Anarchy magazine (series 2)

Anarchy magazine cover

Partial archive of the second series of Anarchy magazine, published by the Anarchy Collective in London in the 1980s which ran for 38 issues. Its editors included Chris Broad and Phil Ruff at different times.

Phil Ruff has written about this period in "The Invisible Dictatorship - a short history of Anarchy magazine (second series)" for the Kate Sharpley Library.

If you have any spare copies of this magazine which you would like to donate to us so we can add them to the archive please contact us let us know in the comments below.

Comments

Fozzie
Oct 24 2020 14:05

Josh MacPhee has published a series of articles at Just Seeds on the covers of Anarchy 2nd Series:

Part One: issues 1-4

Part Two: issues 5-9

Part Three: issues 10-14

Part Four: issues 15-20

Part Five: issues 21-26

Part Six: issues 27-31

Part Seven: issues 32-38

Fozzie
Oct 26 2020 18:05

There is also a quite good thread on here discussing the different series of Anarchy and the context:
https://libcom.org/forums/history/different-anarchy-magazines-24112012

R Totale
May 10 2021 09:11

Annoyingly, it looks like a fair few of the issues that were most likely to have input from "Graham Coates" aren't archived - looking at his statement, it does seem like he definitely wrote for Anarchy about work (page 22).

Steven.
May 11 2021 02:19
R Totale wrote:
Annoyingly, it looks like a fair few of the issues that were most likely to have input from "Graham Coates" aren't archived - looking at his statement, it does seem like he definitely wrote for Anarchy about work (page 22).

Good find, super interesting!

lurdan
May 11 2021 12:52

Had a look through my copies. The only article signed 'GC' is 'Work and Non-Work' in issue 24. Cant see anything else which springs out as potentially being by him.

Here's a scan of that issue.
https://files.catbox.moe/fgk4t5.pdf

Looking through the documents the Inquiry has put online related to him there are a number about Anarchy collective meetings and members of the collective, and a few about Zero, but also some about meetings of the London Workers Group, the Persons Unknown Support Group, and the East London Libertarians, amongst others. Also meetings to plan the Anarchist May Day picnic.

Online here:
https://www.ucpi.org.uk/individuals_name/hn-304/?fwp_paged=1#grid

In his article about work and non-work he discusses those who do 'imaginary work'

Quote:
What then, are imaginary workers? They are all sorts of shits - some obvious, some less so. The list is, in all likelihood, end­less, but it includes police, government employees in general (not in totality), arm­ed forces, shrinks, skunk lawyers/solicitors, judges and probably juries (for the extent of their service on it), doctors and consultants, the whole shoddy array of little men, who rip off the people with gear they don't want or even need in their most mundane imaginings. All sorts of bums that shit all over everywhere except themselves. Why are they 'imaginary workers'? Because if you or I or even they were to stop and think about it, they do nothing of any use to anyone without exploiting them. It is dubious even if what they do can be called work at all. True they work at conning us, but that is something else.

Perhaps we should have got him to write a job report for the London Workers bulletin.

R Totale
May 11 2021 14:17

Thanks for that, have added - could someone let the COPS/Undercover Research lot know that it's now online? Looking at that statement again, he says on page 27 that he wrote "5 or 6" articles for Anarchy, but I suppose if some of them were anonymous there's no way of knowing really. Would all be either 77 or 78, from the sounds of it.

Fozzie
May 11 2021 16:01

Thanks Lurdan!

I can let some people know, RT.

Fozzie
Oct 2 2021 13:21

@RegionRadPress on Twitter flagged up that a couple of undercover cop reports into meetings of the Anarchy collective have now been released by the Undercover Policing Inquiry:

Special Branch report on a weekly meeting of the Anarchy Collective 19 Oct 1978
https://www.ucpi.org.uk/publications/special-branch-report-on-a-weekly-m...

Special Branch report on a casual meeting of the Anarchy Collective 09 Feb 1979
https://www.ucpi.org.uk/publications/special-branch-report-on-a-casual-m...