Sociology of the Anarchists - Gozips.uakron.edu - The University of ...

transformative movements as ones that seek far-reaching change, including revolution.
[More about Aberle and transformative movements!]
Using the criteria devised by Charles Tilly's “From Mobilization to Revolution”, the
anarchist movement has responded in varied ways to organization, mobilization, common
interests, and opportunity (Tilly 1978, drawn from Giddens & Duneier 2000). Tilly used
Lenin and the Russian Revolution as his example, which, unfortunately, ignores (at least
on face), the large impact that anarchist principles had in fueling that revolution, not to
mention the shameful crackdown on anarchists that followed or the liberatory institutions
the Bolsheviks destroyed, such as the worker councils. 37
Since an anarchist revolution has not explicitly taken place in America, Tilly's theory
applied to anarchism is speculative, but still informative. Anarchists are obsessive
organization creators—it is often remarked that anarchists are some of the best organized
activists on the political left. Even though anarchism has a strong pro-organization thrust,
some self-identified left-anarchists are decidedly anti-organizational. Often
“organization” is referred to in terms of a large, monolithic organization, complete with
bureaucracy. Many of these individuals fall into the somewhat controversial “wing” of
anarchists theory called “primitivism”. Also some identify as “anti-organizationalist”,
meaning that they do not believe in excessive, non-democratic, and organization for the
sake of itself. Still, whether in collectives, affinity groups, spokes-councils, networks, or
federations, anarchists use non-hierarchical organizations as the basis for their varied
political action.
Various “spontaneous formation of crowds” also exist in an anarchist context, in the form
of “black blocs”, “smart mobs”, and feeder marches—although these are somewhat preorganized
configurations. 38 Feeder marches were used in many American cities during the
recent war on Iraq (2002-2003), where anarchists wanted to lend their own politics to
anti-war events organized by more liberal groups. Thus, instead of disrupting those events
and marches, anarchists and other anti-imperialists organized marches that started earlier
in different places and met up with the larger, more mainstream march. 39
Anarchists often speak of spontaneous self-organization of people because they do not
see the need for certain people to organize others for them. 40 More on anarchist
organization in the Organization section.
Anarchist mobilization (Tilly's second component) has had varied success at acquiring
sufficient resources that can make collective action possible. Some American
communities have better networks (or “scenes”) in place that allow for a relatively quick
mobilization of resources (people, money, political lobby, infrastructure) than do others.
Places such as the Bay Area (CA), Portland and Eugene (OR), Boston (MA), Washington
DC, and others have established “infoshops” that are catalysts for mobilization and
37 Resources on the Bolshevik persecution of anarchists are large in number. See Rudolph Rocker, Emma
Goldman, anything about the Kronstadt sailors, Nestor Makhno, and so forth.
38 See Infoshop.org for more information about smartmobs (http://www.infoshop.org/smartmobs.html) and
black blocs (http://www.infoshop.org/blackbloc.html).
39 See Williams (2004a) for more on feeder marches.
40 See Ward (1996), pp. 31-39, chapter “The Theory of Spontaneous Order”.
[ Williams 46 ] [ this is a draft. do not cite. ]