The following extract is taken from a piece in Crowbar 47 which came out in August 86...

“...Though the A’s in Britain are growing fast, more energy goes into making organisations (CWF, DAM, ACF,..) than doing any kind of Direct Action, legal or otherwise. Of course organising is important too, but from our actions in the last 10 years we might as well be a bunch of pacifist wallies! Where we should be more effec­tive is in small group actions in our own areas, where just a few activists can make a big impact, in things like squatting, claimants, local campaigns, attacks on sexists, racists, capitalists etc. In the past, Crowbar has tried to support and en­courage such local direct action, as a way of setting an example and directly hurting our oppressors. ‘Stop Business As Usual’, was a good idea, and it should happen again.”

There is no reason to criticise this extract from Crowbar in particular but it is roughly similar to many articles one sees in anarchist papers that run on the theme of calling for local small group de­centralised actions as an ideal in them­selves. Such pieces tend to call on us to move away from mass central organisation and instead urge us to “split up into small autonomous local groups that take whatever action they see fit as part of a decentralised network”, etc. They also reject mass ‘set piece’ confrontations, pickets and demos and call instead for so called ‘guerrilla tactics’, which in prac­tice mean small group sabotage (spraying, bricking, glueing, etc...). But rather than leading to instant greater effective­ness, as some anarchists think, in prac­tice these tactics often result in very little effect at all. This is because they are largely based on myth. Our in­tention is to question these myths of "anarcho-guerrilla" tactics and to argue in favour of mass concentrations of force at critical points in the system over the weakness of diffuse small group struggle.

A comparison between ‘Stop the City’ and ‘Stop Business As Usual’ in 1984 and 1985 gives us a good example of how ‘decentralisation’ and ‘spreading’ the action in practice lead to the dispersal of action into virtually nothing. It is easy with hindsight to slag off and mock the fiascos of STC demonstrations. But, in fact, the idea of STC, to mount a series of mass demonstrations in the capitalist heart of the country particu­lar the miners’ strike to divert police from the picket lines, was basically, a sound idea. The ‘Stop the City’ demo having an organised planned time and venue and also a point of focus; the city and its institutions, brought to­gether thousands of anarchists and others for the purpose of direct action against the system. People came along because they knew they would not be alone, because it gave them the opportunity to see and meet each other and act together in solidarity feeling their collective strength in numbers. There was also the potential to build some bridges between different groups - unemployed, city workers, miners support groups, anti-militarists etc. But of course all of this came to grief in the pathetic mess that occurred. Apart from the fact that the majority seemed only interested in a punk fashion show, and voluntary trip to the cop-shop, the ruinous tendency for dispersion and scattering had already set in. People called for what they described as ‘guerrilla tactics’ to avoid the pol­ice, which in practice simply meant a disorganised shamble that vastly increased arrests.

As a follow-up to STC a ‘Stop Business As Usual’ day of action was called for in 1985. The communique advertising the ‘Day of Action’ proclaimed that anytime was the time, and everywhere was the place for local groups to do ‘whatever they felt like doing’. The effect of this loss of time, venue and point of focus was that no time was the time, and nowhere was the place. A few tiny isolated groups in various towns aimlessly wandered around with their spray cans and tubes of superglue, randomly ‘attacking’ a token target or two with no real purpose or strategy, and no idea of what, if anything, anybody else was doing. By splitting up and turning to small group actions, people lost the feeling of solidarity and mass support of large numbers around them, communications broke down, people didn’t know if anything was going to happen and the ‘action’ became more and more irrelevant to mass struggles.

When a movement’s forces are dispersed too thinly, they simply disintegrate. It is a myth that ‘guerrilla’ tactics are auto­matically strong, “The guerrilla is everywhere but invisible”, is the typical sort of fantasy. The situation we are in (1980’s Britain), is one of industrial/urban class struggle. Guerrilla tactics in this situation are born out of, and are a sign of a position of weakness. We might adopt them at a particular time because we are not strong enough to mount open frontal attacks; mass strikes, mass demos, mass occupations. The purpose of such tactics is to build up the strength and numbers necessary so that we no longer have to keep hiding and running from the enemy in future. The aim of a guerrilla position is to progress away from a guerrilla position. Actions we carry out should not only be damaging to the enemy, but also be of accumulative material gain to us, such as encouraging more people to fight by demonstrating solidarity and what can be done, or by winning more space and time by diverting police or seizing loot which could be useful to the struggle. If smashing up a Barclays Bank is as tax­ing, tiring and costly (arrest, injury...) to us as it is to the bank manager, then what is the point? Kamikaze warfare is just a form of surrender, it is no use to anybody. The idea is not to move down from large-scale central actions to small group actions, but is the reverse; to organise and move up from small group actions to mass actions. The tactical methods employed by separate groups with­in the movement is of decisive importance: it removes the disastrous effect of several tactics in opposition to one another which is often the product of small group struggle. A central collective strategy concentrates all the forces of the movement, gives them a common direction, lead­ing to a fixed objective.

Decentralisation has often been an idea thrown in with the anarchist approach, but since when did anarchy have to mean decentralisation? Does anarchy mean decentralising power? No! Anarchy means abolishing power whether centralised or not. Does anarchy mean decentralised industry and living? ... so we all have to live in tiny villages manufacturing hos­pital X-ray equipment with a bag of tools in the back shed and feeding the world from a garden allotment: what rubbish! Anarchy doesn’t have to mean decentralised anything. Alongside with the myth of decentralisation lies the myth of ‘community politics’. Anarchist groups feel they have to be based in the local area and spend their time with ‘local community issues’. But under capitalism, the local community doesn’t really exist. Different communities with conflicting class interests just live near each other in the same town or area. Alienated marginals of unemployed in one town, will find they probably have much more in common with those in a similar position in another town, than they have with people in the next road. So anarchists are not primarily concerned with localism and community politics, but are interested in mass class politics. Only mass struggles of workers/unemployed, such as the miners’ strike or the riots, have the potential to start changing the balance of power in society. Anarchist action must be rooted in the class struggle if it is to be relevant in any way to the lives of millions of people. No small group of political individuals who are isolated and divorced from mass struggle can have much effect in altering society on their own whether they are ‘peaceful’ or ‘violent’. We must concentrate our effort on those points in the system where class conflict is most pronounced, at those points where mass confrontation visibly breaks out such as important strikes or riots.

In the case of the Wapping Print Dispute, it is in fact only the anger and energy of the regular mass pickets that kept the dispute alive for so many months and forced Murdoch to offer concessions. If it was not for the mass pickets, the dis­pute would have fizzled out in the first few weeks. Despite mostly being set piece confrontations where the police were prepared, the pickets had the ad­vantage of bringing together thousands of strikers, their supporters and those at war with the monopoly press to fight together at a point where struggles con­verged. At the March 15th picket at Wapping, for instance, nearly 10000 descended on the plant, the ‘picket-proof’ iron fence was pulled down by weight of numbers of pickets! and the lorries were delayed for five hours, so many didn’t arrive in time. The recent arson attack on one of Murdoch’s paper warehouses was a fine example of ‘guerrilla’ sabotage, both psychologically and economically damaging to them. But such an attack would have had less effect or relevance if it were not set in the context of the industrial dispute and related to the momentum maintained by the mass pickets over the months including the flying pickets which demonstrated mass and mobility and took police by surprise.

Such acts of sabotage succeed when they supplement the mass confrontations, fuelling the flames of the central points of conflict rather than diverting energy from them. Small group actions must be a contribution, not a substitute, to mass struggle.

Thames Valley Anarchists 1986

This article was originally published in 1986 in Virus 9, the magazine of the Anarchist Communist Federation. It marked a move away from individual and small group activism towards class struggle. Taken from the Antagonism website.

This article deals with some aspects of community in British society today and in the hoped for revolutionary period. It does not touch on "primitive" or feudal communities.

One aspect of modern society which is often commented on is the lack of community. The old stereotypical village or slum community, it is said, is disappearing in the modem era, to be replaced by a society of isolated individuals who do not know their next-door neighbours. As well as being the subject of special reports in "The Mirror", the idea of community is something that anarchists should be interested in. The creation of a free and genuine community should be the aim of anarchist revolution.

Community is based on common interests and situation; its existence must mean the end of isolation and alienation. As alienation is a product of wage-labour and also of the State, real community must be one form of Anarchy (i.e. statelessness). What else does community mean? It must mean the end of all separations between members of the community. Obvious aspects of this end of separation, i.e. abolition of wage-labour and the state, have already been mentioned. Other aspects which are less often associated with revolutionary anarchism are these: firstly, the abolition of work as a specialised activity, and secondly the end of all relations (other than personal ~) which tie us to a particular locality.

Abolition of Work
In capitalist society all production takes place for profit, and workers carry out labour primarily in order to receive a wage. In the anarchist communist community production must be for need or desire. This different basis for production will mean differences in production itself, for example:

1. There will be no designed obsolescence
2. There will be no advertising industry
3. There will be an end to "fashion" in design of goods
4. There will be an end to overmanning
5. There will be an end to secret research, competition and unnecessary duplication
6. There will be a decrease in the amount of administration necessary

All these differences will mean that there will be a decrease in labour necessary for society to function; when the absence of the poi ice and military, and increased use of automation etc. is added to the equation, this quantity decreases still further, whilst (wo)manpower increases still further. The amount of work to be done will easily be completed by people "working" purely because they want to be involved in whatever activity this requires. (We have not even touched on increased production due to the absence of alienation.) This abolition of work means the abolition of the separation between work and other activities., such as hobbies or play.

Abolition of Ties to a Locality
If Individuals are tied to a particular town or factory (or continent...), this obviously means they are less interested in localities other than their own. In this instance we have a possible conflict of interests, and so the different localities no longer form parts of the same community. This end to community does not necessarily mean the reintroduction of the state, but it does mean the introduction of a mutated form of competition, that is a form of capitalism in which democratic collectives compete in a market economy. This form of society may have numerous advantages over the present forms, but it is something less than the destruction of capitalism/creation of true community, which could be achieved.

The abolition of ties to a locality, then, is obviously something desirable, but what in effect does it mean? One thing it does not mean is that the workers’ final aim should be to take over and run their own factories. In this instance workers would remain doing the same lobs as they were forced to do under capitalism. Workers must not take over "their" workplaces for themselves to run. What must happen instead is that the international working class must take over all workplaces (and all society) to run for itself to run, as a class. What this would mean at the level of an individual enterprise in the course of a revolution is that the gates of the workplace would be opened for anyone to enter, be they former workers at that enterprise, or former workers at another, or former housewives, former schoolchildren or whatever.... The people who are then at the enterprise would decide what if anything would be made with the productive apparatus there. (Of course, previous to this total socialisation, the enterprise may be occupied, and even put to use, purely by the striking workforce.) This approach must mean the end to all unions, including anarcho-syndicalist unions, the reason being that unions group workers according to the capitalist organisation of production, and so keeps workers apart from workers in other industries, unemployed people, housewives etc. A revolutionary movement must destroy the unions, along with all other capitalist organisations, in the process of ensuring its own ascendancy. A revolutionary workplace struggle would be more like the 1986 Spanish dockers’ strike, which was controlled by an assembly of all the people who were actively involved in the struggle, whether dockers or not.

By now it will be obvious that the real community to be created by revolution is somewhat different from the stereotypical community’’ described in the early part of this article. This "community" which is being crushed by modern capitalism, is a mini-society based on ‘leading figures’, e.g. the local G. P., local bobby, the local shop owners and the local priest. In other words the local community consisted of links of class collaboration and accommodation between the working class and the petty bourgeoisie "leading members of the community". We can now see that the communities which are everywhere said to be disappearing, never existed in any real sense; the interests of the working class were in essence different to those of the petty bourgeoisie. The apparent community existed mainly because the petty bourgeoisie was generally as tied to the local area as the working class was and so personal links were long-lasting and strong; in a sense, almost traditional. The modernisation of capitalism meant the virtual ruin of the petty bourgeoisie, and its replacement by the wage earning New Middle Class or Cadre. For example, the corner shop (if it was not knocked down because its business went to Sainsbury’s) is now probably part of a chain of grocers. In this case, the shop is not run by a petty-bourgeois owner but by a wage earning manager, a cadre. This manager may at any time move to manage another shop in the chain in another part of the country, or even change to a different job working for a different company. The old apparent community, in either case loses one of its vital pillars (it that what generally constitutes "community politics" is not as a whole revolutionary politics.)

In a revolution then, the old "community" as much as it still exists will be damaged and probably be destroyed (one reason for this is that the middle classes whether the old or the new tend to side with the ruling class, partly because shops are likely to be looted etc.) so where will the new real community come from? It is unlikely to appear lust because we would like it to.

The answer to this question is already known to most class-struggle anarchists and to most people who have been involved in collective struggles.

In the course of the revolution, community will be formed spontaneously, as relationships are transformed by participating in the struggle. The fact that class struggle creates as well as relies upon, working class solidarity has been known to revolutionaries of all shades for over a century. As long as the forms of organisation and tactics that we use do not retard the spontaneous development of community, in struggle, then the New World will have a new, World Community.

The above article originally appeared in 1986 in issue 11 "Virus" under the name "End of Community?". Virus was then the magazine of the Anarchist Communist Federation (both the magazine and the organisation have since adopted worse names). Although the article explicitly aims itself at anarchists, it was in fact directly influenced by various communist and Marxist texts. In particular, it draws on "LIP and the Self-Managed Counter-Revolution" by Negation, "Karl Marx and the Anarchists" by Paul Thomas and "Community and Communism in Russia" by Jacques Camatte (as can be seen by the title!). It also shows the influence of the Situationists in its use of the category of the cadre (or new middle class), a category which we would now reject.

Taken from the Antagonism website.

The recent U.S. shelling of an Iranian oil platform represents a significant escalation of the war in the Gulf. There is no mystery as to why nations go to war - it is for the same reason that small-town gangsters go to war..., economic competition.

For America, control of the oil-rich Gulf area became problematic after the Shah of Iran, who had acted as the main cop guaranteeing U.S. interests in the region, was overthrown. The U.S. now looks to Iraq to fulfil this role which is why the U.S. navy is in the Gulf to "rig the game" so as to ensure that Iraq cannot lose. Remember, the excuse for U.S. intervention against Iran was an accidental (?) attack on a U.S. tanker by Iraq. However, it is not just about the exploitation of mineral resources. The main reason behind the war, as always, is to maintain the exploitation of capital isms most basic resource: the working class.

The overthrow of the Shah in 1979 was not simply a seizure of power by the "mad mullahs" or "anti-imperialist forces" (depending on which bourgeois shit-sheet you happen to read), but a series of mass strikes and insurrections which threatened the collapse of the state and forced the bosses to make major economic concessions. In the beginning almost no-one had heard of Khomeini, although he was to be given much free publicity by the "Voice of America" and the "BBC World Service" Khomeini was only able to come to power by using his Islamic guards and detachments of "loyal" troops left over from the Shah to crush all opposition, as well as making extravagant promises (such as free electricity) to the poor. If you talk about these promises in Iran today the state will kill you. Needless to say, when Khomeini came to power he was "critically supported" by the left, particularly the Communist Party who called on the working class not to defend themselves against the Islamic guards. Many of the C.P. were later massacred for their pains by Khomeini. It serves them right!!!

"Implicitly, the Iranian revolution threatened every established regime in the Muslim world, just as the French revolution threatened all the crowned heads of Europe"
-editorial in the Times, 21 Sept. 1980

In September 1980 seeing that the army in Iran had virtually collapsed, Iraq, encouraged by the U.S., Jordan and Saudi Arabia, hoped for a swift victory. In particular they hoped to gain full control of the SHATT AL-ARAB waterway and to annex the oil-rich province of KHUZISTAN. The main reason for the war, though, was to prevent the virus of proletarian struggle from spreading to Iraq.

The war brought massive hardships to the working class on both sides with hundreds of thousands killed and maimed at the front and massive wage cuts and increases in the working day for those left behind. However the war has been vigorously resisted on both "sides". In the Iranian capital of Teheran there were riots in March 1984 and April 1985. On the first of these occasions there was looting and several Islamic guards were wounded. Thousands were arrested as a result. In the second riot (of which we know), people shouted "Death to Khomeini. Down with the war!" 25 were killed and many wounded. In other parts of Iran there have been several prison mutinies, and in at least one case the soldiers who were on duty sided with the prisoners. In the Iraqi army there has been large scale disobedience of orders, organised fraternisation with the Iranian soldiers and desertion in epic proportions (On one occasion the Iraqi command was forced to order a full scale attack on their own positions with artillery, ground to ground missiles etc. The battle lasted 2 hours and claimed 8500 victims).

Anti-terrorism
The United States’ last long running war, in Vietnam, ended in the midst of widespread opposition to its continuation. In the armed forces discipline was on the verge of collapse with widespread sabotage of equipment, disobedience of orders and threats to officers. In civilian society, anti-war protests and draft resistance also played their part. Because of this powerful anti-war movement the U.S. has been reluctant to enter directly into long term military conflicts since then, sticking either to abrupt actions (such as the invasion of Grenada and the bombing of Libya) or indirect involvement (such as in Nicaragua or the Iran-Iraq war). In order to make a more major war possible the U.S. ruling class must prepare U.S. society as a whole, and the working class in particular, for such a war. This is the task of the present anti-terrorist drive. This campaign, by the U.S. state and media, targets various states outside the U.S. sphere as terrorist (e.g. Nicaragua and Iran). These states are said to support or control terrorist groups which carry out outrages against innocent people. The ruling class thereby puts forward an evil enemy of all "civilised people" and so binds the nation (i.e. the proletariat and its exploiters) more firmly together in the name of combatting a common foe. This national unity is the prerequisite for a successful war (which is always "in the national interest").

From the bosses' massacres to a massacre of the bosses
For the working class there is no such thing as a "just" national war or a "just" settlement of a national conflict. It is irrelevant to us whether gangs of capitalist exploiters behave "fairly" towards each other (respect each others sovereignty and so on). We don’t care precisely where their borders (their check points, their immigrant detention centres ...) are put. It makes no difference that Iraq "started" the Iran/Iraq war, Germany "started" World War 2, Argentina "started" the Falklands/Malvinas war or that America is behaving "aggressively" (as opposed to "defensively") in the Gulf. If you live in a country at war your first concern is to fight your "own" ruling class, whether they are the "aggressors" or not. Every national war is a war against the working class.

The only war we are for is the class war, a war which is against national frontiers and for international solidarity. A war against work, against private property, against the family, against the state.

In every country in the world this war begins with the struggle against the measures of austerity and increasing police repression by means of which the ruling class try to make us pay for their war effort. Class struggle is always against the national interest however much leftists and other defenders of capitalism might pretend otherwise (by claiming that "it’s not in Britain’s interest" to make industries more profitable by sacking workers, for example). When "patriotic" workers steal from their bosses, skive off work or organise strikes they are really fighting against their country, whether they like it or not.

Any class struggle throws a spanner in the works for capitalism and can (sometimes) reduce the risk of war but only a unified international struggle consciously directed against capitalism will be the way of ending the massacres to which our class is subjected.

Down with all nations!!!

Info-tech Corridor Uncontrollables

Taken from the Antagonism website.

Detention without trial, judicial executions, mass evictions and demolitions of homes, murder on the street. This is the daily reality for the working class of the South African townships. But the repression of our class is not dependent on Apartheid alone.

Everyone from the left to the conservatives say they are against apartheid. Even Mrs. Thatcher and U.S. President Bush say they are "morally against" apartheid. Nobody it seems, apart from extreme conservative and neo-nazi elements actually calls openly for the continuation of traditional style apartheid in South Africa. But we know that this is hypocrisy as the ruling class here and the ruling class in South Africa are the closest of friends. However much they may be rhetorically or morally opposed to apartheid they won’t do anything to materially strengthen the position of black workers in South Africa because this will strengthen the position of workers worldwide. Being morally for or against apartheid as a legal or political system is not really the point. What matters is whether you are materially on the side of the bosses or on the side of the exploited. Liberal capitalists in the "democratic west" can spout on as much as they like about how morally repulsive they find apartheid but it is their global capitalist economy that keeps the South African system alive and feeds racism and oppression everywhere.

More or less open warfare exists between the state and its citizens, not just in South Africa but also in Palestine, Iraq, Brazil, Burma, Yugoslavia and throughout the world. The state does not need to make racism its official policy in order to show its inherent brutality. Mass repression is always the response of the state to the refusal of the proletariat to accept its wage slavery. (That is to say its refusal to accept its exploitation at the level the economy requires.) And this is the case whether the official ideology in a country is apartheid or nationalism, free enterprise or Marxist-Leninism, fascism or democracy. Our class can never free itself by changing the constitution of the state. Only the spreading of the revolutionary struggle on an international scale against all states can destroy capitalism and so end the massacres of our sisters and brothers.

Taken from the Antagonism website.

Seafarers fight on
Since 4th February, over 1000 Dover seafarers have been striking against P&O ferries. The strike started in response to P&O’s plans to reduce manning levels and attack wages and working conditions, supposedly to make P&O more competetive in time for the Channel Tunnel. (It is always disgusting when the rich bosses of companies worth millions or billions sack workers to "save money". However P&O, which made £280 million profit last year intends to save £8 million in order to compete with Eurotunnel, which is being built by Bovis, a P&O subsiduary. Their cynicism is repulsive for this alone.)

The measures P&O are trying to impose are these:
* A wage cut of £25 to £45 per week
* Crewing levels to be reduced by an average of 15 per ferry
* Crew members to spend a minimum of 72 hours on board, working three 24 hour shifts (with rest periods of 6 hours aboard ship, during which workers can be recalled at anytime).
* Crews retained for up to 4 weeks if relief crews fail to report.

When you consider that Townsend Thoreson, including the sister ships of the Herald of Free Enterprise are now operated under the name P&O European Ferries, the deterioration of safety standards caused by the above measures is even more apalling.

The fightback
At the time of writing the main methods of struggle are picketing P&O at Dover, and collecting money for the communal kitchens for the strikers. Both of these actions are important and without them there would not now be any dispute to speak of. However, these actions are far from adequate to win the struggle. The only way to victory is to spread the strike to other workers. Three times since February there has been national strike action on the ferries. If these strikes had continued they would have hit P&O harder than any blockade, boycott or blacking ever could. And more importantly they would have united all ferryworkers, who are all facing the same attacks. Each strike however was called off by the National Union of Seamen. The reason given by unionleaders for calling off the strikes was in order to prevent sequestration of funds and so leave the union powerful enough to fight on. It would be amusing that the NUS were calling off strikes in order to fight effectively if not for the damage that the union’s action has done to the seafarers’ struggle. Sequestration is a red herring; it is continuing the strike that is important.

Out of the 3 instances where the NUS has called off national strikes, the first was the most damaging. This strike (in support of the Isle of Mon ferryworkers) was called off on 11th February, the day before the unofficial walkout at the Ford Dagenham plant. It was at this time that the potential for spreading and unifying the strike was at its highest. This is because during February there were strikes not only by seafarers and Ford workers, but also by NHS staff, workers at Landrover and Vauxhall, and miners. In addition to these and other workers who struck in February, there were others facing similar attacks from the bosses and still others (e.g. Transport and Postal Workers) who actively supported the NHS dispute. With all these struggles raging at the some time it would have been perfectly possible to unite all the strikes around common demands (no redundancies, no changes in working practices, increased NHS funding, wage increases). But no union even attempted such a unification, and many (not least the NUS) took important measures to block such a development.

The way for workers to win struggles at present then, is for strikers to go en masse to other workers who are under attack and call for united strike action. Where other workers are already striking, join their picket lines and demonstrations and argue for effective action and for a unification of the demands and of the strikes. Spending time trying to get the union to organise effective action will be a waste of time and won’t work - instead of wasting energy on that, workers should use it to unify and extend struggles themselves. These are the actions, broadly speaking, which the seafarers, and all strikers, must undertake to ensure victory.

Taken from the Antagonism website.

The struggle in the ports over the Dock Labour Scheme obviously raises important questions for any workers who want to fight back against the bosses. The fact that the scrapping of the DLS was announced without warning in parliament shows that this measure is an attack by the state which has been planned in advance. The dockers are then obviously in a similar situation to the miners in ‘84 or the News International printers in ‘86. They face an enemy which has knowingly provoked a strike having planned carefully for victory.

In this situation, even the most "militant" union leaders have a "good" argument for sabotaging strike action. Any call for a return to work can be justified as not "playing into the tories’ hands". This is because any trade union style strike (i.e. a strike by one isolated group of workers, within the law, led by the union) is bound to fail for two reasons. The first is that the tory employment legislation makes all effective action (secondary picketing, instantaneous walkouts without waiting days or weeks for a ballot etc.) illegal. The second is that the forward planning for the strike by the government means that if strike action is limited to the ports, then victory is very unlikely.

If the strike is to be won then we must learn the lessons of past failure.

Before ‘84 the miners were revered throughout the working class as the most militant and best organised of any industry. The bitter lesson of the miners strike is that no sector of workers can win on their own.

The News International and P&O disputes confirm this lesson. The only way for workers to win major struggles is to unite across all the artificial barriers of category, industry, employer and trade union. We can see the truth of this when we look at the strike movement of last February. At that time there was strike action on the ferries, in the NHS, at Ford and Vauxhall, at the Post Office and at many other places. There was only a beginning to unity between the different groups at this time, mainly sympathy strikes in support of the nurses. But with all these strikes raging at the same time the government and the bosses felt the need to give some concessions to prevent the struggles either from encouraging other workers or from unifying. Ford workers were given a pay rise and the nurses were promised full funding for their pay rises (the concessions to the nurses were withdrawn months later, after the strike movement had been buried). It is a very important point that although there were sympathy strikes and cases of workers joining fellow workers’ demos and pickets, not one of the dozens of unions "representing" workers in struggle called for the unification of the strikes. The unions were an important factor in keeping the different workers divided. The unions can correctly argue that such calls for unity would result in sequestrations and fines. Despite this we cannot afford to ignore the fact that the unions (by keeping workers divided, by calling off strikes in order to hold a ballot, by insisting that workers operate within the law, and by other means) are always a major reason for the defeat of our struggles. No amount of "pressuring the leadership" can change this.

The urgent question is of course how can we win? In recent weeks there has been strike action or unrest on the Underground and at the power stations. And despite having their struggles stitched up by the unions, there is continuing militancy in the post office and the NHS. Militant dockers who care more about defending their jobs and their class than "their" union should organise mass pickets to all these sectors and argue that they should strike now in unison. This is in addition to picketing all the other ports (whether scheme ports or not ) and any other workers who might strike. Mass meetings of strikers should be called to discuss the strike, and to organise it. Where possible we should put forward demands that are applicable to workers in different jobs e.g. "£20 and no changes to working conditions". If such a movement develops we must fight against any attempt by the unions to negotiate on behalf of their members. When they have done this in the past (such as last February), it has meant that the strongest groups of workers have been given concessions and then sent back to work so that the movement as a whole can be defeated.

Thames Valley Class Struggle Group (London)
and
London Branch of the Anarchist Communist Federation

Taken from the Antagonism website.

Many different, competing, radical groups and tendencies, identify different incompatible societies as 'communist'. I don't want here to identify any 'need' or 'reasons' for forming a communist society. This article is merely an attempt to describe what communism must be.

Communism is the name given for a society based on a thoroughgoing community and a communal existence for its members. It is now possible, and has always been, to create small separate communities of a small number of people, which live in a communistic way. For instance it is possible to obtain a farm in rural Britain and work the land collectively, producing food, and perhaps wool and wood for the use of the members of the collective (in fact this is what some 'hippy' communes actually do). This way of life is certainly a form of communism, but an extremely limited and impoverished form. For a start, the more the collective rejects the products of capitalist society (eg machinery, metal tools, bricks, piping...) the more time they must give over to labour necessary for mere survival. The commune would also no doubt suffer from the personalities of its members, which would have been formed under capitalist conditions, but not altered in a communistic manner by collective class struggle. Worst of all in some ways, it is extremely unlikely that the community would last for any length of time, probably not more than a generation or so. The community would constantly be surrounded by a hostile society, which would encroach directly in the form of tax collectors, police, social workers and teachers. In addition it is almost inevitable that the commune would be at least peripherally involved in commodity production and trade with the outside world, perhaps selling eggs to raise money for taxes or tools. Nonetheless, this hypothetical community would be a form of communism.

As I said before this form of society was always possible. In fact the earliest forms of society were similar to this separatist commune. Of course the first societies were nomadic but this is in fact a relatively insignificant difference. What is determinant about a society is not its location but its social relations. That is why both early nomadic societies and the first sedentary societies are now termed primitive communist. Primitive societies obviously had the advantage that their members had communistic personalities, having known no other form of society. However the primitive communist societies had a similar problem to the modern commune in that they were surrounded by other human societies, which were regularly, if not always hostile. Take note that even Fredy Perlman who idealised primitive societies admitted that they at times traded and warred between each other. Marxists, following Engels, generally argue that the trading between societies gradually encroached on the social life of primitive community so that members traded amongst themselves. Wilhelm Reich argued instead that the physical conflicts between different societies resulted in the amalgamation of victor and vanquished in clan societies (thus destroying their unitary character). Fredy Perlman improbably assumed that primitive societies could withstand any amount of trading and warring between each other but were destroyed by the trade and warfare between them and civilisation. Of course any particular theory of history only interprets the world in one way or another. We now live in a world dominated and transformed by advanced capitalism. We need to work out what kind of society a revolution can now create which will permanently displace capitalism.

The rural commune is obviously a non starter. It can only be short lived and does not displace capitalism but coexists with it. What about a return to primitive society? I believe that any new primitive communism is also doomed. In a world of 5 billion people it is likely that a return to primitive communism would result in between 10 million and 100 million different societies (guessing at about 100 members in each). As primitive societies have no forms of very long distance communication or travel, each of these societies must be ignorant of almost all the others. As civilisation has vastly increased the human population, it is extremely likely that competition between neighbouring societies would be fiercer than in prehistoric times. In other words a return to primitive communism would result in much more trading and warfare than previously, and to make matters worse, this would be in the aftermath of civilisation, perhaps with many people still with largely capitalistic personalities, not to mention the legacy of weaponry and military technologies. It seems to me that it would be impossible that primitive communism could survive under these conditions. Most marxists would argue that the trade between societies would destroy them, Reichians would argue that the feuding between them would destroy them. Fredy Perlman believed that neither of these factors would be problems. However in his 'vision' of history he argues that primitive societies that had lasted for thousands of generations were relatively rapidly destroyed by the creation in just one place of just one civilised (ie hierarchical, mercantile, class) society. In a world of perhaps 100 000 000 societies, mostly warring and trading, how long would it take a post-civilised society to recreate the essentials of civilisation? Certainly not longer than a generation, probably less than a week.

Capitalist society is based on the division of humanity. The division into opposing classes, opposing genders, states, nations, competing enterprises and industries, competing sectors of the economy. Individuals are also divided against themselves in terms of alienation and the schizophrenic roles we must assume in modern society. Communism, the self-reproducing, post-capitalist society must destroy these divisions; this is why revolution aims to abolish classes and property, why it immediately destroys all existing states and the state as a social relation. It is why communists reject the aim of workers taking over enterprises for themselves and running them for their own benefit (an action which would end in worker managed capitalism). It is why revolutionaries reject as a model a federation of self-sufficient communes (which would hold a particular territory as property, denying it to others). Finally it is why revolutionaries must reject the aim of a return to primitive communism. Primitive communism is certainly the only form of communism which has lasted any length of time. It was in ancient times the best form of society that a revolution could have created (just as the federation of communes model was probably the best possibility before large scale industrialisation). But in modern times, perhaps for a century or so, it has been possible to create a global community, which uses some of the products of civilisation, in transport, communications and production, to unify humanity on a world scale. Such a society is the only way to destroy wage labour, commodity production and the state once and for all.

Originally printed in "Armchair". Taken from the Antagonism website.

Workerism is a form of capitalist ideology that is endemic amongst self-defined revolutionaries.

It is an ideology that encourages the acceptance of, and propaganda for wage-labour, amongst individuals who have realised the exploitation and alienation that wage-labour entails. It is thus one of the highest forms of alienation.

Worship of the worker is found in various state ideologies, such as Stalinism and Nazism. Workers are honoured for their role as builders of the nation, the economy, capital.

Workerism is not an ideology that praises all wage labour, but one that promotes only "productive" labour. It in fact vilifies office workers and service industry workers and praises only those who are most closely involved in the reproduction of capital.

Workerism worships manual labour, the "work with hammers". Its vision of the proletarian is of the muscle-bound male. In rejecting office and shop work, it rejects a large part of female wage-workers, revealing itself as sexist.

Workerism has been present in the workers' movement from the beginning. The earliest workers societies were Christian inspired, and praised diligence thrift and hard work. These moralistic ideas linger on in workerism, which is a remaining bastion of Christian ideology within the working class.

The strongest proponents of workerism are not manual workers who have had no choice in their labour, but ex-marginals who make a moral decision to become a "revolutionary" manual worker. Their advocacy of workerism is a compensation for their lack of sureness about their own class status, and a moral condemnation of proletarians who are willing to make different choices.

In its theory, workerism sees revolution arising from an escalation of the day to day struggles of workers in capitalism. The history of revolutions contradicts this theory again and again. The French and Russian revolutions were triggered by women's struggles. The German and Portuguese revolutions were triggered by mutinies. The Paris 68 revolution was triggered by a student struggle. Workerism deals with history's falsification of its theory not by correcting the theory, but by the falsification of history. In each case the role played by non-workers is marginalised or denied. Revolutionary theory instead analyses the real events in order to understand the moments of weakness in capitalism.

Productive workers are said by workerists to hold a crucial position because they can, by withdrawing their labour, bring down capitalism. In fact the centrality of productive workers is exaggerated, as production is only one part of the cycle of accumulation. Workers involved in communication, distribution and circulation can also have a powerful lever. A strike of bank workers might have a stronger effect on capital than a strike of workers in a car factory. A wave of urban riots might have a stronger effect than either.

The search for crucial fractions within the proletariat, whose struggle is privileged, reveals a hierarchical perspective held by the workerist. It stems from the view that communism is a program already framed which just needs troops to put it into practise. This outlook is a hangover from antique socialism such as 2nd International style social democracy, or syndicalism. This type of theory sees class struggle as a form of (bourgeois) war, with foot-soldiers and generals. The "revolutionary" determines the programme, the workers put it into practise.

Workerism and intellectualism are opposites but are not opposed. They complement one another. Thought and action are separated, the workers must put the theorist's ideas into practise. Workerists often have their own critique of intellectuals, but this is only to be applied to other intellectuals, not the workerist himself. The workers must shun other intellectuals, but not the workerist, who pretends to be something other than a specialised thinker. Workerism maintains the opposition of thought and action, and the de facto privilege of thought, which are inherent in capitalism.

The revolutionary subject is not just productive workers, or even all workers. It is the proletariat, those without social power or social wealth, those who have nothing to lose but their chains. In addition non-proletarian strata can play a full part in revolutionary situation, if the proletariat is itself active. This is seen best of all in the revolutionary peasants involved in the Makhnovist movement, and in the communist communities set up during the Spanish civil war.

The aim of the communist movement is not a workers' state, or a proletarian dictatorship. It is the abolition of all classes in the human community created through anti-capitalist struggle.

This critique of workerism was written in 1995, but previously unpublished. Although we were not workerists as such, there was a tendency in that direction in some of our texts and attitudes so this is in part an self-critique.

One comment made in response to this text was that there is a reason the workerism "reveals itself as sexist". Workerism corresponds to a particular composition of capital, where the model family unit consists of a male factory worker and a stay-at-home wife. Workerism is sexist as it corresponds to a sexist (now superseded) composition of capital.

Taken from the Antagonism website.

This article was written in Britain in the early 90's, in the wake of the Gulf War (which the proletariat in Britain was largely apathetic to and which the radical minorities were unable to oppose) and at which point workplace struggles had reached an all time low. The following was an attempt to understand and come to terms with the level of defeat in the proletariat at that time (things really are only marginally better these few years later), particularly as the demoralisation of the proletariat in general was experienced on a personal level by the author. Although this was written in particular circumstances, the issues covered remain relevent, and this text is personally important as it represents the start of a break with the economistic or objectvist elements of Left Communism.

Since the early seventies, the proletariat in this country, as in much of the world, has been living under constantly deteriorating conditions. At certain stages, particularly in 79 and at the end of the 80's, a significant part of the class has fought back. But these reactions have really been rather feeble. And it has to be said that they were fairly soon defeated. Why is it that workers struggles in particular have achieved no notable victory in the last 15 years? If we are to talk in terms of decades we are surely talking about historical movement, not just some passing trend. I believe to understand the present conditions we must look at the socialist movements of the early years of this century and the radical theories which are associated with the 68 movement in France and elsewhere.

In the years leading up to World War 1, a powerful marxist movement developed in Europe, and especially in Germany. Basing their ideas on some of Engels' and Marx's writings, the political leaders of this movement believed it was possible to create socialism through the establishment of a socialist government. Some of their theorists believed that a gradual increase in wages (won through trade union action) would over time reduce profits to zero, and thereby introduce socialism. These ideas in some ways corresponded well with the real situation of the working class, where powerful unions had developed and which were able to win concessions from the ruling class.

At the same time as the development of this socialist movement, there developed widespread proletarian oppositon to capitalism, in many countries. There were several large strikewaves, and a series of assassinations of rulers. Violent and even terroristic actions were employed for such mild campaigns as the extention of voting rights to women. The main leaders of the various socialist movements were more or less opposed to the real proletarian movement. But the proletariat nevertheless utilised the unions and parties for ther own benefit. This primarily took the form of building proletarian community through the social aspects of the socialist movement, such as the party schools and clubs. The parliamentary activity of the social democratic movement was entirely outside and against the real proletarian movement, and was a major instrument of social democracy's integration into capitalism. Integration of the unions was inevitable due to their function of negotiation. But it would be wrong to write off the whole experience of social democracy as a capitalist conspiracy. The proletarian movement does not exist in one organisation or another, or one ideology or another, nor purely amongst non-party proletarians. The real movement groups sections of proletarians of many political tendencies, each of which have their own errors, or elements of capitalist ideolgy. The real proletarian movement, which has its spirit outside of organisations or ideology, is the only force which can correct these errors, but through action, not theorising.

This situation was radically altered by WWI. This war was in part a struggle between different imperialist powers for territory and markets. It was also an attack on the working class which had succeeded in gaining wages too high for capitalism to sustain indefinitely at this point, and which was becoming more and more uncontrollable. When the war started the socialist parties generally supported it. In the German Reichstag, both Karl Liebknecht and Otto Rühle at first voted in support of the war. Parties which opposed the conflict from the start included Bolsheviks and the Italian Socialist Party. Anarchists generally opposed the war; in Germany they were quickly hunted down and smashed. All these facts had a significant impact on the development of left-wing theory after the war.

What the first world war finally showed to many proletarians was that the old socialist movement was definitively counter-revolutionary. Its integration into capitlaism had been fought by the likes of Pannekoek and Luxembourg, but the war demonstrated the failure of their efforts. The trajectory of social democracy was determined by its political/union form. The left-wing opponents of "revisionism" did too little too late. Nonetheless, the theories these left-wingers developed, and the networks of oppositionists they formed, played a significant role later on. At the end of the war revolutions broke out in central and eastern Europe. The remains of the old socialist movement which had supported WWI, opposed these revolutions. The socialist parties which had opposed the war generally supported these revolutions but only with the intention of implementing their old programme of a socialist government.

In Germany and elsewhere some of those who had been members of the old socialist parties split from them during the war. Over time they developed radical critiques of these parties' theories and practice (based in part on their earlier attacks on "revisionism"); they were forced to do this by their history of being in the same party. These groups are sometimes called the "ultra-left".

The left-wing anarchist groups had the misfortune of having their theories proved more correct than the marxists by WWI. This meant that there was no impetus to develop new theories to understand the new era. Nonetheless the anarchists, together with the ultra-left were the strongest supporters of the revolutionary movement.

The ultra-left groups were at first in the Russian controlled Communist (or 3rd) International. They tried to work together with these partly reconstructed social democrats in developing new theories and practise. One important idea was the theory of decadence which was accepted by all fractions of the 3rd International. It stated that following the outbreak of WWI, capitalism was henceforth decadent. This meant that the capitalist mode of production was now a fetter on the development of productive forces. Capitalism was now no longer able to grant reforms. This meant the new era was one of war and revolutions. These opinions no doubt seemed fairly plausible in the aftermath of the first world war and with the first Communist seizure of power. The flip side of this theory was that the counter-revolutionary practise of the old socialist movement was viewed by the 3rd International as right for its time but now out of date and reactionary. This meant that the members of the 3rd International did not have to confront the reality of their former capitalist praxis, which probably aided the 3rd International's rapid development into an entirely capitalist force. Of course the theory of decadence was not taken up by the anarchist movement which, having rejected social democracy from the start, had no need of this psychological crutch. It may seem trivial to talk about the psychological resistance of radicals to changing their ideas, but there are many instances of a very slow or difficult development. For example Lenin famously believed the edition of the German socialists' newspaper which announced their support for the war to be a fake. It also took many radicals many years to alter their ideas about social democracy. It took Bordiga, the Italian Communist, until the nazi-soviet pact to realise that the revolution in Russia was completely defeated. A good personal account of a traumatic break with Trotskyism and Leninism can be found in 'The Russian Enigma' by Ante Ciliga.

Meanwhile back in the class struggle ... The unfolding of the revolution in Germany and the development of Bolshevik lead capitalism in Russia resulted in ultra-left splits from the 3rd International. The splitters (who later called themselves council communists) argued that parliaments and unions were capitalist and could not be used by revolutionaries. As time went by they added Bolshevism and political parties to this list. The revolutionary wave that followed world war one eventually subsided. The council communists, its most radical product, argued against the existence of mass organisations outside of a period of mass revolutionary struggle. Their organisations eventually fizzled away to nothing.

The working class remained organised in unions, and in socialist and Communist (Bolshevik) parties. All these were capitalist organisations. Far from being 'decadent', capitalism showed that it was still able to develop productive forces.

After WWII (which was fought for economic reasons) capitalism entered a long boom (which had ended definitively by 1972). The programme of capitalism in this period was based on that of the (de-radicalised) social democratic and communist parties. In Britain and other western countries the state implemented reforms and worked together with the unions. This compromise between capital and the representatives of the proletariat, ensured the growth of capital at a fast enough rate to allow a constantly rising standard of living for western proletarians. The implementation of reforms by the state, along with the continuing organisation of the working class in unions and left-wing parties helped preserve (and strengthen) working class illusions in trades unionism while simultaneously separating it from any radical critique.

In the 50's there were a number of proletarian uprisings in Eastern Europe. The totalitarian form of government together with the weakness in the economy lead to attacks on the entire national proletariat simultaneously. This resulted in proletarian resistance that was both unified and total.

The strength and flexibility of western capitalism forestalled any widespread revolt until 1968. This revolt was anticipated and theorised by the Situationist International. It was a revolt against alienation rather than the response to an economic attack by capital. It started amongst students but after these were involved with street battles with the police it spread first to other young proletarians and then to the mass of workers. It showed itself to be a modern and revolutionary movement by the fact that it formulated no demands as such. It did not aim at a dialogue with the bourgeoisie. The communist party and it's unions did however succeed in isolating most workers in 'their' enterprises and putting forward wage demands. The movement gave an impetus to the creation of radical groups in many countries, but these tended to degenerate into economistic marxist groups which, ironically, argued the 68 uprising was caused by the onset of an economic crisis (one which had hitherto gone unnoticed).

The 68 movement kicked off a wave of class confrontations around the world. With the oil crisis of 72, capitalism entered its long recession, giving an increased economic motive to revolts. The crisis was both effect and cause of the class struggle; brought on by proletarian revolt, it was simulataneously an important weapon in capital's arsenal. However as the conflicts continued, the radical groups which had been born out of the early struggles tended to disappear, or become smaller, more isolated and more dogmatic, or else went over to counter-revolutionary marxism.

By the end of the 70's in Britain the workers struggles had reached an extremely high level, with many wildcat strikes confronting the unions, the bosses and the Labour government. But there was almost no theoretical complement to this radical practise. The 79 movement was able to defeat the government's wage policy but not neutralise the states first counter attack, the 79 election. (If Labour had won, their wages policy would have been legitimised by democracy, enabling tougher measures against those opposing the policy). The new Conservative government had no connection with the unions and undertook to reduce union power in the state. It was able to carry out a planned assault on one stronghold of union and working class power, after another. The unions were of course not anticapitalist, but most militant workers still believed that these could advance their interests. Most wildcat strikes involved shop stewards or union branches going against the national bureaucracy. When the tories eliminated or neutralised trade unions in particular areas, far from unleashing a torrent of wildcat strikes no longer held back by this mediation, the workforces affected instead became less active. These workers experienced the defeat of the union as their own defeat. Although wildcat strikes were and are common, these are still generally mediated by rank-and-file unionism. The defeat of the revolutions following WWI meant that workers were largely separated from radical currents. The apparent success of the Labour party and unions had given them the illusion that these were still their organisations. With the Labour party attacks in the 70's and the unions' defeats in the 80's workers have tended to be left with no revolutionary theory or organisations, and no non-revolutionary theory or organisations either. This vacuum has so far lead to a gradually increasing mood of defeat within the working class. The only significant undefeated struggles since the 70's in Britain have been the intermittent riots and the anti-poll tax movement. Both of these have been struggles of the proletariat, not workers.

At the end of the 80's, the marxist capitalist states in Eastern Europe underwent a wave of mass struggles. Some of these struggles remained largely on the terrain of civil rights but some involved mass rioting and looting. The struggles managed to overthrow the Communist governments in country after country. The large numbers of proletarians engaged in these struggles, together with the defeat of these despotic governments, make those struggles appear to be working class victories. Unfortunately the opposite is true. These people's revolutions have merely introduced a moderated thatcherism into Eastern Europe, smashing the social wage, sacking inefficient (i.e. well-organised) workers. The people's revolutions were in any case prompted by the state itself (especially by Gorbachev and, in Romania, by the Securitate).

A reading of Marx, or council communism, or situationism, could make you expect that these peoples' revolutions would inevitably develop a proletarian content. Marx/council communism argues that as the revolution unfolds, the proletariat is forced to develop its more revolutionary praxis in order to assert its own interests. Situationism argues that the illusions Stalinism fostered were a weight that kept the proletariat passive. That shattering of these myths should have resulted in greater radicality in the proletariat. All these radical currents have been proved wrong on this point.

The defeat of Stalinism has been a totalitarian victory for capitalism. Whilst the world was split into two mutually hostile camps, one of which claimed to be proletarian, there was at least a choice as to how people could live. The destruction of Stalinism has just provided a massive propaganda victory for self-defined capitalism. Now unmasked capitalism, it seems, is the only society possible. In the west the defeat of Stalinism hasn't even significantly weakened the counter-revolutionary marxist left. In the east the political vacuum caused by the practical defeat and ideological implosion, has not been filled by anarchism or revolutionary communism, as some advocates of these tendencies predicted, but rather by resurgent fascism.

This article has rambled a bit so I'll restate the main points here. Various radical theories including Marx, council communism and situationism have predicted the imminent opening of a revolutionary period. These predictions have not only been disproved in fact, but these analyses have shown themselves to be wrong. The defeat by free-market capitalism of left-wing capitalist organisations and ideologies which were mistakenly believed to be anticapitalist has not proved to be any kind of victory for the proletariat. The (relative) defeat of Labourism and Stalinism has not prepared the way for revolutionary praxis but has just resulted in the demoralisation of the proletariat. We are not in a revolutionary period nor does it seem we are about to enter one. This perhaps bitter realisation should have significant consequences for the activities of radical minorities.

Afterword on the unions
At this point in time it is possible to trace a whole historical arc in the union movement. Unions were in the first place created by workers to defend their own interests. The practise of negotiation meant that they needed to be recognised by the bosses. So unions tended to defend only the interests of workers within capitalism, as variable capital. Unions, over a period of time, came to be an institution of discipline for the working class. Certainly by the 1900's, and often much earlier, unions were percieved by the elements of the capitalist class as acting in there interests, ensuring order in the workplace, in return for negotiation rights. From the 1930's onwards, widespread unionisation was a deliberate tactic of capital. This has ensured a relative end to revolutionary struggle in the most advanced countries. The position from the eighties onward has been that workers have been sufficiently defeated that unions are no longer as greatly needed as in ealier periods. Capitalism has been pursuing a slow policy of de-unionisation, as funding union structures is an unneccessary expense. In addition, unions, as a fraction of capital, have a different set of interests to finance capital especially.

Taken from the Antagonism website.

This article is an attempt at communication with individuals and groups involved in subversive activity. The background of all present radical struggles is an attack on the social relation of capital, whether or not this is realised by the participants. The destruction of modern global conditions implies a global struggle; the only terrain on which a world-wide struggle can be fought is one which centres on a global class. The success of all or any of the partial struggles now being fought (over wages, squatting, environmental defence, work refusal etc.) means an extension and integration of proletarian struggle. An understanding of class relationships, although useless on its own, can lead to a greater effectiveness of our own struggles. This analysis has been developed out of practical experience. It is hoped that it may have practical results, that it is not theory separate from practise.

I have found that apparently minor disagreements on class analysis (such as whether teachers are middle class or working class) can turn out after much discussion to rely on very basic disagreements as to how the world is. In particular, disagreements on the nature of truth. Therefore it is necessary to start at a very basic level. My own understanding of the world is materialist. But I don't plan to waste much time arguing materialism versus idealism. The opposing world views are so far apart that there is no common ground to argue from. I will state though that the world is made and remade by material forces not by ideas. For instance, it may be or may not be the case that your ideas change after reading this. But any such change would be totally irrelevant if your actions, your behaviour do not change as well. In any case, ideas are not changed merely by the reading of some article, but in the context of some wider experience. If that were not the case then everyone reading the same stuff would end up thinking the same thing, which certainly isn't what happens.

Where is your truth, when god is dead?
In some societies such as Europe in Medieval Times, and perhaps in some modern theocracies, it was the case that truth was something that appeared to come from outside of society. Certain important disputes were argued out and decided upon according to a fixed official truth. In Medieval Europe the fixed truth was the scriptures. The particular interpretation of the "fixed truth" might in fact be determined according to interests of the most powerful groups in society, but it was nevertheless the case that there existed some reference point around which important disputes would turn. In particular, revolutionary class struggles in the Middle Ages seemed always to have religious disagreements that corresponded to the opposing class forces. (For instance, the Muenster commune was created by Anabaptists, the Taborites were also protestants who fought against the established church, and the various class forces in the English civil war also had their own religious sects.)

This state of affairs was smashed by the bourgeois revolution. God was ripped from the centre of society leaving a vacuum that cannot be filled by a constantly developing science. With no generally accepted truth, new opposing truths are developed by contradictory sections of society. Nowhere is this more obviously so than in the area of class theory.

One current capitalist version of class theory is based on sociology. With this method, society is categorised according to type of occupation, education, and salary. In one variant, skilled workers are categorised as C2's, for example. This class analysis is used most especially by the advertising industry. In order to maximise sales, advertising is aimed at particular groups. More interestingly, this type of analysis is also used by political parties in order to maximise the efficiency of their campaigning. In Britain, the C2's are seen by most political pundits as a crucial territory on which to fight. People lower down the scale might have a tendency to vote Labour, those higher up Conservative. Skilled workers are a significant group where careful campaigning and policy making can tip the scales one way or the other. The Conservative policies of selling off council houses, mortgage relief and of widespread share issues, were deliberately aimed at this group. Their use of the sociological class analysis has been crucial to their continued grip on power. This theory is therefore certainly true; it corresponds in an exact way with the real world. But it is only true for capitalist forces. It corresponds to their worldview, it is useful for them to plan their strategies against us. It is true, but true only for the capitalist class in the maintenance of its power. We need class theory for an entirely different reason. We wish to understand this society in order to destroy it. Therefore our theory must be based not on the scientific notion of categorising differentiable strata, but instead on the active relationship of different groups, with each other, and with capitalism and the struggle against it.

Class in history
Every civilised society has been a class society. Each of these societies has based its civilisation, its culture, its technology, on the oppression of the majority by a minority. The earliest civilisations were based on open class power. The main productive class were the slaves, who originally were kidnapped from free communities or rival civilised societies. Over time, the master slave relationship became accepted by both parties as normal, and the slaves participated in the reproduction of their slavery.

In more recent times, the place of the slave class was taken by that of the peasant. The peasants lived in their own village communities. But these communities were not the free communities that existed before (or outside of) civilisation. The communities were dominated by the power of the lord, the church, and eventually the state. These forces were external to the agrarian community but none the less played an important role within it. The lord was the protector of the community (providing a form of protection that is usually associated with organised crime), the peasants worked perhaps one day a week on his lands in return for his care. This relationship, also tended to become accepted, and both lord and peasant recognised a system of complementary rights and duties.

Previous historical societies had class relationships that were very different from today's. But these relationships are also recognisable. Workers are often referred to as wage-slaves, and although, workers are not bought and sold, but are legally free, this phrase has some obvious reality to it. How do we relate our own class oppression to the class oppression of our ancestors? What is the common factor in all systems of class domination? The answer, which is both obvious and commonly denied is the existence of social power. In all class societies, the members of the lowest class have their power alienated from them in one way or another. This alienated power is wielded by the ruling class and their functionaries. In ancient societies, the power of the slave was alienated absolutely, so that the slave was an object, a simple commodity to be bought and sold, a dog to be kicked. The peasant on the other hand, was allowed a measure of social autonomy, within strict limits. Today the alienated power of the majority is wielded especially by the functionaries of capital and by the agents of state and spectacle. This use of alienated social power is an active relationship with those it is used against.

"Marxism"
The society we live in is capitalist, characterised by wage labour, a centralised state, commodity production, the accumulation of capital. Can we still talk of class being determined by power in this society? The first "coherent" class analysis I came across was a Trotskyist version, touted by the Workers Revolutionary Party, the then official British section of the 4th International. The class theory they put across was that class position is determined by whether or not a person owned capital. Those that owned a large amount are the bourgeoisie, those who own a small amount, petty bourgeois, the rest of us working class. This theory (which is held by many more or less marxist groups) obviously has a lot going for it. Ownership of capital definitely is important in capitalist society! But the theory also has serious flaws in it. The biggest problem was revealed by the WRP's analysis of the Soviet Union. The USSR had all the typical social relations of capitalism; wage-labour, commodity production, etc. However it did not have a class of people who owned capital. The position of the WRP was therefore that the USSR did not have a capitalist class and was a form of worker's state. The idiocy of this position does not come from the WRP misusing the theory, but from the theory itself. A class analysis that looks only at whether individuals own capital or not to determine their class position, is worse than useless. It provides a theoretical justification for supporting particular states which are in every way capitalist. It fails to locate the real fault lines in all modern societies.

Ownership of capital is a crucial determinant of class; if you own a large amount of capital you are a capitalist. But it is incorrect to turn this statement round. It is not true that not owning capital makes you proletarian. The Soviet Union was a capitalist state with a class society. The class contradiction was not one of ownership against non-ownership, it was one of possession of social power against powerlessness. The ruling class, the capitalist class of the USSR were the top managers who commanded its economy, its state and its ideological apparatus. The intermediate class between capital and labour was primarily that of the lower managers, whose job it was to rule the enterprises on a day to day basis.1 This recognition of the forms of class power in the USSR leads us directly to an examination of so-called mixed economies such as Britain. In Britain too there is state ownership of certain industries. Certainly traditional bourgeois benefit from these industries (through the advantages of planning, or subsidies etc) but these industries are not capitalist by proxy. State industries are in no way "socialist" (in the non capitalist sense). The nationalised industries use wage-labour in order to produce and accumulate surplus value; this is the very essence of capitalist production relations. The individuals who run these industries are themselves a part of the capitalist class in their own right. Finally we look at private enterprises. The stereotypical description of a capitalist enterprise is of a factory owned by a capitalist who controls it directly. This quaint vision must be well over a century out of date (in as much as it was ever really accurate). Typical private enterprises today are owned collectively by capital, through multiple share ownership by both individuals and institutions. They are not operated primarily by individual bourgeois but by top managers. In free market societies, as in state controlled societies, the capitalist class includes top managers, the middle class includes lower managers. In the free market these strata exist along side private capitalists and petty bourgeois. The bourgeoisie, the owners of capital, are ruling class not because they are rich and we aren't. The bourgeoisie are ruling class because their ownership of capital gives them certain rights, abilities, power over productive forces (including variable capital, i.e. their employees). Ownership of capital is only a form of class power that appears in particular variants of capitalism. It has its own characteristics but also has some continuity with other forms of domination, just as the proletarian condition has similarities (as well as differences) to historical forms of subjugation.

Wages
I will mention another variety of false class theory. Sometimes, it is claimed that class is determined by the amount of wages that a person receives. Now, there is a class difference between the rich and the poor, but this is not due to wage differentials. A class analysis based on wage differences would result in "an infinity of classes". There would also be the problem with differences in wages paid in different regions; either we have regional class differences or regional variations in class analyses. Silly. More to the point such a theory fails to understand what wage differences are about. At one level, wages are determined by the class war, with higher wages reflecting successful struggle by workers. But this is only one side of the story as wages are determined within the context of the capitalist system. In part they reflect the different exchange value of different forms of labour power; some people are paid more because their labour power is more expensive to reproduce. More commonly, wages vary due to fluctuations in the labour market, reflecting supply and demand for different types of labour. Most importantly, wage differentials are deliberately created by capital in order to divide the proletariat. The class is divided by jealousy or elitism, against itself. Basing a class analysis on wage differentials means taking artificial divisions created by capitalism to ensure its own survival, and then deliberately accentuating them. Such theory does capitalism's work for it, and against us.

Communist analyses
The class analyses I have criticised so far have been essentially, or absolutely, counterrevolutionary. They are used more or less consciously to defend capitalism (though not in each individual instance of their use). There are also class analyses produced by revolutionary currents which I believe are incorrect. Jean Barrot's "Capitalism & Communism", which appeared in "Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement", is perhaps the best introduction to communist theory. Especially because it recognises the limitations of theory, and the poverty of what normally passes as theoretical activity. His description of what the proletariat is, for the most part, is an excellent modernisation/generalisation of Marx's theory. One position I disagree with though, is his characterisation of the proletariat as "those who have no reserves". Barrot attributes this phrase to the Left Communist Bordiga but says his purpose was to go back to "the general definition". The function of this definition in Barrot's theory, is to make the struggle of the proletariat primarily a struggle against economic oppression. The class struggle then becomes a function of the ill health of capital. This process is obviously a major source of class composition and class struggle, but is far from adequate to describe the proletariat. If we accept this definition, then we should also accept the arguments of those sociologists, who (especially in the 60's & 70's) declared that the proletariat no longer existed in the developed countries. We should also accept the arguments of liberals and Trotskyists, that revolution is now located in the third world. The Trotskyists say this because western workers are a labour aristocracy and the real proletariat are the impoverished workers overseas. The liberals say it because the west is their (imperfect) paradise, and the third world countries need a democratic revolution to achieve our own general conditions of existence. Barrot recognises alienation as a producer of the proletariat but makes too much of the economic imperatives. Barrot is being too economistic in fact. If we go back to "Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Introduction" as Barrot recommends, we see that "the proletariat .. is ... formed ...from the mass of people issuing from society's acute disintegration and in particular from the ranks of the middle class". This identification of the middle class origin of the proletariat ties in with comments in the "Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts" on the workers alienation from the product of their labour.

"...man reproduces himself not only intellectually, in his consciousness, but actively and actually, and he can therefore contemplate himself in a world he himself created. In tearing away the object of his production from man, estranged labour therefore tears away from him his species-life..."

This idea that workers (who might be women or men) create themselves in the creation of their product, is almost incomprehensible in really modern industry. Most workers hardly see the product they collectively produce. Where they are really directly involved in its production, then the division of labour is so acute, that they have no room to assert their individuality in the productive process. This was not true in Marx's day. At this time, petty-bourgeois producers were being collected together to produce as proletarians for a single capitalist in manufacturing. Or else petty-bourgeois or manufacturing workers were being collected together in the new social institution of the factory. These new proletarians, issuing from the disintegration of middle-class society, would really have directly felt the alienation of the product of their labour, which previously they themselves would have owned, but which now was possessed by the capitalist. From this we can see the importance of alienation, ahead of impoverishment in Marx's theory, as well as the archaic form of alienation which he talked of in the above passage. Alienation is still the crucial pre-condition for the proletariat, but today takes on yet more acute forms. Nowadays, the worker is alienated from their product to the degree that they hardly recognise it as their own product. The process of producing yourself through your product is itself an almost alien concept. It belongs to another world.

If in general, we can say that Marx's class theory was correct for its time, we should also point out his most spectacular failure in class analysis. In Statism and Anarchy, Bakunin had written that

"former workers .. as soon as they have become rulers and representatives, cease to be workers .. and look down on the whole common workers' world from the height of the state. They will no longer represent the common people but only their own claims to rule them."

Marx responded that workers, as representatives or governors, cease to be workers "as little as a factory owner today ceases to be a capitalist if he becomes a municipal councillor" Here Marx misses the point disastrously. Proletarians are defined by their alienation, just as bourgeois are defined by their possession of capital. Factory owners are not proletarianised by the assumption of even greater alienated social power. But proletarians cease to be such when they become representatives, because they take on the power that a ruler or representative possess by definition. Marx is useful where he talks about alienation or political economy, but his politics (and activity) were mostly bourgeois.

Class theory and its use
So far a way of determining the class position of different groups in society has been identified, by analysing the amount of social power that they wield. But it has not yet been said what this characterisation means, how it helps us. The utility of class analysis is in identifying the material interests of different social groups, both in the day to day running of capital, and in the on going struggle against it. The main reason why the proletariat is so often identified as the revolutionary class, is precisely because it has no material interest in the maintenance of capitalism, either immediately or in the long term. The capitalist class, both owners and top managers, are the class that directly benefits from the present society, and will organise whatever measures are necessary to ensure its continued existence. The middle class, be they petty bourgeois, peasants or the new middle class, are society's leftovers.

The middle class are both exploiter and exploited, or they are neither; they have some small privilege but no real security. Proletarianisation is a constant imminent danger for the middle class, and something they always fight to prevent. This struggle can be reactionary where it means a struggle against the proletariat to defend middle class position. But it can potentially be revolutionary when it is a struggle against capital's encroachment, and can lead to united action with the proletariat. In general, the middle class are only defined by their position in this society, and not by their struggles. This is because this class has no clear class interest in or against capital, and so never struggles as a class.

The proletariat is defined first of all by its dispossession. It exists as a negativity, as something alienated from this society, and which can never be wholly integrated. These radical chains lead to radical struggle. Proletarian struggles are always anti-capitalist (in potential) because the proletariat can find no liberation within capitalism. Its struggle therefore tends towards an all out struggle against capital. This tendency comes to the fore only too rarely. Most of the time the proletariat exists primarily as a class defined by capitalism. Only through struggle can it form itself into a community consciously opposed to capitalism. The material conditions of existence of the class precede radical class consciousness.

The capitalist class is a small minority of the world population. Capitalism requires competition and therefore struggles between rival capitals. The capitalist class can therefore never be fully unified. However, capitalists must struggle not only against themselves, but also against all the other classes. The ruling class is under permanent assault from many directions. This results in a high degree of class consciousness possessed by the capitalist class. When a powerful anti-capitalist struggle breaks out, rival capitals can temporarily bury the hatchet and act in concert against the proletariat. The usual stereotype of the bourgeois is of a fat, top-hatted oaf, smoking a large cigar. It should be realised that the ruling class is small, fast and ruthless.

So who are our enemies; just the capitalist class or both they and the middle class? When it comes down to it the answer is: neither. What really destroys us is not the rich or their functionaries, it is the social relations of capitalism. It is the accumulation of capital, wage labour, social isolation, the state, borders, and more besides, that we are really need to do away with. In as much as the capitalist class, the middle class, or even the working class defend these relationships they act against our own liberation and the liberation of humanity as a whole. The point about class analysis, is that we can see who is most likely to defend these relations, and who is most likely to attack them. I once had a talk with someone who said that we should reopen Auschwitz and exterminate the richest 2% in this country. This kind of extremism has a sort of gut appeal. But there were a couple of problems. One was that this guy was a South African fascist who identified himself as an Anglo-Saxon. He argued that apartheid was more strongly established in the UK than it then was in South Africa, and that the ruling class was entirely of Norman origins. His wish to wipe out the rich was akin to the Nazi extermination of (Jewish) finance capitalists. The second problem was the industrial, and therefore capitalist, nature of his solution. The reason that we can't use prisons, concentration camps, or even firing squads for our liberation is not that we are liberals who respect an absolute right to life. It's because these are dehumanising institutions for the jailers as well as the condemned. Rebel violence can be liberating, but can never be institutional. We use enough violence to achieve our aims; we need to create a new community out of our struggle, hopefully as many people as possible can be integrated into this human community as rapidly as possible. As the revolution develops, more and more people will be attracted to it. We aim to unite with whoever really shares our struggle no matter what role they play under normal conditions. The situationist Ratgeb/Vaneigem expressed this brilliantly: "Doesn't it give you a certain sense of pleasure to think how, some day soon, you will be able to treat as human beings those cops whom it will not have been necessary to kill on the spot?"

Back to reality
This article has presented a theory, an analytical tool. But it has done it in a too abstract way. Where did these thoughts come from, a book, a discussion, a dream? These ideas did not appear fully formed but have been put together by me from my own experiences in this society, and my own experiences in my struggle against it, as well as from talking with other radicals and reading different books . This is a process started perhaps fifteen years ago and still continuing (though my ideas on class have only changed in details in the last eight years, say). I will retell some of my own experiences, so that you can understand more where I am coming from, and to bring this down to earth a bit more.

"But Teacher!"
My first involvement in any collective class struggle was at age eleven. At that time I was going to the comprehensive school on the council estate where I lived. Most of the kids there were working class, or else they were lower middle class. (Of course they all had similar amounts of social power, none, but where people are "temporarily" outside of the cycle of accumulation, it is probably sensible to look at their class background.) That year there were a number of teachers' strikes which resulted in some disruption of classes. We even got sent home early a couple of times, which was brilliant. Some kid, with a good sense of humour, had the idea that we should all go on strike "in support" of the teachers. Basically we just all met up at the tennis courts and didn't return to lessons. What was the reaction of the teachers to this mass "support" for their cause? They made no attempt at fraternisation with us. Their only response was to try to get us to return to normal passivity. One vision that stays with me is of one of the teachers, a leftwinger, fighting with one of the fifth years to prevent him joining our strike. All the teachers, and all the pupils recognised the true situation, that there could be no unity between the students and staff, only class conflict. Teachers, as part of their job, have a role in supervising and disciplining pupils. They also disseminate capitalist propaganda. Their role is one of socialising school kids into capitalist normality, the five day week, obeying orders; even the more or less useful stuff such as teaching kids to read is carried out because capitalism needs an educated workforce. Teachers, at least those who work in compulsory education, are part of the middle class, because of the direct power they wield and because of their role in perpetuating ruling class ideology (although they are not major players in this field). Of course teachers do engage in collective class struggle. When these struggles are not aimed at protecting their "status", but are for a wage increase say, then we can even see some sort of "proletarian" content. But struggles that go against this society, struggles which hold the seeds of capitalism's destruction, are those that are expansive, which tend to unite more and more people. Teachers are, through their social position, divided against a large part of the proletariat (schoolkids) and they will have to go that much further to break from their social position. This doesn't mean that there can't be some individuals who are more strongly against their official role, I certainly have met a couple of teachers who have been involved in riots for instance. But class analysis is not useful for predicting the behaviour of each individual in a certain class position, only the general characteristics of that group as a whole. I should add here that there are certain categories of teachers, those who do not work in the compulsory sector and who are not deeply involved in the reproduction of ruling ideology, who are probably proletarian, or at least much closer to that condition. I'm thinking in particular of those that work in community education colleges, and some of those that do workplace training. This is not because I want to make some exception, perhaps for someone I know, but because they do not possess the criteria that make them middle class; i.e. capital, power, a significant spectacular function. This lack of homogeneity, sameness, is not just restricted to teachers, but appears in almost any sociological grouping. I will say again, sociology, the identification and classification of separate groups in society, is of no use as a basis for radical class analysis.

It's Official
I have worked only in the non unionised private sector, or in temporary or casual jobs. This, together with the fact that I had a basic anarchist critique of unions before I left school, has meant that I have never been a union member. To me they have always seemed organisations of this society, not things outside or against it. This has meant that much of my criticism of unions has been second hand, based on the experiences of friends, family and comrades as well as stuff I have read. I have only come into conflict with unions in certain large workers' struggles, and first of all that against News International 1986 - 1987. This struggle started when the majority of the workforce was sacked. The union tried to keep things legal and peaceful, supposedly trying to win over public opinion. The struggle of the sacked printers, local youths, and extremists was continuingly violent, aimed at the cops, scabs and NI property. The police tactics were also very violent. The top bureaucrats of course condemned any violent action by the pickets (but not the cops) over their PA. This surprised no one of course. What particularly struck me were the actions of the steward in charge of the picket, Mike Hicks. He not only condemned the violence, even that in self-defence, but called anyone attacking the police, "agent provocateurs" (i.e. police agents). He also physically attacked people who argued for this type of action. These counterrevolutionary actions were carried out not by the top union bureaucrats, but by a low level official. Hicks himself was a Stalinist, and so a more or less conscious counterrevolutionary. But his actions are not so far removed from that other union officials. Unions are capitalist institutions which have as their function the representation of variable capital, i.e. workers. They negotiate the rate or form of exploitation, according to their own interests (they need, from time to time to demonstrate their usefulness to both boss and worker). They are entirely part of the present system and can only attempt to repress any struggle that goes against this system. Union officials, at all levels, are in the belly of the beast, and are in fact separated from the proletariat. This is due to the increased social power that they enjoy. Their middle class nature can be seen by the fact that despite often being the most militant of workers on day to day issues, in the more bitter struggles they always play a conservative role, pulled three ways trying to represent the workers, the union, and the manager or boss.

Growing up in a working class environment, I gained a hatred for the police before gaining any formal radical politics. Friends and family were arrested or imprisoned, the pigs came round our house to check up on us, we were stopped and hassled in the street, they came to our school to indoctrinate us. The "marxist" class theory, that just looks at the relationship to capital, defines the police as proletarian, because cops don't own any means of production. Some groups run with this result, and call for the unionisation of the police (in Germany, unionised cops have been on strike for more repressive powers). Other groups find it embarrassing to define pigs as working class, and twist their theory to correct this one error. In reality, police are middle class, and not because they are the exception to the rule. They are the purest example of holders of alienated social power. Those radicals who call teachers or shop stewards "soft cops" hit the nail on the head; these other middle class groups are only a diluted form of the archetype.

Contradictions
I have pointed out contradictions or capitalist interests in certain class theories. I can't however claim that the one I have presented can unerringly categorise every individual. One problem area is that of "housewives" or other full-time unpaid carers. (The role of the stereotypical housewife, who stays at home, looking after the house and the kids, has gone into decline since the sixties. This is due both to women's struggle, and to capitalist restructuring, away from the model of factory and stable nuclear family. But this role is still something of an archetype for women in this society.) "Housewives" and other carers perform labour in the context of a capitalist society. They produce and reproduce the commodity of labour power. The work they do is productive labour appropriated by capital as surplus value. Having said this, the category of "housewives", like the category of wage labourers, is not homogenous. Just as some wage labourers are middle class because of the social power they wield, so it is with "housewives" as well. These at first glance all appear to have the same social power and so all appear to be of the same class. It would be wrong to argue this way. As hinted at in the discussion above on school kids, in these areas, where the means of subsistence aren't paid directly as a wage for work done, it is often necessary to look at the "class background" of the people involved. So that if a woman who doesn't go out to work is married to a middle class man, it is probably reasonable to say that she is middle class too. She would certainly share some of his material interests, and therefore consciousness. It is still the case that "housewives" don't have any direct usage of social power, and are effectively unpaid workers, so this may mean a downward pressure on class position, a partial proletarianisation. I am aware that this is a weakness in the class analysis I have put forward. There are other difficulties that now arise. What happens when a couple are from two different classes, say one a manager, the other a non-supervisory worker? From the example on housewives, we would have to say that the non-supervisory worker is elevated into the middle-class. If this is starting to get silly, it is not because the class analysis is totally wrong, it is because this is the wrong way to use it. Classes are social phenomenon, that are created in the mutual antagonism inherent in exploitative society. Using class analysis to analyse individual people in isolation is a moralistic endeavour, not a radical one. This is an important fact that many leftists totally ignore. For them the ability to individually "analyse" and condemn particular political enemies (or justify themselves) is their only reason for using class theory.

Class Community
Class is a social relation amongst large groups in society. It is not an object open to scientific analysis but exists in the conflict between classes. These class conflicts are power struggles primarily between a minority of possessors of social power and a majority whose social power is alienated from them. In capitalist society, alienation takes on specific forms. These include direct authority relationships, capital, and the spectacle. The function of, and need for a class theory is to understand how to destroy capitalist society by and through the creation of anti-capitalist modes of living. The revolutionary proletarian struggle is not an attempt to raise the proletariat to the position of a ruling class, but to abolish all classes through the destruction of capitalist social relations. The real communist movement is our struggle, the community we create through struggle against the social relations that destroy us. Communist or anarchist society is the victory of this real social movement, the generalisation of this human community.

Taken from the Antagonism website.

• 1Although Marx's Capital was written half a century before state-capitalism started masquerading as socialism, some of Marx's comments still throw light on the social situation that existed in Russia. "An industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires, like a real army, officers (managers), and sergeants (foremen, onlookers), who, while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist." and "It is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist. The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital..." volume 1, page 314, Lawrence & Wishart.

The following text was handed out at a meeting of communists in London. It proved to be slightly too pessimistic on the question of "provocative actions". It also has a somewhat sociological view of class.

This article about various issues to do with the Criminal Justice Bill was not written for any particular audience but as a way to help me straighten out what I think. Therefore some of it might seem insultingly obvious while other parts are dealt with too briefly. Tough!

The Criminal Justice Bill (CJB) is the latest in a long line of openly repressive legislation brought in by the Conservative government. In the early 80's a lot of legislation was directed at Trade Unions. This forced the unions to keep a tighter leash on their members, in particular the unions are now much less likely to support strikes by workers which are violent or involve solidarity action or are a spontaneous action. In other words, unions now oppose just about any effective action by workers.

Partly due to the relative defeat of the unions (which aren't anticapitalist but are anti-Tory, a bit) and of workers, the most important struggles under the Tories have been fought away from places of work. This is one reason why repressive legislation in recent years has been directed at strengthening police action, especially in cases of 'public order'. The CJB continues this trend but also targets specific struggles and oppositional lifestyles eg hunt sabs, anti-road movements, travellers and ravers. In short there can be no doubt that this legislation is a very specific attack on combatative elements of the proletariat. Radicals, that is those who would be revolutionaries, should obviously be in solidarity with those proletarians under attack and those proletarians who wish to combat the measures this legislation incorporates. But opposition to legislation is problematic. For those who want to see an end to capitalism and the state, all laws are bad and all politicians are our enemies. We have nothing to say to these scum. We sometimes choose to oppose specific laws, but this is not on the level of a campaign for better law, but is practical opposition which makes the law unenforceable. Obviously we want to make all laws unenforceable, but where there is widespread proletarian opposition specific legislation can be defeated outside of a generalised revolutionary situation. A good example of this is the poll tax. Now various liberals and leftists and also 'non-political' types certainly did mount a campaign against this. They wrote letters to their MP's, trying to make them realise they were mistaken, they tried to get Labour councils not to collect (ha ha!), they tried to win over public opinion. But it was not this campaign that defeated the poll tax, it was the widespread proletarian resistance of non-payment, rioting and looting. Some radicals may not wish to involve themselves in opposition to the CJB. They might argue that it is a campaign, or that it is reformist (or probably both). These arguments are just red herrings. Of course there is a campaign against the CJB. So what? There was also a campaign against the poll tax, a campaign in support of sacked printers at Wapping and campaign in support of the miners in 84-85. If a revolutionary situation ever develops there will no doubt be a leftist campaign in support of workers' councils and communism (TUC, Get Off Your Knees!). The existence of a campaign is no excuse for not getting involved in a struggle, we just don't get involved in the campaign.

The argument that we shouldn't involve ourselves in opposition to the bill because that would be reformist, is even more wrong. Firstly the opposition is not reformist. Reformism was a strategy of the old workers movement. Up until the first world war, many socialists believed that socialism could be introduced gradually by socialist legislation and incremental gains won by unions. The first world war divided the tactics of the reformists from the desire for socialism. Everyone who wanted to destroy capitalism left the old movement. Nowadays there is no reformist movement. What is wrong with the Labour party and the unions is not that they use the wrong tactics but that they are capitalist. An example; in the old socialist movement it was believed that a gradual increase in wages would over time eliminate profits. Nowadays the labour movement accepts that pay rises must not threaten the ability of an enterprise to turn a profit. The old socialist movement was disastrously wrong but still had a proletarian element in its theory. The 'socialist' movement of today is not socialist or anything like it.

Some people might use the word 'reformist' to mean something other than a reformist socialist movement. They might say Charter 88 is reformist. Charter 88 wants to introduce a bill of rights and a written constitution to Britain. In other words they want to make the UK's democratic superstructure more like the USA's. But if this is reformist then so are the Tories, who also try to make Britain more like the USA, especially in terms of economic and social legislation. If Charter 88 is reformist then any organisation with any gradualist programme is reformist and the word is meaningless (in which case saying a struggle is reformist doesn't have much meaning either). Having said that, even if there was a reformist movement, the opposition to the CJB would still not be reformist. It is opposition, it is not aiming to turn the state socialist or whatever, if it has any programme it is to stop things getting worse. Such a struggle is in no way reformist. Obviously it isn't a revolutionary struggle either, it is a struggle of self-defence.

A final comment on reformism. The old reformist socialist movement fought battles for more wages and for cuts in hours. In that context these battles were reformist. Radicals were correct in supporting these struggles but not in spreading reformist ideology. Even if the opposition to the CJB was reformist, that in itself is not reason enough to ignore it.

None of this resolves what radicals should actually do. One thing is to adopt the classic anarchist tactic of ignoring the law. That is continue as if no new legislation is introduced and meet any resulting repression head on. This is of course what many proletarians will do anyway. We should publicise this as a course of action. However this tactic is limited. It lets the state make all the running. A more controversial tactic would be to mount provocative actions such as mass trespasses. Realistically these actions are likely to be organised by the campaigners who wish to demonstrate the badness of the law. These actions will be publicised as non-violent events. I am not sure as to how useful these provocative actions will be. They certainly put initiative back in the hands of the opposition but they seem unlikely to strengthen the autonomy or revolutionary consciousness of proletarians. One problem of these actions organised as part of the campaign is that by joining in we may strengthen the campaigners claim to represent the opposition. Similarly we might strengthen non-violent ideology which is in vogue amongst some proles at the moment. Non-violence can sometimes win some gains (many successful strikes are non-violent) but it always involves a tacit agreement with the police. If the non-violent action is very strong and the state does not want to give in, then the police will always use violence anyway, wherever they see it as useful. Respectable middle class campaigns can consistently use non-violence because they do not intend to threaten the state. The respectable middle class support democracy and the rule of law. The respectable middle class and the police recognise each other as supporters. They have class solidarity. The campaign that brings them into conflict is seen by both sides as a minor disagreement. When proletarians come into conflict with the police this is seen by both sides, more or less clearly as another episode in an ongoing inevitable struggle. Both pigs and proletarians use specific struggles to settle old scores. It has been argued by Midnight Notes that the police accept non-violence from the middle class because the police do not want to damage their labour power. I believe this is incorrect; it seems improbable that the police decide which tactics to use by carrying out a marxist analysis of the their opponents' labour power in a given conflict. In any case if they did do this they would attack pensioners and the disabled with the greatest violence and treat teenage proletarians with relative delicacy. This is not what happens in real life.

Non-violent struggles are often appropriate for the middle class but are much less so for proletarians, partly because the police hate us. What this means for the opposition to the CJB is that carrying out or joining provocative actions like trespasses is going to be very problematic. Either we are in danger of just joining the campaign or else we are in danger of getting our heads kicked in!

Taken from the Antagonism website.

This leaflet was produced for a demonstration against the Criminal Justice Bill. The demonstration ended in a riot. Although the bill was passed into law, the movement of opposition to it was an important episode in the formation of the "anti-capitalist movement".

The Criminal Justice Bill (CJB) is the latest in a long line of openly repressive legislation brought in by the Conservative government. In the early 80's a lot of legislation was directed at Trade Unions. This forced the unions to take a greater part in preventing effective struggles by workers. Partly due to the marginalisation of the unions (which aren't anticapitalist but are anti-Tory, a bit) and the relative defeat of workers, the most important struggles under the Tories have been fought away from places of work (e.g. the anti Poll Tax movement). This is one reason why repressive legislation in recent years has been directed at strengthening police action, especially in cases of 'public order'. The CJB continues this trend but also targets specific struggles and oppositional lifestyles eg hunt sabs, anti-road movements, squatters, travellers and ravers. This legislation is a very specific attack on combatative elements of the proletariat.

The government wants this legislation to neutralise the anti-roads movement which has become an expensive break on its road building programme. The attacks on squatters and travellers are attempts to force these people into the housing market (pushing up rents), and also the jobs market (pushing down wages). Attacking rave culture is also partly an attempt to force people into a more profit-friendly normality. All the targeted groups are also hate figures for middle class tory voters, and their loyalty is encouraged by this kind of legislation.

Many left wing and liberal groups have jumped on the anti CJB bandwagon. These people encourage pathetic, dreary tactics like writing to MP's and campaigning for better laws, or for civil rights, or for a written constitution. (They also want us to give them our time and our money.) But all of these things are only helpful to liberals and leftists, not to those attacked by this and similar legislation. These tactics help politicians and journalists and lawyers; they don't help proletarians, that is, people without power or wealth.

The liberals and leftists want us to campaign for various rights which would be guaranteed by law. They don't want us to actually do the things these rights are supposed to allow us to do. They want a right of assembly; but they don't want working class people to actually get together for they're own purposes. They want a right to freedom of movement, but they don't want us going just where we want. They want a right to free speech, but they don't want to hear what we think of them.

Instead of asking politicians for this or that right, we should just get on and do what we want. We shouldn't beg for the right to assembly but just gather where and when and for what purpose we want. We shouldn't ask for the right to protest or to strike, we should just use whatever forms of struggle are most effective at beating our enemies.

Many people who oppose the CJB support the ideology of Non-Violence, and argue that we should not use violence under any circumstances. Some of these people are just naive and don't realise that the bosses and state will use violence against us whenever they see fit (whether we use violence or not). However some of these people are not naive. When riot police attacked part of the last anti CJB demonstration many nonviolence types did their best to prevent marchers from fighting back. When push comes to shove these people actually support police violence and oppose rebel violence. We do not "advocate" violence, in the way that these people advocate non-violence, that is, as a tactic to use in every situation. But there are times when it is best course to take.

People who are targeted by this law shouldn't bother with politicians, parties and campaign groups. The most important thing to do is try and ignore the law and carry on with the struggles and festivals that the CJB tries to destroy. In the long run we need to find a way to link up all the different struggles against different aspects of capitalism in a class based movement. A unified struggle which aims to destroy this society and replace it with global community based not on rights but on life really lived.

This leaflet was produced by some anarchists who can be contacted at:
B.M. Makhno
London WC1N 3XX
Taken from the Antagonism website.

This leaflet was produced after we were gassed on a demonstration. Although we suspected the police, we later found out that it was an activist who used CS gas on the demo. CS gas spray has since become part of the standard equipment of London's Metropolitan Police. A number of deaths have been caused as a result.

CS Gas and the Use of Force
In October 1994, the British TV news bulletins ran items on a new repressive weapon that the police were testing. The new weapon was called Pepper Spray (or Capsicum Spray). The news items showed a volunteer being sprayed, debilitated and then describing his pain and discomfort.

On October 8th 1994, there was a march and demonstration against the then Criminal Justice Bill (now enacted), which finished at Hyde Park. To start with the demo was peaceful, good humoured, boring. There was a bit of heckling of some of the speakers (eg the leader of the probation officers union) and a few minor scuffles resulting from this, but nothing notable. Towards late afternoon, a sound-system, with dancers in tow, attempted to enter the park, but was resisted by the police. People pushed through the police lines and danced on top of police vans. The police reacted angrily and the situation escalated, after a few minutes there was an attempt by several people to turn over one of the vans. There were no police exactly at that point, just the crowd of dancers/demonstrators.

Chemical Attack
The van was starting to move when there was a chemical attack against the crowd. The writers of this leaflet were there and were affected by it. Everyone immediately ran away from the van and towards the park. We are not sure, but we believe that the agent used was the then-under-testing pepper spray, used by the police. Some of the media said it was CS gas, used by the police. The police said it was CS gas used by the demonstrators. We don't know; but the gas certainly served the immediate interests of the filth. (On the other hand, it also pissed people off and may have helped the confrontational mood which resulted in the best riot in the UK since Trafalgar Square 1990.)

New Toys
There has been some media interest over the experimental pepper spray. After it was introduced into California, it resulted in 14 deaths in its first year of use. The upshot of this mild disquiet is that the police are not going to use pepper spray. The Met are introducing CS gas instead. Police will carry canisters as part of their normal kit, and will use them "mainly for self-defence". Are we supposed to be pleased about this "concession"?

The Useful Bit
CS gas may or may not be less dangerous than pepper spray. This is what we know about it that might be useful.

* CS gas can be fatal to asthmatics. If you suffer from asthma, make sure you carry your inhalers with you on demo's. Even if you don't end up needing them yourself, you might be able to help someone else who has an attack.
* The standard advice to anyone who is gassed is (unfortunately) run away. You need to get to fresh air as soon as possible. Once in the clear, if need be, stand facing the wind with eyes open to clear them of gas. Then return to the conflict, maybe at a different point.
* Wash your face in plenty of cold water if you are in discomfort.
* Once home, take a cold bath. Warm or hot water opens the skin pores, allowing remaining CS gas residue to enter and will make irritation worse; cold water closes the pores.
* Consider taking counter measures. There are some cycle masks that have activated charcoal filters. These should help minimise damage to the airways. Or you could go the whole hog and take a gas mask. But these are heavy, sweaty and conspicuous. Discuss this option with your mates, see whether they think its a worthwhile thing to do.

Force
Our enemies keep their military and police armed to the teeth. We can't hope to beat them on their own terrain. That is we can't hope to ultimately defeat them in open battle. Our only possible strategy is subversion so generalised, but coherent, that it is everywhere. We can use this strategy to inform our low level tactics as well. If the filth use chemical agents against us, certainly we should just fight right back if possible. But we will probably be forced to retreat. If the police temporarily beat us at the exact point of conflict we should move the point of conflict to places more friendly to us. One weird thing that happens in riots is that the conflict tends to settle down to a battle between the rioters and the pigs in riot gear. Pigs in ordinary uniform often are able to wander about with impunity. If we are unable to attack the most tooled up pigs, then we will turn our attention to those that don't happen to be on riot duty that day. Other possible targets are the old favourites of commercial property, posh cars and of course journos. Journalists are coming under attack more and more often; several were attacked at the Hyde Park riot. This sort of thing will increase.

Final word is despite the use of gas against us, despite the armoured vans, the mounted police, we won the Hyde Park battle, we held our ground, we several times chased the riders out of the Park, we strengthened our community of resistance.

April 1995

BM Makhno,
London WC1N 3XX

Taken from the Antagonism website.

The meaning of technology is more and more contested within radical movements. The archetypal positions are those of technophilia and technophobia. Technophiles emphasise the potentially liberating aspects of technology such as the labour saving possibilities (abolition of work through automation) or greater communication (providing for the first time the conditions for a world community). Anti-techno thinkers argue that not only is technology itself alienating but that it requires an economic base to support it which must be either capitalist or just as harmful. While both of these currents produce useful material, both are one-sided ideologies which cannot deal with the complexity of a radical opposition to this society. At its worst, technophilia degenerates into worship of capitalist technology as it is, of capital in its physical form. Technophobia (present in deep ecology & anti-civilisation communism) at worst is a moralism, putting forward a life-style that is impossible to live. Technophilia obviously helps bolster the capitalist market, but techno-fear is also used as a basis for niche products (green consumerism) and for clever advertising (e.g. there is a Holsten Piss ad which is a pretty funny take on cyber-hype).

It seems that an understanding of technology must draw from the best elements of both tendencies whilst rejecting the black and white opposition they each pose. This zine collects together four articles which fall in the middle ground where most of us choose to live.

The current wave of techno-worship that is found in radical movements is influenced by more main-stream theories. Various journalists, writers and pundits influenced by futurologist Alvin Toffler, put forward the suggestion that current info-tech such as the internet, virtual reality, satellite comms, mobile phones, faxs and so on form the technological base for a new wave of civilisation. This new, diverse society will engender a resurgence of local community coupled with greater global communication. Old, massive structures such as monolithic multinationals and centralised states will be replaced by more open social relations. This ideology has become popular amongst the rising sections of the (techno-)industrial bourgeoisie and has been promoted by various post-modernist writers. Toffler has interesting things to say about the way society is changing, but there is no getting away from the fact that he is a capitalist ideologue. The adoption of his ideas about the liberatory nature of the whole swathe of new technology is the adoption of the thought of modern capital. The article "Big Brother Covets the Internet" demolishes many of the stupidities of today's cybertheorists. "Is It Anarchy on the Internet?" narrows the attack to fellow anarchists that spurt this kind of rubbish. Both of these articles give important information for radicals who are using or thinking of using the internet for subversive activity. This is true also of "A Computer Spy Unmasked" which should give hackers pause for thought. (An obvious consideration that must be made when dealing with the security services is that the story itself is just black propaganda, produced to sow confusion amongst those involved in computer intrusion. If this is the case then we still know that the security services are targeting hackers, if not for infiltration and control, then as targets for disinformation. Regrettably, the story rings true as the computer underground has an ignoble history of its constituents turning grass as soon as they are caught. See for instance the books "Cyberpunk" or "Hacker Crackdown").

The article "The Chiapas Uprising and the Future of Class Struggle in the New World Order" by Harry Cleaver is not aimed at destroying myths about the internet, but instead gives information about how the medium was used to build solidarity and communication around the Chiapas rising. This text details the way modern technology is used by radicals, but does not touch on any of the problems that the internet raises. Its strength and its weakness is to look at struggle as it actually is. This goes not just for its comments on technology but for its central theme, the struggle in the Chiapas. Cleaver reports much interesting information on the fight of the Chiapas Indians but (typically for an autonomist) is extremely uncritical of the weaknesses in this struggle. He is probably right in saying that the Zapatistas are not just another Marxist-Leninist nationalist movement, for-doomed to repeat the horrors of "national liberation". But the EZLN's dallying with parliament, and its negotiations with the government should surely show that it cannot lead the struggle in an effective, uncompromising way. With all their talk of justice, democracy and revitalising 'civil society', the Zapatista spokespeople are reminiscent of the citizens' movements of Eastern Europe at the end of the 80's. Perhaps Subcommandante Marcos is as much in the mould of Vaclav Havel, as of Fidel Castro? If the class struggles in the Chiapas intensify, then it is highly likely conflicts will emerge between the Zapatista leadership and the peasant and proletarian masses they have tried to represent (if such conflicts haven't happened already). If Cleaver's ideology were situationist or "communist" (i.e. Barrot-ist) then he could almost without thinking, have categorised the EZLN as a representation of the proletariat, opposed to the proletariat as revolutionary subject. (As if there were no dialectical relationship between the two categories; as if the land seizures, liberation of prisoners etc, would have happened anyway, without the EZLN's prior agitation.) This unthinking application of ideology is what all too often passes for revolutionary theory. It is also what makes autonomist marxism so refreshing: whereas the autonomist impulse is first and foremost solidarity and practical struggle, situ's and communists more often appear to be the quality controllers of the class struggle, checking-off which aspects of the struggle match up to their pre-existing requirements, writing off the struggles which fail to match up. It seems imperative to find some synthesis of these different tendencies, an attitude and activity, a form of engagement, which relates directly to the class struggle as it actually is but which doesn't rely on stifling criticisms based on the hard won lessons of the previous experience of our class.

The way in which technology is used has always been contested. The Coca-Cola company produces distinctive glass bottles for its product. The form the bottle takes has been carefully decided on by specialists employed by the company. The bottle is designed to withstand a certain amount of pressure without fracturing; the strength of the bottle has been weighed up against the cost to produce it. The shape of the bottle itself is a trademark of the company, and is designed as part of the product's image. Any changes to the form of the bottle must take into account the image the company tries to project. The Coca-Cola bottle is capitalist technology through-and-through. Nonetheless, if the bottle has been designed with a particular purpose, its purpose can be subverted. The bottle can be three-quarter-filled with petrol, then topped up with oil or soap. Add a petrol soaked rag and you have transformed the classically styled capitalist product into an ever popular example of proletarian technology.

There is a story about the invention of the steam engine. Steam pumps were in use in the 18th century which required the opening of a valve on each cycle. At one mill it was the job of a young boy to open this valve. This job would be extremely dull for the most domesticated worker, but for the boy in question it was just not on! He used a piece of wire to connect the valve to another moving part of the pump. The pump then worked continuously on its own, and the boy went off and played (but still earned his wages). Unfortunately, James Watt came by one day and saw what the boy had done. Watt nicked this idea and thereby "invented" the steam engine.

I heard this story years ago but could not find information anywhere that supported it when I tried recently. Perhaps its not true, or only half true. No matter. What I know to be true is that it is common for workers to come up with technological fixes to make their work easier. I've seen many workmates do similar things at various jobs and did this myself when I used to work as a printer. With one of the machines I used, running certain types of job, it was necessary to stand in front of the machine unloading each print as it came out (as they were too big to stack). But by extending the output tray with cardboard packaging, it was possible to make the prints stack. This meant instead of working intensely, it was possible to read a book or go and chat for five minutes or so between ten second bouts of work. This is typical activity seen in any workplace and amounts to developing technology in our own interests. Whereas capital develops technology to get us to produce more for less wages, we develop technology to allow us to work less intensely for the same wage.

Revolutionary theorists have always been reluctant to specify how a post-revolutionary society (communism, anarchy, call it what you like) will be. At best there are generalities about there being a community, and an absence of : the state, money, private property, alienation, nations, sexism, racism and so on. This attitude is completely correct; it is not possible to say how a society will be, when such a society will be (re-)made by people who are different from us, who have transformed themselves and their relationships with others, through massive class struggle. Even so, it can be helpful to read utopian fiction, just to get some idea, a merest glimpse of how the world might be. All the best modern utopian fiction seems to be science fiction (or is that just my prejudice?!). 'Classics' in this field are "Woman on the Edge of Time" by Marge Piercy, and "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K LeGuin. Another less often mentioned book by LeGuin is "Always Coming Home", set long after the collapse of civilisation. The book examines a tribal society and is strikingly similar in its themes to the work of dead anti-civilisation dude Fredy Perlman. At the other extreme, are the "Culture" series of books by Iain M. Banks. These deal with a technologically advanced communist society. (Its technophilia gets almost queasy at times.) Reading these books can't provide any blueprint, nor should they (one of the positive things about sci-fi is that few people take it seriously). But they give food for thought and can be just as inspiring as any political text.

What is communism? The horror of Russian style "state socialism" is what is normally meant by the word. But with its wage labour, commodity relations, class differences, state (prisons, police, borders) etc, this model is nothing more than a state owned capitalism. The word "communism" has been used by various radical currents, including some that attacked the Russian lie from that outset. Communism in this radical sense is as said above sometimes described as the negative of all the things we most hate about this society, or it is talked of as community. It has been described as "the free association of producers" and as a mode of production in which goods are produced for free not as a commodity to be exchanged on the market.

One of the interest groups that is organised through the internet is the freeware scene. Individuals produce software, computer programs, which are literally given away. These are distributed through computer networks and bulletin boards, some end up on the cover-disks of computer mags. Obviously these are of variable quality and usefulness, but some are genuinely impressive. Best example is the Linux operating system, and the programs that go with it. This system is an alternative to DOS/windows used on most PC's. It is far more advanced than DOS/windows, and in many ways more than the much hyped Windows95. The Linux system is produced collectively by many people from different parts of the world, collaborating together out of their own choice in order to produce a product for free. The free association of producers, production for use not exchange, international community: is this communism? Well maybe, but if it is, then communism is no big deal. Freeware may well reduce the revenue of commercial software houses a small amount. Certainly the communist impulse of those that produce for free is exemplary and should be recognised as such. But there seems little in this activity that truly threatens the status quo. Perhaps the definition of communism should be refined more? Maybe the list of things to be abolished should be expanded? That would be clutching at straws. If communism is something that subverts this society, then it is not a list of changes to carry out, a programme to implement, or a set of aims and principles. What is subversive is the real movement that is always engendered by capitalism, the struggle of those without social power or social wealth against the conditions of their own existence. A future communist society is the victory of this movement over existing social conditions. And technology? What will be the technical basis of this society? There is little that can concretely be said (with the exception that a world community must have global means of communication and transport). More can be said of radical social struggles. On the one hand there exist various struggles directly against capitalist science and technology; the refusal of development (in Britain the anti-roads movement), the anti-nuclear movement, luddite strikes against new technology, animal liberationists' attacks on research establishments and individual vivisectionists. All these have at least partly a proletarian class content. On the other hand the real movement utilises technology directly, from printing machines to fax machines, molotov cocktails to electronic mail. If it's not possible to speak clearly about the future, it can be said that communism as it exists today in the real movement that abolishes present conditions, both contests and makes use of technology as need arises.

Above it was stated that revolutionaries have been reluctant to specify exactly how the new society will be. But the fact is that many radicals still have their programmes ready for the proletariat to implement. The following quote from the Marx & Engel's communist manifesto, specifically attacking utopian socialists, can equally well be applied to many of today's radicals, from those with their detailed plans, to technophiles with their map to the future, to anti-civilisation communists with their map to the past. The implication of these people's politics is this:

"Historical action is to yield to their personal inventive action, historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones, and the gradual, spontaneous class organisation of the proletariat to an organisation of society specially contrived by these inventors. Future history resolves itself in their eyes, into the propaganda and the practical carrying out of their plans."

Taken from the Antagonism website.

The struggle around the Liverpool docks has become a focus point for a whole range of different social groups; proletarians both in and out of work, members and non-members of trade unions, lefties, radical journalists, eco-warriors and others. (For instance, it seems that almost every week you can read in the national press some journo claiming that the strike has been ignored by the national press!)

As with any social movement, all sorts of contradictory tendencies have developed. Some tend to integrate the struggle into capitalist normality (unionism & politics), whereas others tend towards an irreconcilable opposition to existing conditions. In this situation, a simple attitude of uncritical support of all the contradictory aspects of the movement (or an attitude of outright rejection) totally fails the potential that the struggle holds within it.

Nonetheless, most of the support coming from lefties has been completely uncritical. In fact some dockers, or especially some Women of the Waterfront have a far more objective attitude than much of the left.

The struggle has been led from the outset by officials of the TGWU. Despite this, it is often claimed that the strike is unofficial (or even wildcat), when on the contrary the officials have maintained contact with the higher bureaucracy, and in any case steered the strike along traditional trade union lines of sectionalism, legalism and negotiations. As an example of this take the recent initiative of the stewards "drawn up in close collaboration with TGWU Deputy General Secretary Jack Adams" (press conference 24.1.97) to set up a "labour supply unit".

In the past, various left of Leninists (left anarchists, council communists, situationists, autonomists), have argued that unions are "brokers of labour power", capitalist businesses that sell the commodity of human labour. It's unlikely that any of them meant it as literally as unions setting up labour supply companies! In the March issue of Dockers Charter on the same page are two articles about this proposal. One, by shop steward chairman Jimmy Nolan, states that the initiative should be taken seriously. The other, making a sophisticated defense of "dockers' leaders" from extremist criticisms, says that it is merely a tactic, and that those who argue against setting up a dockers' run business (remember Torside?), have misunderstood. (It also argues that a labour supply unit would represent a dockers victory.) The divisions within the pages of Dockers Charter are responses to real, deeper divisions in the wider movement.

Amongst the contradictory tendencies in the strike are the refusal of work versus the "dignity of labour". Whilst the stewards have emphasised the high quality of Liverpool dock labour, some of those in the struggle have claimed that they are better off with the strike, as working conditions were so awful. The struggle against work (whether by workers or doleys) is totally at odds with the workerism of the trades unions and the left.

There is also an antagonism between the representative functions of the officials and the direct action of the wider movement. Direct action puts power directly in the hands of the combatants, whilst representation reduces us all to statistics to be bargained with.

This conflict is also reflected in the different attitude of the stewards as opposed to some of the other dockers, the officials being less inclined to a confrontational attitude.

Another contradiction is that between, on the one hand, a sectional struggle, a workerist struggle limited to dockers & transport workers (even if geographically dispersed) and on the other hand, the tendency for the struggle to develop in a social direction bringing in, first of all, Women of the Waterfront, then also road-warriors and to a lesser extent other workers.

One of the aspects of the movement which the lefties adore, is the democracy of the 'open' meetings. But the value of this democracy can be questioned. Where proletarians have no democratic control over 'their' representatives, class struggle often takes on the most direct forms, as seen by the long history of uprisings against the Leninist states of eastern Europe (Kronstadt '21, Hungary '56, Poland '80, to name the best known examples). Where democracy exists, the class antagonism is blurred and diminished: irreconcilable differences are made to appear as gentleman's disagreements, to be sorted out through discussion. The democratic nature of the union meetings would tend to prevent many of the contradictions outlined above from developing and coming out into the open as opposing class positions. (Indeed, the conflicting tendencies mentioned above have often been in terms of stewards versus other dockers; this is an over simplification, the blurring of contradictions has prevented such a clear line appearing.) It should also be added that at the meetings, supporters are denied the vote, and that some trots were excluded for merely calling for a new election (not an anti-trot measure, as an individual in the WRP has edited Dockers Charter).

Several of the groupings attacking the struggle from a right-wing position have attempted to portray it as being some kind of throwback. Like the miners' and steelworkers' strikes before them it's claimed, the dockers' strike is an example of an outdated trade union dispute by an outdated section of the workforce; and like the miners and steelworkers, the dockers are doomed to defeat as modern working conditions and new technology are introduced. In fact, whilst the foregoing argument does contain an element of truth, the docks have undergone a great deal of restructuring in the last 15 years or so, what with containerisation, some computerisation and introduction of new forms of casual labour. If the dockers strike is in part an expression of the old workers' movement, it also provides a bridge to the most typical forms of class composition of the 1990's: labour which is casualised, non-unionised, highly mechanised and computerised. This tendency is strengthened, or emphasised, by the involvement of sections of the proletariat far outside the traditional labour movement.

The majority of the left & ultra-left have been completely sycophantic towards the shop stewards. There are material reasons for this. Most left groups spend a good deal of their time worming their way into union positions, so as to gain political influence over trade unionists (who lefties always view as the most advanced part of the proletariat). As a result, the most that the lefties can do is criticise the policy of the leading stewards. They can't criticise their role (as leaders, representatives) as these stewards are in exactly the position that the lefties dream of being in. Also, groups on the lookout for recruits from the dockers or their supporters won't openly declare their real views as they don't want to put off potential new members. In the end, it is only individuals and groups uninterested in gathering followers, or of gaining influential positions, who can speak honestly about the movement's strengths and weaknesses.

Fairly obviously this leaflet has been produced by individuals with a 'political' background, influenced by ultra-left currents (anarchism, left communism, etc). But this, in one sense at least, is not a political leaflet: no programme, or aims and principals are presented to be grafted onto the movement, no attempt is made to opportunistically gather supporters. This text attempts merely to expose the contradictions that are already present in reality. By making them public, it is hoped that the contradictions can develop and crystallise.

Taken from the Antagonism website.

Returning to Upper Street a week or two after July '95 "Reclaim the Streets" was unsettling and strange. Heavy traffic now roared through the area where a children's sandpit previously was and where a settee and carpet had been too.

Reclaim the Streets is a hundred times better than the average boring demo, trudging along between rows of cops to a "rally" where we're talked at by no-hope politicians and union bureaucrats. By seizing territory and using it for our own purposes, our own party, it's already a victory (whereas every union/Leftist campaign is already a defeat).

Still, Reclaim the Streets has its limitations, most obviously in time and space. The actions are usually strictly timed; the minority who held on after the official end last time were abandoned to our fate; a police riot. And it was bizarre the way in Islington last year diners carried on their meals outside Upper Street restaurants only a hundred metres from the blocked off street and police lines.

The use of space in the street party was highly imaginitive. The kids sandpit and grown-up's settee in the middle of the road were a good bit of fun, demonstrating the opposition between rising traffic and human relaxation and play. The action was also one in the eye for the 'radical' left-wing Labour council of Islington, who try to make themselves real representatives of the local 'citizens'. Still their attempts to do this don't always go to plan.

At the anti-Poll tax demo at Islington town hall in early 1990 the council showed their direct democratic principles and closeness to their electors by miking up the council chamber and relaying the sound to a PA outside so anti-Poll tax demonstrators could hear the process of democracy. This backfired quite a bit though as what we could hear was the Mayor saying things like "Can the demonstrators in the public gallery stop throwing missiles into the council chamber"! Fuck their democracy and their pseudo-radicalism! We weren't letting them screw the Poll tax on us! We were penned into a small area just outside the town hall, surrounded by cops. The first violence I saw was when a few youngsters (10 to 12 years) started throwing bottles at the cops. When the cops dived in to arrest them we couldn't do much to save them, just throw a journalist in the cops way to try and slow them down. The main trouble started when the demo was breaking up. I didn't see exactly what happened, but a mini-riot started and we were chased all the way from the town hall down to the Angel: to the exact spot where Reclaim the Streets was last year and where the cops started chasing us from, when that finished!

There is more to the conflict between state and protesters over roads than just a growing environmental consciousness. The expansion of the road network has been a key element in capitalist political strategy for over two decades.

The defeat of fascism, and victory for totalitarian democracy in the West, and Stalinism in the East, marked a new phase in capitalism. Both east and west did their best to integrate the proletariat (people without social power or social wealth) through high employment and a high social wage (unemployment benefit, free healthcare and education etc.). This strategy was always a bit creaky in the east with its weak capital, but in the west combined with consumerism it helped bring relative social peace through to the late 60s.

But even in the rich west, not every section of the proletariat could be bought off, even temporarily. The first break with the post-war deal came from sectors normally ignored by, and incomprehensible to, the workerist left. First of all came the struggles by blacks, including many of the poorest and oppressed amongst all proletarians. Then developed a new wave of women's struggles. Certainly both of these had their contradictions; they took time to find their feet and also the racial or gender basis, rather than specifically proletarian, made them especially wide open to co-optation. But even so these were important struggles, the first thrashings of a waking giant. As the sixties progressed, struggles spread amongst students in many countries. After several days of rioting around the Sorbonne in Paris in '68, these "marginal" struggles kicked off a weeks-long general strike and occupation movement with strong revolutionary overtones. This strike sent reverberations around the world, with related struggles echoing in Mexico, Italy, Poland, Britain, Portugal, Spain and many other places over the next few years.

These struggles shook capital to its foundation but never became an authentically internationalist revolutionary movement. Capitalism's knee-jerk response was to move investment from areas of successful proletarian struggle to more placid zones (or more fascistic ones). This original "flight of capital" was quickly developed into a coherent strategy. Industries or industrial areas with strong traditions of struggle were deliberately run down. Mass unemployment was used to slash wages, including the social wage. This was blamed on "the recession" as if this was some natural disaster. Capitalist production was dispersed and internationalised so as to make any revival of proletarian class power more difficult.

This dispersal of production naturally leads to greater need for communication, transport and co-ordination between the different elements of production. This strategic attack has had a major effect on the composition of the proletariat. In the UK for example, since 1981 job cuts in mining and utilities have amounted to 442,000; in mineral and metal products 435,000; in transport 352,000; in construction 307,000. All cuts in traditional areas of class power. The biggest growth areas have been information technology with 916,000 more jobs; as well as social work with 450,000; hotel and restaurants 334,000; and education 247,000. The biggest cuts have been in traditional industry, the biggest growth in IT, connecting together the new dispersed production system. This reorganisation has been carried out with the deliberate aim of atomising our struggles. So instead of using efficient rail transport, the new model has relied instead on road transport with massive state investment in road programs. The use of road transport against class struggle became crystal clear at the News International dispute in Wapping in 1986. The typographers' jobs were replaced by computer technology and the rest of the printers sacked and replaced by scabs. Up till then, the Sun and Times had been distributed using British Rail. But Rupert Murdoch knew he couldn't rely on BR's workers to distribute scab papers. Part of his winning strategy was to use his own fleet of lorries instead of rail transport. Part of our struggle against Murdoch was the blocking of roads around Wapping to try and prevent the papers getting out.

Road building is a conscious strategy of capital against proletarian struggle. Reclaim the Streets sits in a long line of struggles including Wapping, The Poll tax, even May '68.

Capital's strategy has undeniably been fairly effective. Workers struggles in Britain reached an historical low a couple of years back. Most workers' struggles remain trade union style disputes in the ever diminishing state sector. The newer sectors of the workforce have yet to make any major collective struggle. For the workerist left, this is a truly depressing time. But the increasingly politicised struggles outside the workplace; the interlinked struggles of the anti-roads, anti-Job Seeker's Allowance, anti-Criminal Justice Act etc., are much more than so called single issue campaigns. These struggles are consciously linked and determinedly expansive. Their effectiveness is certainly limited, compared to the potential of a wave of wildcat strikes or riots, but who can say that these struggles won't play the same role as the struggles of the blacks', women's and students' movements in the 60s; first skirmishes of a new revolutionary movement.

This is a version of a leaflet that was written in Summer 1996, for the 'Reclaim the Streets' party on/occupation of, the M41 motorway in West London, UK. For various reasons, it the leaflet was not produced at that time. This slightly revised version is made available here as the comments on restructuring and recomposition have a continuing relevence. Taken from the Antagonism website.