"Distinguishing itself clearly from other movements by its refusal to have anything to do with the putrescence which is bourgeois democracy, anarchism represents, in the eyes of thousands of revolutionary workers, the Barbarian who will raze to the ground the old society collapsing in blood and chaos and guarded by its mercenaries and its corrupt morality, in order to replace it with a higher form of civilization". Charles Ridel, 1938.
This extremely valuable book tells the story of the French anarchist movement's struggles with both organisation and the lack of it. As such, it should be read for its lessons for all anarchist movements, in whatever country they are organising. Along with a recent work on the Siberian anarchist movement (see separate article) the work underlines the crying need for organisation. All serious anarchists should get hold of a copy of this (try and get it from a library because of the high cost of this hardback) and use it as ammunition in the fight against disorganisation, lack of unity and collective action, fixation on localism to the detriment of a more global approach, and "spontaneity" and anti- organisation elevated to theory.
Both the Russian and Spanish revolutions presented great challenges for the anarchist movement, as did the Second World War and the Occupation. David Berry goes into these problems in detail. He also demolishes the myth much put about by academics and Marxists (sometimes one and the same) that support for anarchism came primarily from one or all of the following categories: the bohemian fringe, intellectuals, the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpenproletariat. Marxists saw anarchism as a political current that was looking backwards, that it represented the interests of a primarily artisanal working class that was being superceded by a proletariat concentrated in factories. Berry shows that whilst it may be true that anarchism was supported in France in the last part of the 19th century by workers in traditional, highly skilled jobs, this was because French working-class consciousness had its roots in these social categories and not among factory workers. He demonstrates that this had changed by the 1890s and anarchists in the artisanal trades were in sharp decline with an increasing number among the concentrated mass industries. His own studies point to a clear majority of blue- collar workers. He also points out that the "petty bourgeois" occupations of some anarchists- café proprietors, market-stall holders, peddlers and small shop-keepers was because many of these had been troublesome workers blacklisted by the bosses. For them these occupations were a last resort. He asserts that there was no great difference in term of class between members of the Communist Party and the organisation the Anarchist Union (UA) in the 1920s. Furthermore, by the time of the Popular Front the anarchist movement was significantly more "proletarian" than the Socialist Party.
Organisation
Berry is rightly- scathing about the damaging effects that individualist anarchism had on the anarchist movement in France.This influence decreased in the years after the end of the First world War and the movement was increasingly dominated by anarchist communism. Many anarchists saw the Russian revolution as a libertarian one, and they interpreted the soviets in an anarchist fashion. A member of the French Anarchist Federation, Lebourg, stated in 1920 that a new revolutionary tradition was emerging. Indeed, he and other anarchists were involved in setting up the Communist Federation of Soviets(FCS). This was the transformation of the first French Communist Party, created in 1919, into something organised on a federal basis.It should be noted that this first Communist Party sought to unite those anarchists, syndicalists and socialists who had adopted an anti-war and class struggle position. Lebourg justified this regroupment by talking about "the antagonisms which have always divided the revolutionary proletariat into two groups: the centralists and the federalists, those who favour political action and those who favour direct class action, the authoritarian communists and the libertarian communists. We are at present witnessing a regrouping, within the Communist International, of the partisans of these two tendencies".
The regrouping was a brittle one and soon fell apart. Nevertheless, as Berry notes, the sovietism developed in the FCS by anarchists and others called for tighter organization, structured in a libertarian and federalist manner, with a high degree of ideological and practical cohesion. It was anti-parliamentarian and revolutionary and based itself on the working class. It criticised the individualism and idealism of some currents within anarchism. It was inspired by German councilism and Russian sovietism.By mid-1920 the FCS had developed criticisms of the Russian Bolsheviks, whilst defending the Russian revolution as a libertarian one. Meanwhile the Anarchist Federation and the Federation Communiste Libertaire du Nord organised around the paper Germinal in northern France- were re- asserting anarchist communism and developing their criticisms of Bolshevism. The paper of the Anarchist Federation, Le Libertaire, increased its print run to 20,000 and Germinal went from irregular to 3 regional editions on a weekly basis. Germinal/FCL also called for tactical and strategic unity. Here too, a clear break with any admiration for Bolshevism came in 1920. The Anarchist Federation's honeymoon with Bolshevism, on the other hand, only really lasted 4 months. The Anarchist Federation transformed itself into the Union Anarchiste in 1920, and criticisms of Bolshevism became more acute, in particular as more news and information reached them from Russia. Antagonisms between anarchists and the official Communist Party broke out into the open in a violent and spectacular way in 1924. At a meeting at the Maison des Syndicats ( the House of the Unions) an argument between anarchists and Communists ended with the shooting dead of two apparently unarmed anarchists.
The period of 1924-1934 was a period of crisis for French anarchism. The UA turned itself to the question of organisation. At its 1921 Congress Bastien stated that the removal of both "the elements of extreme individualism" and "the supporters of confusionism" had strengthened anarchist communism. Unfortunately, attempts by him and others to develop more effective organization were to be thwarted. The debate about organization did not really crystallise until 1926, however, with the appearance of the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, written by Russian and Ukrainian anarchists in exile in France. For those French anarchists arguing for more effective organisation and action, this document seemed to be a distillation and clarification of all their ideas. There was fierce argument in the UA and in the wider movement about the Platform. The platformist position triumphed at the 1927 Congress of the UA and part of the opposition left to found their own organisation. However platformist influence was not complete, and the UA- now the Union Anarchiste Communiste revolutionnaire- was to be the battlefield for supporters and opponents of the Platform for several years to come.
By 1934-36 those who supported the Platform were once again in a position to dominate the UA and this coincided with the Popular Front government, the threat of fascism and the Spanish Revolution. Sales of le Libertaire rose sharply as did membership of the UA.- a quadrupling. Indeed one May Day 1937 run of le Libertaire was 100,000! The UA was able to announce in autumn 1937 that it was "the only force having the authority and influence necessary to lead the revolutionary movement". However, despite this resurgence, new recruits were not always retained and compared to the Socialists and the Communists, the movement was still weak.
Spain
Response to the Spanish revolution and the decision by some anarchists to enter the government also divided the movement. The UA mobilised for maximum support for the Spanish revolution as did the anarchosyndicalist union the CGT-SR and the split from the UA, the Federation Anarchiste (FAF). However, there were severe criticisms by the latter two of the stance of he mass Spanish anarchosyndicalist union, the CNT. The UA, on the other hand, was unwilling to criticise the Spanish anarchist movement. In fact, the entry of CNT notables into the Catalan government and the national government, were not met with indignation but with a reserved disquiet. There were arguments in the pages of le Libertaire that these governments were not the normal sort, they were more like anti-fascist fronts! Furthermore, such participation showed how important the CNT and the specific anarchist organisation, the FAI, were, and should be greeted with enthusiasm!
Internally, there were debates in the UA about this question., but it was agreed that any criticism "that may weaken ...solidarity is to be banished from our ranks". The differences between the UA on one hand, and the CGTSR and FAF , on the other, were exacerbated as a result of this. While it is true that the CGTSR/FAF couched their criticisms in a harshly purist and sectarian way, "anti-fascist unity" seems to have blinkered the UA, and gagged them when it came to expressing criticism of CNT-FAI "ministerialism"
Second World War
The Second World War caused the disintegration of the anarchist movement. The UA stated ; " The only just war the workers can make is the social war, class war". In the months leading up to the outbreak, anarchists, demoralised already after their differences over Spain, were under continuous attack from the State. Prudhommeaux of the FAF noted:" Armed revolutionary struggle on a world scale is out of the question in the present situation and given the parlous state of our forces. The retreat has been too generalised since July 1936 for us to have any chance of fighting effectively for our cause, and while we still have so many wounds to heal and are still suffering from so many losses. As for getting ourselves killed for capitalism, too many of our comrades have already fallen in Spain and elsewhere".
The UA decided : " In the event of war, comrades should first of all save their lives in order to be able to create a clandestine organisation which will allow them to remain in contact, even if all propaganda is impossible.." Sauliere, a stalwart of the underground movement in southern France wrote that the group he helped create in Marseilles was "doubly clandestine" because "our propaganda attacked not only fascism, but all those responsible for the war, including capitalism and the Stalinist dictatorship". Sauliere's group produced a poster calling on working class conscripts of all countries to turn their bayonets not on each other but on their own leaders, whether they wear the swastika, the red star, the Order of the Garter, the Cross of Lorraine or the Frankish axe".
It was thanks to Sauliere and those like him, that a post-war anarchist movement was slowly reconstructed, although the old questions and quarrels of the inter-war years, on organisation, on how to relate to the masses, and a whole number of other matters, were to continue to plague that movement. Berry's history is important, and it should be read and learnt from.
The Fountain at the Centre of the World - Robert Newman. Verso, 2003. ISBN 1859845438
This, the third novel by Robert Newman, comedian and activist, is that rarest of things: an explicitly political, indeed openly partisan novel that doesn't make you cringe.
An adventure and misadventure story set against the background of capitalist globalisation and the struggle against it, The Fountain at the Centre of the World is, above all else, a book, the humanity of whose central characters, rapidly engage the reader. If one of the signs of a good book is that, soon after meeting the characters, you care deeply about what happens to them, then this is a very good book indeed. The challenges faced by Daniel in the search for his father, challenges which he faces on two continents and in three alien cultures, are soon those of the reader. The final chapters assault senses and emotions equally as a reunion, amidst the chaos of the Seattle protests of 1999, appears possible at last.
Newman has refused to reduce his protagonists to cartoon heroes and villains whilst making no pretence at objectivity or detachment. We are not subjected to any attempt to devalue the actions of the characters through exposing their deep psychological flaws, a popular device used by cynical hacks to explain the motivations of revolutionaries. Values are at work here and they are the values of people who believe not just that another world is possible, but that another way achieving it, beyond NGOs, Union bureaucracies and progressive politicians, is possible too. A few negatives though. Sometimes the book appears to have reached the shelves in note form, like the author was pushed for time or was writing a screenplay. And in a book that is so obviously meticulously researched and, therefor convincing, it's a pity the Mexican Frente Autentico Trabajo is described as "anarcho-syndicalist". It isn't. Other than these criticisms (the latter one that only an anarcho-trainspotter could make!), this is a remarkable book. Go and order it from your library. Unsurprizingly, it couldn't find a mainstream fiction publisher so it's out on Verso at the inflated price of 10.99 for a paperback.
Louis Lecoin: An Anarchist Life - Sylvain Garel. Kate Sharpley Library. 25p. £1.50
Louis Lecoin came to Paris from the Cher department in 1905, at the age of 16.
Here he got a job as a nurseryman. He took part in a gardeners' strike and glasshouses and cold frames suffered as a result of direct action taken by him and others! He was later arrested during a gardeners' demonstration. Because he had attended an anarchist public meeting the night before, his pockets were stuffed with pamphlets and handbills he had picked up there. The judge took him to be an anarchist, and he spent 3 months in jail. On his release he did start moving in an anarchist direction. Called up in 1910, he began to resist commands. When a rail strike broke out, Lecoin refused to be used as a strike-breaker. For this he received 6 months prison. When he came out of the army he joined a group of the Anarchist Communist Federation (FCA) in a working class quarter of Paris, Belleville. The FCA had a membership of 400 and the young Lecoin became its secretary in 1912. He launched himself into anti-militarist activity, and was sentenced to 5 years prison for having printed a poster inciting desertion. Released in 1916, he refused to answer the draft and was again imprisoned! From here he edited an underground edition of le Libertaire, the FCA's paper ( although the FCA itself had disintegrated). Lecoin was not released until 1920, by which time he had become a famous militant.
Lecoin's release coincided with the founding of the UA, (see above) which had replaced the FCA. Lecoin became administrator of le Libertaire.In 1922, for personal reasons, he resigned this post. He assisted le Libertaire when it became a daily at the end of 1923 for a time, but his major efforts were now concentrated on providing support to Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian-American anarchists under sentence of death in the States, and to the Spanish anarchists Jover, Ascaso and Durruti under threat of extradition to Spain from France. He set up the Right to Asylum Committee and launched the Sacco-Vanzetti Committee.
In the struggle between opponents and supporters of the Platform in the UA, Lecoin was one of those who rejected its proposals but stayed in the UA. Lecoin and his associates pushed for the organisation's congress of 1930 to be open to subscribers to le Libertaire as well as to the breakaway group. The result was a defeat for the platformists. Lecoin now took a back seat, involving himself in humanitarian campaigns involving support from many celebrities for his Right to Asylum Committee. Many UA members criticised him for his activities whose principles and methods were "at odds with anarchism's overall principles. Lecoin was involved in intense activity around support for Spain from 1936 onwards and the UA charged him and a few others with setting up the Free Spain Committee.
Lecoin attempted to stop the looming World War by propaganda. Ten days after war broke out, he helped issue 100,000 copies of a leaflet "Immediate peace". This was a vague humanitarian appeal that failed to refer to class struggle, that assumed that either the French or German states could be persuaded to give up their war plans. Nevertheless, Lecoin was arrested and remained inprison until 1941. Drained physically and psychologically, he kept his head down for the rest of the war. He was later criticised for his passivity in this period. He was not one of those who was at the foundation meetings of the Anarchist Federation(FA) in 1945. He remained outside of the FA., producing his own review, which was influenced strongly by individualism and humanism. He was involved in a whole series of campaigns based around celebrities. One of them, around conscientious objection in 1958, included a Protestant pastor and a Catholic abbot. Lecoin carried on in this fashion until his death in 1971, often being arrested and imprisoned, and sometimes going on hunger strike. Alongside this was his activity in the workplace ( he had been a proof-reader on and off since 1928). Lecoin was a brave individual, willing to risk imprisonment and often mobilising against injustice and attacks on anarchism. Witness his interventions around the expulsion of Daniel Cohn-Bendit from France in 1968, and the murder of the anarchist Pinelli by the Italian state in 1970., as well as the significant sum of money he collected for the FA's premises in 1962 when it was bombed by the far- right OAS. Set against this is the misgivings felt by many in the anarchist movement about Lecoin's reputation as a loose cannon and the dubious nature of his campaigns.
In David Berry's book reviewed above, space is given to the Revision Group, which produced a theoretical magazine of the same name. This group had many trenchant criticisms of the anarchist movement in France.One of its militants, Charles Ridel was scathing in his criticisms of "supposedly anarchist campaigns void of any revolutionary content and headed by committees full of `independents' "hams and posers with a tear always at the ready"". For Ridel, any campaign, any movement, any action which was not anchored in the class struggle lost all validity for a revolutionary anarchist and resulted in the anarchist organisation becoming a "mere annexe of the political `left'". This is aimed at some of the campaigns the UA was involved in, and in particular those that Lecoin initiated.
The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo - Noam Chomsky Pluto Press, London. www.plutobooks.com. ISBN 0-7453-1633-6 1999
You may be wondering why, after September 11 and war with Afghanistan and Iraq, we didn't choose to review one of Chomsky's more recent offerings, such is the pace he is able to churn them out.
But it's right now that parts of the left are being challenged to take a hard look back at Kosovo and wondering if they got it wrong. Alongside a US under Clinton, this was Tony Blair's (and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's) so-called humanitarian war that is now understood for what it really was - a media manipulating dupe by NATO - a dupe made all the more powerful by the support of left-leaning UK papers like the Guardian and Independent, and worse still by the disarray in the radical left and even some of the anarchist press (see Organise! 52 - Confusion over Kosovo). Whilst we managed a couple of articles, Chomsky was already there with this book barely months after the bombing commenced on March 24 in 1999, dismantling the moral justification and exposing the lies by his analysis of contemporary texts and press out puts.
Much of the first part of the book, looking at the NATO allies' past record in warfare, will be preaching to the converted for many Organise! readers, but this should not put anyone off. The book contains a step-by-step review of events before and immediately leading up to the bombing, including diplomatic manoeuvrings. NATO wanted to bomb, and ensured that diplomacy to avoid war would fail, but also deliberately misinterpreted post-war peace agreements over who would be in military command (helping to explain the `surprise` take-over of Pristina airport by Russian troops - remember that?). Chomsky also shows how the low-level conflict in the previous year was distorted (with three quarters of 2000 recorded deaths actually being attributable to the Albanian KLA, a quarter to the Serbian Army) and that the results of the bombing - the Serbian Army retributions and mass exodus of the huge numbers of people we saw on our TV screens - was completely anticipated by the allies, all from NATO's own analysis!
Rounding up, Chomsky sees a US further out of control of international law and in its own words taking a post-Cold War strategic posture that benefits it to have an "irrational and vindictive" edge, for example outside of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty towards first use of mini-nukes that can be used against multiple smaller `rogue` targets. All of this is intended to give credibility to US power that is mirrored in the main reason for the Kosovo war, according to Chomsky: NATO's credibility. We are also reminded how our own George Robertson, British Defence Minister, was rewarded with leadership of NATO for toeing the US line.
Now we've had the Iraq occupation, but also a little reported upsurge in violence by nationalists in Kosovo this March and a swing to the far right in Serbia (something we predicted in Organise! 51 - Kicked in the Balkans Again). It's not NATO vs. UN any more - Europe is too divided on the Iraq war for that - it's US vs. UN, although before we get too rosy-eyed about the UN we can also turn to this book to remind us of the terrible effects of sanctions. If you're looking for more up to date material making the link with today's Iraq, you can read Chomsky's `Hegemony or Survival` (2003), or MediaLens' David Edwards' article `Kosovo and Iraq - Same Bombs, Different Lies` (April 6, 2004) that is easily found on the Web with lots more references. But, being 5 years older, The New Military Humanism helps greatly in cutting through the smokescreen raised by September 11 and the `war on terrorism,` revealing a US foreign policy that has remained for the most part constant, irrespective of political party.