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strategies for change 131 spectrum of anarchist opinion, from social anarchists involved in community networking schemes to class struggle anarchists. Some anarchists still feel uneasy with this form of organization and argue that the premises on which it is based are inherently elitist. One anti-capitalist protester has put the point thus: For all that activist cells and secret societies have long been part of the revolutionary tradition, they are deeply problematic for anarchism. While Leninists and authoritarians of all descriptions have no problems with decisions being made by an elite minority, a central tenet of anarchism is that decisions should be made by the people affected by them. That kind of democratic control is ruled out if the movement, or the anarchist part of it, goes underground – we’ll be left with small groups doing what they think is in everyone’s interests, instead of everyone getting a chance to make their own decisions. 11 Proponents of revolutionary organization respond that there is a difference in principle between Bakuninism and Leninism. Stuart Christie’s defence is based on the Bakuninist idea that anonymity protects anarchists against a ‘vainglorious’ slide into vanguardism. The Angry Brigade, he argues, ‘remained anonymous. It made no bid or claim to leadership’. 12 The London-based Anarchist Federation (AF) argue by assertion: their aim is to establish ‘semi-secretive (but never elitist) non-permanent “workplace resistance” groups’ of dedicated revolutionaries – ‘anti-capitalist, anti-company, anti-union and anti-party political’. 13 Alfredo Bonanno’s more robust defence is posited on the openness of affinity groups to non-anarchists, the avoidance of ‘generic’ programmes for change and, above all, the autonomy of groups from political parties and trade union organizations. The ‘organizational logic’ of what is called insurrectional anarchism is towards permanent conflict, not towards the creation of new forms of administration or control. Whether or not anarchists should organize agitation groups to foster mass insurrection remains a moot point. All three major insurrectionary strategies that anarchists have devised provide space for such action. These are propaganda by the deed, the general strike and guerrilla warfare. Even practical anarchism, a non-insurrectionary strategy, is consistent with affinity group organization.
132 anarchism: a beginner’s guide revolutionary strategies propaganda by the deed This strategy had its origins in 1877 when it was used by Malatesta and comrades to provoke a peasant insurrection in Benevento, near Naples. The idea behind the principle was that small bands of dedicated revolutionaries would stir up revolution by inciting peasants. In Italy revolutionaries moved … about in the countryside as long as possible, preaching war, inciting to social brigandage, occupying the small communes and then leaving them after having performed there those revolutionary acts that were possible and advancing to those localities where our presence would be manifested most usefully. 14 The most notable act of propaganda by the deed was the destruction of land registry documents. In spirit the policy was Bakuninist. Bakunin’s strategy called for the destruction of all political, judicial, civil, and military institutions by the non-payment of taxes, rents and debts and the refusal of conscription. Yet propaganda by the deed was not endorsed as a revolutionary strategy until the 1881 London Anarchist Conference. Here it was understood to justify any act, legal or otherwise, from the production and distribution of underground propaganda to political violence. Kropotkin’s An Appeal to the Young captured the essence of the idea and was printed in several European languages by socialists of all hues. In 1898 the English anarchist David Nicoll presented a more graphic illustration in his translation of Kropotkin’s The Spirit of Revolt: … from … peaceable reasonings to insurrection and revolt there is an abyss, that which, with the greater part of humanity, separates the argument from the deed, the thought from the will, the desire to act. How has this abyss been crossed? … The reply is easy. It is the action of minorities … Courage, devotion, the spirit of self-sacrifice … What form will this agitation take? The most varied forms which are dictated by circumstance, means, temperaments. Sometimes gloomy, sometimes lively … but always audacious; sometimes collective, sometimes purely individual … 15 Propaganda by the deed has very negative connotations. One reason for this is that the strategy was modelled on an assumption of
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contents Acknowledgements vii intro
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acknowledgements A number of people
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chapter two anarchist rejections of
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Page 95 and 96: chapter three anarchy We have alway
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Page 184 and 185: index Page numbers in italic denote
Page 186 and 187: index 177 Farrow, Lynne 119 fascism
Page 188 and 189: index 179 and state 30, 45-6, 50, 5
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