Given to Public meeting on grassroots movements, the EZLN and the anti-water charges campaign, 1996?
The last two speakers have talked about their experiences of different examples of ordinary people fighting back. Despite the differences it is the similarities between them that were the motivation for this meeting. Throughout history ordinary people have struggled to make their lives better. All over the world right now ordinary people are engaged in similar struggles, against a world where injustice seems to rule.
This struggle has is expressed in one of two ways. The first is the authoratarian way, praticsed by most politcal groups of left and right, where people look to clever or good savours to lead them to a promised land. The second is the libertarian way, where people organise their own struggles and try and change their circumstances through their own action.. Anarchism is about transforming this second form of struggle from one for reforms into one to transform society totally abolishing not only material inquality but also the division between leaders and led, boss and workers.
We don't just talk about these struggle we involve ourselves in them and seek to make our ideas heard through them. In the anti-Water Charges campaign for instance we are there primarily to help the campaign win. We believe this can be done by making the struggle as democratic and free as possible, encouraging people to organise in their own areas to fight cut-off attempts and demonstrate and in some cases even disrupt court proceedings. We wish for people to gain confidence and skills to initate further struggles in their estates or workplaces.. This will only come from a feeling of empowerment which comes along with the experience of fighting in a democratic campaign, organising, and gaining the confidence to voice opinions and make decisions.
This is why the WSM is involved in Campaigns.
1. To win them.
2. Empowerment of activists (strong working class)
3. To back up our ideas with relevant action. (Test our ideas against the challenge of real life situations i.e. not be ivory tower theorists)
4. To help spread our ideas. (convince people that anarchism is not chaos, but a co-coherent set of politics highly relevant to the advancement of the working class.
So over the last few years domestically we have campaigned for abortion rights, divorce, and against the water charges and national plans. These are all causes which we recognise as a step forward for the working class.
Unlike the authoratarian left which only sees struggles as way to get people to 'join the party' while we obviously wish to recruit activists from campaigns, we do not see this as our primary purpose in any campaign. (Nor do we invent campaigns in order to attract recruits) We wish to give all those involved a better idea of what anarchism is about. There will always be struggles as long as there is Capitalism so we wish to get people involved in challenging the idea that Capitalism will always be with us by getting them more involved in the WSM.
But all revolutionary groups can say they wish to build for revolution. What makes anarchists different. A key element to this is how you build for revolution. Everyone on the far left is pro-revolution, but what kind of revolution do they wish for. The type of revolution you have is determined by your ideas and how you operate in the here and now.
Anarchism is the idea of the creation of a society based on the principles of individual freedom, collective management of society by it's workers, and participatory democracy. There is no room for the vanguard of authoratarian socialism who will supposadly run society in the interest's of the working class.
The type of society we wish to create should be reflected in the way our organisation works today. It should be non-hierarchical and positively encourage self-activity. If we are serious about trying to create a society without leaders and led then there shouldn't be any leaders within an anarchist group. If we are against the idea of a vanguard then we must be vigilant against one springing up.
We hope to win people to the idea of anarchism in both heart and mind. We consistently work on education with the WSM so that each member is familiar with the history of working class struggle and the ideas behind our theory. Every member of the group writes articles for both the paper and the magazine. We all are involved in the 'donkey work' of putting up posters, selling papers, licking stamps and posting out info.
Policy's are formulated via the process of argument and debate to which each member contributes. This way of organising is more time consuming then the 'leadership' deciding what is the necessary line/response. But it is vital and is the necessary process when you have done away with hierarchy's. It also leads to better decisions. In all modern revolutionary situations this method for organising has been thrown up by the working class, albeit under different names like revolutionary committee, soviet, assemblies, etc. The essential form of organising had remained the same whether it was in Russia, Spain or Hungary.
In real terms because we believe in this way of organising it means that members of the WSM will not go forward for positions in Trade Unions or other bodies where there is no possibility of mandating or recall. To us this is the way you create a society that is answerable to the working class. Anyone who is elected should be elected as voice for the people who elected him/her. If they stray from their mandate and make decisions or do not vote accordingly then they are recalled. It is unlikely that Mr. Attley would be the National Secretary of SIPTU if such a real democracy was in place.
Accordingly all the positions within the WSM are administrative. They are mostly a case of writing letters and circulating information. All major decisions are made at the National Conference level.
We wish to see the working class in the driving seat of society. We do not wish to see another 'leadership' for the working class develop. So the skills of necessary to create this society are positively encouraged within our organisation. Anarchism will either be the creation of a free and politically aware working class ....or it will not be anarchism."
Anarchists are against the State. This is a major point of distinction between the anarchist tradition and others on the left. We view the State as the by-product of a society that is divided into the exploiters and the exploited. Or to put it another way the ruling class and the Working class. The State exists as the apparatus to ensure that this division remains, and the arsenal of the Police and army are it's last line of defence. Propaganda also plays a major part and this can be witnessed by the attacks on the social welfare, single mothers etc.
Other groups on the left, disagree with this position and maintain that the state will continue to exist after a revolution, and then it will erode over a period of time as it becomes no longer necessary. Once it exists the structure remains whereby another exploiter can return to haunt the working class.
Anarchists do not vote for politicians. We are not in the business of choosing who will lead us, who will make major decisions affecting our lives for many years. As the old slogan goes "It doesn't matter who you vote for the Government always gets in". Over the last ten years all the major political parties have had their arses in the seat of power and conditions have continued to worsen for the working class.
Billy Conolly once said "The very ambition to be politician should bar them from life from every being one." Alas that appears unenforceable. But to vote in a general election is to delude yourself. Even if your political candidate is made of the strongest convictions, his/her voice will be lost in the corruption of a party political system. As one friend said you can vote for a revolutionary but you can't vote for a revolution. Also the idea of passivity stems from this illusion that one person will represent your views and sort out the myriad of problems that you face. This is an illusion. It doesn't work that way.
Your entire life could be summarised in twelve X's on various ballot sheets stretching over the decades. This does not make one feel empowered.
From the previous speakers tonight we have learned that vibrant struggles are taking place. There is still a desire by people to make this world a better place . When the former eastern block collapsed many believed that the one other major alternative to Capitalism disappeared from the planet. But the desire to change aspects of the current society we live in has continued. As we reach the end of a millennium there has to be a belief that we can do more than just stop roads going though forests or save cattle from exportation. These campaigns spring from a belief that you can only make Capitalism nicer, more humane. What they lack is the belief in an alternative to the current system.
The way society is currently organised around the greed of a few and ignoring the needs of many has to be challenged. We are trying to convince people that an alternative to Capitalism and social democracy exists. When 60,000 households in this city refuse to pay a local government tax, this is an encouraging step and opens people up to the alternatives.
That alternative which the working class have always sought but never achieved is a society based on equality, individual freedom and true democracy. It will only become a realisable possibility when people hear the ideas and engage in a struggle against what currently exists. Then people will believe in an alternative. We believe in that alternative and we call it anarchism. "We believe that Anarchism is not just another choice for those who want a better world, the history of all other 'left' movements shows that Anarchism is a necessity".
Above all else anarchism is not about an idea, a leader or an organisation. It is based around the activity and struggle of ordinary people, people like me and people like you. But to fulfill your and my dreams means we have to come together and struggle together for them. The WSM is composed of ordinary people, we try and spread the anarchist idea and support struggles where we can. But there are only a few of us right now and there is always room for more people to join us and help in turning the dream of a free society into a reality. You need no special skills, you just need to share this dream. If you do then I suggest you consider joining us and helping to build anarchism in the future.