This article was originally carried in issue 60 of Organise!, journal of the Anarchist Federation. It is a brief history of Whiteboy groups in rural Ireland.
During the years 1788-1868, 2,249 political prisoners were transported from Ireland to exile in Australia. Of that number, less than 20% belonged to the well commemorated nationalist rebellions and conspiracies of 1798, 1803, 1848 and 1867.1
Who were the rest?
Introduction to the United States: An Autonomist Political History, Noel Ignatiev
PUBLISHER'S INTRODUCTION
A timeline and radical history of rebellion, riots, sex and subversion in London's most famous park
[9,500 words]
Contents
1855: Marx in the Park: "it looked as if the demonstration was going to simmer down to harmless Sunday amusements, but the police reckoned differently"
1866: The Hyde Park railings affair: "The police brought their truncheons into active use, and a number of the roughs were somewhat severely handled"
1914: Suffragettes on the Serpentine.
Wildcat argue that unions have sabotaged working class struggle since their inception.
The year 1842 was a very significant one for the proletariat of the British Isles. On the positive side it was the occasion of a great struggle against wage cutting and on the negative side it marked the formation of the first modern national trade union.
The history of song, music, class struggle and anarchism in Italy's turbulent past.
“Nostra
patria e il mondo intero”
(Our country is the entire world)
Line from a song by Pietro Gori.
A history of song, music and revolutionary working class politics in France from the 1789 Revolution up to the 1980s and punk.
Like
other political groups, anarchists have seen music as an excellent means of
agitation and of popular education, and have made it one of their key activities
of propaganda in many countries.
A short history of repressive and anti-worker government practice and legislation in Britain over the past two centuries.
Ever since the rise of capitalism and the modern state, governments have sought a compliant and quiescent workforce and have initiated various methods of control over those sections of the population that they see as a potential threat to the status quo.
A brief history of the world's first socialist working class uprising. The workers of Paris, joined by mutinous National Guardsmen, seized the city and set about re-organising society in their own interests based on workers' councils. They could not hold out, however, when more troops retook the city and massacred 30,000 workers in bloody revenge.
The Paris Commune is often said to be the first example of working people taking power. For this reason it is a highly significant event, even though it is ignored in the French history curriculum.
A history of the violent clash between Australian sailors and police after officers attempted to arrest a man dressed as a woman.
On Sunday August 23rd 1851 a hard fought riot broke out in Sydney. Whilst such disturbances were common place at the time this particular riot is interesting in that it was sparked by the arrest of a sailor for wearing women's clothing, was led by military men and involved attacks on a number of police watch-houses.
Howard Zinn's history of a movement in the United States against a political system which permitted the vote only to landowners. Drafting their own “People’s Convention” the rebels were let down by some of their own ideas, such as racism, and were put down by force.
Taking the case to the Supreme Court, the precedent was then set that the Court should not meddle in politics.
The United States government's support of slavery was based on an overpowering practicality. In
1790, a thousand tons of cotton were being produced every year in the South. By 1860, it was a
million tons. In the same period, 500,000 slaves grew to 4 million. A system harried by slave
rebellions and conspiracies (Gabriel Prosser, 1800; Denmark Vesey, 1822; Nat Turner, 1831)
If women, of all the subordinate groups in a society dominated by rich white males, were closest to
home (indeed, in the home), the most interior, then the Indians were the most foreign, the most
exterior. Women, because they were so near and so needed, were dealt with more by patronization
It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country. The explorers
were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men.
The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status.
- 1 - What is Communism?
Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.
- 2 - What is the proletariat?
