Are anarchist organisations in decline?

I think it's more complicated than this. The whole anti-glob wave that anarchism fed off of through the 90s/00s/early 10s has most definitely ended (not entirely a bad thing) but the reformist wave that followed it is also not as strong as it was 5-10 years ago. There are a fair number of people who were introduced to radicalism through the DSA/Corbyn/etc but have since become embittered by their defeats and moved to the left. The dividing lines between the soft-left and hard-left are a lot clearer than they were at Sandermania's peak. My understanding is that a lot of the people joining Black Rose in the US are exactly these sorts of ex-DSA types.

As you say, anarchist media can often be surprisingly popular, but I disagree that it's not flowing down to ground-level organising. I was involved in Black Flag Sydney from the beginning of it to the end, and the vast majority of people we recruited (or attempted to recruit) already had a decent understanding of what anarchism was, not necessarily through reading a specific text or something, but through absorbing it from leftist internet culture. They often had a bunch of misconceptions (eg about electoralism, localism or whatever) but I was impressed about how much people knew.

From my perspective, the challenges weren't about political identification, but about the personal challenge of turning passive identification into active militancy. Going to meetings every fortnight, taking an active role in organising your workplace, getting used to writing and speaking, etc. People would agree with pretty much everything we said, join us, and then basically go radio-silent. I still don't know the answer to this problem, but I also know it's not just anarchists that experience it: most of the organised left, including Stalinist/"tankie" groups, struggle to organise these people. This isn't a problem for the DSA or CPUSUA because these sorts of groups thrive with base of passive members.

1. But these people wouldn't have any concept of an appropriate strategy informed by extensive historical research and industrial experience eg in regard to getting anarcho-syndicalist unions going..
2. To get anywhere on the industrial front particularly areas of strategic importance affecting the arteries of the corporate set up they would need intensive out-side-the job assistance. Even where long existing militant networks have existed. In many workplaces they would be affected by low morale amongst co-workers. Associated with the progress of the employer offensive where they work - they would affected by worsening conditions such as worsening speed ups, long shifts, etc. All facilitated by the corporate unions and the role in the unofficial Accord which exists with the corporate set up and enterprise bargaining. So in many workplaces they would obliged to lie low as well as co workers. Longer and rotating shifts would also have a disorganising impact of various sorts on these people affecting militancy..
3. Also the predominance of the corporate media today is involved with covering up and distorting things on industrial front to give false impressions. There was last year an important victory in the class struggle in the NSW Railways associated with new trains. In particular there had been a long struggle going back to 2016 - to get a functioning guard's compartment on them - The ASN assisted militants there - one of those sectors where you would have the above networks to out manouevre the union officials on a number of occasions who were hell bent on eliminating guards on these trains as part of the Govt's privatisation agenda and on one occasion direct action by rail workers occurred affecting some thousands of commuters. But the corporate media gave all credit bizarrely to the union bosses of the RTBU. (See NSW Railway News in Rebel Worker Vol.42 No.3(238) Dec. 2024- Jan.2025.) There has been similar episodes going back some decades and some major industrial action completely covered up by the corporate media such as industrial action at Central Station affecting some 100,000's in Dec. 1997. Also the Corporate media covers up massive Govt. corruption such as the rigging of union elections for many decades now helping maintaining compliant union officials allied with the ALP . It has been in RW. So all this affects adversely people's morale and their capability to get militant action and organisation. So they are more likely to become inactive etc.

Why would anyone join an anarchist organisation would be the first question innit? Like what are they offering besides talking therapy for disaffected people. From the outside there’s an obvious orthodoxy that is resistant to any sort of change, and it’s just a vicious cycle of haemorrhaging. Not exactly the first person to point this out either. What was the last exciting idea or strategy or tactic. Why are they still putting out text in a saturated hyperdigital age no one reads. When was the last time someone even was willing to talk about post revolution, let alone what it may look like. Black Rose go as far as the usual vague now but nicer, not exactly blow your socks off, https://www.blackrosefed.org/about/program/3-ultimate-objective/ And most of all, something that I don’t think people are willing to admit, aloof from people, the mass, whatever as a whole. You yourself Steven said something you didn’t understand was stupid, it’s not very persuasive. Even persuasion through ideas is viewed with skepticism (only through struggle can… etc etc) like putting the cart before the horse.

There was a time anarchism was at the cutting edge of propaganda, theory, art, the avant garde, experimentation. Invented the car bomb (just saying), the first experimental and first feminist film in Thais, or modernised old concepts like federalism and iconographies. Necromancy the more in thing these days.

To provide a bit of background information...

With 'organized' anarchism or anarchist political organization in the US, there was a surge of groups and interest that came out of the anti-globalization movement among some anarchists who wanted to go beyond 'summit hopping'. Andrew Flood of the Irish group Workers Solidarity Movement did a tour of the US that was pretty influencial. I can't remember if the NorthEastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC) or the Andrew Flood tour happened first, but NEFAC's magazine The Northeastern Anarchist, was influencial among the miliu of anarchists looking at platformism and especifismo to get better organized.

A lot of us corresponded and interacted with each other on the internet, such as on libcom.org, MySpace anarchist groups (!) and Facebook.

The groups started putting on the Class Struggle Anarchist Conferences (CSAC), which led to a 'regroupment' process that eventually resulted in Black Rose Anarchist Federation. Groups that emerged or grew a bit in this mid to late 2000s period were:

-North-Eastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC) / Common Struggle

-Common Action (Pacific Northwest)

-Common Cause (Ontario)

-Wild Rose Collective (Eastern Iowa)

-Four Star Anarchist Organization (Chicago)

-Miami Autonomy & Solidarity (Miami, Florida)

-Rochester Red and Black (Rochester, New York)

-Solidarity & Defense (Lansing, Michigan and Detroit, Michigan)

-First of May Anarchist Alliance (Detroit, MI & Twin Cities, MN)

-Workers Solidarity Alliance (WSA) (Mostly NY/NJ, Bay Area, LA)

I might be forgetting a group or two? In any case, none of these groups exist anymore. They either disbanded before the 'regroupment' process, merged into what became Black Rose, or did not merge and have disbanded since then. The one exception is WSA which seemed to have gone into a membership decline and has since split but is seemingly still active in Philadelphia.

Black Rose has suffered at least one split since forming, which seemed to have pushed the organization towards not much public activity for a bit.

A lot of us who were more about the IWW than anarchist political organization started growing apart from this miliu. I know I felt increasing distance from these groups and individuals as part of Recomposition.

Black Rose today I believe is the largest formal anarchist organization in North America. I have no idea how large they are. I suspect they are not larger than all the pre-regroupment groups membership's combined, but that is just a guess.

The other main anarchist tendency in North America that was around during the bulk of my involvement in things was insurrectionary anarchism, which developed out of the anti-civ and primitivist stuff of the early 2000s. IA was influenced by a lot of ultraleft groups and texts such as The Invisible Committee, Endnotes, Theorie Communiste, communization current, Alfredo Bonnano, etc.

I feel like this was the dominant strand of anarchism and people associated with this stuff were often among the leading, most militant edge of most social movements of the time such as the wave of student occupations in 2008-2009, the Occupy Movement, maybe also the 'antifa' craze of the first Trump term. But they seemed to have mostly disapeared.

Websites such as Infoshop have gone defunct. Anarchist News used to be one of the main sites for these folks, that seems a lot less active and may have actually briefly gone defunct, not sure.

Yeah. I do wonder if there's some kind of economic factor behind it. I know the whole dole-bludging culture that sustained a lot of the insurrecto types is getting harder and harder to maintain. Even students, who used to be relied on to have a lot of free time, are working non stop. It's hard to convince tired, worn out people to sit through a two hour long meeting about something insubstantial, time that might otherwise be spent socialising with friends or doing something personally enjoyable.

I'm also aware that this goes beyond just the left. There are probably more shut-ins than ever nowadays, people are getting more isolated, and mainstream newspapers often go on about the "loneliness epidemic". Maybe the organised left is another victim of the trend towards building a digital social life to replace the in-person one.

With that said... it's not all doom and gloom. The UCL in France is large, and growing. The ACF in Australia was only formed this year and its constituent groups have only been active for like 4-5 years.

"Why are they still putting out text in a saturated hyperdigital age no one reads."

If you mean text in the shape of a hard copy flyer/magazine -produced/issued in the context of industrial organising in a strategic sector/elite groups of workers - it is of great importance - not so much the info but as "playing the psychological game" - producing collective discussion amongst groups of these workers leading to collective action particularly amongst militant networks - certain of these groups could take direct action affecting millions - also in the shape of a magazine via humor/satire help with raising these workers' morale involving collective discussion and creating a militant work place culture and combating atomisation which on line media encourages and plays into the management/union bosses agenda. It was with a humble hard copy flyer involving distro amongst an elite group of workers we were able to defeat a move by union officials and management involving introducing new trains in the NSW railways leading to privatisation some years back.

Does anyone know how big is the political Left, if by that term, we are only referring to socialists of all kinds? What proportion of the population are socialists? If only pollsters like Gallup included the category when inquiring people’s political identity, then we could have had reasonable estimate. Instead, they only ask if people are either very liberal, moderate liberal, moderate, moderate conservative, or very conservative, as if liberalism and conservatism are the only two ideologies.

My own suspicion is that socialists make up only 5-10% of the population in the U.S. at least. Of the socialists, many assume that anarchism was/is the dominant tendency since the anti-globalization protests, or at least some kind of default organizing model. Others say that most socialists are practically social democrats in the original 19th century meaning of that term, or perhaps more appropriately democratic socialists. The Leninists seem to be super popular online, but between them and anarchists, I would say anarchism is more prevalent even though they are less organized.

Yeah, I think the formal big-A anarchist organisations definitely seem to be in decline. Other stuff than anarchists are involved in is harder to measure. Where I live there's a SolFed group that's very good at stickering but I never actually seem to see in real life, an IWW group that's slightly more noticeable but still dunno how much they actually do, and then stuff like a migrant solidarity/anti-deportations group that's not explicitly anarchist but has a heavily anarcho membership.

I think a great deal of the actual activity of the anarchist movement, such as it is, is probably through stuff like local anti-raids, antifa, etc groups, but that's a really hard thing to measure growth and decline in over time, as opposed to say looking at how many local groups the AF or SF have now and comparing it to what they listed 10 or 15 years ago. Suspect it's probably not great overall though.

If I can have a brief moment of optimism (and while it's legal to write this comment!), I think Palestine Action are one of the most successful direct action groups in a long time, and actually qualify as direct action more than the XR/JSO style of disruptive-but-symbolic-and-indirect protest.

I feel like PA have been embraced by the heart of the Palestine solidarity movement in a way that's very very different to how marginalised direct action was at the time of the anti-Iraq War movement (at least seen in retrospect), and seems like at least a partial break with the old mass passive protest/small elite group direct action binary that's been a curse for ages.
Obviously direct action by itself doesn't sum up the whole of the anarchist tradition, PA aren't an anarchist group and don't claim to be, but still, it is an approach that's pretty vital to anarchism.

"With that said... it's not all doom and gloom. The UCL in France is large, and growing. The ACF in Australia was only formed this year and its constituent groups have only been active for like 4-5 years."

I'm not very familiar with France, but in the Australian context the same phenomena affecting your Black Flag Group is likely to affect this new group - the low morale/exhaustion/disorganisation caused by a complex interweaving of factors on the job and new members immediately dropping out which I referred to in one of my previous posts. This situation is also probably a significant factor contributing in the USA with the IWW's purely "on line members" growth. With similar situations in other countries.

But this can be changed. For a range of factors (influence of identity politics/the impact of the stalinist/trot ways legacy/unwholesome focus on formal organisationand micro bureaucracy/imitating mainstream/trot parties in certain ways/involvement in everything going on various fronts/focusing on strategically irrelevant workplaces/industries, middle class/student social base/background etc - these groups: like the IWW in USA, so called anarcho groups there in UK/USA, and this new one in Australia etc will not be able to conduct the strategic industrial organising which the catalytic network phenomena can - In the Australian context it has achieved most important results on the industrial front and having ramifications in other ways eg on the environment and slowing the tempo of the employer offensive (See in RW Vol.41 No.3(235) Dec.2023- Jan.2024 "From Corporate Bureaucratic Unionism to Grassroots Controlled Direct Unionism:Activity & Perspectives for Australia Today" on www.rebelworker.org )

To change the situation radically on the industrial front and tackle the employer offensive would require the strategic industrial organising to get the strike/direct action wave going. It would involve the long range precision industrial work "behind the scenes" to get it going - this seems to have occurred in the prelude to events of Paris May '68 and associated factory, uni occupations and General Strike etc.

A "symbiotic" relationship (this is a phenomena which occasionally occurs in the animal kingdom and between some humans and animals) could be developed between the catalytic networks and formal groupings - members of these formal groups - could help in certain ways which fit into their normal routines with catalytic network publications - that could help raise the morale of members who don't do much or anything - they could do something which makes strategic sense - they could easily fit with their normal routines. Also in this way maintain contact with them and they could at least do something useful. In the context of the big industrial upsurge facilitated by the strategic industrial organising of the "maverick" catalytic networks- they are likely to get active with militant activity in their workplace to help get major break aways from the corporate unions on syndicalist lines going.
In certain countries catalytic networks may already exists - the Angry Workers World group in the UK looks a bit like this - in other countries you would have to create them.

As far as not-specifically-anarchist-but-vaguely-adjacent groups go, I get the impression the AWW aren't up to much at the moment, although their last strategy piece from last year was pretty good:
https://www.angryworkers.org/2024/08/24/what-is-to-be-done-now/
Think their main practical effort at the moment is focused on two hospitals in Bristol, which sounds worthwhile, but think that's about it: https://www.vitalsignsmag.org/
Think Plan C went through a bit of a period of hibernation but they seem to be emerging from it somewhat now.

R Totale, Steven wrote "Class War in the UK", not Class War, of the UK.

For an exposition of our position unconfined by national barriers, read [AST] For the creation of a global network of revolutionary anarchists and anti-Leninist communists!

R Totale wrote:

...an unrelated long-winded Czech...

Just because my mother was born in Czecho, this does not make me Czech; how much less so does it make our group "Czech".

Class War has been a group of anarchy, of socialism, of communism in the UK, but not of the UK, since the early 1990's. The other body, which you alluded to, and latterly named, is firmly a part of the political and social and economic establishment of the UK.

Following

Juan Conatz

I might be forgetting a group or two?

The only group I could think of not.on your list was Prarie Struggle in Canada (Manitoba, Sasaskatchewan, maybe also Alberta). There were also some comrades in Windsor, but I think they linked up with one of the Michigan groups.

What is abundantly clear from this thread is that anarchist organisations, especially in the US and UK, are a minute fraction, in contrast to the hundreds of millions of militant working class worldwide that have taken to the streets to oppose all form of government over recent years. Time to come in from the cold?

Why not both, Geoff?

That’d be a start yeah. If your girl/boy/themfriends keep dumping you, it’s probably you though.

You're not wrong.

I was listening to Vivek Chibber's podcast that is put out by Jacobin called Confronting Capitalism. He said something along the lines of that much of politics in the West since 2008 has been in response to the economic crash of that year and the shattering in many people's minds of neoliberal capitalism being the only possibility.

I think there's something to that. Basically, 'TINA' became no longer viable and since then politics has been about trying to find what that alternative is for many people while large parts of the establishment either are clinging to that myth or trying to loot whatever they can as it crumbles. I think it is hard to explain the resurgence of the authoritarian and neofascist right, as well as the social democratic/democratic socialist left otherwise.

If you accept Chibber's views here, I think it is difficult for many to see anarchism or anarchist groups specifically as one of the viable alternatives. All of these politics are happening at the level of the State and are about either distribution of resources or distribution of pain on "the others".

"I think it is hard to explain the resurgence of the authoritarian and neofascist right, as well as the social democratic/democratic socialist left otherwise."

But an important explanation in the 30's and today for the rise of the ultra right in certain countries and social democratic parties in certain layers of workers is their low morale. and intertwined with hostility to the corporate union hierarchy due to their constant sellouts but covered up by sophisticated "smoke and mirrors" performances associated with contract negotiations and the role of the corporate media. In the 1930's the bureaucratic unions of those days aligned mostly with Social Democratic formations/Labor Parties mostly completely caved -in to the massive employer attacks of that era particularly associated with the Depression . An intriguing example of this phenomena - is in the 20's a certain local of the FAUD (german anarcho-syndicalist union confederation) went completely over to the Nazis. It became a seed of the Nazis in the german labour movement. Pointing to the impact of low morale and crisis of confidence of workers in the majority Social Democratic unions and also with the FAUD which was experiencing quite a crisis leading to major splits (particularly due to the rise of Leninism and subsequently mass Stalinism) and a spiraling decline in membership. (See the essay on Germany in the Book "Revolutionary Sydndicalism: An international perspective").

The increased support for Social Democratic formations in such countries as the USA - should be seen in the context of workers and other groups low morale and sellouts of the corporate unions with even some of their officials support for Trump- workers and others think you can rely on electoral politics "socialism out of the ballot" to improve things.

As I have argued in a previous post that the so called most anarcho formations and groups like the IWW in the USA and elsewhere are incapable of conducting the strategic industrial organising to slow the tempo of the employer offensive and help ignite the processes leading to the strike/direct action wave movement which could lead to major syndicalist oriented splits from the corporate unions and transitional steps to a mass syndicalist union confederation. In this context you would see the mushrooming of many anarcho-syndicalist oriented anarchist groups composed of militant workers - you had a process very similar to this in regard to the major growth of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT in Spain in the early 30's and massive expansion in members.
Today's dysfunctional anarcho groups (for the reasons I have outlined in a previous post) in some cases also harm the activity or potential activity of the a-s catalytic networks which could conduct the appropriate strategic industrial organising to change the situation. In the case of the US IWW - it receives dues which are used to facilitate their organising which lack such a focus - in areas which definitely won't change the situation to achieve the above processes and that would characterise their salting activity. Most in the IWW today I'm sure they don't see any problem with their current industrial organising orientation - but their seems an anti intellectual orientation and focus on formal organisation and copying of some of the ways of bureaucratic unions amongst therm so they won't do the necessary research/and lack the necessary industrial experience to grasp the radically different context in which the syndicalist movement actually emerged in the late 19th and early 20th Century and the ramifications for such insights for today and an appropriate industrial strategic. Much
of the revenue secured today by groups such as the IWW would be much better used to help with this catalytic network strategic industrial organising - definitely their publication activity would require significant financial support even with a sympathetic printer. Also in certain areas of the industry focused upon would probably need help with salting. In other sectors not so necessary with the involvement of allied industrial groups.
In Sydney in 2013 some IWW members were even manipulated by the cult guru at Jura Books today in a right wing direction leading into their involvement in a major attack on the ASN and hijacking of Jura Books for a cult temple. They would fit the bill of demoralised workers who were also members of an emerging cult and see the IWW as a sort of pseudo church. The ASN has had a major positive impact in the class struggle in NSW and Australia via strategic industrial organising. See one of my previous posts and thread "New Org. in Sydney" on libcom and A-Infos Rebel Worker Obituary for Jack Grancharoff. This is of course is an extreme situation from the wilds of Down Under.. But an example of the madness which can suddenly burst up with these mixed up anarcho and allied groups of today. Definitely unheard of during the rise of the syndicalist movement in the early days and the mainstream currents of the anarchist movement of those days.
.

Chibber is right only in so far as there has been a shift. I don’t think anyone, especially the ultraleft, fully understands how much of this is powered by an upstart nouveau riche. Mostly crypto, mostly young, very online. I’ve been in these spaces and I wouldn’t be able to describe it, like up is down and everything interpreted through a screen. They do not give a fuck about tradition or the norms. It’s well known about Trump’s funding but Farage is also backed by a twenty something crypto tycoon. He’s also a middle man for the two and done time over there for money laundering by the way. The centre is done and if the libs want power, they are going to have to up the ante. This should make people very nervous. It’s easy to mobilise people against the far right, try doing it when Sanders or Corbyn are driving the lemon.

And we’re reading Marty Glaberman and riding penny farthings.

People get older, they lose interest in shit, and there's not enough younger people to reproduce the existence of groups.

What will happen is that the youth of today will go through their own experiences of activism and disillusionment with whatever the latest fad is (probably some environmentalist, post-XR shit), political self-education, and enlightenment, and create their own groups.

Personally, I think preservation of theory/history is more important than here-and-now organising. With the benefit of hindsight, the world would probably have been better off if Marx spent less time in IWMA and more time writing Capital.

Perhaps we should do our bit by producing a new, Little Red Book: The Quotations of westartfromhere, explaining why millionaire farmers are actually proletarians.

To skip past all the oddballs, organised anarchism in the UK is definitely in a dire state. There have been some really bitter splits which seems to have fucked the anarchist communists (and the anarchist bookfair). Not sure what happened to the anarcho-syndicalists, but as an outsider it looked to me like the SolFed got big at one point from students joining which is not likely to last. Local anarchist groups just don't seem to be around anymore either, don't know what's happened there but seem to be another sign of the dire state.

One thing is for certain, this thread needs an abbreviation/acronym guide.

WF: we’re fucked?

“The proportion of UK employees who were trade union members fell to 22.0% in 2024, down from 22.4% in 2023. This represents the lowest union membership rate on record among UK employees for which we have comparable data (since 1995).”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/09/futurist-adam-dorr-robots-ai-jobs-replace-human-labour

Still lads, maybe G.P Maximoff has a plan here.

Yeah, here’s a hit tweet from someone Libcom follows, “I think we can all agree the real heroes of the hour are we the middle aged anarchists and left communists who held our tongues because we have finally learned to read a room once in a while” https://x.com/n_hold/status/1937706240685027519

6 thousand likes for anarcho-electorialism, bosh. Is this cope about social media posts the new ‘it’s just a low ebb for class struggle”? Denial is not very becoming.

In case people are interested in what the debates among the extant anarchist organisations are like, there is a discussion going on about Black Rose's programme and some related things it brings up, like especifismo and its relationship to class politics:

https://www.blackrosefed.org/about/program/ (BR/RN's programme)

https://www.redblacknotes.com/2025/02/13/popular-power-or-class-power/ (response from Australia by a supporter of the ACF)

https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/The_Voice_of_an_Especifismo_Militant.pdf (response to above from a member of the Centre for Especifismo Studies)

I think more will follow eventually. Regeneración Libertaria (publication aligned with the Spanish platformists/especifists) is compiling and translating these documents into Spanish. Us in Australia write in redblacknotes.com.

"Perhaps because most of their contact with anarchism is through individuals on social media, rather than back in the day through getting a newsletter, leaflet or magazine on a demonstration or in-person event."

This on-line social media "life" encourages by definition atomisation which feeds into and facilitates the management/corporate union boss strategy of encouraging atomisation on the job particularly in those strategic sectors where workers particularly elite groups have considerable industrial muscle - undermining solidarity and heading off collective discussion on the job which can result in direct action/industrial action.

The workplace paper would play a critical role in countering this atomisation and producing collective discussion of issues leading to direct action.as - an example see www.sparksweb.org
Due to the particularly harsh and worsening conditions in many industrial sectors eg dis-organisation caused by longer shifts, increased surveillance etc - out-side-the job organisation must play a much intensive role in this papers production/distro and general their long term sustaining - in other eras much less such a role. Particularly in previous eras leftist groups of various stripes wouldn't have taken the rightward shifts they have taken today. In Australia today most of these groups act as hopeless stooges of the union bosses - assisting them with their smoke and mirrors performances associated enterprise bargaining and the often ineffectual community picket lines and covering up the massive webs of corruption associated with tentacles of the ALP Octopus the union bosses are entwined.

"Where can people go to meet where they don't have to spend money, or how many venues can be hired at an affordable rate, or how many people can even afford the bus/train fare to attend some event? I remember Freedom bookshop used to have a sofa for people to sit on, and (last time I was there) it's no longer there, that's a small example."

A problem would also be that these dysfunctional anarcho milieu "spaces" can play a very negative impact - eg in the case of Jura Books in Sydney in the lead up to its hijacking in 2013 by a cult and afterwards - very loud punk rock gigs to raise money to purchase the cult temple occurred - every one of these very common events - may have contributed to long term hearing damage and via long term excessive alcohol consumption on those attending - many inexperienced young people - leading to the likely production of many "deaf alcoholics or with significant hearing problems" in their later years. The guru of the cult and one of his cult muses had OH&S credentials and would have been fully aware of these dangers and needless to say always avoided attending these events. At these events due to the terrific noise - there would have been no discussion or enlightenment about anarchism or anarcho-syndicalism possible and the disruption of the work of serious anarcho-syndicalists at the place. My impression is that you would have a similar situation at many so called anarcho venues elsewhere and in other countries. Many attending and "involved" in these spaces eg bookshops - probably are all about having excuses for social occasions and participating in pseudo church rituals although surrounded by classic anarchist works and others which none of them are not in slightest interested in reading and getting up to all manner of navel gazing identity politics informed "political correctness" displays.

It seems to me like the number of people consuming anarchist media, and publicly putting out anarchist arguments and talking points on social media is extremely high – certainly higher than any point in the last 25 years.

What liberals and progressives have are media outlets that comment on almost everything, from that perspective on a daily basis. There’s the Youtube channels like Majority Report or The Young Turks, or online print sources of news and commentary like Truthdig, Truthout, or Alternet. Anarchists really don’t have anything like that. I don’t think social media posts can have the reach those liberal sources have.

Steven:

I mean apart from the fact that you can literally look at those countries, look at those movements, see the flags and banners participants were carrying, read the opinions they are stating, giving on social media and in the press, and see how they voted

Admittedly, amongst the militant mass movement in France the black flag was not the vast majority, but it had a strong presence, as did the red flag, regional and national flags, and every other flag under the sun.

On the streets of London, I witnessed over a million. On one photo recording the event, taken on Whitehall, ten thousand are captured and only one banner is visible, UNMASK CHILDREN.

Where can we glean the opinion of hundreds of millions? From voting habits? Which detergent is purchased?

What we can gauge is the state's reaction: violent suppression.

One song still resonates in my ears: For the honour of the workers and for a wonderful life, we are here.

You know if you act like a knob to everyone that doesn’t agree with you, Libcom will end up with about ten peop…nevermind, carry on. Hard as steel, clear as glass lads!

I thought this forum was down to about ten people so I doubt that's a concern. And to be fair there has been some right bollocks on this thread.

I think it's hard to be objective about this as anarchist groups rarely publish their membership figures. This is because they are generally tiny. There do seem to be fewer of them though and the ones that do exist appear to me to be less active.

The general wisdom in the professional membership associations world is that their memberships are in decline too. This is partly because of generational reasons, with Gen X and Boomers tending to be very loyal, or feeling that it is expected that they will be members of their professional association. Whereas Gen Z and Gen Alpha question the membership model more and may be more "transactional" in their approach - i.e. it is more about what they are going to get out of a membership than what they are going to contribute. (It is also to do with the cost of living crisis and the decline in the status of professions, but let's not get into that here).

(Of course, it is possible that anarchist groups are immune to this for some reason - and their decline is therefore for other reasons...)

It also appears to me that there is a decades long situation where the number of people who call themselves anarchists in the UK (or sympathisers) has heavily outnumbered the membership of the national orgs, so that isn't new.

In my view, it is worth asking the question from upthread about why people might join a political organisation.

It is possible that it is solely because people wish to be more politically effective, or to contribute to an organisation in some way that they feel is in alignment with their beliefs.

But it is also possible that people who are attracted to revolutionary politics may feel wildly outnumbered and marginalised and have a desire to associate with people who they can call comrade. And that these associations could be more than the alienated interactions that social media provides.

Or maybe it's something else.

In fifty posts, we’ve gone from the “revolutionary left is growing massively” to actually no so we’re making some progress. Now if we can bring up age, and ask if forty something and over, white, nice, well spoken men that make up the ultraleft are really hip to what’s going on in the streets, we’ll be cooking with gas.

"I mean, in some ways the point isn't whether anyone joins this or that group, but to what extent we're successful at making anarchist ideas the common sense across the wider working class, establishing a leadership of ideas or what you want to call it. Which is even harder to measure, although I don't think we're doing that well there either."

What is critical is getting the processes going which result in industrial direct action which affects millions and tens of millions - this can only be carried out by the strategic industrial organising of catalytic networks - the industrial organising mavericks which can scorch holes in the employer offensive - this industrial upsurge and spreading movement will unlock doors which today seem impossible to open particularly on the industrial front. Key militants in these networks based on cores and peripheries would have to play a key role in the bank rolling of their activity. (If you rely just on membership dues - nothing much will probably get done.) That definitely was the case with the Socialism or Barbarism group associated with Paul Cardan/Cornellius Castriadorius in the lead up to France May 1968 events - he had a high up job - an economist with the EEC and was in a position to fund most of its activity , similarly Chris Pallis a medical specialist funded a lot of the early Solidarity for Workers Power activity - in its early days it particularly focused on the car industry with its associated bulletins - in later years particularly with its merger with the Social Revolution group - definitely degenerated adopting left subcultural/middle class left orientations and oppression mongering. The thirty local Solidarity groups according to their publications lacked an appropriate strategic orientation. Bob Potter's account of his years in Solidarity definitely presents it as more of a network.
Whether such a phenomena is seen as small is irrelevant - its the processes it catalyses - . workers' self organisation and militancy in a strategic sector - its the workers who would be doing most of the leg work - and the network's work place paper should cease to be the network's paper but take on a life of its own in many respects and becomes seen as "our paper" by militant workers. Also important would be its capability to outmanoevre the union hierarchy/management particularly via its core members interaction with highly experienced industrial militants that they have worked with over the years - so it can move lightning fast with agitational material at the appropriate time. In this way it can slow the tempo of the employer offensive and potentially get major industrial upsurges going - it is in the strategic sector which it focuses - there exists that possibility and historical precedents.

@steven it appears to me that orgs like Momentum and DSA can provide things that revolutionary groups currently can't. The sheer scale of them means that you might get more of a sense of community as well as a feeling of being part of something with a lot of activity. Plus more people your age who are likely to live near you.

Also, there may be an opportunity for potentially getting some career advancement out of those groups, with paid positions, or at least training or volunteer roles that can be put on your CV if you are ambitious and want to work for liberal NGOs or similar...

I agree with others that the number of anarchist orgs or the number of members in them is not the most important thing, but it is probably an indicator of something.

Fwiw, as the closest thing to an anarchist organisation to be legally registered with the state, the IWW is required to keep public membership figures. I found them slightly surprising, my impression was that the IWW of the early 2010s seemed much more dynamic and impressive and that it had lost a lot of momentum once the IWGB and UVW got going, but according to the certification officer's figures they've grown from 437 members at the end of 2012 to 3,332 in the most recent figures at the end of 2023: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/industrial-workers-of-the-world-annual-returns
Which is not bad, I'd still struggle to tell you much about what contemporary UK IWW organising campaigns look like though.

That's the power of the folk-labor songs...