Anarchic update news all over the world - part 1 - 22 February 2017

Today's Topics:

   
1.  US, black rose fed: THE BOLSHEVIK MYTH RELOADED
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #268 - Nuclear Weapons:
      Rififi in the International Community (fr, it, pt) [machine
      translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  US, m1aa: Claim No Easy Victories: A History and Analysis of
      Anti-Racist Action (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1



We are republishing this piece as part of our series of articles and social media postings 
relating to the 100 year anniversary of the Russian Revolution #RussianRev100Years. This 
article is based on a talk at the 2016 London Anarchist bookfair republished from the 
Anarchist Writers site.  It covers the basic myths and realities of the period and 
concentrates on non-Anarchist sources - academics and Leninists themselves. This is not 
because the anarchist critique is lacking (there are many well known sources from 
Anarchists) but it is done to show that the anarchist critique has the support of a 
substantial body of evidence. As indicated in the talk, all quotes are from section H of 
An Anarchist FAQ. ---- By Anarcho ---- 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Russian 
revolution. We can expect a mountain of articles (although less than in 1967!) about how 
wonderful the Bolsheviks were and, of course, why we should seek to apply their ideas today.

So the time arrives when we must understand what actually happened in Russia. The reality 
- rather than the rhetoric - of Bolshevism, to expose, to use Alexander Berkman's term, 
The Bolshevik Myth. To do this I will attempt to summarise the relevant information in An 
Anarchist FAQ (section H) and I am not going to quote a single anarchist - this account is 
based on work by historians and Leninists. I do this simply because they provide 
overwhelming evidence to support the anarchist critique - and predictions - of both 
Marxism and the Bolshevik revolution.

The Russian Revolution in 1917
The revolution in 1917 started spontaneously with protests and strikes over food shortages 
in Petrograd - protests which were opposed by the local Bolshevik leadership, so not the 
most auspicious of starts. It also quickly saw the recreation of the soviets which had 
first appeared during the 1905 near-revolution as well as the extension of demands from 
just political to social transformation - as argued by anarchists but rejected by Marxists 
in 1905 - which lead to the rise of factory committees, demands for "workers' control", 
expropriation of land by the peasants, etc.

It was only once Lenin had returned to Russia that the Bolsheviks started echoing 
anarchist arguments. Needless to say, Lenin came into conflict with his party bureaucracy 
but the mass influx of radicalised workers who were not Marxists and no concern over 
following "the party line" gave the edge to Lenin - who also continually violated the 
party's own "nature, structure and ideology" to force it to play an important role in 1917.

The Party
So in 1917 "democratic centralism," the leitmotiv of Bolshevism, was ignored to ensure the 
Bolsheviks had any impact on events. Indeed, the party operated in ways that few modern 
"vanguard" parties would tolerate:

"The committees were a law unto themselves when it came to accepting orders from above ... 
town committees in practice had the devil's own job in imposing firm leadership . . . 
Insubordination was the rule of the day whenever lower party bodies thought questions of 
importance were at stake ... Many a party cell saw fit to thumb its nose at higher 
authority and to pursue policies which it felt to be more suited to local circumstances or 
more desirable in general. No great secret was made of this ... hardly a party committee 
existed which did not encounter problems in enforcing its will even upon individual 
activists."

So unlike illusions of modern-day Bolsheviks, in 1917 party was a loose federation which 
was marked by an "internally relatively democratic, tolerant, and decentralised structure 
and method of operation, as well as its essentially open and mass character - in striking 
contrast to the traditional Leninist model ... subordinate party bodies... were permitted 
considerable independence and initiative . . . Most importantly, these lower bodies were 
able to tailor their tactics and appeals to suit their own particular constituencies amid 
rapidly changing conditions. Vast numbers of new members were recruited into the party . . 
. who knew little, if anything, about Marxism and cared nothing about party discipline." 
As one old-Bolshevik named Lashevich remarked: "Frequently it is impossible to make out 
where the Bolshevik ends and the Anarchist begins."

However, it retained a bureaucracy. As Tony Cliff admitted, "a certain conservatism arose" 
within the party - so much so that it was a hindrance to the revolution: "At practically 
all sharp turning points, Lenin had to rely on the lower strata of the party machine 
against the higher, or on the rank and file against the machine as a whole." Lenin spent 
as much time fighting his own party machine as he did advocating revolution.

This is confirmed by Trotsky who admitted that "[w]ithout Lenin, no one had known what to 
make of the unprecedented situation" and the "April conflict between Lenin and the general 
staff of the party was not the only one of its kind. Throughout the whole history of 
Bolshevism... all the leaders of the party at all the most important moments stood to the 
right of Lenin." Indeed, in October Lenin "could only impose his view by going over the 
head of his Central Committee" and "called for resolute confrontation of the sluggish 
Party machine with masses and ideas in motion." In short:

"the masses were incomparably more revolutionary than the Party, which in turn was more 
revolutionary than its committeemen."

All of which refutes the basic assumptions of Lenin's party schema, namely that the broad 
party membership, like the working class, was subject to bourgeois influences so 
necessitating central leadership and control from above.

However, the party bureaucracy did not disappear and played a negative role once the party 
seized power - providing a structure and an ideological justification to introduce the 
centralised control upon which vanguardism was premised.

Lenin's State and Revolution
This is the context within which Lenin wrote State and Revolution - the election 
manifesto, if you like, of Bolshevism. Let us compare it to the reality of Bolshevism in power

First off, it must be stressed that much of what passes for "Marxism" is actually 
anarchism. Workers councils as the framework of a socialist society is to be found in 
Bakunin, not Marx. It also distorts the anarchist position - Anarchists, regardless of 
Lenin's claims, have always seen need to defend the revolution (using federated workers' 
militias to defend the federated workers' councils) and never thought anarchism would 
appear "overnight."

So what does Lenin's book argue? Using the Paris Commune as a prototype Lenin argued for 
the abolition of "parliamentarianism" by turning "representative institutions from mere 
‘talking shops' into working bodies" by removing "the division of labour between the 
legislative and the executive"; "All officials, without exception, to be elected and 
subject to recall at any time"; The "immediate introduction of control and superintendence 
by all, so that all shall become ‘bureaucrats' for a time and so that, therefore, no one 
can become a ‘bureaucrat'." Proletarian democracy would "take immediate steps to cut 
bureaucracy down to the roots" no "privileged persons divorced from the masses and 
superior to the masses"; No "special bodies of armed men" standing apart from the people 
"since the majority of the people itself suppresses its oppressors, a ‘special force' is 
no longer necessary": "abolition of the standing army" by the "armed masses"; The new 
(workers) state would be "the organisation of violence for the suppression of . . . the 
exploiting class... The toilers need a state only to overcome the resistance" of "the 
landlords and the capitalists." Their "resistance must be broken by force: it is clear 
that where there is suppression there is also violence, there is no freedom, no democracy."

Thus the "dictatorship of the proletariat" would be "the introduction of complete 
democracy for the people."

Let us look at each of these in turn.

Working Bodies
The promise of "working bodies" - the fusion of legislative and executive functions in the 
one body - was the swiftly broken for the very first body to be created was the "Council 
of People's Commissars". This was a government above the Central Executive Committee of 
the soviets congress and so separate from and above the national soviet congress.

So Lenin's State and Revolution did not last the night. As the Bolshevik Central Committee 
put it:

"it is impossible to refuse a purely Bolshevik government without treason to the slogan of 
the power of the Soviets, since a majority at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets . 
. . handed power over to this government."

Perhaps it could be argued that Lenin's promises were kept as the new government simply 
gave itself legislative powers four days later? No, for the Paris Commune took executive 
power into its own hands, Lenin reversed this.

Nor was this process limited to the top: "Effective power in the local soviets 
relentlessly gravitated to the executive committees, and especially their presidia. 
Plenary sessions became increasingly symbolic and ineffectual."

Election, Recall, etc.
By early 1918, there was a systematic campaign against the elective principle in all areas 
of social life.

In the military, Trotsky replaced elected officers with appointed ones in March 1918: "the 
principle of election is politically purposeless and technically inexpedient, and it has 
been, in practice, abolished by decree."

In the workplace, Lenin argued for and appointed one-man managers "vested with dictatorial 
powers" in April 1918. This was the elimination of factory committees by "one-man 
management" under centralised state control. Not, of course, that he ever supported 
genuine workers' control but rather workers' supervision of bosses - and it must be 
stressed that the demand for workers' control was raised by workers, not the party, which 
again refutes the assumptions of vanguardism.

In the soviets, the Bolsheviks refused to hold elections because they "feared that the 
opposition parties would show gains." When were finally elections held, "Bolshevik armed 
force usually overthrew the results." In addition, the Bolsheviks "pack[ed]local soviets" 
with representatives of organisations they controlled "once they could no longer count on 
an electoral majority" so making direct elections from workplaces irrelevant (for example, 
in Petrograd "[o]nly 260 of roughly 700 deputies in the new soviet were to be elected in 
factories, which guaranteed a large Bolshevik majority in advance" and so the Bolsheviks 
"contrived a majority" before getting 127 of the 260 direct delegates).

Elimination of bureaucracy
In stark contrast to the State and Revolution, the new State spawned a bureaucracy which 
"grew by leaps and bounds. Control over the new bureaucracy constantly diminished, partly 
because no genuine opposition existed. The alienation between ‘people' and ‘officials,' 
which the soviet system was supposed to remove, was back again. Beginning in 1918, 
complaints about ‘bureaucratic excesses,' lack of contact with voters, and new proletarian 
bureaucrats grew louder and louder." In short:

"The old state's political apparatus was ‘smashed,' but in its place a new bureaucratic 
and centralised system emerged with extraordinary rapidity. . . As the functions of the 
state expanded so did the bureaucracy, and by August 1918 nearly a third of Moscow's 
working population were employed in offices"

This soon became a source of inefficiency and waste - as well as new privileges and powers 
for the few.

Elimination of separate armed forces

In terms of arming the people and removing "special bodies" of armed men, this promise did 
not last two months. In December 1917 the Council of People's Commissars decreed a 
political police force, the Cheka. Significantly, its first headquarters were those of the 
Tsar's secret police.

As noted, elections in the armed forces eliminated by decree in March 1918 and so the Red 
Army was turned from a workers' militia (i.e. an armed people) into a "special body". 
Needless to say, this was soon used to disband soviets, break strikes, protests, etc.

Year One of the Revolution - Summation
All this was the period before the outbreak of the Civil War in late May 1918. By the 
anniversary of the October Revolution, the new regime had taken shape - and it bore little 
resemblance to State and Revolution.

Politically, it was in practice a Party Dictatorship. As well as the onslaught on the 
local soviets, the Bolsheviks packed the Fifth Congress of Soviets in July 1918 denying 
Left-SRs their majority (which, incidentally, explains why Leninists today are always so 
keen to control the credentials committee!).

Economically, it was State Capitalism with "one-man" management the official policy (and 
systematically imposed once victory was believed to be secure in 1920). It had a Statist 
and centralised economic structure which simply handed the economy to the bureaucracy. 
Significantly, the previous bosses mostly retained - they preferred state control to 
workers' control.

The bureaucracy was firmly in place for "in the soviets and in economic management the 
embryo of centralised and bureaucratic state forms had already emerged by mid-1918." By 
the end of 1920, there were five times more officials (5,880,000) than industrial workers!

The party finally saw democratic centralism imposed within it as "the Bolsheviks, who for 
years had talked idly about a strict hierarchy of command inside the party, at last began 
to put ideas into practice." The party itself saw a reduction in size reflecting working 
class alienation with regime and "[a]s the proportion of working-class members declined... 
entrants from the middle-class rose"

The reality - and necessity - of party dictatorship was soon openly acknowledged. Victor 
Serge noted that "at the start of 1919 I was horrified to read an article by Zinoviev.... 
on the monopoly of the party in power" (he hid it well!). Zinoviev made this position 
clear to the world Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920:

"people... say that in Russia you do not have the dictatorship of the working class but 
the dictatorship of the party. They think this is a reproach against us. Not in the least! 
We have a dictatorship of the working class and that is precisely why we also have a 
dictatorship of the Communist Party. The dictatorship of the Communist Party is only a 
function, an attribute, an expression of the dictatorship of the working class... the 
dictatorship of the proletariat is at the same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party."

Lenin made similar comments. For example, in 1920 he explained to the Cheka that 
"[w]ithout revolutionary coercion directed against the avowed enemies of the workers and 
peasants, it is impossible to break down the resistance of these exploiters. On the other 
hand, revolutionary coercion is bound to be employed towards the wavering and unstable 
elements among the masses themselves." Elsewhere he noted that "in all capitalist 
countries... the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts" 
that power "can be exercised only by a vanguard... the dictatorship of the proletariat 
cannot be exercised by a mass proletarian organisation."

Trotsky argued likewise throughout the 1920s and held this position until his death. For 
example in 1938 he argued that the "masses are at different times inspired by different 
moods and objectives. It is just for this reason that a centralised organisation of the 
vanguard is indispensable. Only a party, wielding the authority it has won, is capable of 
overcoming the vacillation of the masses themselves . . . if the dictatorship of the 
proletariat means anything at all, then it means that the vanguard of the proletariat is 
armed with the resources of the state in order to repel dangers, including those emanating 
from the backward layers of the proletariat itself." Of course, everyone is "backward" 
compared to the "vanguard" and he repeated the conclusion he had drawn nearly twenty years 
previously:

"The revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian party... is an objective necessity 
imposed upon us by the social realities. . . The revolutionary party (vanguard) which 
renounces its own dictatorship surrenders the masses to the counter-revolution"

So the state power is needed for the vanguard to rule the working class - to force the 
masses to be free.

Unlike in 1917 when Lenin had argued that the new ("workers") state would repress only the 
exploiters, the Bolsheviks in power swiftly came to the conclusion that it must be used - 
and was used - to repress whoever opposed Bolshevik power - including workers and 
peasants. Significantly, of the 17,000 camp detainees in November 1920 with statistics, 
39% peasants and 34% workers.

Let us recall Lenin's words from 1917: "where there is suppression there is also violence, 
there is no freedom, no democracy." So, then, there cannot be working class freedom or 
democracy if the "workers' state" is suppressing it.

Ideological Roots
This did not happen by accident - there are ideological roots to all this.

Lenin in What is to be done? had argued that "[c]lass political consciousness can be 
brought to the workers only from without" by middle class intellectuals and these 
"intellectuals must talk to us, and tell us more about what we do not know and what we can 
never learn from our factory and ‘economic' experience, that is, you must give us 
political knowledge."

This cannot help but create a privileged place for the party and its leadership. Moreover, 
the logical conclusion of this argument is that class consciousness is determined by how 
much the workers agree with the party leaders. It cannot help but substitute party power 
for workers' power - particularly as the former was always the aim - and give that power 
an authoritarian, indeed dictatorial, aspect.

Thus, for example, in 1905 the Bolshevik Party demanded of the St. Petersburg Soviet that 
it "immediately adopt a Social-Democratic program or disband" and were rightly "ignored" 
Then, showing the efficiency of vanguardism, the party's Central Committee made this wrong 
decision "the binding directive for all other Bolshevik organisations." Two years later 
Lenin argued that the party should work in soviets but any such activity should be "done 
on strict Party lines for the purpose of developing and strengthening" the Party and he 
added "if Social-Democratic activities among the proletarian masses are properly, 
effectively and widely organised, such institutions[as the soviets]may actually become 
superfluous."

This reflected What is to be Done? and so the Soviets were seen as instrumental for 
building the party, not managing society, and in 1918 the clash between soviet democracy 
and party rule was resolved in favour of latter - the soviets did indeed become 
"superfluous" even if they remained in formally existence.

Then there was the Bolshevik's vision of "Socialism." This was inherited from Marx and so 
was marked by nationalisation, centralisation and rooted in statist forms and prejudices. 
Lenin's position on "one-man management" clearly reflected Engels' anti-anarchist diatribe 
"On Authority" for a perspective which viewed the workplace as inherently authoritarian 
does not see the necessity for self-management. Likewise, the Bolshevik's attempts at the 
"militarisation of labour" reflects the "industrial armies" of the Communist Manifesto.

Given this ideological legacy, it comes as no surprise that centralisation was fetishized 
and implemented by the Bolsheviks. Equally unsurprising, in reality this meant that power 
concentrated into fewer and fewer hands - both political and economic power - and so the 
Bolsheviks had a vision of "workers' power" which systematically disempowered the workers.

Like the good Social-Democrat he was, Lenin saw socialism as being built on the economic 
structures inherited from capitalism rather than, as anarchists did, on workers' own 
organisations. Thus socialism was, for Lenin, the "next step forward from state-capitalist 
monopoly . . . socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the 
interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly" and 
"the new means of control have been created not by us, but by capitalism." Thus "the 
‘state apparatus' which we need to bring about socialism ... we take ready-made from 
capitalism; our task .... is merely to lop off what capitalistically mutilates this 
excellent apparatus, to make it even bigger."

And so when the Supreme Council of the National Economy was created it utilised the glavki 
system from Tsarism (with a token number of representatives from workers' bodies, mostly 
from the trade union officialdom). This structure was, as one expert noted, "an expression 
of the principle of centralisation and control from above which was peculiar to the 
Marxist ideology." Moreover, given the assumptions of What is to be Done?, the Party knew 
best rather than workers:

"On three occasions in the first months of Soviet power, the[factory]committee leaders 
sought to bring their model into being. At each point the party leadership overruled them. 
The result was to vest both managerial and control powers in organs of the state which 
were subordinate to the central authorities, and formed by them."

Unsurprisingly, the Bolshevik fetish for centralisation proved to be inefficient, wasteful 
and bureaucratic. One-man management produced "a greater degree of confusion and 
indecision" and the "result ... was not directiveness, but distance, and increasing 
inability to make decisions appropriate to local conditions. Despite coercion, orders on 
the railroads were often ignored as unworkable." Indeed, there was a marked "gulf between 
the abstraction of the principles on centralisation and its reality" and inefficiencies 
grew with time wasted due to "strict compliance of vertical administration" and 
"semi-finished products[were]transferred to other provinces for further processing, while 
local factories... were shut down" (and given the state of the transport network, this was 
doubly inefficient). Local groups rightly complained that "the centre had displayed a 
great deal of conservatism and routine thinking" and they knew the grassroots situation 
better and "proved to be more far-sighted than the centre."

Moreover, the "shortcomings of the central administrations and glavki increased together 
with the number of enterprises under their control" and "the various offices of the 
Sovnarkhoz and commissariat structure literally swamped with ‘urgent' delegations and 
submerged in paperwork." This lead to numerous problems including:

"materials were provided to factories in arbitrary proportions... the length of the 
procedure needed to release the products increased scarcity... since products remained 
stored until the centre issued a purchase order on behalf of a centrally defined customer. 
Unused stock coexisted with acute scarcity. The centre was unable to determine the correct 
proportions... The gap between theory and practice was significant."

However, "the failure of glavkism did not bring about a reconsideration of the problems of 
economic organisation . . . On the contrary, the ideology of centralisation was 
reinforced." This lead to a clamping down on local initiatives as they would undermine 
central actions, the net effect of which was to ensure nothing was done as the centre was 
bureaucratic and inefficient. Bolshevik ideology and the prejudices it fostered also had 
its impact in other areas, for example:

"shortage of fuel and materials in the city took its greatest toll on the largest 
enterprises, whose overhead expenditures for heating the plant and firing the furnaces 
were proportionately greater than those for smaller enterprises ... Not until 1919 were 
the regime's leaders prepared to acknowledge that small enterprises... might be more 
efficient... and not until 1921 did a few Bolsheviks theorists grasp the economic reasons 
for this apparent violation of their standing assumption that larger units were inherently 
more productive."

Thus Bolshevik ideology, via the structures it favoured and decisions it shaped, made the 
economic crisis facing the revolution worse.

Then there are the structural issues due to statist organisations, namely the creation of 
a ruler/ruled division and that power corrupts - which the Bolsheviks seemed blind to. As 
an example, in April 1918 Trotsky argued that the government was "better able to judge in 
the matter than" the masses and that the people were expected to obey until they "dismiss 
that government and appoint another." He raised the question of whether it were possible 
for the government to act "against the interests of the labouring and peasant masses?" 
Somewhat incredibly he answers no for "there can be no antagonism between the government 
and the mass of the workers, just as there is no antagonism between the administration of 
the union and the general assembly of its members"

As any trade unionist can tell you, this is simply naïve. And, of course, Trotsky 
eventually recognised that in any such "antagonism" it was the masses which were in the 
wrong and allowing them to "dismiss" government wrong. Ironically, he later acknowledged 
that the Bolshevik party itself had a bureaucratic caste within it.

"As often happens, a sharp cleavage developed between the classes in motion and the 
interests of the party machines. Even the Bolshevik Party cadres, who enjoyed the benefit 
of exceptional revolutionary training, were definitely inclined to disregard the masses 
and to identify their own special interests and the interests of the machine on the very 
day after the monarchy was overthrown. What, then, could be expected of these cadres when 
they became an all-powerful state bureaucracy?"

Indeed.

Excuses, excuses, excuses...
It will be here that the Leninist will object that that I have ignored the "objective" 
reality facing the Bolsheviks and so express the typical "idealism" associated with anarchism

Except Leninists themselves stress the importance of ideology as can be seen, for example, 
in their extremely superficial accounts of the Spanish revolution and the actions of the 
CNT which completely ignore objective circumstances and place everything on "anarchist 
ideology." And best not mention their endless articles they produce on how Bolshevism is 
essential for a successful revolution...

So what, according to the Leninists, were the "objective" factors which derailed 
Bolshevism? There are usually four: civil war, economic disruption, the decline and 
"declassing" of the industrial working class; and isolation - the lack of revolution in 
Western Europe, specifically in Germany.

I will discuss each in turn.

Civil War
The key problem with the civil war excuse if that almost everything listed as examples of 
"retreats" from socialism by modern-day Leninists occurred before civil war. Ignoring that 
awkward fact, the next problem is that Lenin argued civil war was inevitable:

"every great revolution, and a socialist revolution in particular, even if there is no 
external war, is inconceivable without internal war, i.e., civil war, which is even more 
devastating than external war"

And remember, he (falsely) proclaimed that anarchists ignored the danger of 
counter-revolution in State and Revolution­ - as such it is hardly a sound defence to 
blame the degeneration of the revolution on something you are meant to consider as 
inevitable and whose inevitability you (dishonestly) denounce anarchists for ignoring!

Moreover, the repression of internal socialist and working class opposition was inversely 
proportional to the threat - the closer the Whites were, the less the repression as the 
Bolsheviks needed everyone to defend the revolution and the socialist opposition preferred 
the Reds to the Whites; the safer the regime was from the Whites, the worse the 
repression. And this repression was directed against even those who worked within the 
official channels laid down by the Bolsheviks (that the "Mensheviks were not prepared to 
remain within legal limits... does not survive an examination of the facts.").

Economic disruption
As with civil war, economic disruption is also meant to be considered as inevitable. Thus 
Lenin argued repeatedly that those "who believe that socialism can be built at a time of 
peace and tranquillity are profoundly mistaken: it will be everywhere built at a time of 
disruption". Moreover, there could be "no civil war - the inevitable condition and 
concomitant of socialist revolution - without disruption"

In addition, this excise ignores how Bolshevik economic policies made the disruption of 
the economy worse - no wonder there was little to exchange with the peasants. Worse, while 
the mobilised troops could not produce goods and had to be fed, the peasants also had to 
feed the troops stopping them trying to bring their crops to the towns and cities!

So blaming the very real economic disruption for Bolshevik policies when these very 
policies made a bad situation worse is not very convincing.

The Disappearing and Declassing of the working class

It is true that there was a decline in size of the industrial working class during this 
period however "a substantial core of urban workers remained" and these workers were more 
than capable of taking collective action. Indeed, "each wave of unrest was more powerful 
than the last, culminating in the mass movement from late 1920" - with corresponding 
Bolshevik repression of strikes and protests.

So this argument as unconvincing now as when Lenin originally raised it during the Civil 
War - in face of rising working class protests! As one historian notes:

"As discontent amongst workers became more and more difficult to ignore, Lenin . . . began 
to argue that the consciousness of the working class had deteriorated . . . workers had 
become ‘declassed.'"

This flows from What is to Be Done? where class consciousness is introduced into the 
masses by a few intellectuals from outside - so it logically flowed that if workers no 
longer agreed with the party they must be "declassed." It would be hard to find a better 
(worse?) example of circular reasoning.

The Bolsheviks systematically repressed and rooted-out all expressions of collective 
protest. In Left-wing Communism, for example, Lenin pointed to "non-Party workers' and 
peasants' conferences" along with the congresses of soviets which were "democratic 
institutions, the like of which even the best democratic republics of the bourgeois have 
never known". Yet if that were the case then why "support, develop and extend" these 
non-Party conferences "to be able to observe the temper of the masses, come closer to 
them, meet their requirements, promote the best among them to state posts"? Significantly, 
their fate reflected those of any soviet with non-Bolshevik majorities in 1918 for, as one 
historian recounts, "during the[labour]disturbances" of late 1920"they provided an 
effective platform for criticism of Bolshevik policies" and "were discontinued soon 
afterward."

Simply put, a "disappeared" working class does not produce strike waves nor need martial 
law to break them. The facts are the Russian workers were taking collective action against 
the so-called workers' state. The Bolsheviks simply repressed any expressions of 
collective decision-making and action in order to maintain power - as any ruling class does.

Isolation
As for isolation, well the economic disruption in Germany was relatively the same as in 
Russia in 1917/18 and if that caused the "retreat" there then surely we can expect the 
same in Germany? Particularly given the same underlying vision of socialism as centralised 
nationalisation of production? Also given that Germany likewise faced civil war during 
this period. And it must be added that the notion of the objective necessity of party 
dictatorship was well embedded by this stage.

In short, if the German Revolution had "succeeded" it would have followed the same path as 
the Russian one for most of the objective and ideological factors were the same.

Latter-day rationales...
Most of these rationales were developed long after the event - along with at least a 
verbal admission that certain decisions were actually wrong from a socialist perspective 
(once more people were made aware of them by anarchists). Yet we must not forget that 
there is "no evidence... that Lenin or any of the mainstream Bolshevik leaders lamented 
the loss of workers' control or of democracy in the soviets, or at least referred to these 
losses as a retreat... the very opposite is the case." This can be seen from the defence 
of party dictatorship and how both Lenin and Trotsky in 1920 argued that one-man 
management was introduced when, as the former admitted, "there was no civil war" in 1918.

So these latter-day rationales involve a very selective memory. Not least with Trotsky. 
For example, in The Revolution Betrayed he argued that the "demobilisation of the Red Army 
of five million played no small role in the formation of the bureaucracy. The victorious 
commanders assumed leading posts in the local Soviets, in economy, in education, and they 
persistently introduced everywhere that regime which had ensured success in the civil 
war." He forgot to mention who introduced the regime in the Red Army in 1918 and who 
wished to extend it to the militarisation of labour in 1920! Likewise, he opined that the 
Army's "commanding staff needs democratic control. The organisers of the Red Army were 
aware of this from the beginning, and considered it necessary to prepare for such a 
measure as the election of commanding staff." Strangely he failed to mention that his 
first act as head of the Red Army was precisely to abolish by decree the election of officers.

No Alternative?
Of course, Leninists can - and have! - proclaimed that the Bolsheviks had no choice to act 
as they did, that their actions were driven by events, not ideology and that anarchists 
would have been forced to do the same thing if they were in the same circumstances.

Yet this is obviously not true: Bolshevik ideology obviously influenced their decisions. 
This can be seen from how their prejudices for centralisation and long-standing visions of 
socialism were reflected in practice in terms of the structures they built, how the 
privileged position of party was reflected in authoritarian practice, and so on.

Moreover, the Makhnovists in Ukraine show that ideology placed its part. This anarchist 
influenced movement encouraged soviet democracy, while the Bolsheviks banned it; it 
encouraged election of officers within the armed forced, while Bolsheviks banned it; it 
promoted freedom of speech, etc., while the Bolsheviks banned all such elementary rights.

So we have the same civil war, same conditions (arguably worse) and yet different results.

Conclusions
Proudhon wrote that "every society declines the moment it falls into the hands of the 
ideologists" and this was mostly certainly the case with the Bolsheviks. Yet their failure 
was not unexpected for Bakunin had argued that Marxism would lead to either reformism (due 
to Marxism's electioneering) or a new class system based on the state bureaucracy and 
state capitalism (due to its Statism). Other anarchists - like Kropotkin - echoed this 
analysis and denounced the obvious descent of Social-Democracy into reformism and warned 
that the dictatorship of the proletariat would become the dictatorship over the proletariat.

On both counts, we were proven correct.

Today, most Marxists recognise the first (but strangely seek to repeat it by following the 
same strategy!) but few recognise the second. They still urge us to read the manifesto and 
ignore the practice. Yet as one historian noted:

"To consider ‘State and Revolution' as the basic statement of Lenin's political 
philosophy... is a serious error...[It]never actually became official policy... the 
revived Leninism of 1902... prevailed"

So why the failure, why the rise of a new ruling class?

This was due to two factors, ideological and structural. Bolshevism's vision of socialism 
was flawed, its analysis/theory of the state was flawed, its theory of the party was 
flawed. In short, Marxism is flawed - as anarchists argued and we simply saw our 
predictions confirmed.

The Bolsheviks built a new system rooted in the structures developed to enforce minority 
rule and like all previous states it became the focus of minority power - first the party 
leadership (as was wanted) and then the rise of a bureaucracy around it (which was, for 
the Bolsheviks, an unexpected development). Given its social position, it is illusory to 
expect the Bolshevik party to act in any other way - yet much of the left prefer wishful 
thinking to empirical evidence...

A new society needs new structures, new social organisation. These must be based on mass 
participation, federalism, bottom-up decision-making - in short, all the things which the 
centralised, pyramid of the State was designed to exclude. Unsurprisingly, then, the 
Russian revolution confirmed anarchist theory both in terms of our critique of state 
socialism as first raised by Proudhon in the 1840s and our alternative vision of social 
transformation.

We need to understand The Bolshevik Myth so we learn from, rather than repeat, history. 
And what have we learned? In Kropotkin's words: "how not to introduce communism."

http://www.blackrosefed.org/bolshevik-myth-reloaded/


------------------------------

Message: 2



A UN resolution for the prohibition of nuclear weapons threatens to upset the landscape of 
the great powers. By a reversal of world opinion, which for 60 years attributed peace to 
the balance of tension between the countries holding the bomb, they would be criminalized. 
But can the lines move? ---- On 27 October 2016, 123 countries of the United Nations voted 
a resolution to launch, as early as 2017, a process towards a total ban on nuclear weapons 
and their complete elimination. It is the denuclearized countries that want to criminalize 
the possession of the weapon and put an end to the blackmail of domination. Not 
surprisingly, the major atomic weapons countries voted against this resolution: France, 
the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia, with their satellites that "take 
advantage" of the nuclear umbrella, plus Israel, Country in all.

Earlier in the day, the European Parliament voted largely a motion of encouragement in 
favor of the UN treaty, while a hundred parliamentarians launched a procedure to make a 
referendum in France for the acceptance of the treaty. This sequence of procedures is 
unprecedented in the history of military nuclear. Indeed, twenty-four years after the 
banning of chemical weapons, things seem finally to be able to move. Obviously, nothing is 
simple, and the great nuclear powers (which are the permanent members with the right to 
veto the UN, except China who has abstained) are not ready to let go of their supremacy.

For example, the current US government has clearly put pressure on its allies to vote 
against the resolution. And Donald Trump, who goes even further, seems quite ready to 
barter the current "military protection" of Japan and South Korea against local 
development of the atomic weapon. The Japanese authorities have never hesitated to get the 
gun, and the country already has the infrastructure to get there quickly - lacking public 
opinion - but TEPCO (the Japanese electrician) is working there. Such initiatives, under 
the guise of local defense management, would shatter the non-proliferation treaty and 
completely undermine the basis of the new UN project.

Westerners, therefore, endorse the role of the evil imperialists, while other countries 
stand out as China, which has abstained, or like India and Pakistan (yet a risk of 
conflict between these two powers Because of serious water problems that could worsen).

France still nucleocrat

In this sling, the French state is also distinguished, but by its ambiguity, with a 
president who declares wanting to unite the strategic conditions to end the nuclear, but 
vote against the resolution. But this is not new, when the nuclear authorities found MOX 
in Fukushima, the French authorities replied that they were not responsible, since they 
had been asked to do so. The merchants of the atom emphasize well that the knowledge of 
risks (here seismic) does not fit into their calculations. The United Nations is not at 
the end of its troubles if it wants to make eyebrows a country where the nuclear weapon 
has been accepted since General de Gaulle and all his successors. Precisely the budget 
bill 2017 under discussion contains the proposal to spend 7 billion euros to restructure 
the nuclear sector. This restructuring will serve to recapitalize EDF and Areva, but it is 
very complicated to know what enters the military or civilian domain. For example, the 
reprocessing plant at La Hague (Areva) is the world's largest plutonium and MOX 
(plutonium-based) production site, plutonium is used to make the bombs, and MOX is to be 
burnt in The EPR power stations. Financing one is to finance the other.

As France is not spending very little, France has also decided to modernize its arsenal 
for a few billion more than in other years. Thus the annual budget will increase from 3 
billion currently to 6 billion in 2022. All this without counting submarines, aircraft and 
tactical training of pilots, satellites, etc. Enough to end all life on earth, just in 
case. But with all the "benefits it brings", why deprive yourself! It is certainly not the 
international opinion that will weaken our leaders, nor make lose their meaning to the 400 
billion invested since 1945. Neither to prevent raids with Rafale, thus violating the UN 
mandate, like those Of Libya in 2011. These famous Rafale of deterrence ...

The future presidency is not likely to be more interested in the subject, given the 
current security tone. The candidate Fillon for example was at the initiative of the last 
investment plan for Superphénix in 1994, this fast breeder supposed to revolutionize the 
production of energy thanks to the plutonium. Today, its program is explicit on the 
so-called "fourth generation" nuclear support, which promotes the possibility of recycling 
waste from current reactors.

It is therefore unclear why the state would shoot itself in the foot by accepting the 
referendum intended by parliamentarians. But this action, and that of the UN planned for 
March 2017 (beginning of the deliberations) will have the merit to re-emphasize the 
subject. Indeed, the winter 2016-2017 is already marked by the closure of seven power 
stations, in addition to those in maintenance. These plants are among the eighteen on 
which were found nonconforming parts, after the discovery in 2016 of the falsification of 
their certificates of conformity. The month of March would make a judicious echo.

Muzzled Contestation

If the State appreciates little the challenge of civilian nuclear, it does not tolerate at 
all that of the military. Activists against the arsenal have been fined 500 euros for 
eight stickers and a chalk inscription on a Republican office during their primary. "Paste 
stickers is an act of serious degradation, and violent," according to the prosecutor ...

In Germany there is a campaign of denouncing nuclear funders, with towing in front of the 
banks, which gives good results. The main problem is that the banks finance a priori only 
the manufacture of missiles or aircraft (EADS or Safran), the warhead part being at the 
discretion of the State. Another argument of struggle develops around the great question 
of the cycle of matter. While the extraction of uranium remains a distant subject, the 
fight against the burial of waste at Bure is again central. Because, with all these 
billions invested, the financing of dismantling is still not foreseen.

Reinette drowned (AL Aveyron)

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Arme-nucleaire-Rififi-dans-la

------------------------------

Message: 3



 From the archives. Given the re-emergence of popular radical anti-fascism we are putting 
up a 2002 article on the history of Anti-Racist Action. The article is a short and 
incomplete history. There is room for expanding on issues and 15 years later some needed 
corrections. But the article stands as one of the only attempts to document, analyze and 
promote ARA as the radical, militant and independent antifascist movement that it was. The 
author is a member of First of May Anarchist Alliance. ---- Thanks go to the Anarchist 
Nerd Brigade for making this article a PDF zine and available for download. ---- Claim No 
Easy Victories: A History and Analysis of Anti-Racist Action is a piece that was written 
in the early 2000s on the history of Anti-Racist Action (ARA).  The article originally 
appeared in the Northeastern Anarchist, a magazine published by the North Eastern 
Federation of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC).

1) WE GO WHERE THEY GO: Whenever fascists are organizing or active in public, we're there. 
We don't believe in ignoring them. Never let the nazis have the streets!

2) WE DON'T RELY ON THE COPS OR THE COURTS TO DO OUR WORK FOR US: This doesn't mean we 
never go to court. But we must rely on ourselves to protect ourselves and stop the fascists.

3) NON-SECTARIAN DEFENSE OF OTHER ANTI-FASCISTS: In ARA, we have lots of different groups 
and individuals. We don't agree about everything and we have the right to differ openly. 
But in this movement an attack on one is an attack on us all. We stand behind each other.

4) WE SUPPORT ABORTION RIGHTS AND REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM: ARA  intends to do the hard work 
necessary to build a broad, strong movement against racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, 
homophobia, discrimination against the disabled, the oldest, the youngest and the most 
oppressed people. WE INTEND TO WIN!

-Anti-Racist Action's ‘Points of Unity'

Claim No Easy Victories: An Anarchist Analysis of ARA and its Contributions to the 
Building of a Radical Anti Racist Movement

by Rory McGowan, BRICK Collective (FRAC-GL)

The current climate of war and repression is foisting on us an urgent need to try and 
decipher what in hell is happening. Questions of capitalist restructuring and expansion, 
occupation, white supremacy, racism, white privilege and fascism are all topics being 
raised in anarchist circles. Questions, that are of the utmost importance in our 
developing of a fighting movement that can intervene in struggles that are breaking out, 
or soon will.

Without veering too far into negativity, it must be said that for much of the North 
American anarchist movement, we are short on theory and much of an analysis of historical 
conditions and developments. While there is growth and promise, we still have an uphill 
journey. Partly because the current anarchist movement is quite young in age and does not 
have a solid connection with any historical lineage - no institutions or infrastructure 
that we can claim some linear connection to, not much living history that is explicitly 
anarchist and maps out decisions or breaks made for the political or social advancement of 
our groups and people in struggle. However, this isn't to say we haven't participated in 
any way or that we're short on experience. Since the mid 1980's the North American 
anarchist scene/movement has been developing collectively and taking part in struggles 
that, when examined, can give lessons to build on. We are young, but we have been a part 
of many not-so-insignificant projects and battles. Looking back wards from recent direct 
action against the war, to the globalization protests, to political prisoner/prison 
abolition work, to Zapatista support, to further back with anti-apartheid work and 
solidarity with people of color and the oppressed, including Black and Native struggles, 
looking at this it is clear anarchists have sought to develop ourselves by learning from 
and being real participants in these many fights.

It is in these struggles that we can gage our success and failings, and with the formation 
of critical perspectives, applied and integrated into our work, we may be in better 
positions to identify, defend, and help generate more autonomous and potentially 
insurrectionary action.

For fourteen years the work of ARA has been to popularize the ideas of direct action in 
the fight against racism. Along the way ARA's own internal development has meant 
connecting racism to other struggles against oppression, from the pro-choice and 
anti-patriarchal organizing to pro-queer struggles to emphasizing the continual need for 
participation and initiative in political direction from young people. While there is no 
single, homogeneous, ARA political line beyond ARA's ‘Points of Unity', generally, ARA has 
and continues to be an anti-authoritarian arena for debate and action around the 
connectedness of various forms of oppression. This allows for an experimentation and 
self-activity essential to the development of a conscious movement outside of the control 
and direction of the State. Constructing organizations and movements at the grassroots can 
be instructive in both the difficulties and simultaneously the radical potentials of 
people in action.

And that is what we need.

 From a revolutionary perspective, we need movements that can challenge peoples notions of 
what is possible and then sketch out in our heads what its going to take to make our 
endeavors succeed. Is ARA such a movement? Is the work done by ARA building towards an 
actual radical opposition movement? Is that even the intention of ARA? After forteen years 
what has ARA's contribution been? And what has been the contribution of anarchists within 
ARA? If we find in ARA the elements that are essential components of a movement capable of 
influencing the emergence of radical currents, is ARA up to the challenge of understanding 
and building on these elements.

These questions represent a kind of "ruler" that I think we size up ARA with, and provide 
a context for discussion. While I hope this article answers these questions, I am prepared 
to admit that it only scratches the surface and prompts more questions than it satisfies 
(but this isn't a bad thing). If ARA is to be relevant it's got to be constantly subjected 
to a critical assessment of its work, from outside and from within. And in regard to the 
broader discussion of where we revolutionary anarchists see organizing potentials and 
lessons to be learnt, then ARA may be as good a starting point then most anything our 
movement has been connected to.

To best access the impact ARA has had and what role it could play in the future, it could 
be helpful to look at its past and development. From starting as an organization of 
anti-racist Skinhead crews in the late 1980's, to remaking itself into a political 
movement of nearly two thousand during the mid 1990's, and ending with the current period 
of the ARA movements life.

FIGHT THE REAL ENEMY! FIGHT THE POWER!

ARA originally came out of the efforts of Minneapolis anti-racist skinheads to create an 
organization that could combat the presence of nazi skinheads in their city and its 
neighboring city, St. Paul. The Baldies, a multi-racial skinhead crew having members of 
black, white, Asian, and Native American origins, was fighting the Nazi skinhead group, 
the White Knights, and had set a code within the local punk and skinhead scenes: if 
Baldies came upon White Knights at shows, in the streets downtown, or wherever, the nazis 
were warned once. If Baldies came across the nazis again, then the nazis could expect to 
be attacked, or served some of what the Baldies called "Righteous Violence."

While the Baldies actions went a long way to limiting the presence and organizing efforts 
of nazis in the Twin Cities areas, the Baldies realized that a successful drive against 
the nazis would mean having to form a broader group that appealed to kids other than just 
Skins; ARA was that group. However, the attempt to make ARA into a group beyond the 
Baldies was met with limited success, and ARA remained predominantly skinhead.

But the experience of the Baldies was not limited to Minneapolis alone. Across the 
Midwest, nazi activity was growing and anti-racist Skinheads were organizing in similar 
ways to what the Baldies had done. Soon, these different anti-racist skinhead crews were 
meeting up with each other and deciding to create a united organization of anti-racist 
skinhead crews. ARA as a name was adopted and a brief network of the crews was formed: the 
Syndicate.

Like Minneapolis, Chicago had multi-racial crews. These ARA skins were generally left-wing 
sympathetic and in Chicago it was not uncommon to find some Skins warming to Black 
liberation/Nationalist ideas. And it was not just racist and nazi ideas that were 
confronted. The Chicago ARA crew banned the wearing of American flags patches on jackets 
on bomber jackets (a standard piece of the Skin attire). At this point in time this was a 
rather significant step in Skinhead circles.

While many Skinheads could claim to be "anti-racist", a vast majority also were ProAmS 
(Pro American Skins). It was generally unheard of to find whole crews of Skinheads 
rejecting patriotic trappings. Many ARA skins took their cue from the words of groups like 
Public Enemy, America was a racist nightmare and the Stars and Stripes a symbol for, "...a 
land that never gave a damn."

The success of ARA could be found in its being a truly organic product of a youth culture. 
Young people, in this example Skinheads, were creating a group that was explicitly 
anti-racist and sought to confront and shut out the nazi presence in the scenes 
specifically and the cities generally. ARA as an idea was made a pole to rally around and 
as an actual body of people it fought for "turf" and the establishment of a type of 
hegemony - lines were drawn and you had to choose where you stood. From putting on music 
shows, to producing zines and literature, to holding conferences where people could meet 
up and hang out while simultaneously trying to build an actual political project capable 
of fighting and winning.

However, ARA had many weaknesses' that would lead to this initial incarnation having to be 
"reformed.". ARA was at this point predominantly male, and despite the growing political 
consciousness and understanding that ARA needed to be more than just a Skinhead group, the 
emphasis placed on physical confrontation and violence often breed a mentality where in 
the end, ARA was only about beating down the nazis. Larger political concerns became 
subordinate to the internal scene life. Women in the ARA groups saw double standards. 
While emphasis was placed on combating the oppression of racism, sexism ran rampant. 
Several women would leave ARA to look for a politic that dealt more fundamentally with 
Patriarchy. Some left in plain disgust at the macho behavior of some ARA men. Other women 
decided to stay in the movement and challenge the behavior and attempt to integrate 
radical and feminist ideas into the core politics of ARA. The decision by these women to 
stay was based on the realization that there were few other organizations existing that 
were as radical and militant. ARA had managed to attract a number of dedicated and 
determined individuals and this encouraged the idea that it was possible to develop an 
anti-sexist vision. ARA helped expand peoples understanding of politics and oppression but 
the sword is double edged, and the new political consciousness worked to illustrate the 
limitations of this first incarnation of ARA. ARA needed to grapple with its internal 
contradictions if it was to develop into the broad, militant anti-racist youth 
organization and movement it originally hoped to be.

THE CHOICE OF A NEW GENERATION...

 From '88 to '90 ARA had spread throughout the Midwest United States and was even seeing 
some West coast groups spring up. However, by 1991 the Minneapolis grouping represented 
the most consistent and in many ways the more diverse and politically engaged group, this 
was made possible in part by ARA's relationship with revolutionary anarchist groups like 
the RABL (Revolutionary Anarchist Bowling League). Despite the somewhat silly name, RABL 
had a rep for being extremely confrontational and solidly pro-class war anarchist. Some of 
the members of ARA and the Baldies were involved with RABL and hoped to bring anarchist 
politics into ARA's program.

While keeping the militancy and uncompromising attitude that ARA had been built on, 
anarchists in ARA made efforts to address the weakness that had run through ARA earlier. 
Attention to Queer struggles, Patriarchy, imbalance of power between whites and people of 
color, were all issues thrown to the fore now. ARA Minneapolis was trying to turn itself 
into a popular, anti-authoritarian direct action group.

Institutionalized oppressions of class society were given as much priority to thought and 
action as the continued struggle against nazi organizing. From police brutality to 
anti-war activity to actions to defend abortion clinics, ARA was a much more dynamic 
organization and this aided in its recruitment of new militants.

ARA had ceased to be a group centered around Skinhead culture, and while the limited 
potential of ARA's first wave had been overcome, problems would still plague the group. 
Understanding class, gender, sexual definition and internal sexism would continue to be a 
challenge for ARA. By 1993, ARA in Minneapolis had reached a stage where after an 
extremely intense and inwardly focused grappling with group and individual identity, ARA 
almost totally fell apart and for the next year ARA remained dormant. It was now in Canada 
that ARA would find its strength.

ON THE PROWL AND IN THE STREETS

Toronto ARA was formed in 1992 as a response to a rise in nazi activity in the city. 
Arson, vandalism, activists, native/indigenous organizers, anti-racists, anarchists, and 
kids from the local punk and skinhead scenes, ARA went to work to challenge and shutdown 
the fascists.

At this point the main organization of fascists in Toronto was the Heritage Front (HF). 
Founded by long time neo-nazi and KKK organizers, the HF was attempting to bring the 
different nazi tendencies together under its banner. The most well known of these fascist 
groups was the pre-Matt Hale COTC (Church of the Creator) which served as the "muscle" to 
the HF's political rhetoric.

Through the work done by ARA in the States and its promotion in the radical 
anti-imperialist press, Love and Rage's newspaper, and the punk scenes many publications 
(in particular magazines like MRR and Profane Existence), ARA as a name and model seemed 
to be the best avenue for organizing a grass roots, militant, and independent anti-racist 
project.

Like previous ARA organizing, emphasis was put on creating a visible culture through music 
shows, literature, and mass in your face demonstrations. ARA Toronto was having organizing 
meetings of over a hundred and their demos were in the several of hundreds. Toronto ARA 
quickly became a successful campaign and it's establishment in youth scenes and areas of 
Toronto like Kennsington Market made it impossible for fascists to carry out their 
activity openly. ARA proceeded to go after the HF leadership and held "outings", instead 
of organizing boring demos with speakers talking to the wind, ARA mobilized to march on 
the homes and hangouts of the nazis.

While previous incarnations of ARA had envisioned themselves moving towards a broad youth 
oriented style of organizing, it was Toronto ARA which really illustrated the potentials 
for ARA to do just that. The support and interest ARA created in less than a year's time 
was seen when an anti-HF demo in downtown Toronto in January of 1993 drew over 500 
anti-racists who were going to prevent HF members from marching through the streets. The 
ARA contingent was attacked by police on horse back, with some ARA members being arrested 
for assaulting police.

Despite the attack, ARA found the demo an overall success. The demo sought to shut down 
the nazi march and it did that, but it went further and showed ARA as an organization 
uninterested in playing the games of established liberal "anti-racist" and left groups. 
ARA knew that direct action was a more powerful force than lobbying for State action or 
selling papers - two things which will never stop racist and
fascist organizing.

The success, and draw towards, ARA's work would soon catch the attention of larger 
political Left groups. Organizations like the IS (International Socialists) tried to enter 
into ARA, but after a period of a couple months were voted out by a 2/3 majority.

However, ARA now a known force and center for militant youths and activists would be 
sought out more and more for joint actions and Left groups would try and place themselves 
into a position of "leadership" within ARA, this especially with the formation of the ARA 
Network in 1995.

WE GO WHERE THEY GO

In 1995 several different groups came together to discuss creating a united front of 
various independent anti-racist forces. ARA had reemerged in Minneapolis and met with 
members of the MAFNet (Midwest Antifascist Network), an ARA type group that contained 
several Left tendencies from anarchists to smaller Marxist groups like the Trotskyist 
League to older SDS veterans.

After much debate, the new body would be called the Anti-Racist Action Network, and would 
be held together by the ‘Points of Unity' (POU). Any individual could participate in a 
chapter so long as they agreed to the POU (although, different chapters could have 
additional political points of unity, reflecting the specific groups political 
orientation. This would later cause trouble where one groups POU would be taken as the 
Networks). Strategically, it brought in a larger mass of people and could be a vehicle for 
taking direct action and democratic left ideas of organizing to a higher level. The new 
ARA Net was also genuine in its not being a front for any one political group.

Utilizing internal discussion bulletins, national meetings, having a delegate system to 
facilitate decision making between the different chapters, ARA Net represented something 
new and fresh. And it also was an overwhelmingly anti-authoritarian organization. A 
sizable segment of the membership identified as anarchist and were now in a position to 
argue for anarchist models of organizing. There was no other movement that was currently 
existing that saw anarchists in a position to define avenues of action.

Anarchists involved with Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation worked within 
ARA to keep the organizations structure and aims transparent and participatory. Love and 
Rage, as an organization, viewed ARA as a potential mass movement (e.g.: SDS), where 
politics could be raised and debated and where through practice and constant analysis win 
people to more and more radical positions. The relationship between the different 
political tendencies was often rocky, and there was constant debate around the setting up 
of different committees and how much influence they would have. Other issues of contention 
were the ability of organizations to join ARA en masse. ARA Net was set up on a chapter 
basis, and each chapter was made up of individuals. No organization could just join ARA 
Net. Chapters could have its members coming from any tendency, but a specific organization 
could hold no sway beyond the number of chapters their members were apart of. And even 
then each chapter was allowed only two votes. This made it difficult for Left sects to 
highjack ARA for opportunistic interests.

The next several years saw hundreds of activists join up with ARA. Network annual 
conferences could easily see 500 in attendance and conference weekends would be a mix of 
both decision making plenary and educational workshops with topics ranging from 
anti-Prison work to Colonialism to State repression to developments in the Far Right 
movements.

But the life's blood of ARA remained its action in the streets. The following years from 
'96 to '98 provided ARA militants the greatest chance of demonstrating the politics of the 
movement on a much more mass level. But this period would also emerge as the most 
difficult period in ARA's life. From accountability, to the need for a more coherent 
analysis of race, class and gender, these issues along with the ever present need to 
struggle against sexism, patriarchy and internal power imbalances would come to dominate 
the movement unlike at any time previously. Internal conflicts would split ARA at the 
seams and it would take the pulse of the new protest movements erupting in Seattle '99 to 
give help ARA a new focus and energy.

LET THE BATTLE BEGIN

Newspapers were scrambling for info on the new street militants and their ideology of 
anarchism, debate started to rage in the radical press. The Black Bloc was seen by some as 
misled youth, interested only in adventurism. Sometimes the Black Bloc was condemned 
outright and treated as criminal - an attitude that rolled in from the established Left. 
During riots, liberal and leftists do-gooders actually tried to defend capitalist property 
from the anarchists. In several instances, avowed ‘pacifists' have attacked the Black Bloc 
in an effort to protect places like the Gap and Starbucks.

The actions by the Black Bloc and anarchists turned traditional politics on its head... 
ARA groups quickly defended the Seattle Black Bloc, seeing a similarity in tactics and 
motivation - also in the way that militant anti-fascism had suffered from the 
denunciations by the established left and liberal reformists.

The Seattle events had an immense effect on the ARA movement. ARA, like many groups, was 
taken by surprise when the Battle of Seattle erupted. The profound change the 
demonstrations had on political discourse and life itself could hardly have been foreseen. 
In ARA, there had long been debate about expanding our role and focus beyond the most 
basic anti-racist organizing. Many saw ARA as a grassroots direct action, anti-racist, 
anti-nazi, and for many ARA'ers, anti-cop movement. But explicit anti-capitalism was never 
taken up as a whole. Within several individual chapters this would have been probable, 
mostly in the anarchist dominated groups in Minneapolis, Detroit (two cities that also had 
L&R members as active ARA organizers) and Chicago. But within ARA, there were tendencies 
that saw adopting more explicit politics as potentially detrimental to ARA. Seattle helped 
to turn this around.

But this gets too far ahead, it is important to first outline the pre-Seattle ARA period 
and raise what events were fueling its growth and significance.

Throughout the Midwestern United States, Klan groups were on the offensive and holding 
blatantly provocative mass rallies that could attract hundreds of supporters. The Klan and 
assorted neo-Nazi allies were pinpointing cities that were faced with tinderbox-like 
racial tension. Fights around affirmative action, welfare, police brutality, housing, 
continued school de-segregation practice, or any struggle that brought about conflicts 
that poised people of color against the interests of White Supremacy in either its 
institutionalized form or autonomous actions by White citizens, the Klan would use as an 
opportunity to polarize the debate and saw their numbers and influence grow. Klan groups, 
like the one lead by longtime KKK member and neo-Nazi Tom Robb, became seen as fighters 
for White "rights."

 From Cincinnati, Ohio to Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Klan started holding its demos but the 
effect was that thousands of counter demonstrators came out to vent their disapproval and 
hatred of the racists. In some of these cities the smoldering racial tension that had long 
been present was about to be ignited. It was this counter-organizing that became the main 
thrust of the ARA Network. Doing pre-rally agitating, trying to meet up with sympathetic 
groups, and boldly stating that the aim of it's counter-protesting was to "shut down" the 
rallies, ARA established itself as the group that rolled out to force the racists to take 
flight.

In particular, there was a massive riot that erupted when the Robb Klan faction came under 
attack from Black residents and ARA'ers in Ann Arbor. Police attacked the crowd using tear 
gas. Several Klansmen and fascists were wounded by protesters. Six years later, that riot 
is still talked about in Ann Arbor, partly due to continued legal issues brought on by the 
subsequent arrest of dozens of anti-racists charged with inciting and participating in mob 
action and assault. The arrests came two months after the Ann Arbor action, when at 
another Klan rally in Kalazamoo, Michigan, police using both video tape and statements 
made by "peace" marshals, identified several activists. The "peace" marshals, whose ranks 
were comprised of mostly older male Trade Unionists, had seen their influence and 
authority at the Ann Arbor rally ignored and undermined - they had been unable to prevent 
anti-Klan protesters from (un)peacefully taking matters into their own hands. While Ann 
Arbor was seen as a victory for anti-racists, the later arrests seriously demoralized many 
ARA'ers and showed that ARA was not completely ready for the repercussions of its 
activity. Many arrested activists felt let down and un-supported. The combination of high 
legal costs and the potential of lengthy jail time left many activists feeling alone and 
insufficiently supported. Even more, without a solid political understanding of how these 
actions were part of a broader strategy, it is easy to see how the stress could make some 
question the relevance of what ARA was doing. There were cases of activists asking why 
they were risking so much for a few hours of street fighting. This is a real concern that 
should not be discounted.

Many radicals in ARA could point to the significance of the mass action: sharpening 
political differences and solidifying existing positions, generating spontaneous 
organizing and/or the need to quickly reassess plans, the coming together of comrades and 
new groups of people, and polarizing the mass of the protesters against the police and 
government officials who would be spending time and money to allow the racists to rally. 
For anarchists, this atmosphere provided opportunities to speak and agitate for more 
radical positions and actions while simultaneously supporting steps being taken by folks 
from the communities who were operating outside of any political formation and sought to 
work in ways that directly went against government or community "leaderships" sanctioned 
plans and conduct. Out of these actions, connections and dialogue could be had about what 
the needs of the communities are, beyond these one time explosions of anti-racist action. 
For anarchists, an assessment of the confidence and abilities of our forces could be made. 
Anarchist revolutionaries wanted to spread and popularize ARA, but personal and group 
development was equally important. This process of developing a nuclei, or cadre, of 
fighters is an important point of militant, extra-legal activity.

The ability of a movement like ARA to resist the emergence of a centralized, top-down 
structure where there would be a minority determining the politics and the strategy, would 
be found though the widest possible discussion and planning within the various ARA 
circles, and stressing the collective process. It happened on more than one occasion that 
one person would form an ARA group and would attempt to exercise ownership over it. Others 
who would come into the group would feel as if their opinions and work were subordinate to 
a few who may have greater economic resources or social influence. As with any growing 
movement, the result was an attraction of individuals who sought to use the movement for 
their own ends, rather than making ARA the property of the whole of the membership. These 
groups did not last long within ARA, but they had the effect of alienating many new and 
enthused activists, including women, who felt some of the ARA locals were controlled by 
men who were interested in women for dating purposes more than as comrades.

It should be emphasized that at this time (1996-97), ARA had reached its pinnacle in 
membership, easily estimated at 1,500 supporting activists. The anti-Klan organizing and a 
number of anti-police brutality campaigns initiated by ARA groups had helped swell the 
ranks of ARA. But in 1998 at the ARA national conference several internal conflicts would 
put the fire to ARA and test its ability to cope with its own weakness'. A series of 
accounts from women of having been treated in abusive and demeaning ways, and one woman 
ARA activist having been sexual assaulted by a male involved in ARA, lead to a major 
split. Local ARA groups collapsed into different factions and individual members would 
sometimes side with particular split off factions in other cities, depending on who knew 
who. At the core of this was the fact that several women felt that their concerns and 
struggles against sexism were being ignored or undermined by their own male "comrades". 
Women were told to not bring their personal issues to the meetings and long standing cases 
of blatant male chauvinism were discounted as having been exaggerated by women to suit 
their private interests. ARA's movement structure had little in terms of a plan of 
resolution. ARA existed as a loose network centered around the POU, and mechanisms of 
accountability and action to solve internal disputes and problems of such high and 
sensitive degree were not present. A few activists intimately connected to the situation 
used this unfortunate truth to evade criticism. Though ARA was being affected as a whole, 
individuals directly involved (or who had sided with certain persons who were being 
accused of sexism and misconduct) would say that the matters were of local concern and 
that they were uninterested in Network involvement, despite several women contacting ARA 
groups and individuals in other cities asking for help because the local group would not 
deal with, and in effect would try and mute, the issues.

Attempts at mediation failed and ARA left its annual conference splintered and 
demoralized. Several local groups never regained momentum and others who outwardly 
appeared strong would themselves come crashing inwards. Most notable was the split in the 
ARA affiliated RASH UNITED (Red & Anarchist Skinheads) who split into East Coast and 
Midwest factions, and ultimately ceased all together (a Canadian RASH in Quebec continued 
but was more thoughtful and committed to group accountability than many of its American 
counterparts). Once again cases of sexism and un-accountability by a mostly male 
membership caused implosion.

While the next year did not see ARA groups stop their organizing, it was a rough year and 
introspection on the part of many in the movement slowed down outward perceptions of 
action. It was crucial for ARA to grapple with its limitations, and many comrades worked 
tirelessly to open up debate about what had happened and what needed to change: how groups 
formed or were "vested" into the ARA Net, structures and practice for resolution, rotating 
Network roles, and attempting to hold more gatherings where internal network life and 
issues involving its members could be discussed. ARA would remain a network of chapters 
united around the Points of Unity, but it was smaller and the level of discourse was more 
intense and productive than before. If ARA was to continue as a movement, then a higher 
commitment on the parts of its overall membership was required and a realization that a 
few words of who it was or some mechanical structural adjustments would not be adequate. 
Emphasizing political quality over membership numbers was what the movement needed.

Even current internal strategy planning and political discussions have been influenced by 
this introspection started a few years back. Drawing out experiences within ARA combined 
with developing theories of women in society and our movements, several ARA chapters have 
tried to draw more attention to the need for anti-patriarchal organizing and political 
prioritizing. The Chicago ARA group (which found its beginnings firmly rooted in clinic 
defense and exposing far-right ties to the anti-abortion movements) is one chapter that 
has tried to integrate a more serious womens focus into its work. With a recent ARA 
conference held this past April, and the fact that several committed and longtime ARA 
activists are women and continue acting as "responsibles," ARA will be hosting a womens' 
conference towards the end of summer to continue to elevate anti-patriarchal politics to 
the front of direct action, and anti-fascist, organizing.

But moving back to Seattle.

It was at this time that several ARA affiliates re-grouped and started to organize, 
building off of their connections and history of direct action. Seattle was a moment that 
lit up peoples imaginations and many ARA groups that were still active threw themselves 
into the various mass protests. Seattle, Washington DC, Cincinnati, and Quebec City saw 
numerous ARA militants participating in the protests' planning and actions. While internal 
debates over anti-capitalism and ARA's adoption of this as a unifying politic continued, 
the majority of ARA supported the organizing and saw issues of "globalization" 
intrinsically connected to larger struggles around race, gender, and class inequality. 
Another point for ARA to organize around was the increased attraction the 
"anti-globalization" movement was having for far-right and neo-fascist groups .It was here 
that work by smaller ARA groups took shape. More theoretical works were developed to 
analyze ARA's activity and the emerging social movements - from advancements and tactics 
in State repression to the needs of social and more specifically, revolutionary left - to 
build on current battles with the State and resist co-option or destabilization, to the 
influence the new movement was having on other areas of struggle. Mass protest and the 
increased connectedness movements had with one another via internet and these series of 
mass demos helped expand possibilities for quick mobilization and affinity that had in the 
past been established less frequently and taken a greater period of time to develop.

But ARA's orientation was not to be defined solely by its relationship to the 
anti-globalization movement. ARA had for years been struggling against racism and fascist 
organizing. Many Klan groups saw their rallies cease as they suffered from their own 
internal power struggles, State infiltration/repression, and having ARA outmaneuver them 
on many occasions, by successfully mounting campaigns to build effective street and 
community resistance. But new fascist organizing, lead by more sophisticated and 
potentially dangerous fascist movements, started to emerge. In the days following the 9/11 
attacks, the National Alliance started a campaign to build on white peoples' insecurities 
and fears. ARA participated in defense of Mosques and Arab centers. Struggles to fight the 
tightening of immigration laws, the rising number of cases of detentions and deportations 
of immigrants, and the general racist backlash, were all areas that ARA activists found 
themselves involved in. Yet the rapidly changing circumstances of 9/11 and the escalation 
of Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made it difficult for much of the Left and progressive 
forces to get a stable footing. The US State was quickly moving to inact stauncher 
repression measures that were geared towards silencing protest with fear and intimidation. 
More concerning, they may potentially be launching a campaign of infiltration and 
encapsulation wherein the State may actually direct the activity and political trajectory 
of a group or movement by utilizing moles and dis-information. The authorities were now 
working overtime to curb outbreaks of militant action.

IN CONCLUSION

A recent article entitled "Revolutionary Anti-Fascism" published in NEFAC's agitational 
magazine Barricada, posed several questions about ARA. While it praised ARA's commitment 
to organizing street level defense against racist attacks and fascist groups, where most 
of the Left fails miserably, the article is critical of ARA's continued lack of developing 
positions on a range of issues: patriarchy, white supremacy, class, and even fascism. The 
article is important and I sympathize notably with its emphasizing that ARA needs to 
seriously grapple with political questions and commit itself to a higher level of debate, 
whether or not there is immediate agreement. Where I disagree with the article is that 
beyond articulating radical anti fascist positions it see's ARA's main contribution in the 
past and future as its anti fascist organizing, anti-fascist organizing that is based more 
times than not on straight-forward anti-nazi activity. A point the article makes is that 
where there is no visible or active nazi presence, ARA groups fall into a state of 
inactivity. This has become an unfortunate reality for a lot of ARA groups and shows an 
inability to connect anti-racism with other struggles beyond the pale of nazi activity. 
Anti-nazi action is important, but like past ARA attempts to attack inequality and 
oppression in the interconnected realms of race, gender, and class exploitation, current 
ARA activists would do well to connect with developments in their cities, communities, 
schools and workplaces. Sorry for the run on sentence, but the main point here is that 
anti-fascist politics should be a lens threw which we view class society as a whole. It is 
a critique of power and anti-human tendencies and its incorporation coupled with a 
willingness to fight and utilize direct action in whatever arena we are struggling in, may 
help to develop the neccessaru mass movements capable of breaking down our societys rule 
of exploitation and division.

I chose the title "Claim No Easy Victories" to point out that ARA has been an essential 
fighting movement in North American radical politics. Its success in mobilizing and 
politicizing hundreds of activists can not be ignored. Current organizing by anarchists 
would look vastly different if ARA had not exploded into the scenes, or had ceased when 
difficulties arose. However, while significant advancements have been the result of ARA 
organizing - the development of anti-fascist politics, staunch defense of collective and 
decentralized organizing, the use of direct action and militancy in the face of a 
legalistic and pacifist Left, and the important defeats of various fascist organizing - 
ARA still has a long road ahead of itself, and it may be too easy to rest on what has been 
done thus far. Success is temporal and fleeting - the struggle continues...

http://m1aa.org/?p=1377