This text is a commentary of the contribution of Wayne Price recently published on anarkismo.net, « The First International and the Development of Anarchism and Marxism » (http://www.anarkismo.net/article/30330)
Wayne made a review of my book (among others) : "Social Democracy and Anarchism in the International Workers' Association 1864-1877" (Trans. A.W. Zurbrug.) London: Anarres Editions. read full story / add a comment

In this article, we respond to the brief exchange between the Workers’ Solidarity Alliance (WSA-IWA) and the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS). read full story / add a comment

Murray Bookchin è stato un prolifico autore ed un influente teorico anarchico. Recentemente il suo lavoro è tornato alla ribalta. Se da un lato si possono apprezzare i suoi significativi contributi, dall'altro egli commise un grave errore nel rifiutare il ruolo della classe lavoratrice quale importante componente all'interno della rivoluzione anarchica. In questo articolo si mette a fuoco il percorso teorico di Bookchin al riguardo e -di converso- si dimostra come la classe lavoratrice debba essere considerata quale forza decisiva perchè la rivoluzione anarchica abbia successo. read full story / add a comment

As the civil war in Syria continues, in the territory of Rojava – in Kurdish, 'the West' – the northern Syrian Kurdish political movement is attempting to implement 'libertarian municipalism', based on the thoughts of United States (US) anarchist Murray Bookchin. Since the withdrawal of Syrian regime forces in 2012, the movement has consolidated significant territorial gains as a US ally in the anti-Islamic State (IS) struggle, while simultaneously securing Russian support. Viewed with suspicion by Turkey, Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan, the geopolitical conditions of Rojava's emergence are its greatest impediment. This article analyses Rojava's model of rule and socioeconomic development, and its theory and practice in the context of the civil war, and regional Middle Eastern and wider global geopolitics. It reflects on Rojava's place and meaning for contemporary geopolitics in the Middle East, and considers the territory's prospects, discussing its transformative potential for an otherwise troubled region. read full story / add a comment

Historicamente temos formas de análise conjuntural anarquista a problemas complexos que envolvem as movimentações dos de cima. Mas se todos os governos são iguais, para que faz análise de conjuntura? Substitui-se assim, a análise de conjuntura por meia dúzia de jargões e se tem o problema, como falsamente resolvido. O resultado é pobre, do ponto de vista analítico e pior, convence muito mal read full story / add a comment

Che cosa imparano i bambini guardando Peppa Pig? Ma, soprattutto, che cosa vogliono insegnare gli adulti ai bambini che guardano Peppa Pig? Quale modello di animalità, di umanità, di famiglia, di società vogliono rappresentare? read full story / add a comment

On February 2016, the Weekly Worker, website of the Communist Party of Great-Britain, published a (hostile) review of René Berthier’s book: « Social-Democracy & Anarchism » (Merlin Press). (http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1094/bakuninist-hatche...-job/)
This review, titled « Bakuninist hatchet job », was written by Mike Macnair and was an answer to Berthier’s book as well as to Dave Douglass’ (friendly) review (http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1086/when-marx-was-a-r...mist/).
This is Berthier’s reply to Mike Macnair. read full story / add a comment

Vive y no esconde el bárbaro sus tenazas de hierro
y el verdugo y la silla, y el g-man y el encierro.
Monstruo de dos cabezas bien norteamericano,
una mitad demócrata, otra republicano;
monstruo de dos cabezas, mas ninguna con seso
no importa que nos hable de alianza y de progreso[1] read full story / add a comment

Murray Bookchin was an influential and prolific writer and thinker on anarchism. Recently his work has been in the news. While he made significant contributions, he made a major error in rejecting the working class as important for an anarchist revolution. This article reviews why he believed this and why, on the contrary, the working class must be a major force for a successful anarchist revolution. read full story / add a comment

Anarquismo e sindicalismo :
Os debates sobre a herança de Bakunin antes da Grande Guerra

René Berthier

Após a morte de Bakunin, produziu-se uma ruptura com os princípios que o revolucionário russo tinha elaborado. Segundo ele, a Internacional devia conservar o seu caráter de organização de massa : os trabalhadores não deviam aderir a partir de uma ideia, um programa, mas com base a solidariedade recíproca e a defesa dos seus interesses materiais. Bakunin considerava que o movimento operário internacional não tinha atingido um nivel de desenvolvimento homogéneo e que seria necessário longos anos de debates internos para atingir à esta homogeneidade. Entretanto, era necessário encorajar estes debates, mas impedir a todo custo a imposição de um programa único para a Internacional – projeto que Bakunin atribuia à Marx.

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A response to Crimethinc's statement, "Why We Don't Make Demands." Wayne argues that revolutionary anarchists should propose to movements which they are part of to raise militant, radical, demands. Done in dialogue with the people, it moves the struggle forward and challenges the state and the capitalist class. read full story / add a comment

Voici deux textes traduits de l’anglais sur la situation au Rojava, le Kurdistan autonome syrien, et sur l’attitude que les anarchistes devraient avoir envers le mouvement populaire (pas uniquement kurde d’ailleurs) dans cette région.
Ces deux textes sont symptomatiques du débat parfois agité qui traverse le mouvement anarchiste sur la question de la révolution en cours au Rojava, et plus globalement sur les luttes de libération nationale.
Ils sont révélateurs des méfiances, des réticences, des distances récurrentes (et parfois des renoncements honteux) ou, au contraire, des rapprochements, des solidarités, des espoirs non moins récurrents (et parfois des vaines illusions) que ce type de lutte en général et cette révolution en particulier peut susciter dans nos milieux. read full story / add a comment

Anarcho-syndicalists should should hold no illusions about the Rojava Revolution. Since the turn of the millenium there have been reports of a libertarian municipalist turn in the Kurdish national liberation struggle inspired by Murray Bookchin. This change in politics has been lead by jailed founder and ideological leader Abdullah Öcalan of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) who discovered Bookchin while in prison. The PKK a former Maoist/Stalinist organization had turned to ethnic nationalism after the fall of the Soviet Union and discreditation of “really existing socialism” and so such a turn has been welcomed by many on the revolutionary left. However such processes of political transformation do not automatically translate to full adoption within a populace nevermind their official representation in leading parties. Please note that a reply to this article has been published by the Anarkismo.net Editorial Group: An Anarchist Communist Reply to ‘Rojava: An Anarcho-Syndicalist Perspective’ read full story / add a comment

Tras la nefasta, injustificable y repudiable explosión en el subcentro de Escuela Militar afirmamos que nada volvería ser igual. El bloque en el poder ya está comenzando a mover sus fichas para refundar la Ley Antiterrorista, aumentar las atribuciones de las policías y en particular de la Agencia Nacional de Inteligencia. El bombazo generó una oportunidad única para legitimar ante la “opinión pública” dichas medidas de control social, prácticamente sin ninguna oposición, o cuestionamiento (salvo el tema de los “agentes encubiertos”). read full story / add a comment

OVERVIEW: There is a healthy skepticism among many activists about simple grand plans, arising partly from disastrous Marxist experiments like the Soviet Union. But the opposite — faith that struggles spontaneously reach the best outcomes if freed of theory and plans — has serious problems. Many struggles falter or are captured as old mistakes are made again. Capitalism and the state cannot be defeated by a growing wave of loosely linked alternative “spaces” and experiments. These systems are based on coercion and exploitation; their defeat requires large-scale confrontation by a coordinated bottom-up working class counter-power with clear politics. The point of resistance is to change the world: it is not an aim in itself, just a response; a politics fetishising perpetual resistance must rely on a world of oppression. Closing discussion by labeling views “dogmatic” is a recipe for imposing other positions and elites through the backdoor. There is no need to repeat the tragic errors of the past. Other revolutionary theories from working class struggles – like anarchism and syndicalism — share no blame for the failures of vanguardism and reformism, and have valuable insights on building a participatory, transformative, project of “people’s power,” and on moving from resistance to reconstruction.It is important to speak openly about theory, strategy and vision, and to engage openly with the revolutionary traditions of the popular classes, like anarchism and syndicalism, born of our past struggles, and distilled from those struggles. read full story / add a comment

The Marxist journal, "Platypus Review", published an article by Herb Gamberg which attacked anarchism by focusing on Bakunin. Wayne Price wrote a response and Gamberg replied, in PR. The following is Wayne's original response plus his new reply to Gamberg's latest comments. read full story / add a comment

"Entre os anarquistas existem os revolucionários que acreditam que é necessário abater, pela força, a força que mantém a ordem atual, para criar um ambiente no qual seja possível a evolução livre dos indivíduos e das coletividades. E existem os educacionistas que pensam que só se pode chegar à transformação social, transformando antes os indivíduos, por meio da educação e da propaganda. Existem partidários da não-violência ou da resistência passiva, que evitam a violência ainda que seja para combater a violência. E existem aqueles que admitem a necessidade da violência, os quais se dividem, por sua vez, no que diz respeito à natureza, alcance e limites da violência licita." read full story / add a comment

Lightly edited transcript from Lucien van der Walt’s discussion at 1st National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) Political School, September 2013. From his debate with Solly Mapaila, 2nd deputy GS of the South African Communist Party (SACP) on anarcho-syndicalist versus Leninist views of the revolutionary potential of unions. A version was printed in ASR #61 2014, pp. 11-20

Captures van der Walt’s main points: the debate on the anarcho-syndicalist view that revolutionary trade unions, allied to other movements, creating a self-managed worker-controlled socialism through mass education, counter-power and workplace occupations; anarcho-syndicalism as a working class tradition; the anarcho-syndicalist view that unions can potentially be more revolutionary than political parties including Communist Parties, & be revolutionary without leadership by parties; the view that electioneering can be replaced with direct action campaigns; that the Spanish Revolution (1936-1939) shows unions taking power and making a bottom-up worker-controlled revolution; and how NUMSA’s current actions refute Marxist-Leninist theory; other problems with that theory’s traditional approach to unions; and the implications of all of this for current debates over the form of a new socialist movement in South Africa and elsewhere; and the nature of the South African ruling class and the primary social contradictions.

Lucien van der Walt is co-author of “Black Flame: The revolutionary class politics of anarchism and syndicalism” (w.Michael Schmidt, 2009, AK Press) and co-editor of “Anarchism and Syndicalism in the Colonial and Postcolonial World, 1870-1940” (w. Steve Hirsch and Benedict Anderson, 2010, Brill). He has a long history of involvement in the working class movements. read full story / add a comment

Two weeks ago, Nosotros los Pobres had the good fortune to host a presentation by two members of the Federacion de Estudiantes Libertarias of Chile, with whom we had a very productive exchange of ideas. Soon after that, I saw a statement published by the FEL, commenting on the situation in Venezuela, in which they expressed sympathy for the “Venezuelan people” in their resistance against a coup d’etat. As a member of Nosotros los Pobres, I wanted to share some thoughts about Venezuela and what’s going on there, both now and for the last 15 years, and I hope they will be useful for especifista comrades as well as for concerned and informed people generally. read full story / add a comment

The Platypus Society is having a panel on "Marxism and Anarchism," 3/17, in Chicago. It prepared a list of questions on the topic. These are my responses to the questions, in preparation for the discussion. read full story / add a comment