Complete archive of Solidarity for social revolution, the national journal of UK libertarian socialist group Solidarity published 1978-1981. It was formed from the merger of the two papers Solidarity for self-management and Social revolution.
We would like to extend thanks to Spikymike for donating these papers, which were digitised by libcom.org in 2013.
Comments
If anyone has any spare
If anyone has any spare copies of this publication which they can donate us to scan that would be great! Please let us know in the comments or send me a private message
We have file copies. Can
We have file copies. Can probably scan and email a few. Please advise.
syndicalist wrote: We have
syndicalist
hey, that would be brilliant if you could!
Or even better just click "add child page" here then add the scales in the "file attachments" section. But if you're not confident doing that you could just e-mail them!
where do i email them to?
where do i email them to?
Steven, I will PM you about
Steven,
I will PM you about your request but if and when you get round to putting this series of journals on-line it really needs an introduction explaining that this was only one of a series of the UK SOLIDARITY journals preceded by a number of local autonomous journals and an initial national journal plus a later revised series of a national publication with the subtitle 'Social Revolution' removed.
The series 'Solidarity - for social revolution' was a result of the merger of the existing Solidarity and Social Revolution groups following a lengthy series of negotiations that resolved some, but not all, of the differences between the two groups and which resulted also in revised Solidarity 'As We see It' and 'As We don't see it' statements. It would helpful at that point to provide links to those statements and to material from the Social Revolution group, in particular their introductory pamphlet.
As the 'About Us' statement in this edition of the journal suggests the series being produced in rotation by a number of different largely autonomous groups reflected in turn a variety of often conflicting views that were part of an ongoing discussion in a fairly volatile period.
Feminism, particularly from the Social Revolution influence, was an important factor in the many ongoing discussions of that period which produced some critical but healthy and some not so healthy results.
Some clarity and some positive developments did emmerge from all those discussions which were usefully carried out in an open and transparent manner. It seems to me that political groups in our milieu have a time-limited usefulness if they are not to succumb to dogmatism and repetitive self-justifying behavior. Solidarity (UK) went through a number of phases and splits some more useful than others and eventually just fizzled out but many people learned something from it and moved on to other activities.
A majority of what we have is
A majority of what we have is from the London Solidarity period.
Nearly all of this is now in
Nearly all of this is now in the archive. We are only missing a couple of issues now: 16 and any that came after 17. So I believe just 18 and 19. If anyone has these and would be able to donate them to us, or scan them yourselves please let us know!
Interesting stuff,
Interesting stuff, thanks.....Original (pre-merger with Social revolution) I think is much better.
I will try and scan and send some. But they are basically in mimeo form and I'm not sure how well they will scan. Also don't want to take out staples and this may affect what gets cut off. Shall try.
syndicalist
syndicalist
brilliant, thanks. Although when I scan stuff I take out the staples and just put in new staples afterwards…
Steven. wrote: syndicalist
Steven.
These are fragile. A few sorta brittle. My fear is that will create archive problems later on. The ones you scanned are much better quality of paper, printing and so forth. We'll see what we can do.
syndicalist wrote: Steven.
syndicalist
thanks, I appreciate it. Although delicate paper copies are all the more reason to ensure we get decent scanned ones online which will last forever!
FYI: London School of
FYI: London School of Economics library has an almost complete backrun of Solidarity for the 1960s and 1970s in their periodicals section.
Good to hear that you are
Good to hear that you are looking at Solidarity for Social Revolution. I was one of the original Solidarity group and wrote for Soc Revolution. I am still trying to contribute to the anarchist/Lib movement but find the hostility and abuse from the Class War leaders (Bonists and Incubus) extremely hateful and counter productive. These were the kind of left authoritarians we set out to debunk, people who would reveal identities, misrepresent arguments, and generally fix debates and discussions so that their interpretation of the class struggle and their hegemony was never questioned. Until we can create a movement without such leaders anarchism, libertarianism, will never succeed. Forty plus years of involvement in local issues, in struggles against authority across Europe and South America, and I do not have an ego that requires me to parade with posh journalists and politicians, writing my own biography. That is how I see things. My parting suggestion: get rid of your leaders.
Dr Llareggub wrote: Good to
Dr Llareggub
not really sure what you mean here. Class War stopped existing years ago (1997 really), I've got no idea who incubus is, and don't know any "Bonists", other than the man himself who seems to content himself with writing his blog, which isn't a bad thing (although it does have some rubbish in sometimes like supporting Western military intervention in Libya etc). And I don't think this has any significant impact at all on the class struggle…
Since they don't come up
Since they don't come up automatically on the 'More Like this' column I'd cross reference these:
http://libcom.org/library/as-we-see-it-dont-see-it-solidarity-group
which shows the original and revisions to the Solidarity statements resulting from the merger of the two groups.
and this:
http://libcom.org/library/introduction-social-revolution
which gives a more comprehensive idea of the Social Revolution Group's ideas and has added my summary of the origins and evolution of that group.