarchism in Panama was
extinguished (303).
In Mexico and in the related Texas-Missouri-California circuit of influence,
anarcho-communism blended with traditional liberalism until about 1911.
Anarcho-syndicalism was active in the industrial and mining areas and, in the oil
fields along the Gulf of Mexico, in close cooperation with the Industrial Workers
of the World, throughout the 1910s and early 1920s. Ricardo Flores Magn (1874-
1922), one of the major thinkers behind the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920, and
his brother Enrique Flores Magn (1877-1954), were prominent leaders of theMexican anarchists (304-305). There were short-lived attempts by their followers
to create anarchist workers commune in the state of Baja California in early 1911.
This multiethnic anarchist movement was heavily repressed both in Mexico and in
the USA. When a movement decays its leading individuals also become petty and
mean. Our learned imperial historian chronicled minute details of that decadence
(306-309). He has also informed us that by 1914 there were 165 Magonista clubs
in the southern Texan counties of Cameron and Hidalgo. Originally they had a plan
to liberate Texas from US imperialist occupation. Our historian wrote that the
rebels were to enact a race war against Yankee Anglos (310). There was
widespread Anglo vigilante and US governmental violence against the Mexicans
throughout 1914-1915. Forty percent of the Mexican population of Cameron and
Hidalgo fled from these counties. Ricardo Flores Magon and the anarchist organ
Regenerecin did not instigate any revolt in this area. Ricardo Flores was arrested
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in 1918 for obstructing the war effort and thus violating the US Espionage Act of
1917. He was sentenced for 20 years. Four years later he died in a jail in Kansas.
In late 1918 workers of Mexico City came under the then growing influence of
Marxists. Some of them carried their earlier anarchist impulses within the MexicanCommunist Party right up to the 1930s (314-315). One gets an impression from
our authors overall account that compared to the anarchists and other radicals of
the area, the US imperialist, Cuban stooge and, Mexican reactionary civil,
diplomatic and military intelligence services were more internationalist in their
mutual cooperation (319).
11. The next chapter by Geoffroy de Laforcade has the title: Straddling the Nation
and the Working World: Anarchism and Syndicalism on the Docks and Rivers of
Argentina, 1900-1930.
Modern working class movement entered into Argentina with the Italian
immigrants and French refugees of the Paris commune. Already in 1871 some
European leaders of the International Workingmens Association (IWMA) were
aware of the existence of the Anales de la Sociedad Tipogrfica Bonaerense
(Engels, 1871: note 3). The Report of the General Council to the Fifth Congress of
the IWMA (held at The Hague, September 2-7, 1872), mentioned that the
International has established ramifications in Buenos Aires (The Hague
Congress, 1872). In the 1880s Ettore Mattei promoted the anarcho-communist
ideas of Malatesta and Kropotkin in the pages ofEl Socialista. Feliciano Rey and
his comrades organised collectives inspired by the ideas of Bakunin. Errico
Malatesta himself organised a bakers union during his stay in Buenos Aires from
1885 to 1889. Fortunato SerantonisLa Questione Social, John Craeghes El
Oprimido and, Gregorio Ingln LafargasLa Protesta Humana agitated in favour
of trade unions in the wake of waves of strike during the middle of 1890s. During
1896-1897 Virginia Bolten (1870-1960) of Rosario published La Voz de la Muer
(The Voice of The Woman), one of the earliest anarchist-feminist newspapers of theworld, which had a motto: Ni dios, ni patrn, ni marido (No god, no master, no
husband). Italian anarchist lawyer, criminologist, journalist and poet Pietro Gori
lived and taught in Buenos Aires, during his years of stay there from 1898 to 1902.
There he started the journal Modern Criminology and organised a Libertarian
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Federation of Socialist and Anarchist groups. He influenced many Argentine
intellectuals, poets and authors (327).
After these rich formative years, the anarchists of Argentina were able to generate
an alternative discourse of modernity that served as an antidote to populardisempowerment and, an inclusive language of class as a counterpoint to the
fragmentation of ethnicity and atavistic nativism (328). The southern end of the
city of Buenos Aires was the stage for the quasi-annual strikes of the longshoremen
organised by the anarchists during the high export season since the middle of the
1890s. Their network spread to the northern reaches of the Paran River. Here their
main rivalry was with the syndicalists. The Port workers of the capital formed a
Resistance Society in 1901. It was followed by the formation of a regional
Federation of Longshoremen and Related Trades. In response to workers
militancy the government passed a Residency Law in 1902 to deport some of the
organisers. The labour press and union halls were closed down. The movement
went underground. Public expression of labour rights were effectively suppressed
(330). The next year a naturalized Argentine citizen, Constante Carballo, was able
to organise over five thousand dockworkers. They convened a congress of the
Federation of Port Workers, with participation of delegates from Uruguay. In June
1903 an anarchist Resistance Society of Mariners and Firemen was born (ibidem).
In this period conflicts were incited among the local and recently arriving workers
by conservative circles, over the issue ofpreference for hiring. In a socialenvironment prone to widespread alcoholism, violence, petty crime and cheap sex
(sic), both Catholics and anarchists sought to dignify the longshoremens
condition through ethical and moralistic discourses of responsibility (331). The
anarchists glorified the masculine qualities and virtuous toil of manual quayside
work, discouraged its sympathisers from engaging in prostitution and gambling
(ibidem). The organisation of cultural activities by the anarchist resistance societies
included advocacy of rationalist education and free love. The Catholic unions
rhetoric of responsible breadwinning domesticity was opposed to the anarchistdepiction of marriage as a form of subservience for both man and woman (332).
However, in workplace conflicts, anarchists and Catholics were not perpetual
antagonists. The authority of the anarchist resistance Society rested in large part, at
least in some areas, on the familiarity incurred by clientelistic hiring networks,
shared living spaces and, the common taverns patronized by them. Large numbers
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of casual workers and deckhands relied on the informal ties of resistance societies
with the dockside hiring authorities to obtain work (333).
During the high export season of 1903 over twelve thousand workers were on
strike in the port district. The tramway workers union paralyzed transportationthroughout the southern fringes of the city. There was inter-union rivalry, violence
and repression (ibidem). After some lull, another strike by the dockworkers erupted
in the upriver port of Rosario in the winter of 1905. This time the anarchist and
Catholic workers fought jointly against the establishment. The strike continued for
weeks in Buenos Aires. The government declared a three-month state of siege.
When work was resumed, the strikers effectively forced a boycott of the stooge
unions in matters of hiring (333-335).
From 1906 the syndicalists came to the foreground of organised labour movementon the Argentine waterfront. They inspired a strike demanding improved hygiene
and safety on coastal ships. Institutionalized bargaining channels involving the
government emerged and negotiations with formally recognized trade unions
became a reality. In 1907 the syndicalists and anarchists organised their first pro-
unification congress. It was not a success (337-339). Their mutual conflicts and
internal weakness went through several ups and downs during next decade (340-
341). During the late 1920s the syndicalists became pro-actively involved in
Argentine merchant marine development, while the anarchists repudiatednationalism, resisted state intervention and, came under fire for thereby serving the
interests of foreign shipping companies (342).
In the port of Buenos Aires, the ideological rivalry between anarchist and
syndicalist trade union federations, exacerbated by turf wars between the
longshoremens and mariners organisations, spawned periodic outbreaks of
violence. When it came to workplace activism, however, the tacit solidarity pacts
of the past tended to revive cooperation between different sectors of dockside
labour (349).The rest of the article is a melancholy narrative of some sporadicupheavals in the course of an unstoppable downslide of anarcho-syndicalism in
Argentine history to the 1940s.
12. Edilene Toledo and Luigi Biondi opened their article titled Constructing
Syndicalism and Anarchism Globally: The Transnational Making of the
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Syndicalist Movement in So Paulo, 1895-1935 with the straight assertion that:
Anarchism, revolutionary syndicalism, and socialism were important elements in
the making of the working class in late 19th and early 20th century Brazil, as
elsewhere. Anarchism was an important chapter in the history of political thought
and action in Brazil and with syndicalism and socialism shaped the workersmovement in a number of ways, and also influenced a range of workers social,
recreational and cultural activities (363).
In the late 19th century, Brazil underwent important transformations, with the
abolition of slavery (1888) and the establishment of the republican regime (1889);
however, these did not affect the extremely unequal social structure. The
victorious republican power was closely linked to the interests of coffee planters
living in So Paulo, who drew from liberal thought only what they needed,
rejecting any expansion of the republican project that would open up broad
political participation (ibidem).
The spread of republican ideas was accompanied by accelerating modernization,
involving secularization, industrial development, urbanization, and immigration.
These historical processes occurred most intensely in some regions, particularly the
southeast, between the years 1880 and 1920. They changed traditional ways of life,
and led to the development of new social actors, especially in the cities: the
industrial bourgeoisie, and the proletarian and middle classes (364). In the contextof disillusionment with the farcical liberal democracy of the First Republic (1889-
1930), which was based on a limited franchise qualified by economic and literacy
criteria, labour struggles and claims, partly influenced by anarchism, were also an
effort to democratize society. These were not only about improving wages and
reducing work days, but also an effort to achieve democratic conditions and civil
rights, so that the workers movement could be recognized as a legitimate part of
society (365). This effort did give birth to some trend-setting standards. In the
Statutes of the Resistance League of Male and Female Workers of the Textile
Factories of So Paulo, published on 30 November 1902, we read, inter alia, that
its Administrative Committee is composed of four men and four women (366).
This is an example of a tremendously gender-sensitive labour union not only for its
own time, but also an example to follow for the workers unions in many parts of
the world even today. During the first decades of the 20th century most labour
unions in Brazil followed the revolutionary syndicalist tendency. However, the
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unions were supported by different ideological currents, including socialists of
various leanings, positivists, and republicans, as well as pragmatic trade unionists
who used the mediation of lawyers and authorities (369).
The trajectories of working class formation in the two major cities of Brazil, SoPaulo and Rio de Janeiro, were different. In the former the immigrants were in the
majority and, in the latter the locally born former slaves and their descendants were
in the majority, within the working class. The immigrants resisted naturalization
and were, in consequence, excluded from the election process. Those born in
Brazil were potential voters, had a different tradition of urban struggle and, used
important channels of political communication to approach the progressive
sections of the middle class. The working class movement of So Paulo was almost
exclusively syndicalist and, that of Rio de Janeiro was more reformist, in
orientation (369).
In Brazil, the labor unions, in general, did not discriminate against the blacks but,
some cross-class artistic and recreational associations of the immigrants had
statutes prohibiting black membership (373, footnote 25).
In Brazil there were conflicts among the anarchists about whether or not to work
within the unions and about the purpose of such work. The syndicalists were of the
view that the unions were the necessary and according to some of them even the
sufficient form of workers organization, not only for the immediate gains, but also
for the final revolutionary transformation of society. In Argentina, as in Italy,
syndicalism entailed a rejection of the socialists. In Brazil, as in France, it arose as
a practice that could unify a range of militants. Subsequently, Fascism presented
itself as a continuation of the syndicalist tradition; some syndicalists went over to
Fascism, which transformed some of the syndicalist ideas into their opposite (377,
footnote 32). Here one notices a striking parallel with what happened to the ideas
of the communists of the First International, within the Marxist, Social Democratic
Second International and, the Leninist, Bolshevik Third International.
The anarchists inspired by Malatesta were of the view that there is no clear and
absolute division between individuals or classes. There were infinite gradations of
material conditions within the classes. If classes were not homogenous, then it
was an illusion to build a movement on economic solidarity rather than moral
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solidarity. Anarchism was not about the struggle of one class only it thought in
terms of the broad masses of poor and exploited people, and not only the industrial
proletariat. Class struggle (in Marxist terms) was seen by the anarchists as one part,
but only a partof a larger human struggle between the exploited of all types and
the exploiters, of all types. The Church and the State played as central a role hereas the bourgeoisie, not just a super-structural one. These anarchists also therefore
tended to reject the syndicalist thesis of revolutionary union as the embryo of the
new society (378).
After the First Republic was established, state power was nominally subject to
electoral control. However, vote-rigging was the general practice, taking place in
all phases of the electoral process. In addition, elections in the first four decades of
the Republic were characterized by low levels of participation. Only the 1930
presidential election saw more than 5 percent of the population go to the polls.
Registration and voting were not compulsory, and besides, women and the illiterate
were excluded: even in 1930 these groups represented 60 percent of the
population (383, footnote 43). This situation provided a fertile ground for the
acceptance of anarchist ideas oriented on rejection of the whole political process.
The anarchists in Brazil, like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, believed
strongly in education as an essential means of raising a new person who would
build a new world. Essential to this project was the creation of Modern (orRationalist) Schools, inspired above all in Francesco Ferrer i Gurdias pedagogy.
These operated in So Paulo from 1902 till 1919, when they were closed down by
police in the repression that followed the great struggles of 1917-1919 (385).
These were struggles for the eight-hour working day.
Anarchist and syndicalist influences were present within the working class
movement of Brazil during the first half of the 1920s. In this decade there were
widespread debates over the rise of the Soviet Union. A number of anarchists
broke rank and, in 1922, the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) was founded inNiteri, Rio de Janeiro, by former anarchists (391).
13. The last essay by the editors of the volume bears the title Final Reflections:
the vicissitudes of Anarchist and Syndicalist Trajectories, 1940 to the Present.
Since the 1990s there has been a resurgence of anarchist and syndicalist ideology,
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organisation and methods of struggle. The period since the collapse of the USSR
has been characterized by experimentation, reinvention and rediscovery on the
part of the progressive movements. Anarchism and syndicalism have been part of
this process of renewal. New movements have emerged in areas with little in the
way of a revolutionary, libertarian socialist tradition; existing movements in areasof historic influence have revived, and a more diffuse anarchistic influence
permeates a number of important social movements (395).
New anarchist groups have emerged in Indonesia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Syria.
Older movements in Spain, Italy, France, England and Russia are going through a
process of revitalization. Anti-globalization and Occupy Movements everywhere
are permeated with anarchist ideas, if not organizational structures. Same is true of
the movements of the Indigenous People in Mexico and Bolivia. The Gandhian
Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS) of South India is associated with La Via
Campesina (The Peasant Way) (395-397). However, in India the ruling parties
routinely swear by Gandhiji and, like Gandhiji the KRRS too is reformist; it does
not stand for radical structural change (Machattie, 2000). The authors have rightly
observed that: The resurgent anarchist and syndicalist movement is diverse,
fractured and contested (397). While inheriting the historic orientations of anti-
statism, anti-capitalism, direct action and direct democracy, contemporary
anarchism and syndicalism is also trying embrace the contemporary sensitivities
about gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ecology and technology (398). Some of thesecontemporary sensitivities were very much present in the Brazilian, Peruvian,
Argentine, Cuban, Egyptian and South African histories documented in the volume
under review (399). The anarchist and syndicalist educational and cultural
networks were the nurseries for the cultivation of these sensitivities. To break the
elite monopoly on education and culture and to foster self-emancipation and
human dignity the anarchists and syndicalists founded many Study circles ,
popular libraries and universities, independent presses, theatre and art groups, and
recreational organisations whereverthey were active for some time (401).
While chronicling some examples of articulation of anarchism and syndicalism
from 1939 to 1989 (401-404), the authors have mentioned some of the relevant
events in Spain, Poland, Bolivia, China, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, Cuba, Mexico, South Korea and Uruguay but, they forgot to mention the
activities of the Portuguese revolutionary Herminio da Palma Incio (1922-2009)
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during the regime of Salazar, his various propaganda of the deed, including the
daring 1961 air-dropping of 100, 000 anti-Salazar leaflets over Lisbon, Barreiro,
Setbal, Beja and Faro and, the residual role played by some anarchists in the
Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974 and, in the subsequent liberation of the
remaining Portuguese colonies (see: Freire, 2001). Also of exceptional interest inthis connection is the project Movimento Social Critico E Alternativo:
http://mosca-servidor.xdi.uevora.pt/projecto/
While considering the reasons behind the relative decline or retreat of anarchism
and syndicalism in many countries during the years 1940-1990, the authors
counted state driven repression and, the historic inability of the movements to
reinvent themselves when subsequently such repression eased (404-405). The
authors have pointed out that the economic determinist interpretation of somehistorians who are of the view that the decline of radicalism of the western
working class resulted from the improvement of their standards of living, has some
important limitations (405). After World War I, the image of an enabling
developmental state was strengthened. Often such states co-opted the earlier
emancipatory discourses and demands of the working people. The ruling and
opposition communist parties also absorbed some aspects of the anarchist and
syndicalist discourses of worker-peasant alliance and womens self-emancipation
(405-407). The communist parties all over the world also enjoyed the financial,
logistic, ideological support and, the corresponding bondage to the foreign policy
objectives of the ruling communist parties since 1917. However, that did not make
them qualitatively different entities (407) in those countries where they were in
opposition; they were indeed qualitatively different entities only where they were
ruling parties of some government. The present situation has created
unprecedented opportunities for investigating the strengths and weaknesses of all
the trends of the working class movements of the last century. Such an opportunity
should not be lost under the influence of habitual ideological stereotypes inherited
from the past.
Our authors havejustly felt the need to examine some of the internal problems in
anarchist and syndicalist movements (408). They are of the view that these
movements had/have excessive heterogeneity. In China, we are told, there were
92 different anarchist groups between 1919 and 1925, without any all-China
http://mosca-servidor.xdi.uevora.pt/projecto/http://mosca-servidor.xdi.uevora.pt/projecto/http://mosca-servidor.xdi.uevora.pt/projecto/7/27/2019 A Review of a Collection of Articles on Anarcism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World [2010], 20
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federation or common programme. The tendency to schism among the Chinese
anarchists increased after the rise of Bolshevism. It may be noted that China was
and is an empire, not to be confused with western style nation-states. The history
of the Communist Party of China is also an encyclopedia of inner-party schisms.
Our authors are nostalgic about Nestor Makhnos praise for Bakunins secretorganisation with a well-determined programme within the IWMA. They forget
that this secret organisation was one of the major factors behind the conflict
between Marx and Bakunin in the IWMA. They regret the fact that the anarchist
movement in the Russian empire outside Makhnos sphere of influence in the
Ukraine did not live up to Bakunins or Makhnos ideals of a homogenous
programme and unitary organisation (408-409). To the present reviewer this
nostalgia and this regret sound very much monist, Plekhanovite and Leninist. If the
anarcho-syndicalists of Ukraine craved for the ideals and practices of the RussianSocial Democratic Labour Party containing the Menshevik and Bolshevik factions,
then they should have joined them. Indeed Bakunin, Plekhanov and Lenin do have
some common ancestors: namely, the Nihilists and the Narodniki of Russia. That
the anarchists were and often are nave in their faith (409) is a criticism well
taken. However, this trait is not unique to them; all the sections and trends of the
movements of the working class and other labouring people have this trait. Nor are
some of the anarchist leaders of some countries like Mexico, China, Korea or
Spain unique in their occasional political opportunism (ibidem) leading to
surrender of the goals of revolution. The decisional errors, risks and losses related
to alliance building are not inherent to anarchism or syndicalism (ibidem). Our
authors are aware of the fact that the leaders of the communist parties have
displayed such traits aplenty.
The various chapters of the volume under review have successfully established the
claim that anarchism and syndicalism must be given its due weight in the larger
story of struggles against imperialism, national oppression and racial domination
(410) and, that these were and are global movements (ibidem); however, the claimthat in their most advanced forms they have faced the question of power
seriously remains open to further factual and theoretical investigations, not only
for the anarchists and syndicalists, but for all the trends of the movements oriented
on human self-emancipation.
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