Please include us anarchists!
Matt Cox argues the case for including the anarchist and libertarian movement in the Left Unity framework.
Bakunin – one of the founders of modern anarchism
Let me start by saying that I was shocked when I found out about your organisation that I hadn’t heard about it sooner! A united front and a real alternative is exactly what we have needed and finally the wheels of progress have started to turn. Also, let me add that if what I say is an issue that has already been discussed or causes any offence, I apologise as it wasn’t my intention.
I thought that it should be known that as an anarcho-communist, I have always been suspicious of the role that political parties play in bringing about change as I’m sure you know, we anarchists are a little wary when it comes to any of the good the state does! However, it is vital that all of us pull together to combat capitalism and the threat it poses, not just to the economy, but to ourselves as human beings. Whilst I cannot speak for all anarchists, I fully support Left Unity and the work it has started.
As I understand it, Left Unity is predominantly a socialist movement but I must stress the importance of not forgetting anarchists and libertarians. We all strive for the same goal of a world free of capitalism and inequality and it is only together that we can achieve this. We all need to show solidarity with each other in these dark times which again is why I was so pleased to hear about Left Unity. The role that the state can play in progress is a much debated issue and whilst I think that any policy made to help those in need is just another concession, I realise that no good will come from parliament unless we are properly represented.
The popular view of anarchists is generally negative. We are seen as masked, dangerous and armed with firebombs. I do not deny that there is an element of truth in this and that there are some among us who believe violence is justified to bring about change. However, we cannot forget the hundreds, maybe even thousands of pacifist anarchists whose aims are not so different to those of socialists. It is an issue I am working on as the stigma people have attached to us has, time and time again, created fear and tension between similar ideologies. This often leaves us excluded; a classic example being Catalonia. This leads to further internal arguments and splits which we cannot afford if we are to bring about change.
Many anarchists continue to reject any political party that claims to work for the good of the people but a number of us are willing to support movements such as yours. We may be labeled as false anarchists but it is a small price to pay for real political change. This is why I ask of you to remember that there are anarchists out there who would support this cause with great enthusiasm and who are willing to donate time and effort to this great cause. Please don’t make the mistakes of the past and alienate us!
22 comments
22 responses to “Please include us anarchists!”
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I do hope this generates both debate and acceptance. Speaking as a surrealist I belong to the libertarian end of socialism and have no problems with including anarchists. In fact, the surrealist movement has long included both marxists and anarchists, and while this has sometimes generated some arguments, it has also been a source of openness and strength.
Since when did anarchists seek permission to do anything?
There are problems with political parties using the mechanisms of the state to control and repress people, and there are problems that resulting from anarchists’ opposition to mechanisms required by organisation. But surely, both Marxists and anarchists share the common goal of the ‘withering away of the state’. The difference is one of means than objectives. As great as the gulf between the two outlooks might be in reality, it was magnified by the person views and characteristics of both Marx and Proudhon, both of whom had unpleasant traits.
The Left has always been divided because their pre-occupations have always been people with their myriad of differences and interests, whereas the capitalists and their supporters share a simple and unified objective to maximise their profit and to exploit the working class — or, if we are to believe the present day UK Media, I should say the ‘middle class’!
But, it is time the Left understood that the interests of the people at this time need as united an opposition as possible, and it is time we abandoned outmoded and restricted concepts which constrain us as much as if not more than the system we live under.
Exactly, the differences between our ideologies, whilst being fairly fundamental, are small when compared to the goals we share. My issue is the way that anarchists are sometimes ignored simply because “they’re anarchists”.
Anarchism itself is a rather broad term, so i prefer to call myself a Libertarian Socialist. If we understand socialism as workers control over production then i don’t see any conflict between Anarcho-Syndicalism and the goals of democratic socialists who use a parliamentary route. The differences are largely tactical and the parliamentary route has the disadvantage of creating a political class which is unlikely, if past history is anything to go by, to relinquish its own power by accepting Anarchist, Anarcho-Syndicalist or Libertarian Socialist principles which would compel it to restructure society in a way which diminishes its own power in favour of voluntary federated industrial democracy.
There is no reason to believe that Left Unity, should it control a government, would be any different unless it is compelled from below by a membership setting policy through democratic means. In theory, an Anarcho-Syndicalist/Libertarian Socialist presence in trade-unions affiliated to Left Unity and also among its party membership, could push for the party to adopt such policies.
There are limits, however, to what the Parliamentary route can achieve and extra-Parliamentary means, such as organising labour and pushing for genuine industrial and economic democracy in the industrial world itself, will be essential steps towards any kind of sustainable Libertarian Socialist society.
I would be happy if Left Unity pushed for Anarcho-Syndicalist solutions to our rather unrepresentative Parliamentary democracy, but i’m not sure how likely that is to happen?
Communists, socialists and anarchists all fought together against Franco and fascism in the Spanish civil war! Lets do it again!
and they fought each other. Not exactly a love in.
“and they fought each other…”
This is the difference between history and history-writing. There’s always something in the written history to pick up on, negatively and polemically, but if you make the effort to look beyond this then there’s more to see.
The CNT and the POUM, (The Anarchists and the Marxists) did not fight each other in Catalonia.
A better example of what not to do is Trotsky & Lenin’s decision to ban the Gulyai-Pole Soviet.
That last sentence should read, “Please don’t make the mistakes of the past and kill us!”
ha! yeah it wasn’t a mistake. I think the person who wrote this piece should understand the historical implications that underpinned these “mistakes”.
I would want to participate in a Left Unity movement where I live and would hope that it would federate with other groups where this was efficient.
If the movement were hijacked by pacifists then I wouldn’t be happy. I’d only want to include people who respected a diversity of tactics.
Tyne & Wear Left Unity was good until the person controlling their blog censored an article by Dave Douglas criticising the Labour Party for not supporting the Jarrow March recreation by the CWI.
Why is a serious discussion about the inclusion of anarchists, which I would argue broadly includes left libertarians) illustrated by two punks kissing, even possibly for the cameras, eg, london tourist punks. If anarchism is to be taken seriously, it needs to get away from the lifestyle image (now co-opted anyway) plenty of anarchists wear ben shermans and hold down jobs, etc..
Anyway, the anarchist tradition has a lot to offer, not least the concept of non-heirarchial(sic) organising, something the left needs to address with haste..
Please include us in what? I’m happy to work alongside other working-class people in practical class struggle activity, such as local bedroom tax campaigns, no matter how confused their leftist or reformist ideas are. But, unless I’m missing something, the major point of this left unity network seems to be to build a social democratic electoral party. If this is the case, then I’m quite comfortable with not being included, and it’s hard to see what you could possibly do to include anarchists, short of giving up on electoral politics (which would be very welcome, but I’m not holding my breath).
And this bit of “good anarchist/bad anarchist” rubbish is just nauseating: “I do not deny that there is an element of truth in this and that there are some among us who believe violence is justified to bring about change. However, we cannot forget the hundreds, maybe even thousands of pacifist anarchists whose aims are not so different to those of socialists.”
A) All anarchists, no matter how violent, desire an end to capitalism and a classless society, which is also what all genuine socialists want, so to imply that only pacifist anarchists have similar ends to socialists is unhelpful. We all desire the aim of a classless society, the difference is about the means to get there.
B) The difference between anarchists and leftists does not map neatly onto “violence versus non-violence”. Unless I’m missing something, most leftists still view Lenin as an inspiration, and the Bolsheviks were not exactly paragons of non-violence. Violence and non-violence is an irrelevant question; things like organisational forms, and medium-term objectives (e.g. trying to run in elections and take control of local councils versus building a working-class movement that’s totally independent from capital and the state) are far more important.
I was going to comment but this comment pretty much covered what I was going to say.
As a platform for discussion within the left, a place to have debates wider than either regular organising meetings or party-sponsored “discussion” forums, Left Unity may be of some interest. When it comes to the idea of forming a new party however I really don’t see what role anarchists could play unless either a: LU dropped its electoral ambitions (going against the reason many people got involved); or b: anarchists dropped their anti-electoralism (in which case they could no longer be anarchists in any meaningful sense).
This in itself, incidentally, is one of my main issues the the concept of “left unity” as a whole; while differences within the left can often be over-emphasised, they are there and do matter and can’t be overcome with calls for us all to just get along.
That said, given all the talk about Syriza on this site, I’d be interested to see any in-depth work looking at the relationship between Syriza and the anarchists.
I totally agree with this article, and also this cause. The current political armageddon causes a problem for me. I support the anarchist ideal, yet I know that without using the vote the current state of affairs will continue, get worse and the horrors of starvation and disease will consume many of the most vulnerable people we have. I believe in self rule, but also charity, and do raise a shitloads for causes I believe in.
I urge Left Unity not to run the risk of splitting the vote by ignoring the almost completely forgotten issue of civil liberties. Freedom isn’t a luxury, it is our spiritual life blood. Freedom can’t be defined by anyone for someone, it is theirs, personal and as important for their wellbeing. Usually these civil liberties have been stripped from us without any justifiable reason, but for propaganda purposes under the guise of health and safety, yet the devastation these laws can leave in their wake is huge. Look at the amount of people incarcerated as a result of drug laws. Addicts are now seen as both perpetrator and victim at the same time. The social problems caused by obtaining drugs on the black market, and needing crime to pay the bill; the rise of drug gangs etc, and all the while one thing is blatantly clear … the policy doesn’t work, otherwise after this length of time we wouldn’t have any heroin addicts, yet we have thousands.
Laws which prohibit or make compulsory actions which affect no other than oneself do not save lives, they just prolong existence. If anything, these laws destroy life, and make a bold statement that you are owned by the state… a state which in truth doesn’t give a damn if you live or die, just that you are their asset. They affect your experience of life, they define the police (who should be looked up to in an ideal world) as oppressors, blindly following orders to enforce unjustifiable laws. This affects the type of people attracted to a career in law enforcement and you can see on the news broadcasts what that leads to. It leads to a society expecting to be told what they can and can’t do which leads to a lack or responsibility taking o their part, and again society suffers.
In 2015 the countries of the UK will vote in the most important General Election in living memory, possibly ever. Each political party will use every issue they can to secure votes. there is a huge number of marginalised people out there for whom no political party is speaking for. I guarantee that at some point a party will ask them to vote for freedom. Please, please make sure that it is this party which does that. Because for these legions of people, if you ask them to choose finance or freedom as the issue to vote for, they will choose freedom over finance any day, and people such as myself, who support everything about what Left Unity is trying to do, and will be getting involved at a local level, will be split. Please don’t let that happen.
I like the point you make about freedom. It seems like we have become complacent with allowing our liberties to be curbed in the name of counter terrorism and health and saftey. We have been sitting down and allowing this to happen for too long, hopefully a united left party will undo the damage done by the years of Blair and Thatcher.
I’m cool with Anarchists. Just not so much on the Kronstadt whining. ‘K? Thanks. :-D
anarchists and libertarian socialists should seriously consider being part of this. it is vitally important this new movement not be taken over by authoritarian socialists and be turned into yet another sect…and recruitment opportunity. of course, the libertarian left has much more than that to offer….it is dynamic and creative, courageous and energetic in its praxis, as this new movement will have to be when facing the strong possibility of a new labour government in 2015, partly backed by the trade unions and not just committed to the coalition’s cuts….but to expanding and accelerating them. the moment of truth for anarchists will come – if this movement’s declared aims become a reality and it turns itself into a political party – in other words, when this movement for left unity stands candidates at a election and asks those who are part of it to campaign on their behalf. but let’s not run before it can walk. those of us on the libertarian left know that real movements for real change reside in the streets, in extra parliamentary action, and with the people….not with political structures, general secretaries, leaders, central committees and substitutionist politics where we send representatives to a parliament and then watch as they vanish up their own backsides. if the movement for left unity is to be saved from this same fate, then it needs anarchists and libertarian socialists … not on its periphery but at its heart.
Hi there. I’m an anarchist floating on the periphery of Left Unity, and feeling a bit alienated by the electoral bent of it all at the same time as relishing the chance to share ideas and network and keep each other informed about nonpartisan community activism in my local area. I really feel the need for an organisation that brings together the ever-bickering left together in some context to work together, in times which call for urgent, urgent change in this country – and Left Unity is all I’ve got. I do feel a bit like I am selling out, though, and it was a hard decision to go to my first meeting. Big dilemma and am still pretty much on the fence about continued involvement.
I’m also the new editor of Freedom newspaper, so if you’d like to print this in the paper… I am sure it will generate a lively letters page!
“Whilst I cannot speak for all anarchists” Correct,you really can’t.
Anarchism 101: Ruling Parties,Govenments and states lead to corruption. We don’t need a small elite to run our lives for us. This is the basic premise of Anarchism.
Getting into bed with stateists and authortrian left groups,with their cult like ideology and everyone being on the same page,and re-education of those who aren’t is not the way forward to liberate our class.
There’s a reason anarchists reject the ballot, it simply doesn’t work. This is not fighting back,this is a slow death march while we try to play their game.In case you haven’t noticed, our whole lives are controlled by force,violence and fear at the hands of the state. We even abide by the anti-union laws about the numbers that are allowed to be on a picket line!
Thanks but no thanks, We’ve seen enough from history to know what happens to Anarchist when Marxist and Communists get into power, we get called reactionares and put against the wall.
Freedom means freedom from Capitalists and Communists,means of production will not save our planet, our eco system and all the species on this planet.
You can include Anarchists, but we may not include you,and people like “Comrade Delta”.
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Hi Matt,
I’m an academic researcher writing about anarchists and the left. I was hoping I could interview you. If this is possible, then please get in touch: Dan Keith D.J.Keith@exeter.ac.uk