library

• editorial: Why Anarcho-Syndicalism Remains Relevant Today
• A Contradiction at the Heart of Chaos - regulation of global financial markets to solve boom and bust is a non-starter
• Occupy and Defy - the Visteon workers’ struggle and their union
• Lewisham Occupation - a community fighting to save its primary school
• Fujitsu Attack on Pensions
• Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap - immigrant cleaners’: the “hard-to-organise” are self-organising
• Breaking Isolation - domestic abuse and workplace support
• The Big Green Con - seeing through the sham of “green” capitalism
• our history: The Great Dock Strike of 1889 - for the anarchist movement, a significant event that turned abstract talk into what ultimately became anarcho-syndicalism
• No Platform for Fascism - the BNP, despite “ordinary people” voting for it, is a fascist party and must continue to be confronted as such
• have your say: Anarchism & Crime/ Crime / the Miami Five / Left Luggage/ English National Resistance
• A Rebellious Tradition - is there cause for optimism amid greed, corruption & inequality?
• international: the CNT vs. Ryanair/ General Strike for the Amazon/ Killing for Profit
• reviews: Paul Mason - Live Working or Die Fighting and Meltdown/ Kate Sharpley Library - A Grand Cause; The Federación Anarquista Uruguaya and Salvador Puig Antich & the MIL
• closer look: Seeing Sense in the Age of Stupid - alienation, power and the case for social transformation
• DA resources: Solidarity Federation booklets, contacts, information and friends & neighbours

Anarcho-syndicalism, a theory and practice of working class revolution, was developed not by scholars working in libraries but by the workers themselves. The anarcho-syndicalist movement of the 20th century extended to all the industrialized countries of the world and even agricultural regions. This was not a fringe phenomenon but involved millions of workers.

Mainstream labour unions and social-democratic parties have become increasingly powerless to protect the gains of workers. In this situation, anarcho-syndicalism — the revolutionary, non-authoritarian alternative to reformism — is once again on the agenda. This critical study of anarcho-syndicalism in the last century reveals a history of struggle which has often been neglected but holds many valuable lessons for the present.

This pamphlet has been written by a group of people in the Solidarity Federation. We are actively involved in taking direct action for a better world. However, we are also interested in what this better world might be like and how it might work. In the current world of US-led terror against terror, corporate cronyism and corruption, and widening global and class inequality, we all want and deserve better.

The Solidarity Federation is the British section of the anarcho-syndicalist global movement. Anarcho-syndicalism is about direct democracy – democracy from the bottom up - no party politicians, corporate managers or union leaders. Direct democracy means decisions are made by all those present. Hence, we cannot be prescriptive about what a future, decent economy might work like. It will be decided by the people there at the time. Hopefully, it will happen soon, and everyone will be involved. However, in the meantime, it is rather a cop-out to simply say, “we'll sort that out later” and then, fall back on abstract principles or vague concepts. So, we thought it would be useful to develop a detailed model (but not a straightjacket) of how it could work. This is the result.

SelfEd Collective, 24 unit correspondence course, 2001

Block 1

Unit 1: Introduction - The origins of Capitalism
Unit 2: Britain - The radical period 1750s-1840s
Unit 3: The First International
Unit 4: France 1870-1918 - Early revolutionary Unions
Unit 5: Revolutionary syndicalism in Britain, 1870-1910
Unit 6: Revolutionary syndicalism in Britain and Ireland, 1910-1917

Block 2

Unit 7: Mexico 1870-1920 - Colonialism and revolution 
Unit 8: USA 1886-1930 - The Wobblies
Unit 9: Anarcho-syndicalism in Argentina 1870-1939
Unit 10: Sweden - 1889-1939
Unit 11: Russia I - 1850-1917
Unit 12: Russia II - 1917-1930

Block 3

Unit 13: Going Global - International Organisation, 1872-1922
Unit 14: Anarcho-syndicalism in Britain, 1914-30
Unit 15: Spain, 1868-1936 - Build-up to revolution
Unit 16: Spain - Culture, education, women and sexuality
Unit 17: Spain 1936-39 - Revolution and civil war
Unit 18: Spain - The Collectives

Block 4

Unit 19: Britain, 1930-1950 - The era of reformism
Unit 20: Britain, 1950-1990 - Decline of social democracy
Unit 21: Global anarcho-syndicalism 1939-99
Unit 22: Roots of modern anarcho-syndicalism - freedom, oppression, rebellion
Unit 23: Roots of modern anarcho-syndicalism - morality, culture, tactics
Unit 24: The spirit of anarcho-syndicalism

Works Councils are coming to Britain. But what are Works Councils, and what will they mean for working people and trade unions? Are the TUC unions right to welcome the changes in labour relations which Works Councils will bring?

Works Councils, far from empowering people, act as a tool by which management can control and pacify people at work. The truth behind Works Councils is exposed here through the views of workers in France, who have witnessed their failure at first hand.

The message is clear; there is nothing to be gained and much to lose from the introduction of a Works Council system in Britain.

Out of the Frying Pan is a new, critical analysis of Works Councils and a look ahead at a real future for organising and fighting back in your workplace.

This pamphlet is based on a course organised by North & East London Solidarity Federation called "Organising for Health and Safety" back in 1997.

The 1987 struggle against threatened closure in and around the shipyards of Puerto Real, Spain, in both workplace and community witnessed the anarcho-syndicalist union CNT playing both a prominent and decisive role.

The Direct Action Movement's 1991 pamphlet on strategy, setting out a vision of networks of militant workers seeking to create explicitly revolutionary workplace and community based groups capable of initiating collective direct action - revolutionary unions. The DAM became Solidarity Federation in 1994.

• Throwing down the gauntlet
• The phoney war
• Class mobilisation
• On the offensive
• A call to arms

"One must try to increase as much as possible the theoretical content of all our activities, but without the 'dry and shriveled doctrinalism' which could destroy in part the great constructive action which our comrades are carrying forward in the relentless fight between the haves and the have nots. Our people stand for action on the march. It is while going forward that we overtake. Don't hold them back, even to teach them `the most beautiful theories' ..."

Francisco Ascaso, from Durruti — the People Armed

This short pamphlet is not intended to be the definitive information on the Poll Tax as this is impossible as the government is still amending its rules and regulations concerning the implementation of the Poll Tax. [1]

REVOLUTIONARY UNIONISM IN LATIN AMERICA

The FORA in Argentina

ASP LONDON & DONCASTER 1987

PREFACE

Anarchism is the philosophy of a new social order based on liberty, and unrestricted by man-made laws; the theory that all forms of government rest on violence and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.