Marxism and anarchism

Marxism and anarchism

A list of reading to download, and some short notes.. The Anarchist "Classics" Summary in a PowerPoint presentation : this is not designed to be "self-sufficient", but rather to help with discussion and reading. Karl Marx: Political Indifferentism (2 pages). Marx criticises the anarchism of Proudhon. "All arms with which to fight must be drawn from society as it is, and the fatal conditions of this struggle have the misfortune of not being easily adapted to the idealistic fantasies which these doctors in social science have exalted as divinities under the names of Freedom, Autonomy, Anarchy"...

Russia’s anarcho-communist rail saboteurs

Ruleta Proom reports their activities and views. “Izium was liberated today.” These victorious words from the city’s mayor, Valeriy Marchenko, made headlines around the world on Saturday, Sept. 10. Almost 200 days into Russia’s war on Ukraine, this news was significant — it wasn’t just of Russian fumbling or failure, but of Ukrainian advancement and success. Over the weekend more news broke: Ukraine’s military reported Russian withdrawal in regions in Kharkiv and Luhansk — two major areas of contention. But far from the frontlines in Ukraine, a different form of combat continues to take place...

David Graeber's anarchism and the Occupy movement

The news that David Graeber had died so young, at only 59, was shocking and saddening. He had one of those inherently lively, energetic personalities that seems to contradict the concept of death itself. He earned respect as one of the few modern anarchist thinkers who tried to really apply anarchism systematically as a total worldview: anarchist principles informed his anthropological and historical research, his economics, and his interventions into real world politics. Graeber’s anthropological work is fascinating and valuable; his major book, Debt , is thought-provoking, though basically...

From Shachtmanite Trotskyism to Anarchism: Exploring the Relationship of a Marxist Tendency to Anarchism

This article, by the anarchist writer Wayne Price, was published in the journal The Utopian . It explores the relationship between the “Third Camp” Trotskyist tradition, with which Workers' Liberty identifies, and anarchist politics. It is republished with the author's permission. Visit the website of The Utopian here . In recent years there has been an increase in articles, books, and special journal issues on the relationship between anarchism and Marxism. (For example, Pittman, Dale, & Holt 2015; Prichard & Worth 2016.) One difficulty with such discussions is that both “anarchism” and...

Anarchist strawmen and Corbyn

An article, signed by “Phil”, on the LibCom website, puts the anarchist case against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party. It says that working-class activists should “steer clear” of Labour, and makes five specific arguments: 1. The fight isn’t just against The Tories No-one who has been involved in Corbyn’s campaign, and witnessed the attacks and attempted sabotage by figures on the right of the Labour Party, could believe that the Tories are the only enemy. This is a straw-man argument; only the most credulous and ignorant could imagine that Labour under Corbyn’s leadership will be uniformly...

Critical support for PYD

The politics of the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) in western Kurdistan/Syria (Rojava) and the nature of governance there has been debated on the revolutionary left with some anarchist, autonomist Marxist and libertarian communists seeing more or less enthusiastically welcoming the democracy taking root there. Workers’ Liberty backs the Kurdish struggle the YPG defence of Kobane against the Islamic State; but we do not back the politics of the forces on the ground. The YPG (Democratic Union Party) are closely linked to the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party). Historically the PKK was a...

1864: the First International

A hundred and fifty years ago, on 28 September 1864, the working-class movement took a huge step forward with the founding of the International Working Men’s Association. A meeting at the St Martin’s Hall in London brought together radical and socialist delegates from around Europe, to set up the organisation which would become known as “The First International”. In 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels ended their Communist Manifesto with the famous and ringing declaration: “Proletarians of all countries, Unite!” But in many ways, their theoretical elaboration of an international proletarian...

The IRA in a West of Ireland Town in the 1930s

Below the great political generalities - opposition to British Imperialism, Partition, the "sell-out of Republican principles" by De Valera's constitutional Republican party, Fianna Fail - what was the IRA? Let us look at what it was in the 1930s in one area, Clare, and particularly in one town, Ennis, part of Eamonn De Valera's constituency. We are not, in this excursion, in which we will look at the labour movement in that town, wandering off the subject: we are trying to bring the IRA of that time and of such places, and the sort of people who joined it, into clearer focus. Republicanism is...

The IRA in a West of Ireland Town in the 1930s

Below the great political generalities - opposition to British Imperialism, Partition, the "sell-out of Republican principles" by De Valera's constitutionalRepublican party, Fianna Fail - what was the IRA? Let us look at what it was in the 1930s in one area, Clare, and particularly in one town, Ennis, part of Eamonn De Valera's constituency. We are not, in this excursion, in which we will look at the labour movement in that town, wandering off the subject: we are trying to bring the IRA of that time and of such places, and the sort of people who joined it, into clearer focus. Republicanism is...

Left Wing Urban Guerrillas in Ireland: Saor Eire, Peter Graham, Irish National Liberation Army; The Fenians; the First 40 Years of The IRA; Permanent Revolution

Peter Graham: Life and death of an Irish Socialist Republican (1972) Left Wing Urban Guerrillas in Ireland: The Irish National Liberation Army's Bloody Feud and the Saor Eire Episode (1987) Saor Eire and Peter Graham (1996) INLA and the Irish National Question(1997) The Fenians: Rise and Decline(1967) Where the Hillside Men Have Sown: 40 Years of the IRA (1967) Permanent Revolution and Ireland Peter Graham Liam Daltun

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