Where it all began

 

On libcom.org there's a section for galleries, mostly for photography and poster archives. But one is for the cover art of the newspaper Class War, that used to be published by the Class War Federation. I'm going to be talking about both the paper and the group so to avoid confusion Class War and CWF will refer to the group and CW will refer to the newspaper. 

Now I am not now nor have I ever been a member of the CWF nor have I ever read a copy of its newspaper. Nor have I had any interactions with them aside from walking past them on a march in London year ago. They've also held positions I reject, still on reflection I owe them a massive debt. Back when I was still in school I found it quite dull. Its a common point of rhetoric among right wing types to denounce education as a cultural marxist factory churning out hippies who think Black people's lives have meaning and women should be free to choose not to be broodmare's if they wish.

If there are schools like that I never went to them. Some of my tutors at Uni had a respect for Mao zedong but they were also open Tories. I also had a substitute teacher who had previously stood for the English Democrats, a tiny fringe English nationalist party. The closest to an exception would be my sociology A-level. But even then we spent most of our time covering post-modernist criminologists and a basic history of the old feminist movement. In fact I can remember clearly the few times things got a bit more radical. In one of the text books we had to read a section on attitudes to society which acknowledged there were rebels to society (our society to be exact) and its fundamental values and structures. It included a generic picture of a rebel guerrilla character and a small box with three magazine and newspaper covers. The first two I don't remember, but the third one stuck with me. It was the one at the top of the page, the Flintstones and the headline "Club together to beat the bosses!". 

I remember the text key explaining that the cover and Class War its publisher were an Anarchist group. The cover stuck with me for two reasons. First, it was an attempt to use humour for political purposes that largely worked. I didn't laugh until my sides hurt or anything, but I got the reference and the point it was making. And secondly, I was surprised that it was an Anarchist group, Class War was a name I heavily associated with the Communists. Unlike many North Americans, I knew that Anarchists would be opposed to bosses, anyone whose had one would know why, but I had an image of Anarchists being a sort of total rebel against authority in a way that treated it all the same. That there were Anarchists who had something specific to say about capitalism was a revelation to me. 

So, is this the cold opening to the true crime documentary about me in the future? Probably not, I buckled down, finished my education and spent years drifting around the marxists until encountering Anarchism in the UK again, and when I did it was pretty hostile to the CWF. libcom.org has a lot of material by the group and much that was written about the group, with a lot of points of criticism. I could knock up a list of highs and lows and make it a series if I wanted to. And if I get writers block I may just do that, keep your eyes peeled for a Class War tag popping up on the list in future I guess. Its easy to stress the negatives, especially online, but as the gallery shows there is respect for some of their output and activity.

The CWF and CW both folded, then were resurrected, then folded, currently the website is still up and its most recent article is titled Class War is Back!, but it was posted in 2021. The twitter feed associated with the group has been a bit more actively recently, its last tweet was on the 30th of March. This could mean the group is dormant, active but struggling, or quite active on the ground and just hasn't got anyone to man the online front regularly. Either way I owe them for some of their contributions, and perhaps one day someone, somewhere will the same of me*.

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*I'm so sorry.