Alive & Kicking: Cambridge Anarchist News

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Online archive of Alive & Kicking - a local anarchist magazine published in Cambridge in the mid-1980s.

Submitted by Fozzie on February 4, 2024

At least three issues were published in 1984 and 1985. Alive & Kicking was a continuation of the publication "No Choice" which was itself preceded by "Grapevine" (also the name of a local radical bookshop). The origin story is set out in the introduction to the first issue.

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Alive & Kicking: Cambridge Anarchist News #1 1984

Double page cartoon of scene from a miners strike picket line

Including reports from: IWA congress, Cambridge City Council meeting on policing, visit to miners strike in Nottinghamshire, etc.

Submitted by Fozzie on February 4, 2024

Contents

  • Introduction (origins of the magazine and difficulties getting anarchist material stocked in local shops)
  • Report from International Workers Association congress in Madrid
  • Report from Cambridge City Council meeting discussing of local police being used in the miners strike
  • Computer crime
  • Report on visit to Nottinghamshire to support striking miners
  • Free love
  • Local listings

With thanks to Kate Sharpley Library for providing a copy to be scanned.

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westartfromhere

7 months 2 weeks ago

Submitted by westartfromhere on February 28, 2024

"Free love will only really flourish after the revolution when society is ANARCHIST and all people are FREE." ALIVE AND KICKING, #1

Does anyone still hold fast to the conception of the working class revolution as a millenarianist—'a coming fundamental transformation of society, after which "all things will be changed" '—event that all at once brings about the emancipation of humanity? As opposed to conceiving of working class revolution as a process of class struggle that has been going on from time immemorial, i.e. since class society existed.

Alive & Kicking: Cambridge Anarchist News #2 1984

If you don't buy this magazine, we'll eat this Mars Bar (reference to hoax Animal Liberation Front contamination of Mars Bars?)

Including: NHS, free love, Defend the Alconbury Nine, miners strike, hunt sabbing, Northern Ireland, MANarchism, nuclear power, resisting repression, local listings, Territorial Army pisstkae advert etc.

Submitted by Fozzie on February 4, 2024

PDF courtesy of Sparrows Nest Archive, Nottingham.

The cover is a reference to a hoax by the Animal Liberation Front in November 1984. The ALF claimed to the media that it had contaminated Mars Bars as part of a campaign to force the Mars company to stop conducting tooth decay tests on monkeys. The Sunday Mirror received a call from the ALF saying it had injected Mars Bars in stores throughout the country with rat poison. The call was followed by a letter containing a Mars Bar, presumed to be contaminated, and the claim that these were on sale in London, Leeds, York, Southampton, and Coventry. Millions of bars were removed from shelves and Mars halted production, at a cost to the company of $4.5 million. The ALF subsequently admitted the claims had been a hoax.

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Alive & Kicking: Cambridge Anarchist News #3 1985

Alive & Kicking 3 cover

Including: direct action against youth homelessness in Cambridge, cops raid local bookshop over anti-cop poster, hospital cleaning outsourcing, Class War bash the rich Henley, secret Regional Seats of Government bunkers, NIREX and nuclear waste, local animal libber is fascist, animal rights, miners strike prisoner writes, etc.

Submitted by Fozzie on February 4, 2024

Possibly the last issue?

With thanks to Sparrows Nest Archive, Nottingham for the PDF.

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