Differences between UK/Ireland anarchist groups

#2

Devrim

Offline

Joined: 15-07-06

Jun 19 2008 11:32

Catch wrote:

I'd say there's at least as much unofficial disagreement internally on these points as there is between the official positions of the two groups.

Yes, I think so. I have the impression that people tend to join either organisation for more practical reasons (e.g. it is the one in their area, they know people in it) than for any political differences. I think that one of the reasons that it is difficult for them to have a discussion of political differences is that it would force them to discuss the political differences within their own organisations.

Devrim

#3

Vaneigemappreci...

Offline

Joined: 23-01-04

Jun 19 2008 12:19

Quote:

I have the impression that people tend to join either organisation for more practical reasons (e.g. it is the one in their area, they know people in it) than for any political differences.

I agree, its not as if many places in the UK have IWW, AF and SF meetings all taking place and attracting dozens of participants, its normally the case that one group is working in a particular area and if youre an anarchist or into class struggle politics you'll join that group.

I think the theoretical differences between individuals in different groups is overestimated and these differences aren't set in stone. I think if anything personal differences probably play a more significant role.

#4

knightrose

Offline

Joined: 8-11-03

Jun 19 2008 13:28

I agree with both of you. I'm sure it's a case of joining the group you see as most active. Differences often tend to harden after that. We do try and work with other anarchists/libertarians/federations wherever possible. In my experience, what's written on this board doesn't reflect the generally friendly relations we have with each other. I can't speak for London in this, only the north around Manchester.

#5

888

Offline

Joined: 30-09-03

Jun 19 2008 23:56

Mike Harman wrote:

As an ex-member of the AF

'Why did you leave? Just wondering.

#6

cantdocartwheels

Offline

Joined: 15-03-04

Jun 20 2008 08:07

Bob Savage wrote:

Basically, I'm not even aware of the differences between the groups. Is it theoretical differences for a post-revolutionary society or is it stuff that affects your actions right now? 'cos I'm sure they gotta be pretty easy to get past, for a magazine or whatever. if not, just, y'know, vote.

Catch sums it up pretty well, and i'd go with jacks formula that the disagreements are 90% force of habit and 10% genuine political differences.

knightrose wrote:

In my experience, what's written on this board doesn't reflect the generally friendly relations we have with each other..

Nah whats written on this board is fairly friendly, i haven't really seen any major disagreements or arguments between AF and Solfed members on here at all.

#7

Devrim

Offline

Joined: 15-07-06

Jun 20 2008 08:15

cantdocartwheels wrote:

knightrose wrote:

In my experience, what's written on this board doesn't reflect the generally friendly relations we have with each other..

Nah whats written on this board is fairly friendly, i haven't really seen any major disagreements or arguments between AF and Solfed members on here at all.

Neither have I. Most people argue with the WSM, or abuse the ICC.

Devrim

#8

Mike Harman

Offline

Joined: 7-02-06

Jun 20 2008 12:04

888 wrote:

Mike Harman wrote:

As an ex-member of the AF

'Why did you leave? Just wondering.

Mixture of practical and political reasons. Mainly, I didn't (and don't) have time to go to many real life meetings, having offspring and often working in the evenings tend to go against that. That made it pretty hard to keep up with the London group, so I drifted away over a long period of time rather than officially leaving. Since it happened that way, some of the issues below I didn't really bring up as much as I'd have liked within the AF itself, but there's nothing too controversial so might as well post it here.

IMO, political organisations should mainly be producing literature, doing self-education etc. - individuals in those organisations are most likely to engage in class struggle as workers rather than specifically as members of such an organisation. However, IMNSHO, libcom has the best potential to make a lot of information available to a wide audience. And conversely, targeted freesheets are best for specific issues (at the time I was doing door-to-door newsletters with Hackney Independent, more recently Dispatch). Resistance/Organise! tend to fall in between the two - so I put time into where I thought the priorities should be instead. Additionally, I found I was discussing politics with AF members, and non-AF members, more on websites than via the organisation - and although that might've changed internally, I got the impression quite a few people are like that. Thus people still in the AF who I tend to agree with (madashell for example), I can still discuss things with on here, being in the same organisation didn't really make a lot of difference either way on that.

Politically I completely disagree with the decision of many AF members to join the IWW (which should be obvious from the various IWW spats over the past year or two), and don't think ID cards ought to be a priority. Had I been more involved in the AF when these issues were coming up I might've stayed in and argued, but wasn't in a position to put in tonnes of work on the directions I would have liked to see things go in. The 'platformist tendency' emerged after I'd drifted away but I disagree with pretty much everything any of them says, and there were a couple of people in the AF who's politics I had major disagreements with, i.e. Gentle Revolutionary - who left before I did, but possibly should never have joined in the first place.

Related to this, the AF doesn't tend to decide on a specific course of action and then follow it through as an organisation - so it's fine if you do or don't want to join the IWW, no-one's going to hassle you about doing an ID cards stall if you don't want to or whatever- so while there might be conflicting opinions on an issue, these don't have to be dealt with head on (as I suppose they might be in the WSM where people are expected to carry out stuff they might not have supported). While I think the WSM's approach leads to all kinds of fudges in position papers and bad political decisions, the AF was also a bit too heterogeneous for my liking - so even though there might be people I agree with on a lot of things in it, that's not necessarily reflected in practice.

I'll go off and coat my monitor with asbestos now. I should note that as far as I can tell, almost exactly the same kinds of issues are present in SolFed. Additionally, like I said on the publications thread - there's people I tend to agree with in the AF, in SolFed, and not in either of those organisations, same with disagreements - and in practice people tend to join due to their geography or personal ties. More on this general subject here.

#9

Battlescarred

Offline

Joined: 27-02-06

Jun 20 2008 12:56

Yes, but I think you attended !1( or was it two) group meetings in the time you were a member of AF),attended one Resisytnce distro, and that was about it. Really, your involvement in AF was minimal. And any input was non-existent, let's be frank. So why have you left all of this to now???

#10

Mike Harman

Offline

Joined: 7-02-06

Jun 20 2008 13:26

For accuracy, if I remember correctly, I went to 3 or 4 AF London meetings, a couple of resistance distros (which let's be honest were just before the meetings anyway), wrote a couple of articles for Resistance, dealt with the libcom side of hosting the website for over a year (although that was more a libcom task really), paid subs for a couple of years and not much more than that. So yes, quite minimal, as I hope I made clear above.Some members at that time were less active than me though, as I'm sure you're aware.

Had I been more involved, I would have brought more of these issues up internally, being inactive there didn't seem to be many effective ways to do so, or the criticisms would've been a bit hollow. However they're probably similar reasons to why I wouldn't rejoin the AF now (assuming you'd have me ) if I suddenly ended up with lots of time on my hands. So simultaneously - people are welcome to take this with a pinch of salt (or ignore it), but I think the content is fairly valid and it's meant constructively - fwiw I quite like a lot of AF members including yerself, so not raising any of this stuff to have a go.

Having said that, pretty much everything I posted above I've said before in one or more contexts - as a member I had a proposal about more local/targeted content in resistance (or instead of it) which was well received but didn't go anywhere, and was pretty vehement about GR's behaviour when that happened. Everything else I've said either in discussions on here or to AF members individually, or both. So I don't think I've really left anything until now, but I've probably not done a 'why I drifted away from the AF' post, and probably wouldn't have done had I not been asked - and it seemed better to be straightforward about answering than not. Again - part of the reason for not writing anything up or fighting stuff like the IWW issue was my non-politics life went completely mad from 2005/6 - housing, family, work all got very hectic - so fighting internal arguments within the AF wasn't high up on the list of things to deal with.

#11

Kim Müller

Offline

Joined: 13-12-07

Jun 21 2008 16:13

Mike Harman wrote:

The main differences come down to international affliation (IWA and IAF-IFA respectively), approaches to workplace activity - anarcho-syndicalism vs. 'workplace resistance groups' vs. IWW - and views on the mainstream unions.

What is the positions of the 'workplace resistance groups'?

#12

Kim Müller

Offline

Joined: 13-12-07

Jun 21 2008 16:20

Didn´t manage the html properly, but anyway I quoted Catch and not Bob.

#13

Mike Harman

Offline

Joined: 7-02-06

Jun 21 2008 17:02

fixed the quote.

afaik this is the main document where it's mentioned.
http://www.afed.org.uk/ace/manifest.html

AF wrote:

For similar reasons we are sceptical about the potential of syndicalism and anarcho-syndicalism as revolutionary methods. Syndicalists aim to set up alternative unions as a means to bring about revolution and such tactics have proved popular with anarchists. However, despite such unions adopting anarchist principles and often being militant in both industrial and social struggles, unions are incapable of bringing about revolutionary change. Permanent economic organisations, whatever label or ideology they adhere to, invariably become integrated into capitalism. In practice, syndicalist unions have become as bureaucratic as other unions because of their permanent position of mediation between bosses and workers. The working class should aim not only to take control of the workplace but to be liberated from it.
Activity which is unofficial and initiated and continued outside of union control has been successful historically. Changing work practices make the workplace less of a potential power base for the working class and trade unionism cannot challenge the power of the bosses enough to turn this around. Nonetheless, workers continue to take action and do sometimes win in spite of trade union sabotage. These struggles are very different from those of traditional trade unionism. Struggles which do succeed do so because of a combination of extreme anger, optimism and solidarity amongst those on strike, not because the union is supporting them. They also win because workers refuse to be bought off by the bosses not only because of idealism but because, quite literally, workers have nothing left to lose, and so the negotiating role of the union is undermined. Workers on strike survive not because of strike pay, which is often non-existent, but because they extend their struggles into communities of support, solidarity groups, and donations from other working class people for example, not because of the effectiveness of broader trade union co-operation (which is now virtually illegal). From this new realism either despondency or revolutionary consciousness may grow.

...

Recent years have seen a huge increase in wildcat strikes, industrial sabotage and attacks on the Capitalist infra-structure. Effective action has gone beyond the confines of individual workplaces and industries. For example; secretive secondary action undertaken by other workers and activists; support groups revolving around working class communities as well as involving the families of workers in dispute and making links with other non-industrial struggles; the formation of international links directly with other workers irrespective of the global collusion between bosses and unions. These tactics are now employed by workers as part of a conscious attempt to be self-active in their own defence and make effective use of their time - not handing their power over to the useless unions.

Obviously, what is emerging in an alternative workers movement which is both economic and social. Revolutionaries need to give thought to the question of how this should be structured. The AF has discussed whether the establishment of a permanent support groups network is a good idea, as the matter has been raised by workers. We should be wary of establishing any permanent structures, useful though they may seem in the short term. They may become as paralysed by bureaucracy as the unions, have to have full-time or paid workers, be prey to leftist take-over, or worst of all, have limited resources and have to decide which struggles to allocate them to and which to neglect. Not least, if they are permanent, then the State can attack them.

What is needed is the growth of a new culture of economic resistance without a permanent structure but able to produce high levels of militant activity as and when it is needed. this is not to say that there should be no on-going radical work. Far from it. We believe that, even when not officially in dispute, workers should establish semi-secretive (but never elitist) non-permanent 'workplace resistance' groups. These have been established by Revolutionaries in some industries have in the past, with some success. Their secrecy and lack of permanent structure means that their members cannot be identified, victimised or bought off by management, and they can concentrate on action and theory, not on self-perpetuation. Such groups must not seek to be alternative unions. They must be anti-capitalist, anti-company, anti-union and anti-party political and have no respect for legality. They should advocate class war and practise direct action to achieve their objectives. Such groups would have a propaganda function (pushing resistance and rebellion, slagging management, attacking trade and alternative unionism, advocating go-slows, non-cooperation, sabotage and unofficial action, mass sick-days etc.) and an active function (co-ordinating such activity in practice).

These groups will probably be initiated by revolutionaries, such as AF members, but they will be made up of any one wishing to take effective action against the bosses. Class fighters of all kinds will be involved - anyone who can be trusted in fact. In times of greatest anger in the workplace they might include everyone working there and their strength will be in mass participation. At other times, smaller groups will adopt radical tactics (vandalism, sabotage etc. to hurt the bosses' pocket and intimidation of scabs and managers, for example). The effectiveness of their action will encourage more people to get involved. Their actions must be determined by active mass participation in decision making and not become a battle ground for politicised cliques. Their networks of support will extend into the community, into other workplaces, and into the revolutionary movement.

#14

little_brother

Offline

Joined: 30-01-06

Jun 21 2008 18:20

Hi catch,
Please, if you can, change link above to http://www.afed.org.uk/ace/manifest.html
(google has decided to stop listing afed.org.uk domain which is currently a subdomain of af-north).

What do you have against anti-ID card activity?

#15

Mike Harman

Offline

Joined: 7-02-06

Jun 21 2008 18:38

little_brother wrote:

Hi catch,
Please, if you can, change link above to http://www.afed.org.uk/ace/manifest.html
(google has decided to stop listing afed.org.uk domain which is currently a subdomain of af-north).

Done.

Quote:

What do you have against anti-ID card activity?

I think I've said it elsewhere but in short, I think it'll be extremely hard to fight on a class basis (as opposed to straight civil liberties, expense), there's a chance of it getting beaten purely bureaucratically anyway, but mainly there are much more important things to worry about - NHS, pensions, inflation - and IMO groups should be focusing activity on supporting existing struggles rather than starting campaigns.

#16

Deezer

Offline

Joined: 2-10-04

Jun 21 2008 19:02

AF said of workplace resistance groups:

Quote:

Such groups would have a propaganda function (pushing resistance and rebellion, slagging management, attacking trade and alternative unionism, advocating go-slows, non-cooperation, sabotage and unofficial action, mass sick-days etc.) and an active function (co-ordinating such activity in practice).

Attacking trade and alternative unionism except of course when they are joining the IWW roll eyes

#17

knightrose

Offline

Joined: 8-11-03

Jun 21 2008 19:23

I said before on here that we are working on expalining our industrial strategy. I'm afraid you'll have to wait and see what we decide. It has to go to a conference for ratification. It will, however, expalin why many of us have joined the IWW and why.

#18

Mike Harman

Offline

Joined: 7-02-06

Jun 21 2008 19:24

Boulcolonialboy wrote:

AF said of workplace resistance groups:
Quote:

Such groups would have a propaganda function (pushing resistance and rebellion, slagging management, attacking trade and alternative unionism, advocating go-slows, non-cooperation, sabotage and unofficial action, mass sick-days etc.) and an active function (co-ordinating such activity in practice).

Attacking trade and alternative unionism except of course when they are joining the IWW

Exactly.

#19

knibbles

Offline

Joined: 19-06-08

Jun 22 2008 09:18

knightrose wrote:

I said before on here that we are working on expalining our industrial strategy. I'm afraid you'll have to wait and see what we decide. It has to go to a conference for ratification. It will, however, expalin why many of us have joined the IWW and why.

Hello!
Is there a thread anywhere on here about the possible contradiction of ideas between being in both the IWW and the AF? I'd like to hear the thoughts of someone who's active in both. I'm thinking of joining both the AF and the IWW, if they'll have me, but I'm all confused about how I feel and I'm not sure if there is any purpose in a revolutionary union or not. I'm hoping to meet with some AF people and talk to them about it so I can work out what I think. Oh, I'm new, hello!

#20

Mike Harman

Offline

Joined: 7-02-06

Jun 22 2008 10:01

knibbles wrote:

Is there a thread anywhere on here about the possible contradiction of ideas between being in both the IWW and the AF?

Hi knibbles, this thread started around when some AF members joined the IWW, so might give you some idea of the initial reasons some people joined:
http://libcom.org/forums/thought/iww-good-idea-practical-12032006

There's also many more discussions about the IWW to be found here: http://libcom.org/search/node/iww+type%3Aforum - a lot of them very critical.

#21

knightrose

Offline

Joined: 8-11-03

Jun 22 2008 10:26

I'll try and provide a short answer here from someone who is in both AF and IWW. The AF's current industrial strategy, taken from Beyond Resistance and from our internal members handbook, is that we want to see the creation of workplace resistance groups. Many of us take the view that the best chance for these to come about is through grassroots organisations like the IWW. In Britain the IWW has a number of job branches - I know of at least a dozen. These act very much in the way we'd like to see resistance groups operating. I'm currently part of a group within the AF that has been given the task of explaining what our current industrial strategy is. We're due to report to the summer delegate meeting. Hopefully after that the policy will be published. In the meantime, if you agree with our Aims and Principles, you should join! There's a decent group in Nottingham and you won't find your views out of place.

#22

knibbles

Offline

Joined: 19-06-08

Jun 22 2008 11:38

Thank you both very much for your replies, I'll go and read all that. Ooh, I've got so much to read now. I do agree with AF's Aims and Principles so that's lovely. I will join if they'll let me. I've just got to try and meet some of them first, I think they must be a busy bunch. I'm going to an IWW meeting in Nottingham next month too so hopefully if I talk to them both I can work out what I think. Does the IWW have an NHS type branch? I feel lost in such a big organisation. I'm sorry, this is not really the right place to be asking these questions, is it? Sorry.

#23

knightrose

Offline

Joined: 8-11-03

Jun 22 2008 11:47

Yes there is an NHS branch. It's small - the IWW as a whole has around 450 members - there are about 60 or so NHS. But they are very active.

#24

knightrose

Offline

Joined: 8-11-03

Jun 22 2008 11:48

regarding the AF, send an email to nottingham [a] afed.org.uk

#25

knibbles

Offline

Joined: 19-06-08

Jun 25 2008 15:28

Oh, sorry little_brother! I am rubbish at the internet. See you soon, hopefully!

#26

Salvoechea

Offline

Joined: 17-05-04

Jun 24 2008 20:46

is Class war fed. still active?
Also, how many members are in AF and SF?

#27

knightrose

Offline

Joined: 8-11-03

Jun 25 2008 12:29

AF is around a hundred. Don't know about Solfed. CW is active - they had a good turnout at the Manchester Bookfair.

#28

little_brother

Offline

Joined: 30-01-06

Jun 25 2008 20:40

deleted

#29

little_brother

Offline

Joined: 30-01-06

Jun 25 2008 20:41

No probs! Sorry you had to delete your whole post! Anyway now I've read your posts we'll definitely have some interesting things to talk about when we see you.

Seeing as I'm here, I'd like to open up the ID cards issue, which I maintain is a class issue for the reasons mentioned in our pamphlet http://www.afed.org.uk/ace/anon.html
but also quite the opposite from being a competing issue to Pensions and NHS reforms, data sharing and ID databases are part of the technology which will be used for their 'modernisation'.
Also considering that ID checking, like stop and search, is colour as well as class biased (a major spark for unrest in France) it should not be so easily dismissed by our mostly white anarchist movement. ID cards will be issued to non-EU nationals from this year onwards. It's No2ID that is insisting that ID is just a civil liberties single issue divorced from class and 'race' and anarchist/left libertarians should be countering this viewpoint.

Seeing as this is the point of this thread, what do other orgs think about anti-ID cards organising? Do we differ?

PS I recall the day that fighting the Poll Tax wasn't seen as enough of working class issue to be taken seriously by everyone (the reason given that it wasn't a workplace issue).

#30

knightrose

Offline

Joined: 8-11-03

Jun 25 2008 20:51

Yes - it amazes me that people argue it's not a class issue. Clearly ID cards will be used to harass black and asian workers, will be used to deny welfare state services to the "undeserving poor" - divide and rule with a price tag.

#31

Mike Harman

Offline

Joined: 7-02-06

Jun 25 2008 21:22

little_brother wrote:

Seeing as I'm here, I'd like to open up the ID cards issue, which I maintain is a class issue for the reasons mentioned in our pamphlet http://www.afed.org.uk/ace/anon.html

It's a class issue AND a civil liberties issue AND a bureaucratic management of capitalism issue -it's just I think the latter two are going to win out.

Quote:

but also quite the opposite from being a competing issue to Pensions and NHS reforms, data sharing and ID databases are part of the technology which will be used for their 'modernisation'.

The thing that makes it a class issue is precisely that it's an auxiliary to those two issues (but very much an auxiliary). IMO given the miniscule resources we currently have (however you define 'we') - campaigning on ID cards does compete with other concerns - where's the AF pamphlets on the NHS, on pensions, on the public sector strikes, on inflation and the financial crisis?

Quote:

Also considering that ID checking, like stop and search, is colour as well as class biased (a major spark for unrest in France) it should not be so easily dismissed by our mostly white anarchist movement.

This is a spurious argument. Stop and search, various anti-terrorism legislation etc. has been around for a long time - there are active cases now of people being shot due to what amounts to ethnic profiling (or less) - ID cards are not the most urgent policing issue on the horizon.

I'm not saying it should be ignored, or that it's a 'bad' issue in itself, but I don't understand what makes it a priority, at all.

Quote:

PS I recall the day that fighting the Poll Tax wasn't seen as enough of working class issue to be taken seriously by everyone (the reason given that it wasn't a workplace issue).

I will happily eat my words when there's a mass no-ID card campaign and large scale riot in Trafalgar Square. But I'm more concerned with the near-silence on the financial crisis and workplace struggles - no mention as far as I can see in the last three issues of Organise! but plenty about ID/surveillance. Resistance has more, although not as much as I'd like, and some of that reads like an ad for the IWW. Catalyst and Direct Action barely have recent enough issues to compare against. Workers Solidarity has as much about the Lisbon Treaty as workplace struggles. And it's not that there's loads on housing struggles or other class issues which are given equal prominence to the workplace (which'd be fine), it's that a lot of content is about 'what anarchists think about [x]' etc. - again, not picking on the AF specifically (although I tend to read AF publications more than the others so notice things more).

Differences between UK/Ireland anarchist groups

Featured

Featured threads

Posting guidelines

Log in for more features

blog

news

library

history

libcom.org