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strategies for change 135 and heart, word and pen, dagger and gun, irony and curse, theft, poisoning and arson, lets make … war on society’. 23 Zerzan too revels in the potential violence of insurrection, sharing Bookchin’s enthusiasm for the Paris uprising and treating events like the 1992 Los Angeles riots as markers of insurrection. He also embraces terrorism as revolutionary instrument, celebrating the Unabomber for establishing a clean break with armchair rebellion: Enter the Unabomber and a new line is being drawn. This time the bohemian schiz-fluxers, Green yuppies, hobbyist anarchojournalists, condescending organizers of the poor, hip nihiloaesthetes and all the other ‘anarchists’ who thought their pretentious pastimes would go on unchallenged indefinitely – well, it’s time to pick which side you’re on … Some, no doubt, would prefer to wait for a perfect victim. Many would like to unlearn what they know of the invasive and unchallenged violence generated everywhere by the prevailing order – in order to condemn the Unabomber’s counter-terror. But here is this person and the challenge before us. Anarchists! One more effort if you would be enemies of this long nightmare! 24 Whilst notions of insurrection endure in the anarchist movement, many anarchists argue that the success of revolution depends on the extent to which anarchists can extend their influence amongst the workers and use insurrection as a platform for construction. The syndicalist alternative is to bring about revolution through general strike. the general strike Like propaganda by the deed the origins of the general strike are sometimes traced to Bakunin. Whilst developing his ideas of revolutionary fraternity, Bakunin considered the ways in which the masses might be educated to understand the causes and cures for their oppression. Instruction was one method, but in Bakunin’s view, education or propaganda were by themselves inadequate tools to move the oppressed to rebellion. Another way ‘for the workers to learn theory is through practice: emancipation through practical action’. This required the ‘full solidarity of the workers in their struggle against their bosses, through the trade unions and the
136 anarchism: a beginner’s guide building up of resistance’. 25 Anarcho-syndicalists like Ferdinand Pelloutier and Rudolf Rocker took Bakunin’s idea to elaborate a full-blown revolutionary strategy. The role of syndicates is to defend the interests of producers within capitalism in a manner that challenges reformism. Workers are encouraged to develop a sense of unity and are equipped with the technical skills and economic knowledge necessary for them to take direct control of production in the event of revolution. The principle of syndicalist struggle is direct action. Direct action is sometimes understood to mean purely industrial action without the intermediary of trade union officials. However, Rocker offered a tighter definition. In accordance with the principle of emancipation, direct action described action taken through ‘the instruments of economic power which the working class has at its command’. But it also described actions that were designed to provoke a response from the state. 26 Syndicalists employ a number of tactics to further their aims, notably sabotage, boycott and occupation. In addition, they use slowdowns, the work-to-rule, the sitdown or ‘quicky strike’ and the sick-in (in which workers spontaneously develop illnesses which prevent them from working). Max Nettlau argued that one of the most effective weapons of syndicalist action is the good work strike, where workers shoulder responsibility for their labour and refuse to undertake work which compromises its quality. On such an action, builders might ‘resolve that no unionist may touch slums – helping neither to erect nor to repair them’. Nettlau believed that this kind of action was truly revolutionary: if London builders decided to refuse work on slums ‘by one stroke the question not only of housing but also of landlordism would come to the front. The cry of the public in reply would be No Rent! And the shop assistants might help by coming out, refusing to handle further the abominable food which they now sell’. 27 Critics of anarcho-syndicalism – from Malatesta to Bookchin and Bonanno – argue that labour organizations are more likely to protect or improve the position of their members in the existing system than they are to work for revolutionary change. This should not prevent anarchists from taking part in labour movement struggles, but should alert them to the fact that syndicates cannot be regarded as anarchist organizations. They also argue that syndicalist structures tend to ossify, undermining the ability of grass-roots members to take initiatives and encouraging syndicalist leaders to
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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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