We Want Freedom for All A Jewish Anarchist Statement

We Want Freedom for All

A Jewish Anarchist Statement

Published by the Libertarian Worker’s Group

1. FROM THE PAST TO THE PRESENT

Back in 1889, amidst the squalor and destitution of New York’s Lower East Side, a group of young Jewish workers created the first anarchist journal to be published in Yiddish, Di Varhayt (The Truth). After 20 issues, the paper was reconstituted as ­Di Frei Arbeiter Shtimme (The Free Voice of Labor), and for the next 86 years it served as one of the major forums of anarchist thought in the Yiddish-speaking world as well as a leading journal of the Jewish labor movement and Yiddish subculture.

It[sic] its heyday, Di Frei Arbeiter Shtimme was the voice of a movement composed of thousands of Jewish working women and men who were not only fighting the bosses in the sweatshops but also combatting domination and exploitation wherever encountered: in their unions, in their communities, in their homes and schools. They defied the puritanical conventions of their day by advocating such things as noncoercive open education, sexual freedom and equality, free love, birth control, atheism, resistance to conscription, and direct action against the capitalist system, militarism, and the State.

With the closing of Di Frei Arbeiter Shtimme in 1978 came the end of an era. Long in decline, the closing of the paper and the death of the movement behind it illuminated several shifts which have become apparent since the 1930’s. The vibrant Yiddish culture of the Jewish immigrant working class – its language, literature, music, theatre, political and social institutions – has all but disappeared from contemporary Jewish life, jettisoned like so much excess baggage in the dirve for acceptance and upward mobility in American society.

The Jewish communities and Jewish youth of today identify more with American and/or Israeli culture and political institutions than they do with Yiddishkeit and the revolutionary social aspirations and struggles of the bygone immigrant days. The older Jewish socialists and anarchists, who found[sic] and fought in the “Jewish” unions, have generally moved to the right as the unions themselves have become increasingly undemocratic and bureaucratized.

Yet still there are Jewish anarchists.

We identify ourselves as Jews because our primary cultural affiliation is with the Jewish people. Our “Jewishness” rests on cultural and political traditions as well as an awareness of anti-Semitism here and abroad, which has almost forced community upon us. While we reject nationalism and theocracy as well as the authoritarian and sexist aspects of Jewish life, we find in our past a tradition of free thought and militance which must be constantly revolutionized and revitalized.

We are anarchists because we align ourselves with that movement and theory which poses the most radical challenge to the state and capitalism: which proposes a society based on the free asociation and cooperation of individuals for mutual aid and the production of real social wealth, without bosses or classes of any sort. In other words, a society in which people control their own lives and not each other. Our anarchism is class-based because we are workers and it therefore reflects our day-to-day concerns and struggles for human dignity, environmental and occupational safety, and democratic self-management of our workplaces, communities and schools.

Like many young Jews growing up in the 60’s and 70’s, we were led by our concerns as Jews and as people committed to social justice to seek out progressive Jewish alternatives to the reactionary institutions that dominate Jewish life in America. Most of us participated in the various movements of the Jewish left, such as the Jewish Socialist Youth Bund, the Radical Zionist Alliance, the Jewish Liberation Project, and the leftist-Zionist youth movements. While we encountered good ideas and good intentions in all of these groups, we were not satisfied with their overall perspectives on contemporary social struggle and Jewish life in America.

The left, in general, did not seem to be much more of a viable alternative, with its adherence to sectarianism, statism, and political authoritarianism. We turned to the libertarian left and found in it a revolutionary movement and analysis which corresponded with our own views. Returning to the heritage of the Jewish labor movement, we found a strong libertarian current within the tradition of Jewish working-class radicalism, which despite its unjustified obscurity is still viable today-namely, anarchism.

From our perspective as Jewish anarchists, we recognize that the liberation of the Jewish people is inextricably bound up with that of humanity as a whole. This liberation can only happen by means of the revolutionary reorganization of society.

We believe that every oppressed group must take control of its own destiny and must take control of its own destiny and liberate itself. This, however, cannot be achieved in a vacuum, isolated from the struggles of the rest of oppressed humanity. True liberation will only be achieved in the context of a universal social struggle for a new world order.

Therefore, while participating in the Jewush[sic] struggle for survival and autonomy, we actively support and take part in the following:

1. Opposition to all forms of discrimination and oppression that bar people from fully participating in society and realizing their total potential as free individuals because of their age, sex, race, nationality, sexual orientation, economic/social class, or disability.

2. Solidarity with working and oppressed peoples’ struggles throughout the world.

3. The building of a revolutionary, democratic labor movement through autonomous, rank-and-file self-activity.

4. Opposition to those forms and uses of technology which pose serious threats to public health and safety as well as the overall negligent abuse and destruction of our environment.

5. Opposition to war, militarism, conscription, and the arms race.

6. Autonomous movements such as community organizations, self-help networks, and alternative educational, media, and cultural projects that seek to create self-managing, democratic non-hieracrhical alternatives to the State and the established order.

In all our endeavors, we oppose party building, political manipulation, and attempts to centralize activity and communication. Only through militant self-activity, self-organization, and self-direction can a revolutionary democratic movement develop. Consequently, we reject utilizing the political and legislative machinery of the State as a vehicle for fundamental social change. We advocate, instead, popular forms of democratically coordinated direct attention such as general strikes, mass occupations, boycotts, etc., to directly confront the system and, ultimately, to reclaim control of our lives and our world.

II. STATE AND CULTURE

We live in a society that embodies the principle of authority, that is, the rule of one individual or group over another. In such a society, the culture/religion/ideology of the group in power necessarily becomes that of the State. The options for the powerless minority groups are, at best, social disadvantage, pressure to assimilate or conformity; at worst, repression and genocide.

This has been the situation of the Jewish people for the past 2,000 years. The Jewish people have always constituted a distinct cultural/religious entity. Their inability and/or unwillingness to assimilate has ofren[sic] made the Jews easy scapegoats to diver[sic] the discontent and frustration of the people.

It can be argued that in liberal democracies, the Jew is a free citizen with full equality. For the most part, this is true for the Jew as an individual, but for the Jew as a member of a distinct culture and ethnic group seeking to preserve its identity, the situation is entirely different. Of course there is not brutal repression or genocide against Jews here in the U.S. at the present. Nontheless, the Jews, like every other ethnic group or national minority, must engage in a desperate fight against assimilation and communal disintegration.

The enemy in any oppressed people’s struggle for survival and autonomy is never another people, even though it may be their culture which is forced upon us and in their name that we are oppressed. It is the very nature and structure of class society that creates the objective conditions for the emergence of anti-Semitism and all other forms of intolerance and oppression. So long as society institutionalizes violence, exploitation and domination; so long as people are forced to sell themselves and compete with each other in order to survive; so long as human life is considered expendable for the sake of power and profit, there will be oppressed and oppressors.

Ultimately, there can be but one enemy in any struggle for liberation-every social system based on social stratification, wage-labor and the institution of the State. The State is the hierarchical apparatus through which the ruling class protects its power and its interests, both domestic and foreign. It is an integral part of any social and economic system in which a ruling class dominates and exploits the rest of society. The authority of the State ultimately rests solely on coercion and armed force. It legitimizes its existence by invoking nationalism, religion and ideology.

But while coercion and armed force are the bulwark of the State, conformity is its foundation. With regards to national culture, we can see that cultural hegemony is part and parcel of social and political control. Throughout history it has always been achieved by replacing thousands of years of popular creativity and folk process with a bland, homogenized pseudo-culture organized around patriotism, the real purpose of which is to promote a false sense of unity of interests with the State and the ruling class.

There are, however, many instances when the State seems to promote ethnic diversity by encouraging minority groups to stage cultural events, or even funds ethnic cultural and educational programs and institutions. Needless to say, these are merely token gestures. The tactics can change but the goal will always remain the same – cultural hegemony, either through assimilation or by co-opting and neutralizing the minority.

The State is aided in its efforts by a handful of individuals who have “made it” and are beholden to the system for their power and privileges. These “respected community leaders” cynically use the traditions and institutions of their community to impse[sic] ideology of the ruling class and, consequently, assimilation on their own people.

The Jewish establishment is no exception. To be sure, it is not interested in creating a vibrant Jewish culture. The primary concern of the Jewish establishment is strengthening those organizations and institutions which enable them to maintain control over the Jewish community and share in political power in general.

III. RESTRUCTURING THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

Just as society as a whole must be restructured, so too the Jewish community must be restructured. The control of Jewish communal life can no longer be the private domain of the self-appointed, self-perpetuating “macherarchy,” i.e., the established Jewish organizations and their leadership. Administration of communal resources- cultural, educational and social institutions, communal funds, etc. – must be decentralized and democratic. New forms of communal organization must be developed that will enable every member of the community to fully participate in all aspects of Jewish communal life, to share in every level of decision-making, and to have equal access to all communal resources.

The philanthropic apparatus that exists ostensibly to facilitate efficient fund-raising and distribution for communal needs has become so bureaucratizes and centralized that it does not serve the community and, in fact, has become effectively divorced from the realities and needs of the present-day Jewish community. Being organs of a Jewish establishment rather than voluntary associations of the Jewish community as a whole, the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, United Jewish Appeal, etc., exist only to centralize control of communal resources into the hands of their leadership, allowing them to impose their own agenda on Jewish communal life. The consequence is that Jewish social services are shamefully inadequate, inefficient, and dehumanizing in their dealings with both recipients and employees. The real needs of the community are often forced to take a back seat to the self-aggrandizing projects of the Jewish establishment, such as building luxurious synagogues and over-priced hospitals that the great bulk of the community will never set foot in.

It is clear that what is needed in the community is a return to the Jewish tradition of mutual aid and responsibility. The immigrant Jewish working class managed to “take care of its own” long before the days of large scale government social services, through an extensive network of self-help organizations such as landsmanshaft societies and Arbeiter Ring (Workmen’s Circle), etc. We should draw upon their example by dismantling the current philanthropic bureaucracy and replacing it with a decentralized network of community based self-help organisations that would include everything from schools for the young to senior citizens centers, administered by the members and supported by the community. Through direct participation and direct democracy, all members of the community can derive a sense of individual dignity and worth, as well as a sense of empowerment, which is a crucial first step in the struggle for the elimination of authority and domination in society as a whole.

However, before we can even begin to restructure and revitalize the Jewish community we must develop a new understanding of it. Our community today is not a monolithic, homogenous entity, but rather an amalgam of amny[sic] different ethnic, political and even religious groups. We have not only Jews of Eastern European background, but also Jews from other parts of Europe, from Israel, South America, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, all with our own languages, traditions and customs. Our religious beliefs run the gamut from atheist to orthodox and our political beliefs from Anarchist to Zionist. Our community contains a wide variety of lifestyles and sexual preferences, both traditional and non-traditional.

What binds us together is a personal affirmation of our membership in the Jewish people, a sense of personal affinity with a heritage and a culture, no matter how we may choose to express it. Recognizing this we must reject all attempts to impose one groups’ culture, language or beliefs on the rest of the Jewish community and strive toward a pluralistic community of communities. Only by broadening our perspectives and expanding on the values of social justice, mutual aid and responsibility, direct democracy and free discussion and debate inherent in Jewish culture, can we evolve as a free people in every sense of the term.

IV. RELIGION AND CULTURE

Throughout the history of the Jewish anarchist movement, we Jewish anarchists have been accused of trying to destroy Judaism and promote assimilation, due to our outspoken atheism and secular orientation. What we have consistently opposed and continue to oppose in Judaism are not folk customs and traditions but rather the theocratic conventions that uphold patriarchal sexism, adherence to authority as well as the mystification and simplification of life and the universe which is inherent in all theologies.

We utterly reject the current debate on “Who is a Jew,” particularly when it is utilized by the Israeli government and religious authorities to determine government policy on immigration, citizenship, etc. As we stated before, Jewish identity is a matter of personal choice and affirmation. We oppose any attempts by any authority outside that of a personal conscience to dictate the meaning of Jewishness. Similarly, we are determined to resist every incursion into our private lives by any and all religious authorities, especially when they threaten the rights of every individual to control their bodies as well as their life style.

We support the efforts of many Jews today seeking to develop a creative Jewish lifestyle outside the narrow framework of establishment Judaism. One encouraging example of this is the Havurah movement. The Havurah or “fellowship” is a small, autonomous circle of friends and neighbors that get together to create their own approach to the study and practice of Judaism based on their own beliefs and lifestyles. Aside from the Havurah movement there are many other examples of emerging alternatives, such as cooperatives and collectives of various sorts, as well as new educational, cultural and media projects, all of which strive to reclaim Jewish heritage and culture and instill positice[sic] social consciousness in contemporary Jewish life. Despite the fact that this progressive trend is still small and outside the mainstream of the community, we hope that these efforts will come to capture the imagination of the Jewish community as a whole and become the basis of a new sense of Jewish existence and community.

V. ZIONISM

The Jewish anarchist movement has consistently opposed political Zionism since the inception of that movement in 1897. We reject the notion that Zionism is the liberation movement of the Jewish people. Zionism, like all other nationalist political movements has as its goal the establishment and perpetuation of a nation-state. As we stated earlier, the nation-state is, by the very nature of its hierarchic structure, the primary instrument of class rule, militarism and imperialism. As we shall show, the State of Israel is no exception to this rule.

Since the beginning of the 19^th century modern political nationalism has been the major force that has shaped the world political order. Its organization form, the centralized nation-state, has become the mode of political organization throughout the world. When oppressed peoples have liberated themselves from the bonds of colonialism and foreign domination they established a nation-state through which to exercise their national sovereignty. Yet a close look at history and the current world situation shows that “national liberation” through the means of the nation-state is just a matter of replacing foreign bosses with native ones, and that in the current era that national sovereignty and self-determination are myths.

The new nation-states created by triumphant nationalist movements have invariably wound up as the product and property of the national bourgeoisie, who usually made up the leadership of those movements anyway. Since the triumph of the Bolshevik counter-revolution in Russia an increasingly common phenomenon is the rise to power of a bureaucratic “new class” composed of functionaries, technocrats and those intellectuals who place themselves at the service of the new “people’s” state. In either case the result has been the continuation of class rule and the brutal repression of those who fought to create the new state under the banner of “freedom” and found only continued slavery.

In most cases, the new nation-states have based their rule on previously existing relations of power and domination and which they quickly incorporate into the new social structure. Even the so-called socialist revolutions of the 20^th century have wound up with the “socialist” state taking up many of the most hated aspects of the old regime. Israel is somewhat different in this respect since its social structure is the result of the Zionist effort to superimpose a Jewish nation-state with a Jewish majority on a country where the overwhelming population was Palestinian-Arab. In order to accomplish this the Zionist movement had to create exclusively Jewish political, social and economic structure based solely on the labor of the Jewish immigrants and not the resident Arab workforce. Without going into detail on how this was accomplished, the result was the transformation of the Palestinian majority into a marginal minority in their own country, excluded for the most part from the mainstream of Israeli social, political and economic life.

But there is far more to the emergence of Israel as a nation-state than the conflict between Jews and Palestinians. For Israel, like any other nation-state in the modern era, is merely a unit in the international pecking order of competing nations, with superpowers on top. The end of World War II left the world divided into two camps, East and West, with Russia and the United States at the head of each.

At the same time a rising Third World nationalism played a major role in the dissolution of the old empires and in the establishment of new states. These new nation-states followed the pattern we stated earlier, where a new ruling class simply replaced the old imperialist regime. Israel was no exception to the rule. In its case, the ruling elite was the Ashkenazic Zionist establishment.

At the same time, the self-determinationsought[sic] by the anti-colonialist movements turned out to be a sham, as the newly independent nations, as well as the already existing states, were drawn either into one camp or another. Any who attempted to resist were crushed outright or sooner or later co-opted. We can only look at the history of the Non-Aligned Movement to see this process at work. Israel, having been born in 1948, was inevitably subject to this dynamic and soon drawn into the Western camp. Today it has become a major vehicle for American foreign policy in the Middle East. So much for the Zionist dream of national independence for the Jews.

There are some who contend, as the Zionist movement does, that no matter what Israel’s position in the Western camp, it remains the primary means of Jewish liberation. Yet Israel has been in existence since 1948 and only a small part of the entire world Jewish population lives there. The situation of world Jewry is still tenuous. Anti-semitism is on the rise and many communities are threatened with repression, if not annihilation. Yet what has Israel done to prevent this situation? It has sold arms to regimes like Iran and Argentina which repress Jews, and has even demanded, in the case of Soviet Jewry, that the U.S. bar its doors to those Soviet Jews who refuse to emigrate to Israel.

When confronted with this, Zionists offer the lame excuse that Israel is a small country and must worry about its own survival first. This is exactly the point. Israel is only a small country, racked with problems, both internal and external. How then can its existence protect Jews in every corner of the world? The best it can offer is refuge, and refuge is not liberation.

The Zionist panacea for all the problems that the modern Jew must confron[sic] today, whether it be anti-semitism, assimilation or any other “tsores,” is Aliya, that is, emigration to Israel. While there is a handful of Jews who feel an idealistic affinity with “The Land” and who seek to fulfill their ideals through Aliya, the majority of Jews are not so inclined. The Israeli government seeks to compensate for this lack of idealism with tax inducements and special privileges for new Olim (immigrants), particularly those from the West. This policy has caused a great deal of resentment in Israel, especially among the “Oriental” Jews. These Jews, who make up the majority of the Israeli population, came to Israel with nothing but dreams and promises, only to find disappointment and discrimination.

Zionism, no different from any other movement seeking political power had to gain political hegemony in the Jewish community before it could achieve the establishment of a nation-state. It did this by absorbing the Jewish establishment, and supplanting indigenous Jewish cultures with its own Hebrew culture.

Once in the Jewish community, there was a whole spectrum of political movements and beliefs, now there is some official ideology, with little dissent tolerated. Dissenters from Zionism are labeled “self-hating” Jews and are ostracized. Efforts are turned toward promoting Hebrew culture as the Jewish culture, while Yiddish, Ladino and every other Jewish culture now at the verge of extinction, are left to their fates.

VI. THEIR ANTI-ZIONISM AND OURS

Our opposition to Zionism has nothing to do with the current anti-Israel crusade being waged by the Arab/Islamtic[sic] states and their allies. Their anti-Zionism stems from opportunistic, political self-interest. Our opposition stems from principled disagreement rooted in historical debate. Their objective is a new political power base, ours is revolution.

Unlike most of the left, we do not put down one form of nationalism in favor of another. From our perspective, the P.L.O. is simply a nation-state without a permanent territory of its own (though it can be argued that Lebanon is in fact its territory). The P.L.O. has its own standing army, bureaus of government, and means of enforcing its power (witness the assassinations of Palestinians who stray from the P.L.O line). It is not inconceivable that despite the fierce hatred that exists between these two states, Israel and the P.L.O. can negotiate an official peace. State are not guided by ideals and ideologies, but by practical self-interest.

A P.L.O. state on the West Bank will be no better or worse than any other regime in the area. It will stifle its opposition and streamline its political program to secure its power. Of course, since the West Bank has no real industries or resources of its own, it will most certainly be dependent on the richer Arab/Islamic states and/or either of the big superpowers. We can also speculate that it will probably resume economic relations with its most hated enemy, the Zionist State of Israel.

While we reject the P.L.O., we most vehemently oppose the military occupation of the “administered territories” by Israel. We totally support the right of the Palestinian people to determine their own future, free from the manipulations of all powers, whether it be Israel, the P.L.O., or anyone else. Though we oppose the current political system in Israel, we, nevertheless, equally support the right of the Israeli Jewish community to determine its own destiny.

VII. OUR VISION

We support those forces in Israel, the Mid-East, and the world in general, seeking to create real peace and understanding among the peoples of the Middle-East. However, it is not enough to bank on negotiated treaties between nation states. States cannot and will not create real peace. All the can offer is an armed truce. Real peace can only come about when the working and oppressed peoples of the world transcend the facade of nationalism and religious dogma and the systems which maintain their power and privilege.

Our vision for the Middle-East and the world in general is a decentralized, supra-national federation of peoples based on free association and generalized self-management, in which the earth’s resources are shared and accessible to all in an atmosphere of freedom, equality, and peace. The Jewish people will take its place in this new world order not as a centralized nation-state, but as an autonomous community of communities, with complete control over its own communal resources and its own future.

****

The Libertarian Workers Group is a group of working people and unemployed in the N.Y. metropolitan area. We include anarchists, libertarian-communist and are concerned with those issues that affect us working people and residents of this area/

We hope this document will generate discussion and debate in the anarchist movement and Jewish community. We welcome all comments, criticisms, etc.

Libertarian Workers Group
Box 692 Old Chelsea Station
New York, NY 10113

Al Amal Issue 06

 

 The sixth issue of the Al Amal newsletter is now live, you can download the PDF here.

 The war in Sudan has now entered
its third year …

The war in Sudan has now entered its third year, with no end
in sight. This war was planned as early as 2019, as the
generals of blood themselves admitted, stating that its
timing had been set back then, but was delayed due to
incomplete preparations. What a horrifying reality.

This state has always been one that plans and orchestrates
internal wars, suppresses freedoms by every possible means,
and perpetuates continuous brutal violence. This regime,
which carries out systematic arrests, organized torture in so-
called “ghost houses,” and extrajudicial killings, now stands
fully exposed before the revolutionary masses.

The Rapid Support Forces are not separate from this regime;
they are its product—an extension of its brutality and
savagery. All the crimes committed, including ethnic
cleansing and genocide, are a direct result of policies carried
out under the protection of this regime.

Today, after the destruction of Khartoum, Wad Madani, El
Fasher, El Geneina, Zalingei, El Nahud, El Dinder, and
Omdurman—and with ongoing sieges on Dilling, El Obeid,
Kadugli, and other areas—millions of Sudanese have been
displaced, and healthcare and education systems have
completely collapsed.

Three years have been enough to tear apart the already
fragile social fabric, fueling racism and intensifying tribal
divisions to a dangerous degree. Three years in which the
people have been shocked by the brutality of this regime and
the consequences of its policies, to the point that no
conscious person can fail to recognize that this is among the
worst regimes in the world.

And now, eight years after the revolution that demanded the
fulfillment of the people’s aspirations, revolutionaries and
comrades remain committed to their revolutionary project—
to uproot authoritarian systems from their very foundations.
We, having lost comrades, revolutionaries, friends, brothers,
and sons along this difficult and complex path, affirm that
we will continue forward until we achieve our goals and
realize our aspirations for freedom.

The war in Sudan is still ongoing, and it is also increasingly
clear that it is an imperialist war supported internationally.
Chad and Libya have become major hubs for mobilizing and
recruiting Janjaweed forces, while Ethiopia has entered the
conflict by attacking the Blue Nile region—areas that are
new to this war.

This war has affected all parts of Sudan. Every day,
thousands of vulnerable Sudanese people are displaced, left
facing death without services, food, healthcare, or mercy.
We continue to witness daily, severe violations in Darfur
and Kordofan, and now in the Blue Nile as well, which
signals that the conflict is unlikely to end anytime soon.
This meaningless war is one aimed at destroying the
people—killing them, brutalizing them, and demolishing
their resources. The war today is not merely a political or
military conflict; it is a devastating economic war. Securing
even the most basic necessities has become a real struggle,
even for those living far from the frontlines. The targeting
of power stations has led to consecutive agricultural failures,
destroying farmers’ reserves of grain and strategic crops,
and devastating small farmers’ livelihoods and projects.
In wars waged by the state itself, the ultimate losers are
always the people. But the Janjaweed war on Sudan today,
as is evident, is a war aimed at dismantling indigenous
communities and completely displacing them.
 

With the spread of dengue fever and deadly
diseases in Sudan, Anarchist Group in Soudan
launch a call to solidarity

With the spread of dengue fever and deadly diseases in
Sudan, obtaining medicine has become extremely difficult
due to the collapse of the healthcare system. The shortage of
medical staff and the destruction of 70 percent of hospitals
have exposed millions of children, women, and vulnerable
people to death in numbers greater than those caused
directly by this catastrophic war.

The anarchist group in Sudan calls on you to support a
fundraising campaign to provide life-saving medicines such
as paracetamol, antibiotics, Flagyl, and IV fluids.
As we struggle to end this war, we also struggle to lessen its
impact on us and on our people.
Support your comrades in Sudan.

The Anarchist Group in Sudan
To cooperate to the solidarity fund you can use our paypal
platform https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/cntait1
To contact us : contact@cnt-ait.info

Long live the revolution !
Down with the regime !
The Anarchist Group in Sudan

 Blue Nile Events and the Rise of the
Partition Plan Through Proxy War

If the plan from the very beginning was to end with the
second partition of Sudan, then why is the same scenario
being repeated, killing thousands of Sudanese people every
day in a random yet systematic way? Those who do not die
from war may die from hunger or disease.

Sudan, a country that occupies a strategic position in the
routes of human trafficking, drugs, and weapons, seems as
though it has been condemned to hell forever. The current
war has become a human grinder that has drawn
mercenaries from all neighboring countries.

It is noticeable that the movement of irregular migrants has
declined significantly in the western desert, and perhaps this
phenomenon is connected to the ongoing war. Under
capitalism, even the most unethical possibilities seem
entirely possible.

Opening a new front in Ethiopia to pull in Ethiopians, in
Dilling to pull in Southerners, and in western Sudan to
recruit mercenaries from the Central African Republic,
Niger, Chad, and Libya, is nothing more than an accelerated
process of human depletion. In Africa, people have become
cheaper to the state than livestock, and that is why this
project continues in the region.

Sudan’s vast territory and diverse geography make it an
ideal battlefield for wars fueled by leftover weapons. DShK
machine guns, medium weapons, and crude artillery no
longer have much of a market in modern warfare, despite
the existence of huge quantities manufactured around the
world that need an environment in which they can be used,
in exchange for gold, raw materials, ports, strategic bases,
and plans for domination over peoples.

The irony is that Sudanese people are among the largest gold
producers in Africa, among the largest importers of
weapons, and among the largest exporters of livestock. Yet
a kilogram of meat costs the equivalent of 13 dollars, while
a worker earns no more than 9 dollars for 12 hours of labor.
This reality leaves the majority impoverished and pushes
many toward war and military camps in exchange for
salaries that barely cover their most basic needs.

What comes together in Sudan’s crisis is ignorance,
devotion to authority, and hatred of it at the same time,
which points to a very deep propaganda machine that will
require many years of work to uproot from people’s minds.
Permanent work, organized struggle, and continuous
political education are the real keys to solving these crises.
What cannot be achieved through knowledge cannot be
achieved through force.
Companions of AGS

 May Day / ﺍﻷﻭﻝ ﻣﻥ ﻣﺎﻱ
 

May 1st is not a commemoration of a victory, but rather a
symbol of old wounds that have not yet healed.
We cannot consider it a holiday for the working class as it
has become today: fearful, hesitant, or even traitorous.
True rebellion is not confined to a particular class or
location. It infiltrates, erupts, and appears from where we
least expect: a simple worker, a homeless person without
papers, a mother challenging poverty, a young man burning
with longing for a justice he does not know its form.
Today, many workers defend their masters, and many
choose obedience over revolt. This is not the end of the road,
but rather a sign that the spark is no longer limited to a single
place or name.

May 1st, then, is not a sanctification of a class, but a
reminder that the desire for liberation is still breathing
beneath the ashes, awaiting new bodies, new voices, and
uncontainable anger.

Rebellion does not die; it only changes its features.
Thank you for following and caring
El Tunes

The Two Nations : A May Day Message

 The Two Nations; A May-day Message.

NOTE: This is one of the four speeches which Guy Aldred recorded on tape. It was not the first to be recorded, though it is the first to be printed. The other three speeches are being transcribed and printed. The publication date will be announced shortly. Donors and Subscribers will receive these pamphlets as they appear. Please order extra copies, and help the circulation.

Printed and published in United Kingdom by The Strickland Press, Glasgow C. 1.

GUY A. ALDRED

THE TWO NATIONS

A May-Day Message

The text of a Speech delivered on May 5th 1963 in Central Halls Glasgow.

First Published 1968

Guy Aldred, November, 1962

We do change the world. One generation merges into another. The hopes of yesterday’s heroes and martyrs become the inspiring slogans of the martyrs and heroes of today, and by them are passed on to the heroes and martyrs that will be tomorrow. An unchanging yet changeless logic of development.

—The Word; January 1961

Foreword

This speech was recorded at Guy A. Aldred’s home address on the afternoon of Friday, 3rd May, 1963. It had been his intention to speak in person at the May Day meeting which would be held in the Central Halls on the following Sunday; but his doctor, and his close associates, prevailed upon him to make a recording instead.

Commenting on this, Guy Aldred said: “I am opposed to doing so, as it seems to me that a recorded speech lacks the verve and originality of a speech spoken direct from the platform. I feel this very much as a restriction, because I believe in extemporary speech—not in prepared speeches. I am afraid, however, that my strength may not permit me to speak with the vigour and the continuity that is necessary to the successful meeting. So I have prepared this recorded speech as a possible alternative to the original speech. In any case, I will attend the meeting, and if I am unable to speak I will hear it played to the audience. I will then answer questions as they arise. The audience can depend upon my reply to questions.”

In the event that is what happened. Guy Aldred sat on the platform while the speech was relayed; then he answered questions and replied to discussion.

He delivered several more public speeches, both by tape and in person, before he died on the 16th October, 1963.

This speech has been transcribed from the tape by Ben Mullin who has also written an Introduction.

JOHN TAYLOR CALDWELL.

Introduction

This speech, recorded by "Guy Aldred close to the end of his life, represents a contribution to the general discussion on the fundamental problem facing the working class movement, namely, that of unity. That there is need for such discussion goes without question. Unless the conscious elements within the working class movement make some attempt to come to a general understanding, we will make no progress.

Guy Aldred was an uncompromising Anti-Parliamentarian, and this speech does reflect the Anti-Parliamentary position. Anti-Parliamentarism has been systematically misunderstood by the whole left-wing movement. We. of the left-wing movement," are broken into innumerable sects and groups. Each group conducts a hate campaign against comrades in other groups, at times our activity of slander against our comrades exceeds our activity against the system. It does not matter now how this has come about. it is a fact and it is a fact that must be overcome. This short speech sets out to tackle this problem of division within the working class movement.

When we come to consider that, regardless of what group or party we belong to, we are members of the working class movement and that the working class movement has a tremendous history stretching back as far as we can go, we get some perspective of our own position in relation to the working class struggle. We should realise that our group is but a dot against this greater background. Groups and parties have passed away, and will pass away, but the struggle will go on. Our loyalty should not be to the group. right or wrong. our loyalty should lie with the working class movement and with the overall struggle of the workers. The working class struggle has passed through every chapter in history, it has adopted many names and causes, it has been used by power-seeking groups, but it does represent a continuous history of struggle. There are many similarities between the early Christians in their "struggle against the ruling hierarchy of their time and the present day socialist movement in their struggle against current State and Monopoly Capitalism.

The early Christian movement was destroyed by the Deification of Jesus. It was destroyed when it turned its discussion to Theology and Mysticism. It was destroyed by fragmentation as a result of theoretical differences between this or that individual who then created his own little sect. It was finally destroyed when it was adopted by the ruling hierarchy and absorbed into the ruling class culture. All this has happened to the socialist movement.

The fact that the early Christian movement was destroyed did not mean that the working class movement had ended, indeed, it went on to blaze even more dramatic episodes across the pages of history. It is not my job here to retell the brilliant episodes in the history of the working class movement, but it is essential to stress that there is a connecting link between all the chapters in history, between all groups, they all represent an expression of the overall working class movement. The working class struggle encircles the globe. As I have already pointed out, its history goes back to earliest times. Against this broad background our group, or our party, is really a tiny fragment of the whole picture. This is essentially the Anti-Parliamentary position.

Anti-Parliamentarism is not a mania about the British Parliament. The term was first used to emphasise the difference between the traditional socialist struggle and the breakaway groups who became orthodox and concentrated their efforts and their resources on getting into Parliament. Many of the groups who went over to Parliamentarism became so involved in that activity they lost sight of the struggle. They became so involved in becoming respectable, in becoming accepted by the ruling class; in electioneering; in raising funds; in becoming ‘fit’ to govern, that they created a breed of people who know nothing of the original cause of the struggle. The final development in this line of thought is to be found in the fact that the Labour Party now employs professional advertising agencies to sugar their palliative pills.

Anti-Parliamentarism is in reality the whole struggle of the working class movement. It believes in keeping the cause of the struggle well to the forefront of our activity. It is determined that we do not substitute the struggle between groups, for power or popularity, for the real struggle for working class emancipation. Anti-Parliamentarism does not confine its activity to one particular sphere or one particular area. The working class will fight on every front, this gives rise to the various groups. But we must be loyal to our comrades, it does not matter what faction they belong to. We must be loyal to our comrades in industry, we must be loyal to our comrades who work at the political level, we must be loyal to our comrades who concentrate on propaganda and we must be loyal to our comrades who are imprisoned or executed, who are ill-treated at the hands of the Capitalist State.

This is the message of this speech, which I ask you to read fairly with an open mind. Do not approach it from a sectarian position with a view to finding faults. You will find faults. Guy Aldred recorded this speech at the end of his life during a period of great suffering. It is remarkable that he still grappled with working class problems and was not overcome with personal anguish. I ask the reader to be as impersonal, and as impartial, in his consideration of this speech. And I further urge him to make its subject-matter a topic for discussion in his own group or party, or in any circumstance where such an important matter may be considered.

BEN MULLIN.

Glasgow, 1967.

MAY DAY

Preliminary Note

May Day is an expression of pure nature worship. Its celebration connects up, naturally. with the class struggle and the economic interpretation of history; Without doubt. its traditions are those of working class struggle and celebration. They support the call of Spring to those who toil, they relate the harmony of nature to the toil and suffering of those who dwell on the Earth and suggest the need for escape. Hence the May month is one of inspiration to break free from bondage. "Slavery gives way to freedom. and a new atmosphere comes into the lives of the people. Much of the inspiration is mystical--but it is also a very real and true harmony that makes for battle and the struggle for justice. Finally, the tendency towards social freedom is established.

Thus May begins a new dance for the slaves, the dance of the apprentices. The old fashioned dance of a half-hearted and a half-witted sense of joy gives way to a true joyous exaltation in" social freedom. Men and women become adult in an atmosphere of true youth, and so the new social system is born. The very name of the month suggests the purpose of the month. May is so called from the goddess Maia. The name under which the Earth was worshipped at this season of the year. The first of the month has always been an important date in the religion of nature-worship. The famous 17th century poet, Spenser, salutes May as the sovereign month of man’s happiness. the “fairest maid of all the year.” It is characteristic of the enthusiasm with which the arrival of the month was welcomed. Yet the symbolism seems to have been a little overworked, and man, dwelling in slavery, must have found the joy extremely transient.

G. A. ALDRED.

Glasgow, May Day, 1963.

THE TWO NATIONS

A May-Day Menage

It is fifty-nine years since I mounted the public platform on May Day, in London, as an avowed socialist. I called myself a Social Democrat, but the Social Democratic definition was very temporary. I used more often the term--Socialist, and I thought as a socialist and I considered that I belonged to the great socialist movement. I did not differentiate between Social Democrats, Communists or Anarchists. Indeed, at that time I did not know very much about Anarchism. It is true that at that very moment I was not actually a member of ' the Social Democratic Federation. I did not join that organisation till a few months later, but I was very active in its ranks and very active among its comrades and I looked upon the S.D.F. as a great socialist body. In a way I dare say it was, particularly in London, where it seemed to have most root.

The Social Democrats differed from the I.L.P. and from the Labour Party. despite what the members of , either of these parties would have you believe to-day, and despite the fact that -some of the Social Democrats of that time became leading members of the Labour Party. They differed in this great respect, the chief characteristic of the Social Democrats was their proletarian language, their proletarian bearing and their proletarian association. I was a strong total abstainer and non-smoker, but I look back with amusement to the fact that the Social Democrats always met above public houses and usually had a drink of beer on the table at their branch meetings. The I.L.P. usually met in very careful coffee rooms, what we now term and what we termed in some places then-cafes. Their fare was always tea or coffee and cakes, not so that of the Social Democrats. I. of course, only took lemonade, but at the same time the proletarian atmosphere of the Social Democrats pleased me much more than the respectable atmosphere of the I.L.P. meeting. I think this difference between assumed intellectuality and a bogus respectability, and the fustian. rustic attitude of the Social Democrats, represented the difference between socialism, whether correctly understood or not, and the respectable parliamentarism of the other factions.

I very soon broke with parliamentarism and began my activities as an anti-parliamentarian. My sympathies were with those who stood for direct-action, though I did not always agree with their protest. I remember speaking once for an S.D.F. branch in Regents Park. It was about the time of some direct-action activity, an act of assassination in Europe, by some alleged anarchist. It does not matter now whether the person was actually an anarchist or not he claimed to be. His act represented a protest by the very poor, the very downtrodden, against those who are established in wealth and in high position. I do not agree, and I did not agree, when a person sets himself up as prosecutor, jury and public executioner, as obviously the man who engaged in political assassination sets himself up to occupy all three positions in one person. To me, that savours of dictatorship. I remember this meeting, because the speaker before me went out of his way to denounce the Anarchist. He never analysed the position that made for this protest. He never analysed the economic condition that pervaded the misery of the man who was guilty of the act. He never analysed the position of the people who were responsible for judging him, nor the journalists who condemned him merely for the sake of their bread and butter. He merely went all out to denounce this representative of the poor who had been guilty of this action. While I did not sympathise with this action, I sympathised still less with the cant and the humbug of the condemnation, and when I mounted the S.D.F. platform I said so plainly and directly.

The result was a furor, and a great antagonism to me for daring to express this point of view. Nevertheless, I thought that an explanation of why a person commits an get of direct action was due. Also, I thought the action was less reprehensible than it seemed to be, though it was reprehensible. because the poor who are guilty of such acts of condemnation, by direct action, by assassination, were after all defenders of their own rights, protesting against some great injustice. Their enemies took the chance of using an entire state machinery. an economic power to destroy them, and smilingly went their way feeling how good they were, because they had killed nobody. Nevertheless. the evidence is there of the existence of this method of killing and crushing the lives of the people. When war comes they rejoice in the thousands they send to their deaths. Such humbug I do not understand and such humbug, as a socialist, I condemn.

I remember that before I spoke as a Social Democrat in favour of May Day, on May Day itself-that the previous May Day I spoke as a boy preacher. My concept of Christianity did not bother very much about whether Jesus was god or not, indeed it resented the idea, My approach historically towards this theological question was that of Unitarianism, although the first Unitarians were aristocrats and too respectable for my liking. I felt that original Christianity represented the revolt of the slaves and that it represented the uprising of the masses against the masters. From that point of view I viewed May Day before I became an actual socialist. There was a great deal of mystical error in my approach and I don’t suppose I said much about the immediate class struggle, but I do remember that I spoke historically about the struggle of the common people and I co-related that speech to the struggles of the peasants and to the struggle of some of the historic events of the great reformation and to the renaissance period.

Subsequently, I found myself mixing among the anarchists. Here I found a note that gives birth to tonight’s speech, and that has played a part in my thinking ever since. I found myself among a small group of sectarians, mostly non-English speaking, in the East End of London. Many of their ideas I agreed with and much of their courage I admired, but their great anti-Marxism, their severe criticism of the materialistic conception of history, I did not understand. These people were more anti-Marxist than they were anti-capitalistic. They certainly preached direct action, but even direct action can be reformist and tends to lead to trade unionism, just as trade unions tend to become the basis of parliamentarism. This fact in both stages of its development was well illustrated in the case of John Turner of the Shop Assistants’ Union. He organised the shop assistants and rendered them a great deal of service. As a member. he became the leader of his union and as the leader of his union he had to support parliamentarism and the idea of representatives of the shop assistants sitting in Parliament. It is true that he refused to stand himself and could easily have got a seat. but he did support parliamentarism because the economic interests of his union compelled him to do so. That seems to me to point to the fact that. within class society, you have the workers themselves divided economically because there are different economic interests. The workers serve under the social system of capitalism and are controlled by it. Inevitably, politically, they were controlled by the division into nations; and you had born a patriotism that found working class support, and it found this working class support down to the very period of the first world war. That division seemed to me to be fatal to the working class struggle.

During the years since then. I have still realised that the method of anti-parliamentarism-even when it boycotted the ballot box. a natural thing to do, or when it made some such protest at the ballot box like those I have made on several occasions. criticised by my comrades and ridiculed by the capitalist press-never acted as a definite anti-parliamentary activity but acted purely and simply as a parliamentary activity. Even although anti-parliamentarism has tended to destroy a great deal of the call of parliamentarism and the actions of the parliamentarians has brought home. again and again. the great truth of anti-parliamentanism. The right to vote means the right not to vote. Not voting under capitalism is, after all, taking a part just as much as voting under capitalism. In the end it has to accept. on certain occasions, the conclusions supported by the parliamentary state. Hence, you have parliamentarism still triumphant even although it is destroyed by the voice of the people and is not supported outside parliament by the people. except at times of elections. My puzzle has been how this should be overcome.

When I first became a socialist there was a body in existence which still exists (somewhat different from what it was then. in my opinion) called the Socialist Party of Great Britain. That was a very small party and it certainly has not grown as a party. That party believed in pure parliamentarism. It rejoiced in being a Marxist party, but its Marxism really consisted in supporting the theories and the publications of Karl Kautsky. In 1904, I remember three pamphlets published by Kautskv and translated from the German. in which Kautsky puts forward his particular views on social democracy and in which the S.P.G.B. praised him as being a Marxist. Lenin afterwards destroyed the Marxist claims of Kautsky and pointed out that Kautsky was really anti-Marx and in many respects anti-socialistic. He was a reformist and certainly not a revolutionary. Ignoring this fact, the S.P.G.B. still pretends to be a Marxist party. still speaks in a narrow little sectarian way and will still not bring the workers anywhere near their social emancipation.

About the same time as the S.P.G.B. was born in Britain. the S.L.P. was imported from America. Its great founder was Daniel De Leon, who was in many respects a great propanandist. He hated the anarchists because in many ways he supported the same ideas and preached the same ideas. He claimed to be a Marxist and the S.P.G.B. ridiculed his alleged Marxism. Daniel De Leon's criticisms of the social system were excellent very often. and he must have had played a tremendous part as a socialist educator of the people. but nevertheless he has built no organisation, his organisation is in its death throes and all that remains is the classical education left behind by his pamphlets. There is no doubt about the sincerity, no doubt about the vigour of Daniel De Leon, but at the same time there is no doubt about the failure of his propaganda. We have today the spectacle of a few groups of S.P.G.B. supporters and a few groups of S.L.P. supporters attacking each other, sometimes slandering each other but each claiming to be the true Marxist party.

Actually it does not matter what Marx taught. It is absurd for any party to claim to be the true Marxist party, we do not know what Marx would have done on a certain occasion, we can only speak in the terms of his general education, his general concept and his general knowledge. What specifically Marx would have done on this particular occasion or that particular occasion it is absolutely impossible to say.

In addition to these two socialist groups we have the anarchists, divided into individualists and communists. Let us take the communists as being the true expression of anarchism for, alter all, that does represent the working class approach. The Communist Anarchists spend more time hating Marx and admiring Bakunin than they do in preaching actual socialism or trying to organise the working class. Their one cry is direct action, but direct action cannot represent the action of all the people or cannot represent affective action on the part of a minority that will effect all the people and bring all the people into action against the system, it is, after all, very indirect action and a failure. Now that means we have three left wing groups divided into sectarian organisations thoroughly opposed to a united working class movement.

Against this we have brought into existence by the Russian Revolution. the Communist Party. This party is a ‘yes-man’ party. It sometimes tells the truth, it sometimes does not tell the truth. It does not function really and truly as a party in Britain, arising out of British conditions or the economic conditions of the workers here. It functions purely and simply as a satellite of the Russian Revolution, and whoever happens to be in power in the Kremlin. the Communist Party hails and supports that particular individual, or that particular group, as being the last word. In turn, it has supported Lenin who, after all, is outstanding. It has supported Trotsky, a lesser man to bruit. It has supported Stalin who, after the triumph of the revolution and after the successful activity of Lenin, turned his attention to destroying his own group for the sake of power. The Communist Party today supports Khurschov, who represents an entirely different policy from that of Stalin and, to my mind, really represents the struggle towards peace and communism. However, it is not because Khruschov may be right, it is not because his policy tends to be the policy towards freedom with the minimum of suffering, it is purely and simply because he is in power in the Kremlin that the Communist Party in this country supports him. That is a ‘yes-man’ policy and it can no more be tolerated than a ‘yes-man’ policy under Stalin, who, after all, destroyed his own comrades and certainly was responsible for bogus trials.

Now we have the Labour Party. The Labour Party represents parliamentarism arising from the ranks of the working class, carrying on the traditions of the great struggle for parliamentary representation and, really the trader and the merchant style, for the control of finance so that there should be no absolute monarchy. At the same time, this parliamentarism represents, not the organisation of the working class, for the working class can have no power under the parliamentary system, but merely a control of the working class elements by the state system of capitalism. It never intends to get beyond that system, it never intends to inaugurate-—really and truly—socialism, its aim is purely and simply to organise the nationalisation of industry and of credit, etc., at the very highest. This is not socialism, this does not give emancipation to the working class. Unless you have emancipation coming from and directed by and controlled by the workshops, you have no emancipation of the working class.

The point is, what can we do? This May Day I want to direct my thoughts to the question of what can we do to emancipate the people from the thralldom of economic partisanship, economic domination and political subsideriness to the interest of the capitalist state. That is the problem before all of us today. Let us analyse what we are. The capitalist state speaks about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, this claim is not quite correct but it makes a show of believing in it and its laws seem to suggest it on certain occasions. But why is the capitalist class able to talk about freedom of speech and freedom of the press, yet at the same time speak about sedition, speak about treason and shoot and execute people from time to time for alleged offences of treason—very often high class patriotism ——and also imprison them for offences of freedom of speech which goes too far. I he explanation is quite simple, it is because we live under a capitalist state and because the capitalist class constitute the political expression of the nation. Therefore, we have got to see what we can do to bring about the control of the political expression of the working class movement by the working class movement. We have to define accurately and impartially and scientifically the working class movement, we have to define directly and scientifically the working class nation and we have to understand exactly what socialism stands for.

THE KEY TO THE SOLUTION

I think that the key to the solution of this problem of working class organisation for genuine and effective social action is to be found in a statement made by Lord Beaconsfield. He defined the two nations that existed within every so-called nation. He defined the struggle between these two nations as the real struggle. He spoke of the nation of the rich and the nation of the poor, and I think that in our approach to the question we have to bear in mind this definition. The nation of the rich and the nation of the poor, and from this angle we must create our concept of loyalty and disloyalty. The nation of the rich being in power, has a right to impose upon us from the standpoint of power and from the standpoint of power only, its definition of sedition and its definition of treason. We must elevate the nation of the poor to the position of the nation of the rich, we must make it the supreme nation and we must define sedition and treason as offences against the unity of the nation of the poor as distinct from the nation of the rich. This is a true political expression of the class struggle, one to be remembered and one to be put into effect.

In the international field today we have loyalty to sects —not loyalty to nations, loyalty to parties--not loyalty to class, but it is the class loyalty we have to consider. The working class must create its own nationhood. It must accept the fact that so long as we live under the capitalist system we are divided into economic classes or subdivisions. We are carpenters. we are joiners, we are electricians, we are labourers, we are motor drivers, etc., and we think in the terms of our own particular trade or industry, particularly in times of threatened unemployment. This is why among compositors we deprive women of the right to act as compositors or linotype setters, even though they are quite capable of doing such work. It is a restriction on labour supply because of the economic condition. All this must be wiped out—but it has to be accepted at the moment. Above all this class distinction and craft division or industrial division within the nation of. the poor, we have overhead the one great economic fact that there is a nation of the poor that lives in insecurity, lives in misery, lives by selling its labour power--by whatever shape or form it does so—and does not live as the possessor of the wealth or the right to control wealth. Against them is the other class who live on their backs, who live as the controllers of wealth produced by the poor and who constitute the nation of the rich and the governing class in society. Between these two nations there exists an interminable conflict, a conflict that can only be ended by the triumph of the poor and the utter defeat of the rich. Our business is to ring about an end to this division, and an end to this struggle within the working class movement, and bring about a unity which will utterly defeat the ruling class movement.

This unity is defeated by the faction of schism[1] as well as heresy,[2] and by schism much more than by heresy. The schism consists in all these political parties fighting against each other in the name of labour. The schism consists in the economic struggle which again divides the workers on the industrial field, thinking it is right for one section of the workers to go without whilst another section should occupy a position of superior control of wealth and superior share of wealth. The schism consists in the distinction between the skilled and the unskilled worker, forgetting that there is no such thing as skilled and unskilled workers but that there is only such an institution as the worker. In this great struggle, particularly in its political expression and in the tendency towards careerism created by the economic division, you have this question arising of who splits the vote, who divides the worker?

It is assumed that the majority movement is the right movement of the working class and that in the majority movement there is no such thing as schism, no such thing as treachery. It is assumed that the only people who have no right to exist are those who belong to the smaller groups and sects and that they play no useful part in the struggle. This is sheer nonsense, pure sectarianism of the worst description. Sometimes the smaller groups are useless, and they act in a useless fashion and they do tend to destroy the unity of the working class, but let us remember that when they do, in the main, except from some standpoint of vanity, they do so from a sincere belief in the cause of the struggle. The larger groups, the groups that arise from the trade unions—the group that arises from the economic interest within the struggle—the groups that find their expression in the Labour Party, also have their tendency towards schism. Its members are moved not by a desire to serve the people, not by a loyalty to abstract principles, but by a loyalty to their own personal interests and their own status under capitalism. Quite definitely, whilst they arise from the ranks of labour, whilst their base is in the workshops, whilst their feet are in the mire of the slums and the mire of suffering, they belong—so far as their heads are concerned— to the capitalist class and they think in terms of the capitalist class. This is treason—and this is the one treason we must destroy. This treason can only be destroyed by establishing, somehow or other, a fundamental nation of the poor to which all power should belong. It should be our anti-parliamentary task, whether we are aroused by anti-parliamentarism or not, to create this definite organised nation of the poor, including all sections of the poor and creating free speech among the poor—just as the ruling class have established a nation of the rich.

Now our nation of the poor should enjoy the same right of free speech, governed by a loyalty to its own class interests and a loyalty to the economic struggle of the workers, as the nation of the rich has a right to create a state governed by its loyalty to the ruling class interests of the rich. Once this is understood, we have then two definite nations confronting each other throughout the world and standing for the great struggle for working class emancipation and finally for a free world everywhere.

We have another problem—the problem of recognising the place that theory and education has in this struggle. Education should be taken away from the hands of the rich and placed in the hands of the poor. Only complete working class organisation—technical as well as educational. technical as well as prophetic, technical and scientific as well as visionary—can bring this about.

In mv opinion the Russian Revolution has represented a tremendous change in the history of the world, and also the great Chinese Revolution has represented a tremendous change. I think when we come to analyse the Russian Revolution we will discover the great importance of Lenin. Not merely as a disciple of Marx, but as a practical disciple of Marx and as a practical scientific socialist. It may be that history will place Lenin in an even higher position than Marx is placed, because Marx, after all, although he laid the basis of scientific socialism, destroying utopian socialism, was but a kind of John the Baptist. Lenin was far more probably the Christ of the movement than Marx. Because Lenin did try to put into practical effect the ideas of Marxism, and the idea of scientific socialism and created a state which, despite its errors—its terrible errors—did tend towards the new social order and historically belonged to the social order of socialism. Stalin can pass out of the picture. Trotsky, despite his brilliant writing, was a much inferior man to Lenin and I do not think he would have hesitated to have agreed to that himself.

In Khruschov, it seems to me, we have a man next great in importance to that of Lenin, but certainly a man of our time who has made a stand politically and diplomatically for the establishment of socialism. Accepting defeat and moving forward to victory, moving with his times, moving in front of his times, determined to save the world from slaughter, determined to make the world possible for revolution. What I have said about the ‘yes-men’ of the Russian Revolution. what I have said disparaging these people who claim to be the disciples of Khruschov and who now applaud Khruschov as they once applauded Stalin, is not meant to represent any degradation of Khruschov. I have a tremendous respect for Khruschov and a tremendous respect for the work he is doing—this is not a ‘yes-man’ respect. I am quite prepared to criticise Khruschov, as I am quite prepared to criticise Marx, as I hope others will be prepared to criticise me, and as I am prepared to criticise myself. Nevertheless, the great debt that history owes, the great debt that the working class owe as regard their future development. to the work of Khruschov—to my mind can never be over-estimated. This May Day I believe in mentioning this as a part of my tribute to the importance of May Day.

There are two other things I want to say. First of all. I have drawn attention already to the fact that this May Day should be celebrated with particular energy and enthusiasm because it was on 5th May that Karl Marx was born. It is not merely a celebration of May, the vernal month of working class emancipation. it is also a celebration of the birth and the struggle in poverty of a very great pioneer of socialism, a very great pioneer of liberty——Karl Marx.

May Day. I believe my memory serves me rightly and I speak only from memory at the moment without any notes, May Day really came into importance about the year 1889. It was really established as a day of labour by the French labour movement and it did not include or exclude any particular branch. it was the movement of all the working class factions. May Day used to be like that in Glasgow, but the Labour Party with the connivance of various factions, some of whom later went to the Communist Party, succeeded in destroying the universal aspect of May Day and made it more and more just a parliamentary celebration. We have evidence of that in the last meeting addressed in Queen’s Park by the late Mr. Gaitskell when, obviously, the Labour Party platform was captured and the whole spirit of May Day was destroyed by the interests of one party, that claimed because it was the majority party to be the party of the entire working class and very little protest was made against this seizure and usurpation.

THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS

In any case, May Day, 1889, was established under the shadow of the May Days that had more or less been celebrated in the past, but not with universal acclamation, in various parts of the world but dissociated from each other. In May Day, 1886, we had the demonstration in Chicago for the Chicago martyrs. They were arrested for what took place and a year later they were executed as the martyrs of the working class movement. Their spirit overshadowed for a number of years the celebration of May Day and, as you know, we had an outstanding governor of Illinois who departed entirely from his class and proclaimed that they were victims of a police frame-up and he brought about the release of those still in prison, regretting that he could not give back the lives of those who had already been executed. In the shadow of that great tragedy, the working class May Day was celebrated and held for a number of years. It came down to the time when we introduced the recognition of the suffering of Ferrier in Spain, and then today we meet under the shadow of the murder, by Franco, of Grimaud.[3]

Grimaud has been murdered for his loyalty to communism and to the working class. His murder should be remembered by all of us and it should unite the entire working class movement. Division by sectarian grouping will destroy that possible stand that can overthrow this “man of no mercy,”[4] this enemy of the working class, Franco. It is no use telling me that we must be loyal to abstract principles of socialism, after all I have walked the fools’ parade in prison, I know what it is like to be suffering imprisonment and, understanding that, I know how important it is to have a united movement to bring about one’s release. Apart from the terrible, shocking and disgraceful execution of Grimaud, we have the terrible suffering of Ambatielos in Greece and we witness the scene in connection with the heroic defence of Tony Ambatielos by his wife Betty. This should call us to strong protest against fascism, which after all is the extreme and last word of reactionary capitalism. This should call us to extreme unity and bring about a practical unity as well as make for theoretical discussion and understanding. Therefore, I am for a working class movement that should be open to a discussion of all. But a working class movement should not just end in discussion, it should try to take definite steps forward towards a complete unity of its anti-parliamentary and parliamentary factions and bring about one great working class movement for action and for working class emancipation.

I say comrades—unite, rally round and think, above all think for yourselves, and in thinking for yourselves we will develop a richness of unity and a richness of understanding which will give power and classic authority to the working class nation. The nation of the poor will soon become the nation of the free in a richer and a freer world.

About Guy Aldred

He served a total of eight years in prison for his beliefs, and, true "to his principle, died in poverty.

Guy Aldred was a materialist in philosophy. He had no belief in the supernatural. To him “the mortal soul of Man is the only intelligent lord of matter.” Yet many of his writings and speeches were imbued with a spirituality that raised them .above the ephemeral utterances of most political speakers. What he had to say had relevance, not merely to the moment, but to the epoch. He edited many socialist papers, among them: “Herald of Revolt,” “The Spur,” “The Commune,” “The “Council,” “The New Spur,” and “The Word.” His autobiography, “No Traitors’ Gait!” was issued in supplements and was unfinished at the time of his death.

[1] A schism ‘is a division, or breach of unity among people of the same beliefs.

[2] A heresy is a doctrine or set of principles at variance with the accepted ideas of a group or sect.

[3] Julian Grimaud: A member of the Spanish Communist Party. He was executed by Franco in May, 1963, for his part in the Civil War 25 years earlier. The sentence of death was carried out despite world-wide protests.

[4] “Man of No Mercy." The Sunday Citizen description of the Spanish dictator, Franco, 1n its report of the “judicial murder” of Julian Grimaud.

IPOS and SCUM, what he get's wrong about Anarchism

 

Content Warning: Includes discussion of sexual violence. 

A video essay by the YouTuber In Praise of Shadows (IPOS) popped into my recommended list yesterday. It's about the SCUM manifesto and its author Valerie Solanas. The link to the video is here. As a quick summary Valerie Solanas rose to fame in 1968 for the attempted murder of Andy Warhol, the manifesto she wrote was published to capitalise on the notoriety of her attempted assassination. It has since gained a reputation as an extremely radical feminist call to arms for the extermination of all men, and that reputation is earned SCUM is nothing if not explicit. SCUM the quasi movement of the text stands for Society for Cutting Up Men. 

I was intrigued as IPOS normally covers horror content. I had previously read SCUM many years ago while exploring the depths of 60s-70s radicalism. The video covers the text and the life of Solanas in great detail, I suggest watching it for more insight. 

Overall I was surprised that IPOS was willing to look beyond the popular stereotype of a "Crazy bitch" and investigate the ideas of SCUM. It is a hard text to take seriously, leaving aside the attempted murders (she also shot and wounded art critic Armando Amaya) the language is not only blunt and ugly but has a strange habit of sliding into the comical. e.g. "The male has a negative Midas touch--everything he touches turns to shit." It also uses ugly slurs which while more common in the 1960s were still considered vulgar for printing in a serious political essay. 

Despite SCUM's many flaws, its arguably got worse with age as passages read in the current year read clearly as forerunners to many anti-trans and anti-queer arguments that can be found easily in every unmoderated comment section today, there are some interesting bits of critique and commentary to be found, though as IPOS notes they usually miss the mark or shift into the wrong lessons. 

Sadly, at around the 01:02 mark  (citing YT vids is a pain) IPOS ruins the positive impression by attempting to critique Solanas's "Anarchistic themes". In doing so he retreats into a very common superficial rant about human nature we've all heard before mixed with misanthropy and American centrism, that I find genuinely baffling in how common it is to find amongst politicos in the USA. 

For the most part its fairly standard fare, humans are terrible people who can't be trusted, society becomes a "wasteland" without a government. It's quite disappointing, but as I was just going to roll my eyes and let the segment pass. However, as the segment wore on it shifts gears into a deeply misanthropic or perhaps misAmercathropic series of comments about how the US and its populations are irrevocably tainted*. That seemed a bit of a logical leap at first, but then as the moment worked through the personal beliefs of IPOS that it clicked for me. The parts of SCUM that IPOS found interesting seemed to tally with his own beliefs and criticisms to a degree, so when we get to the "anarchistic" parts of SCUM which IPOS rejects it is treated in much the same way as the overt bigotry and calls for mass murder.

So, with that in mind I think its worth poking a bit deeper to explore the weaknesses of this argument and IPOS's weakness as an essayist. 

But first to clear the air, this is not motivated by anger, disagreement is not a failing in my book. I don't agree with much of SCUM either to pick a relevant example, I like IPOS's content just fine, and have diasgreed before and will no doubt do again. I'm just interested in probing further and a great case study fell into my lap. No personal animosity is intended.  

I'm also not really interested in defending the "anarchist vision" of SCUM, while I can see anarchist influences within SCUM as well as many other radical political and cultural and scientific movements that were in vogue at the time, I don't think it is at its source and anarchist text for reasons that will probably come up. Though I do think there are times when IPOS misrepresents these ideas and will be pointing them out.  

The core of the issue

So, you don't think human's can be trusted with freedom, why on earth do you want to trust them with power? 

The core of this argument is that human's are greedy and selfish and wicked, I was initially confused why so many people including IPOS act like this is some kind of trump card. I can only infer that they believe anarchism is an idea based on optimism and unicorns. There certainly are many anarchist arguments that emphasise positive aspects of humanity but to pretend that's all there is to it is just showing ignorance. One of the key texts arguing in favour of Anarchism is Kropotkin's Mutual Aid a factor of evolution.  Which is an examination of mutual aid within animal and human societies. It's a scientific text with empirical data and observations. And importantly while it emphasises examples of working together independently for mutual benefit it does not ever deny the negative associations with behaviour and nature. Furthermore, there are anarchists who have embraced greed and shown how it makes anarchism a more viable method of social organisation. 

To be more blunt even if your misanthropic view of humanity is completely accurate, you're making an argument for anarchism and not one against anarchism. To believe that humanity is fundamentally threatening and to then advocate a society where human's have power over others is simple put stupid. Why on earth would you want these same nasty goblins to have direct power over you backed up with institutional force? IPOS like every ideologue who presents this argument has no answer to this contradiction. The best IPOS can manage is a very weak acknowledgement that this isn't ideal and that "restructuring" of society. But restructuring class society in a way that preserves classes and power dynamics via states and government is ultimately pointless, some humans will still have power over others to enact their vices at the expense of others. 

At one point later in the video IPOS brings up Trump and the MAGA movement, the reason is to use them as an example of a dangerous minority capturing a nation. I think that's an interesting example but works even better illustrating the weaknesses of IPOS's wider argument. Much of the opposition to Trump focuses on how his abnormal and different from the other President's of the USA. And yes Trump is certainly different, but the difference is in degree not in kind. Trump is killing US civilians in his brutal ICE raids, but ICE has always killed people including US citizens, as did the border agencies that predate ICE, just as the cops have killed people in the US regardless of whose in the White House. If you can't trust a Trump to be in charge of police, borders or nuclear warheads you cannot trust anyone with them.

 "We are selfish. We are dangerous. Even the most mildmannerd and empathetic of us can still easily be pushed over the edge in the right circumstances. The most moral of us can still make bad judgement calls and act in selfish ways, no one is a saint". IPOS.

Anarchism is a materialist criticism of the failings of human beings. It advocates for the dismantling of the material power relationships and the institutions that uphold them. What's more harmful a bully or a bully with a badge? a bigot or bigot with a church? a control freak or a control freak with the power to evict you or fire you? All of these are bad and anti-social and should ideally be dealt with where possible. However the negative impulses of the latter are magnified by their positions of power. Just restructure things so only good people occupy positions of power is utopian nonsence. Even IPOS does not believe it is possible, his argument is founded on the belief that anyone can become the later. Which is itself a core anarchist belief hence the solution of getting rid of the mechanisms for domination. Anarchism is not abolish the state and perfection reigns. Its well aware that people are still flawed and complex social creatures capable of many things some positive, some negative. The Defence Councils of Aragon and the insurgent territories of Ukraine to pick two examples of anarchism on a mass scale were not perfect, but they do not reflect the lazy and ugly caricature that IPOS and others associate with them. 

I get a sense that IPOS hasn't read much or any anarchist statements which if true is very poor form for an essayist commenting on the subject. I went ahead and re-read SCUM in preparation for this rather than rely on half remembered phrases, doing so confirmed to me that much of what IPOS was saying her is effectively meaningless. 

 But even stranger, while I don't consider SCUM an anarchist text I must on re-reading it concede that SCUM itself goes beyond IPOS's characteture in its criticisms of state or Man's as SCUM puts it society which exposes IPOS's superficial commentary even when read narrowly as an attempted rebuttal of Solanas. 

"But she very much disagrees with me, and again to me showcases a bit of a pie in the sky mentality of how people function in reality". Immediately after saying this IPOS quotes the following section.

 There's no reason why a society consisting of rational beings capable of empathizing with each other, complete and having no natural reason to compete, should have a government, laws or leaders.

SCUM but quoted by IPOS,

Which seems to be a fair reading of SCUM, however, if you have read SCUM or have it open for reference you will notice something odd. Many passages of the text explicitly reject "pie in the sky**" reading of humanity including this section

     Authority and Government: Having no sense of right or wrong, no conscience, which can only stem from an ability to empathize with others...having no faith in his non-existent self, being necessarily competitive and, by nature, unable to co-operate, the male feels a need for external guidance and control. So he created authorities--priests, experts, bosses, leaders, etc. --and government. Wanting the female (Mama) to guide him, but unable to accept this fact (he is, after all, a MAN), wanting to play Woman, to usurp her function as Guider and Protector, he sees to it that all authorities are male.

 SCUM

Which precedes the section IPOS quotes so he must have been aware of it. And even if he missed that part it is not an isolated passage, there are multiple criticisms of communal living throughout SCUM. 

     The "hippie" babbles on about individuality, but has no more conception of it than any other man. He desires to get back to Nature, back to the wilderness, back to the home of the furry animals that he's one of, away from the city, where there is at least a trace, a bare beginning of civilization, to live at the species level, his time taken up with simple, non-intellectual activities--farming, fucking, bead stringing. The most important activity of the commune, the one on which it is based, is gangbanging. The "hippie" is enticed to the commune mainly by the prospect of all the free pussy--the main commodity to be shared, to be had just for the asking but, blinded by greed, he fails to anticipate all the other men he has to share with, or the jealousies and possessiveness of the pussies themselves.

SCUM 

Ironically, IPOS and Solanas's views on humanity are very similar, the real separation isn't some professed support for anarchist optimism, but that Solanas places the source of the rot on Man's nature while IPOS places it on Human nature. Miasndry vs misanthropy if you will.

IPOS tries to dismantle his strawman about a world where everyone is good and rational by asking the rhetorical question as to what even is a good and rational society? This pushed me off the fence into the side that IPOS is just using SCUM as an opportunity for personal soapboxing, and has little appetite for self reflection. The solution offered by Solanas is to kill all men and the women who are too tainted by the ideas of Men. That's a terrible solution, but it is obviously what Solanas considers as a "society consisting of rational beings capable of empathizing with each other, complete and having no natural reason to compete, should have a government, laws or leaders."

You do not have to agree with SCUM and I sincerely hope you do not, but that is for Solanas what a better society looks like. If the object was to sift and probe into SCUM IPOS should have a response to that, playing coy as he does is essentially useless. If however IPOS meant to move beyond SCUM and to explore anarchism generally and just fumbled the transition than the answer to the question is to look at anarchist alternatives to our present day. IPOS doesn't do that either, the only references made are to SCUM and his own personal beliefs with very little of substance or elaboration. 

IPOS's solution is less murderous but even flimsier, "restructure" society. The hows and the whys of such a restructuring are left undexamined. Meanwhile SCUM's androcidal views did also realise that for this perfect lesbian commune to survive dismantling of the power relationships goes beyond simple murder.

     Philosophy, Religion and Morality Based on Sex: The male's inability to relate to anybody or anything makes his life pointless and meaningless (the ultimate male insight is that life is absurd), so he invented philosophy and religion. Being empty, he looks outward, not only for guidance and control, but for salvation and for the meaning of life. Happiness being for him impossible on this earth, he invented Heaven.

SCUM

 "Without a government even if you did kill every man on the planet, widespread pillaging and sexual assault would still happen".  IPOS says with a smirk.

This may seem like I'm repeating myself but I was stunned that IPOS admission that his views are incoherent slip out while grinning as if he delivered a master stroke. The first part suggests that government's prevent pillage and sexual assault a ludicrous statement destroyed by just accesing a newsfeed, but then follows it up with an admission that no it actually does happen with governments. This effectively raises some questions, if government (which by the by is not the state in totality) does not actually prevent this man eat man world than what exactly is the point of keeping it around at great cost to the population and the world? Surely this is an admission that government et al is irrelevant in preventing violence. 

 After this odd bit of rhetorical flubbing IPOS proceeds to talk about sexaul assault, violence and rape happening right now, only to declare that the answer is "restructuring". This is an admission that IPOS has a limited grasp on societal violence. Many women are in prison because they defended themselves from their abusers.  The state and its version of justice is complicit in punishing victims, that's what hierachies do, they build links with the upper levels and exploit the lower levels. You can wish for a better exploitation, rejig the edges but as long as the system is in place someone will have to be on the recieving end. To think you can "reform" or "restructure" an fundamentally violent system so that it only does good things but still somehow has the capacity to order others to comply is simply "pie in the sky thinking" it has no basis in facts and is just wish fulfilment. 

"rape would happen in a wasteland, ten more times than it does now if the average man did not fear death or imprisonment at the hands of the state" IPOS

No, IPOS doesn't back any of these assumptions up beyond gut feelings. I notice that IPOS keeps referring to a strange choice between the state and a "wasteland" which does goes to show the ignorance of IPOS and his confidence in regugitating hunches as cast iron facts. This is a very common argument against police and prison abolition, usually by right wing groups that favour more criminalisation and more use of the death penalty. So, it is interesting when a self described "leftist" makes it as it is the same logic and justification that religious fundamentalists make in regards to the "wasteland" of atheist society. If fear of the state is sufficient to prevent 10x the number of rapes ocurring in the world thant surely faith or fear of a deity will stop even more? There is no difference here, its a swapping of a religious diety for a secular one. Perhaps Bakunin was on to something when he wrote God and the State.

Is it even worth addressing this "argument"? its just baseless speculation, why settle for 10 times and not a 100 times more rape? I'll be honest I find it in extreme poor taste that IPOS would attempt to use rape for cheap rhetorical points, anyone aware of the seriousness of this issue would put more effort into interrogating their views and see if its supported by something before speaking so glibly about it. 

But as IPOS rambles on without any anchor he again makes an odd admission "the inherent sexual violence that has been baked into the core functioning of our society". If IPOS really believes this and is not just confused or trying to pre-empt criticism with a figleaf, then we can ignore what he said before this. If rape is due to the baked in core functioning of our society (The USA for him) then his objections to any different society melt away. They cannot by definition have the same outcomes if their core functioning differs from ours. The only way you could consciously claim that sexual violence would go up by a factor of 10 in some other society is if the soceity in question reflected the same core functions as this one but by a factor of 10. You can't claim in one sentence the state is preventative of sexual violence and then argue sexual violence is baked into the core functions of this soceity, what is the state if not a core function? They are in mutual conflict which each other. Its like claiming a strong military keeps a nation secure and then admitted you're a believer in the security dilemma. Which is it then?

 Speaking of facts, Cheran a town in Mexico was overwhelmed by cartel violence, the police and government did nothing to stop it and often were complicit. The town as a community rose up, expelled both the police and the mayor and then drove the cartel out of their territory on their own. Since 2011 they have administered their own affairs, communally. Crime or anti-social behaviour still occurs, mostly by cartels trying to get a foothold in the town again, but overall rates for all crimes have fallen drastically. Is this anarchism in action? Not quite, though it is close to what anarchists in Mexico and globally advocate in building new communities.   

 This might work for a village but not the world

This also comes up often in this style of argument and IPOS does not dissapoint.  

 "It may work on a community level, but globally it would never" what is a globe if not made up of communities? Even in the current world of power blocks and nation states each constituent player on the world stage is built of communities. The populations of the world are alienated from their government's but they still take part in their societies. Taxes fund armies, labour produces commodities for internal and international markets, without communities the global system would collapse. So, how could something work on a community level and not be scalable to a higher level? What exactly is the stumbling block? If you can't even name it how do you know its there?

Anarchism has scaled up on several occasions, Anarchist collectives in Aragon assembled on the village community level, then built up to regional level, eventually organising a population of 7 million at its peak. They organised schools, fields, workshops, shops, communal areas, defence and security, and trade and were in the process of building a hydroelectric dam.  

 It's also worth considering The Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin. Which is a how to build anarchist relationships in an isolated community up to a city the size of Paris. You start small and then scale up as and when you can and need to. 

 Conclusion

While watching the video I grew increasingly certain that IPOS's familiarity with anarchism was limited at best. I assumed though that much of this was coming from exposure to SCUM and its extremism. But on re-reading I don't think that's true either. I'm still a sceptic of SCUM but I don't think IPOS's rebuttals work as good faith criticisms of that. Which I think is damning.

 If IPOS reads this I would urge him to not take this as an attack on the person but on the ideas and negative impulses associated with them. By all means, reject anarchism all you want, just take sometime to figure out what anarchism actually is first. Opposition keeps the wits sharp, you made through SCUM, there are many far more pleasant anarchist texts out there.

 

 *The cult of American exceptionalism has sunk such deep roots that the US citizen has to centre themselves and present as unique even while supposedly lamenting their own short comings.

 

** Interesting bit of trivia, "Pie in the sky" was popularised by the Industrial Worker's of the World (IWW) a radical labour Union with heavy anarchist involvement, who used the term to criticise defenders of work and hierarchy, as seen in their song the Preacher and the Slave, "You'll have pie in the sky when you die". Its modern usage flipping the script to be a criticism of political radicals seems to be an excellent example of the smothering nature of capitalism and hierachy over modern society.