Solidarity for workers' power journal

Solidarity: For Workers' Power

Archive of the excellent journal Solidarity for workers' power produced by the UK libertarian socialist group Solidarity in eight volumes from 1960 until 1977. In particular it contains lots of coverage of the wildcat strikes which swept British workplaces through the 1960s.

Author
Submitted by Steven. on September 8, 2013

Originally called Agitator for the first few issues, Solidarity was published first by the London group, then by the North London group of the organisation, but effectively functioned as the national journal.

An index of the publication from issue 1.01 up to 7.02 can be found here for reference.

The bulk of our collection of this journal was purchased by libcom.org in September 2013. To help us continue our work and cover our costs please consider making us a small donation. Also we would love to have at least some of the articles from the journal online in text format. So if you can help us OCR them please contact us let us know in the comments below (we can provide you with OCR software).
Some PDF issues have been taken from http://archivesautonomies.org/spip.php?article2787

Comments

Steven.

10 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on December 16, 2013

Bump, because we have now finished scanning and uploading everything we have. We should be getting hold of some of the missing copies early in the New Year and will get them uploaded ASAP. If we are still missing anything else we will make an appeal for help from our readers.

Also, a lot of the content in this journal is really excellent. So we would like to have as much of it is possible online in text format as well as PDF. So if anyone could help us OCR these scans into text format please let us know by e-mail, private message or in the comments below. We can provide any necessary software and training.

Also, help indexing them properly would be much appreciated (this is very easy job, it just means writing down the titles of each article in each issue so it is easily searchable), so if you can help please let us know!

syndicalist

10 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on December 16, 2013

Really excellent stuff. I've linked it on FB.

lurdan

10 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by lurdan on December 17, 2013

I posted a link to Solidarity's 1972 index in the Pamphlets thread but I see it's expired. I'll stick it in the library. It covers the London journal up to issue 7:2.

Edit : ok it's up here as a PDF and as tables.

Malcy

10 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Malcy on December 18, 2013

Thanks heaps for putting these up. Just thought I should point out some missing pages in Issue 6.01, pages 12-16, from "The New Proletariat" article. Maybe they were missing from the journal in the first place.

Cheers

Steven.

10 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on December 18, 2013

Malcy

Thanks heaps for putting these up. Just thought I should point out some missing pages in Issue 6.01, pages 12-16, from "The New Proletariat" article. Maybe they were missing from the journal in the first place.

Cheers

thanks for pointing it out. Have had a look and we do have those pages so will re-scan them

Malcy

10 years 10 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Malcy on December 22, 2013

cool. thanks

Steven.

10 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on January 19, 2014

This archive is very nearly complete now.

So if anyone has any of the issues we are still missing please get in touch!

Here are the ones we are still missing:
Volume 1: 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12
volume 2: 4, 6
volume 3: 3, 4

Steven.

10 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on January 19, 2014

lurdan

I've got some of these :
1:1 1:3 2:4 2:6 3:4

amazing! Any chance you could put those in your queue of stuff to scan? We will owe you a pint or three!!

W0rkers

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by W0rkers on August 23, 2017

Hi all, I've completed the archive with the exception of Vol 3, Issue 4. The link to this issue is currently broken on archivesautonomies.org. I've sent them an email to let them know.

Steven.

7 years 2 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on August 25, 2017

W0rkers

Hi all, I've completed the archive with the exception of Vol 3, Issue 4. The link to this issue is currently broken on archivesautonomies.org. I've sent them an email to let them know.

that's amazing thanks so much!

The missing issue, I guessed there was just a typo with the URL, so switching "41" for "4" I found it and have uploaded, meaning this archive is now complete. Thanks to everyone who has helped with it!

imposs1904

7 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by imposs1904 on November 2, 2017

Any future plans to digitize the issues of Solidarity from the eighties?

imposs1904

7 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by imposs1904 on November 2, 2017

PS - Does anyone know the latest on John Quail's book about Solidarity?

syndicalist

7 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by syndicalist on November 2, 2017

imposs1904

PS - Does anyone know the latest on John Quail's book about Solidarity?

I didn't know someone is writing a book on Solidarity. Look forward to that one!

Author's name seems familiar. Is he the one who wrote "Slow Fuse Burning" or something like that?

EDIT: Just google author and Solidarity...came up with this link: "Saturday, October 29, 2011
“GENESIS” – earliest days and prehistory of SOLIDARITY
Origins of an influential libertarian socialist organisation - Part 1

Based on extracts from a working draft by John Quail, plagiarized with permission by LW.

http://radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.com/2011/10/genesis-earliest-days-and-prehistory-of.html "

Steven.

7 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Steven. on November 3, 2017

syndicalist

imposs1904

PS - Does anyone know the latest on John Quail's book about Solidarity?

I didn't know someone is writing a book on Solidarity. Look forward to that one!

Author's name seems familiar. Is he the one who wrote "Slow Fuse Burning" or something like that?

yes that's the one, he wrote the Slow-burning fuse, and early history of UK anarchism which has to spin republished by Freedom press.

EDIT: Just google author and Solidarity...came up with this link: "Saturday, October 29, 2011
“GENESIS” – earliest days and prehistory of SOLIDARITY
Origins of an influential libertarian socialist organisation - Part 1

Based on extracts from a working draft by John Quail, plagiarized with permission by LW.

http://radicalhistorynetwork.blogspot.com/2011/10/genesis-earliest-days-and-prehistory-of.html "

great stuff, if anyone could post that up in our history section that would be great

imposs1904

7 years ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by imposs1904 on November 3, 2017

He's been working on it a long time. I remember the late Terry Liddle telling me he'd been interviewed by Quail for the book, and that would have been around about 2002-04.

R Totale

3 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by R Totale on December 10, 2020

imposs1904

Any future plans to digitize the issues of Solidarity from the eighties?

I can answer this three years late, because it turns out Sparrow's Nest have done it: https://thesparrowsnest.org.uk/index.php/14-news-and-events/223-new-additions-to-the-digital-library-december-2020

Spikymike

3 years 11 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on December 11, 2020

R.Totale. Thanks for the Sparrows Nest archive link. Not all the issues of 'Solidarity for Social Revolution' journal are listed on that site although those which are are an easier online read than the full set of attached copies in the libcom library. These are interesting as a historical link to the evolution of some UK based libertarian socialist thinking in that period even if some of it was pretty confused!

Battlescarred

3 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Battlescarred on January 28, 2021

John Quail has passed all his material relating to the history of Solidarity on to one Chris Spannos, so we should be seeing an appearance of a history of Solidarity fairly soon.

lurdan

2 months ago

Submitted by lurdan on September 9, 2024

Chris Spannos' book entitled 'Direct-Action and Autonomous Organizing across the United Kingdom: London Solidarity' is apparently being published by Bloomsbury Academic in hardback next February. Looks expensive. His book on Castoriadis was also published by Bloomsbury Academic and eventually had paperback and ebook versions.