Anarchic update news all over the world - 24.02.2018

Today's Topics:

   
1.  Britain, London Anarchist Communists: Founding Conference of
      New Anarchist Organisation, the Anarchist Communist Group
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
2.  Britain, Surrey Anarchist Communists: National Day of Action
      against Universal Credit (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
3.  France, Alternative Libertaire AL #280 - Free transport: A
      reality in some cities (fr, it, pt) [machine translation]
      (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
   
4.  London Anarchist Communists: Anarchist Communism In Britain:
      Part One (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)


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Message: 1






On Saturday 17th February, anarchist communist militants met in Leicester to found a new 
organisation, the Anarchist Communist Group (ACG). Those present adopted  Aims and 
Principles and a constitution. The preamble to the Aims and Principles reads: ---- "We are 
a revolutionary anarchist communist organisation made up of local groups and individuals 
who seek a complete transformation of society, and the creation of anarchist communism. 
This will mean the working class overthrowing capitalism, abolishing the State, getting 
rid of exploitation, hierarchies and oppressions, and halting the destruction of the 
environment. To contribute to the building of a revolutionary anarchist movement we 
believe it is important to be organised. We are committed to building an effective 
national and international organisation that has a collective identity and works towards 
the common goal of anarchist communism, whilst at the same time working together with 
other working class organisations and in grass roots campaigns. We do not see ourselves as 
the leaders of a revolutionary movement but part of a wider movement for revolutionary 
change. In addition, we strive to base all our current actions on the principles that will 
be the basis of the future society: mutual aid, solidarity, collective responsibility, 
individual freedom and autonomy, free association and federalism."
The discussion document "Potential Activities Of A New Organisation" was discussed and 
adopted. Initial emphasis would be on agitational literature and activity around Land 
Justice, housing, workplace organising and solidarity and the NHS. In addition, there was 
a commitment to street agitation-stickers and posters.
It was decided that the ACG should focus on the campaign against Universal Credit using 
the Disabled People Against Cuts slogan "Stop It and Scrap It". Leicester ACG agreed to 
make and circulate leaflets and stickers in regards to Universal Credit, capable of being 
locally adapted.
It was also agreed to hold Annual Day Schools. The first of these will be in early 
November 2018 in London on the subject of "Advancing The Class Struggle: Problems and 
Issues for the Anarchist Communists".
It was agreed to bring out a newspaper that will be primarily agitational. The first issue 
should appear in April of this year. In addition we will be establishing a new website 
soon. We will also soon be producing a series of pamphlets.
It was agreed to seek affiliation to the International of Anarchist Federations and to 
attend the forthcoming international conference in Slovenia.
A motion was passed on Anarchist Communist Unity. It reads:
"Whilst recognising the differences between our organisation and others on the libertarian 
communist spectrum in Britain - Anarchist Federation, Solidarity Federation, Libertarian 
Socialist Federation, etc. - we should seek to promote where possible: joint solidarity 
work with comrades facing repression, imprisonment, bad health, either here or in the rest 
of the world; joint solidarity work over workplace struggles - joint bulletins where 
possible, joint fundraising and publicity etc."
The conference was marked by a spirit of enthusiasm and by a business-like approach. We 
intend making ourselves known through our activities, propaganda and development of theory.
Enquiries about the ACG, membership, etc. should be sent to communistanarchism@gmail.com

https://londonacg.blogspot.co.il/2018/02/founding-conference-of-new-anarchist.html

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Message: 2





"On Thursday 1st March there will be a national day of action to call for Universal Credit 
to be scrapped. We hope local groups will be able to support this and please send details 
of any planned events to mail@dpac.uk.net " ---- Day of Action against Universal Credit - 
local protests ---- Brighton - March 1st Clock Tower, Brighton, 10.30 am - 1pm information 
handout    https://www.facebook.com/events/327263861014031/ ---- Bristol - March 1st at 
Broadmead Shopping Centre 12 - 2 pm. All meeting up in the middle. Please wear black if 
possible. ---- https://www.facebook.com/events/1725015990888709/ ---- Edinburgh: Thurs 1st 
March 1pm - 2:30pm.  ---- Leith Jobcentre, 199 Commercial St, Edinburgh EH6 6JF. ---- 
Edinburgh action called by Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty - grass-roots 
anti-austerity and disability rights groups invited to participate with their banners and 
stalls.

https://www.facebook.com/events/437482893334245/

Falmouth: March 1st 8-11am at Penryn Jobcentre, Penmarin House, Commercial Rd, Penryn TR10 
8SB.
https://www.facebook.com/events/560750934288894/

Manchester: March 1st at 13:00-15:00pm.
St Peter's Square, Manchester,
https://www.facebook.com/events/382322465513090/

Norwich - Norwich City Hall 12.30 - 2pm
More info 
https://dpac.uk.net/2018/01/national-day-of-action-to-stopandscrap-universal-credit-march-1st/ 
https://dpac.uk.net/2018/01/dpac-position-statement-and-motion-for-union-branches-on-universal-credit/ 


http://communistanarchism.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/national-day-of-action-against.html

https://surreyanarchistcommunistgroup.blogspot.co.il/2018/02/national-day-of-action-against.html

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Message: 3





Some cities like Dunkerque, Niort or Tallinn (Estonia) have released their public 
transport. This new use allows everyone to move without discrimination, favoring social 
bonds, the urban environment and city centers. ---- For nearly 40 years, many collectives 
have succeeded in France to claim the free use of public transport. Today it is more than 
22 municipalities or communities of agglomerations that experiment or have implemented 
free measures including Dunkerque, Chateauroux, Niort for larger, but also Colomiers 
(Haute-Garonne), Compiegne (Oise) , Vitré (Ille-et-Vilaine), Issoudun (Indre), Mayenne 
(Mayenne), Gap (Hautes-Alpes), Bar-le-Duc (Meuse), Castres (Tarn), Cluses (Haute-Savoie), 
Libourne ( Gironde), etc. ---- Free transport can be seen as a tool for social equity, the 
postponement of individual car traffic and the stimulation of public transport but also as 
a tool to help economic dynamism. In a global way, the number of users has increased, 
social mix has improved significantly, allowing everyone to have access to public 
transport without discrimination.

In Dunkirk, a double public was observed in the free transport of the weekend: families 
avoiding the constraint of parking and precarious people who would not have taken 
transport without this measure [1].

However it is not free for everyone. The cost of public transport is partly financed by 
local taxes, and partly by companies via a tax calculated in relation to the wage bill. In 
Tallinn, Estonia, free admission was introduced in 2013. The operation is profitable in 
this European capital, where the financing of urban transport is provided by the municipal 
tax. Based on this first experience, free transport is envisaged for the entire territory.

Promising examples
In Châteauroux and Niort, attendance was doubled. The city centers saw a revival of 
economic activity thanks to this new attendance. The typology of used.es also shows that 
they are motorists but also pedestrians and cyclists. Since 2015, the urban community of 
Dunkirk has been experimenting with free transport on weekends. The result is an increase 
in public service attendance of 30% on Saturdays and 80% on Sundays. Following this 
experiment, agglomeration plans to extend free weekday from 1 st September 2018 [2], which 
is a first in France for a city of over 200 000 inhabitants.

For the moment, the agglomerations that have opted for the free use of public transport 
have a network consisting mainly of bus lines and shuttles. Trials have not been put in 
place in cities with tram and metro lines. This lack of study should not curb the groups 
of activists in their demands for free transport in cities of large sizes !

When will the free use of public transport for big cities ?

Julien I. (AL Lyon)

[1] Charlotte Belaich, " Free public transport: an effective model ? Liberation, September 
6, 2017.

[2] According to the France 3 television news of November 20, 2017

http://www.alternativelibertaire.org/?Gratuite-des-transports-Une-realite-dans-certaines-villes

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Message: 4





The following is a chapter from the forthcoming book The Idea: Anarchist Communism, Past 
Present and Future ---- PREHISTORY ---- In Britain there was a parallel figure to Babeuf 
in 1792 in London. This was Thomas Spence, who had developed advanced views in Newcastle 
on Tyne inside the Newcastle Philosophical Society. Within this rather genteel group, the 
plebeian Spence began to develop ideas of land communism expressed in his Plan. He first 
lectured on these ideas within the Society at the age of 25. "The land or earth, in any 
country or neighbourhood, with everything in it or the same, or pertaining thereto, 
belongs at all times to the living inhabitants of the said country or neighbourhood in an 
equal manner". He believed that each parish should take the land back into their 
possession and form themselves into corporations. The land becomes the property of the parish.

Spence in no way envisages the end of the money system. He oictures  people paying rent to 
the parish for usufruct rights to the land. This rent would be paid into a parish treasury 
to support the poor and unemployed, and for the maintenance of lands and highways etc. The 
government, a democratic assembly of representatives, and elected by secret ballot, was 
seen by Spence as having limited functions, and would not meddle in the functioning of the 
parishes.

Spence chose to go beyond the gentlemanly hobbies of the Philosophical Society by 
disseminating his ideas through the publication of a halfpenny ballad in 1775-6. For this 
he was expelled from the Society, and subsequently lost his job as a teacher. Spence 
eventually resolved to go to London, because his radical ideas had little audience in 
Newcastle.

Spence's arrival coincided with the founding of the London Corresponding Society, set up 
by the shoemaker Thomas Hardy, and which consisted of tradesmen, shopkeepers and 
mechanics. The Society's aims were the discussion of parliamentary reform, and put forward 
demands for universal suffrage and annual parliaments.
Spence influenced members of the Society, among who was Thomas Evans.  He gathered a small 
group around him and began to propagandise the ideas contained within his plan. This 
included methods of propagation similar to those of the Babeuvists: chalk and charcoal 
notices on walls and public places, debates and public meetings, and the sale or 
distribution of handbills, broadsheets, tracts and pamphlets.
Spence was jailed several times for steadfast adherence to his ideas. His greatest period 
of activity was between 1792 and 1801 and he continued with intermittent publication of 
his ideas until his death in 1814. Evans and Allen Davenport formed a Spencean Society  to 
propagate his ideas around 1807. With the death of Davenport Evans founded the Society for 
Spencean Philanthropists which continued with the propagation of Spence's ideas. The 
Spenceans were at the forefront of the working class demonstrations in London between 1815 
and 1820. Some Spenceans were implicated in the Cato Street conspiracy in 1820. The 
repression which followed led to the disappearance of the Society and the extinction of 
the Spencean current, although his continuing influence on British radicalism should not 
be ignored.

Spence's emphasis was on land communism, and he saw "Private Property in land" as the main 
evil within society. The abolition of private property in land would of course mean the 
suppression of the aristocracy and "Lordship".  However goods, merchandise and cattle 
would not face similar communalisation.
Spence symbolises a radical current within the great movement that was emerging around 
Chartism and the demands for universal suffrage and annual parliaments. Spence expressly 
came to London to propagate his ideas there because he sensed that his ideas might have a 
certain resonance within this movement. The fact that he was not able to move beyond land 
communism to general communism is a result of the limits imposed by the class of artisans 
and "mechanics", of which he was an advanced spokesman, which  was  yet  to develop into 
the working class.

Alongside his advocacy of land communism was the concept of a federation of parishes 
administering the economic process and with a system of social welfare. In this Spence 
prefigures the notion of the commune or municipality as the basic unit of society as 
developed by anarchist communist thinkers. Spence sees the parishes as providing public 
grain stores, free schools, libraries, public baths and hospitals. Spence was very wary of 
centralised State solutions to economic inequality and he believed that a bottom-up 
revolution was necessary which might well involve the use of physical force to overthrow 
the old ruling class.

Brian Morris has been instrumental in rescuing the important figure of Spence from 
obscurity. As he notes: "Neither the sans-culottes nor the enrages nor that much-neglected 
socialist Thomas Spence fully and explicitly articulated anarchism as a political 
doctrine. What they had in common was that they stressed local and popular democracy and 
were hostile toward big capital, whether of the merchant class or of the capitalist 
landlords. Their social idea was that of an egalitarian society consisting of independent 
artisans and small peasant farmers. Even Spence, though he advocated communal property in 
land, parish democracy, and parish militias....allowed for a structure of provincial and 
national assemblies. Even so, like the sans-culottes, he tended to see the parish or local 
commune as the fundamental unit of society and sought any means to limit the power of the 
central government." (pp101-102 The sans-culottes and the enrages: libertarian movements 
within the French Revolution in Ecology and Anarchism).

Spence needs to take his rightful place as one of the precursors within Britain of the 
libertarian communist current that was to emerge with the emergence of the working class.

THE FOUNDING YEARS
The working class activists Frank Kitz and Joe Lane provided a link between the old 
Chartist movement, Owenism, the British section of the First International, the free 
speech fights of the 1870s and the newly emergent socialism of the 1880s. Lane developed 
anti-state ideas early on, even before he came to call himself a socialist in 1881. A real 
power-house of an activist, he set up the Homerton Social Democratic Club in that year and 
attended the international Social Revolutionary and Anarchist Congress as its delegate. 
Kitz also attended as delegate from the Rose Street Club. Kitz met the German Anarchists 
Johann Most and Victor Dave there and was deeply influenced by them. With the help of 
Ambrose Barker, who was based in Stratford in east London, Lane and Kitz launched the 
Labour Emancipation League. The LEL was in many ways an organisation that represented the 
transition of radical ideas from Chartism to revolutionary socialism. The demands for 
universal adult suffrage, freedom of speech, free administration of justice, etc, sat 
alongside the demand for the expropriation of the capitalist class. The main role of the 
LEL was that it was to offer a forum for discussion and education amongst advanced workers 
in London, with 7 branches in East London and regular open-air meetings in Millwall, 
Clerkenwell, Stratford and on the Mile End Waste. Nevertheless, anti-parliamentarism was 
already developing in the LEL.

The LEL succeeded in moving the Democratic Federation of Hyndman over to more radical 
positions. The intellectual and artist William Morris had recently joined this group and 
Lane was to have an important influence on him for several years. The organisation changed 
its name to the Social Democratic Federation. The autocracy and authoritarianism of 
Hyndman repulsed many members and a split took place in 1884. Morris, Belfort Bax, Eleanor 
Marx (Karl Marx's daughter) Edward Aveling and most of the LEL left to form the Socialist 
League. The League itself contained both anti-parliamentarians and supporters of 
parliamentary action, who had been united by their opposition to Hyndman. A draft 
parliamentarist constitution inspired by Engels was rejected, but the divisions continued. 
One of the results of this was Lane's Anti-Statist Communist Manifesto, which had 
originally been a policy statement that had been rejected by the parliamentarist majority 
on the policy subcommittee.

Anti-Statist
The Anti Statist Communist Manifesto is not a brilliantly written or particularly well 
argued document. Nevertheless it stands as probably the first English home grown 
libertarian communist statement. It spends too long talking about religion. It rejects 
reformism through parliament or the trade unions. It calls for mass revolutionary action. 
In the Manifesto, Lane describes his ideas as Revolutionary Socialist or Free Communist. 
He never publicly used the word Anarchist to describe his politics, feeling that the word 
put too many people off, and wishing to distinguish himself from individualists. In 
private he was sympathetic to openly declared Anarchists and remarked about the Manifesto: 
"I do not claim that I have expounded anarchy; it is for others to judge". Lane must be 
considered as one of the most important pioneers of libertarian communism in Britain.

Whilst Anarchism was self-developing within the League, and attempting to achieve 
coherence, other developments were taking place. The veteran Dan Chatterton, who had 
participated in the Chartist agitations of 1848, produced his own Anarchist paper 
Chatterton's Commune-the Atheist Communistic Scorcher. This ran for 42 issues from 1884, 
produced in conditions of extreme poverty. Meanwhile one of the pioneers of Anarchist 
Communism, the Russian Piotr Kropotkin, had arrived in Britain. Kropotkin's lectures to 
many Socialist League branches reinforced the Anarchist tendencies among many of its 
members. Charles Mowbray, a tailor from Durham, active in the London Socialist League, was 
one of the first to specifically call himself an Anarchist Communist. Kropotkin also 
helped set up the paper Freedom which was specifically Anarchist Communist. The Freedom 
Group also undertook the organisation of large public meetings and open-air public 
speaking. As a result a number of workers, especially from the Social Democratic 
Federation, were won to Anarchist Communism, like the compositors Charles Morton and W. 
Pearson, whilst Socialist League members like Alfred Marsh and John Turner joined the 
Freedom Group. Regrettably, whist Socialist League branches distributed Freedom around the 
country there was a certain antipathy between the Leaguers and the Freedomites. As the 
Anarchist historian Nettlau was to remark, Kropotkin's failure to work within the 
Socialist League was:

"regrettable, for in 1886 and 1887 the League contained the very best Socialist elements 
of the time, men (sic) who had deliberately rejected Parliamentarianism and reformism and 
who worked for the splendid free Communism of William Morris or for broadminded 
revolutionary Anarchism. If Kropotkin's experience and ardour had helped this movement we 
might say today Kropotkin and William Morris as we say Elisee Reclus and Kropotkin...There 
was a latent lack of sympathy between the Anarchists of the League and those of the 
Freedom Group in those early years; the latter were believed by the former to display some 
sense of superiority, being in possession of definitely elaborated Anarchist-Communist 
theories...if both efforts had been coordinated a much stronger movement would have been 
created".

Progress
By 1890 Anarchism had made considerable progress within the League. In London there were 2 
specific Anarchist Communist groups, one in St Pancras mostly formed from Freedom Group 
members, the other in East London, members of the Clerkenwell Socialist League in 
different hats, which produced the free handout the Anarchist Labour Leaf.

1888 saw the withdrawal of the parliamentarians from the League. There was still tension 
between those who like Morris, did not describe themselves as Anarchists but as free 
communists. This tension was aggravated by a pedantic approach among some of the League 
Anarchists. The Anarchists insisted too much on philosophical principle and not enough on 
social practice. Morris wrote: "I am not pleading for any form of arbitrary or 
unreasonable authority, but for a public conscience as a rule of action: and by all means 
let us have the least possible exercise of authority. I suspect that many of our 
Communist-Anarchist friends do really mean that, when they pronounce against all 
authority". The Anarchists H.Davis and James Blackwell were too ready to take issue with 
Morris's phrase "the least possible exercise of authority", failing to see that the 
‘public conscience' he proposed as the basis of Communism was the culmination of the 
voluntary principle in a society where it had become custom and habit. If Morris chose to 
call that a situation where authority was exercised then the dispute was semantic. (The 
Slow Burning Fuse, John Quail.)

Morris's tendency felt that far more propaganda and education needed to be done before the 
Revolution could come about. Many Anarchists felt that mass action was in itself 
educational, transforming those taking part. Both were right, but only partially so. There 
should have been a dynamic dialogue between these two positions. This was not to happen. 
The dead-end of the advocacy of individual acts of 'propaganda by the deed' couched in 
fiery language meant the departure of Morris, not to mention Kitz and Lane. It also meant 
the infiltration of the movement by police agents, and a resulting clamp-down by the 
State. Some Anarchist Communists like Samuels were ferocious advocates of 'propaganda by 
the deed' others like Tochatti, were just as ferociously opposed to such tactics. The loss 
of Morris, the withdrawal of Lane and the temporary withdrawal of Kitz were a disaster for 
the development of libertarian communism in Britain. The Socialist League collapsed 
nationally.

Ruins

A number of specific Anarchist groups emerged from the ruins of the League. In fact 
despite the repression, in the period 1892-4 the movement had a massive growth. For 
example, Morris had estimated the membership of the League in London as 120 in 1891. In 
1894, Quail estimates the Anarchist movement in London as up to 2,000. (see work cited 
above). The 'bomb' faction had lost out, and the 'revolutionist' tendency was re-affirming 
itself. As a veteran of the League, David Nicoll was to say in the Anarchist which he 
brought out in Sheffield in 1894: "We are Communists. We do not seek to establish an 
improved wages system like the Fabian Social Democrats. Our work for the present lies in 
spreading our ideas among the workers in their clubs and organisations as well as in the 
open street". The revival was not to last. An attempt to unite the fragmented groups by 
James Tochatti and Louisa Sarah Bevington in 1895 - the Anarchist Communist Alliance - was 
stillborn and the movement was in definite decline by the following year. A period of 
reaction and lack of struggle within the working class as well as bitter internal 
conflicts was sapping the movement.

There was to be no revival till mid-1903. The growing industrial unrest, the growth of 
syndicalism and industrial unionism, were to be contributory factors to the refound vigour 
of the Anarchist movement. Examples of the returning strength of the movement can be seen 
in the secession of a group from the Social Democratic Federation in Plymouth, the 
majority of whom set up an Anarchist Communist group in 1910, and a similar secession from 
the industrial unionist Industrialist League in Hull in 1913. That year was to see 
considerable agitation in the South Wales valleys, where small propaganda groups were set 
up, called Workers Freedom Groups. At a meeting in Ammonford with 120 present, a Communist 
club house was opened. It was reported that: "The Constitution and programme of the 
Workers Freedom Groups have been shaped upon the model of future society at which they 
aim, namely Anarchist-Communism". A Workers Freedom Group was established in the pit 
village of Chopwell in Durham, by among others Will Lawther (later to be a right-wing 
miners' leader.) The Chopwell Anarchists also set up a Communist Club. Anarchists set up a 
Communist Club in Stockport in the following year. In London groups mushroomed and 
agitation was intense. Here Guy Aldred, a young man who had started out as a Christian 
preacher, moving through secularism and then the SDF to Anarchism, began to attempt to 
synthesise his earlier Marxism with his Anarchism in 1910. He had set up a Communist 
Propaganda Group in 1907 and he now revived this, and helped set up several Communist 
Groups in the London area, as well as travelling regularly to Glasgow and helping form the 
Glasgow Communist Group there. He had serious criticisms of trade unions and had fallen 
out with the Freedom Group because one of its members, John Turner, was a leading trade 
union official. As Aldred noted: "...I gradually fell out with the Freedom 
Anarchists...Their Anarchy was merely Trade Union activity which they miscalled Direct 
Action. Their anger knew no bounds when I insisted that Trades Unionism was the basis of 
Labour Parliamentarianism."

But now the First World War loomed and its outbreak and repercussions were to have 
cataclysmic effects on the whole revolutionary movement, not least the Anarchists.

THE WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
The Anarchist movement, not just in Britain, but world-wide was shaken to its foundations 
by the news that Kropotkin and others were supporting the Allies against Germany and 
Austria-Hungary. To their credit, the majority of Anarchists took a revolutionary 
abstentionist anti-war position, including Freedom and the Spur, edited by Aldred. A 
fiercely active anti-war propaganda took place within the North London Herald League, 
where Anarchists worked alongside socialists from different organisations. This joint 
activity was reflected right across Britain. Indeed the Anarchists were beginning to have 
a growing influence among the latter.

Aldred was to remark on the growing number of "Marxian anarchists" within the movement, 
who accepted a Marxian analysis of the State and of the importance of class struggle. 
These activists were becoming impatient with those, who to quote Freda Cohen of the 
Glasgow Anarchist Group, were satisfied with "fine phrases or poetical visioning". 
Alongside this was the heritage of Morris and Co within the broad socialist movement, 
which was asserting itself within the Socialist Labour Party, the British Socialist Party, 
(the successor of the SDF) and the Independent Labour Party. Antiparliamentary ideas were 
re-emerging within these organisations- for instance, within the Socialist Labour Party, 
members were questioning the pro-parliamentary ideas of DeLeon who had founded the Party. 
Some left to become Anarchists.

An attempt was made to unite the Anarchists around Freedom and the Spur, edited by Aldred, 
with the anti-parliamentary dissidents of the SLP. This initiative came from within the 
SLP and at a unity conference in March 1919 the Communist League was founded, with a paper 
the Communist. In it George Rose was to remark: "we know that there must develop the great 
working class anti-Statist movement, showing the way to Communist society. The Communist 
League is the standard bearer of the movement; and all the hosts of Communists in the 
various other Socialist organisations will in good time see that Parliamentary action will 
lead them, not to Communist but to bureaucratic Statism...Therefore, we identify ourselves 
with the Third International, with the Communism of Marx, and with that personification of 
the spirit of revolt, Bakunin, of whom the Third International is but the natural and 
logical outcome." Rose shows himself under the influence of Aldred, who looked for a 
fusion between Bakuninism and Marxism, in the process glossing over some fundamental 
differences. Indeed an initial report in Freedom on the conference, whilst noting that the 
League was not an Anarchist organisation, remarked that the "repudiation of Parliament is 
a long step in our direction", but on the other hand there was a sharp exchange between 
Anarchists and League members over the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat and 
economic determinism. At a Conference of London Anarchists it was remarked that, "The 
anti-parliamentary attitude of many Socialists and Communists was greatly due to our 
propaganda in the past, and good results would undoubtedly follow if we worked with them". 
A resulting conference was very friendly in tone, although controversy over the 
dictatorship of the proletariat was not absent. However, this initiative of cooperation 
between revolutionary anti-parliamentarians was to evaporate when the Communist League 
disappeared without trace at the end of 1919.

The attempts at cooperation and unity continued however, although the whole process was 
clouded by the issue of the Russian revolution and support for the Bolsheviks. Aldred 
himself was at first a staunch supporter of the Bolsheviks, hardly surprising considering 
the lack of any hard information about Lenin's Party in Britain. (This was reflected in 
general ignorance in the revolutionary movement throughout the world). A series of 
critical articles by an Austrian Anarchist which were printed in the Spur in September 
1919 were lambasted by Aldred and others, although in time he came to the same conclusions 
as he gained more solid information. Most revolutionaries, however were the slaves of 
wishful thinking, despite evidence that all was not well in Russia. This attitude, the 
unity-at-all-costs syndrome and "loyalty to the world revolution" position 
(Translation=slavishly carry out whatever Lenin and the Bolsheviks tell you to do) was to 
have disastrous consequences for the British revolutionary movement. As Bob Jones says in 
his pamphlet Left-Wing Communism in Britain 1917-21: "There was, as happens repeatedly in 
the history of British socialism in the twentieth century, a complete abdication of 
critical judgement when basic principles and beliefs are put to the test by supposed 
friends and allies". This is something that should be borne in mind at the present with 
various "unity" moves.

Despite the continuing growth of anti-parliamentarianism in both the SLP and BSP, Lenin 
was to insist that: "British communists should participate in parliamentary action... from 
within Parliament help the masses of the workers to see the results of a Henderson and 
Snowden government in practice". In practical terms this meant affiliation to the Labour 
Party and the call for a Labour vote, despite the (yes, even then!) reactionary role and 
nature of Labour. This position, which Anarchist Communists have consistently argued 
against in the 20th Century, is still very much an obstacle to the creation of a 
revolutionary movement in this country.

Sylvia Pankhurst

Anti-parliamentary communism had also developed inside the Workers' Socialist Federation 
(WSF). This had evolved out of the Women's Suffrage Federation based around Sylvia 
Pankhurst in the East End of London, above all in the Bow and Bromley districts. With her 
mother Emmeline and sister Christabel she had led a vigorous and militant campaign for 
votes for women. But differences developed between her and them over a number of issues, 
including Sylvia's emphasis for activity among the working class, and for joint action 
between working class women and men for common demands. This gap was widened by the War, 
which Emmeline and Christabel fiercely supported, whilst Sylvia came out in opposition. 
During the war the WSF were very active among the East London working class, setting up 
free or cut price restaurants, day nurseries for children of working mothers, and 
distributing free milk for babies. In this period it dawned on Sylvia Pankhurst that 
capitalism could not be reformed, but must be destroyed and replaced by a free communist 
society. She saw in the Russian revolution the model for a revolution based on workers 
councils, where committees of recallable and mandated delegates would be elected and 
answerable to mass assemblies of the working class. She rejected parliamentary action and 
the domination of leaders, calling for the development of self-organisation and 
self-initative through class struggle. Indeed at the time of the 1923 General Election 
when 8 women M.P.s were elected she remarked: "Women can no more put virtue into the 
decaying parliamentary institution than can men: it is past reform and must 
disappear...the woman professional politician is neither more nor less desirable than the 
man professional politician: the less the world has of either the better it is for it... 
To the women, as to men, the hope of the future lies not through Parliamentary reform, but 
free Communism and soviets".

Unfortunately, like Aldred, Pankhurst was a headstrong and egotistical individual. Like 
him, she often put the narrow interests of her own group before that of the revolutionary 
movement as a whole. So, she and the WSF rejected a merger with the Communist League 
because the two organisations were too similar for that to be necessary! The WSF then in 
June 1919 transformed itself into the Communist Party. Lenin put pressure on the Pankhurst 
group to arrange talks with other groups for a unity conference, at the same time fearing 
the establishment of a Communist Party that had pronounced anti-parliamentary positions. 
In his attack on left and council communists Left Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder he 
singled out Pankhurst, along with the Council Communists Pannekoek and Gorter. Another 
singled out was Willie Gallagher, who had left the SDF to join the Glasgow Anarchist Group 
in 1912. Gallagher, an admirer of Bakunin, was now a member of the Scottish Workers 
Council, which promoted ‘communes'. In his pamphlet Lenin quoted Gallagher: "The Council 
is definitely anti-parliamentarian, and has behind it the Left Wing of the various 
political bodies". For his staunch anti-parliamentarianism (not so staunch as it turned 
out) Gallagher was chosen to represent the Scottish Workers Councils at the second 
congress of the Third International in Moscow. Gallagher pleaded with the delegates not to 
force on the Scottish revolutionaries: "resolutions which they are not in a position to 
defend, being contradictory to all they have been standing for until now." Lenin singled 
Gallagher and his associates out at this Congress, winning him over completely to his 
positions. From then on Gallagher was a loyal servant to Lenin,(and then to Stalin) 
working towards the establishment of a Communist Party of Great Britain which appeared in 
January 1921. The manoeuvres of Lenin and Gallagher were sharply attacked by Aldred in his 
new paper the Spur and by Pankhurst in the paper of the re-established WSF the Workers 
Dreadnought.

Pankhurst continued with her criticisms of Leninism. In 1924 she condemned the new rulers 
of Russia as: "Prophets of centralised efficiency, trustification, State control, and the 
discipline of the proletariat in the interests of increased production...the Russian 
workers remain wage slaves, and very poor ones, working not from free will, but under 
compulsion of economic need, and kept in their subordinate position by State coercion." 
The WSF was very close to the positions of the Dutch and German council communists, 
evolving increasingly Anarchist Communist positions by 1924, when it disappeared.

The collapse of the revolutionary wave of 1917-21, the Bolshevisation of the movement, and 
the repression of 1921, during which time Pankhurst and Aldred were both jailed had taken 
its toll. Many had been won to Bolshevik positions, whilst many others dropped out 
including Pankhurst herself, who ended up as a supporter of Emperor Haile Selassie of 
Ethiopia, with a burial in Addis Ababa.

The Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation
The anti-parliamentary opposition to Lenin's positions coalesced around the Glasgow 
Anarchist Group and Aldred. It was to express solidarity with the Russian Revolution that 
this changed its name to the Glasgow Communist Group in 1920. This became the nucleus of 
the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation set up in January 1921.

In many ways the APCF was an unstable alliance of those who accepted Anarchist Communist 
views and those who took a Council Communist position. Aldred and Co. still kept up 
illusions in the Russian Revolution up till 1924, flirting with the newly emergent 
Trotskyism for a while and launching attacks on Anarchist individuals and groups. As one 
member of the APCF in Leicester remarked in a letter to the editor of Freedom in 1924, 
Aldred was "running with Communism and hunting with Anarchism". Aldred also insisted on 
what he called the Sinn Fein tactic of running as an anti-parliamentary candidate in the 
1922 General Election. This was opposed in the APCF by Henry Sara, who left to join the 
Pankhurst group, and Willie McDougall and Jane Patrick. Other differences were over the 
question of economic determinism, with economic development as the motor to social change, 
and over the need for a transitional workers state.
The APCF had branches in London, the Midlands and North of England, although its base was 
primarily Scotland. It published the monthly The Commune from 1923-9. The seething 
differences over the use of anti-parliamentary candidates erupted in 1933 when Aldred left 
over these differences to form the Workers Open Forum.

Aldred claimed that the APCF stagnated after his departure. However, this is not true as 
the activity of the APCF continued unabated. Further splits were to come with the Spanish 
Revolution and Civil War. The APCF uncritically supported the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists 
of the CNT-FAI, the notion of anti-fascism with its unity at all costs message, and the 
false ideas of democracy versus fascism. They published, without comment or criticism, a 
statement by Federica Montseny, one of the chief Anarchist advocates of anti-fascist unity 
and Anarchist participation in the Spanish Republican government. Jane Patrick was one of 
the first to question these positions after her visits to Spain. She was disowned by the 
APCF, and went off to join Aldred's group, now called the United Socialist Movement. The 
uncritical attitude continued in the APCF, though it published several articles in its new 
paper Solidarity including a statement from the Friends of Durruti (see Stormy Petrel 
pamphlet on the Friends of Durruti). A split took place in the APCF in 1937 when some 
Anarchists left in 1937 to set up the Glasgow Anarchist Communist Federation, although the 
reasons for this remain obscure. This evolved into the Glasgow Group of the Anarchist 
Federation of Britain, active during the Second World War.

The APCF for its part redeemed itself during the War by adopting a revolutionary defeatist 
position, with opposition to both sides. However as was stated in the Wildcat pamphlet on 
the APCF: "...the APCF was too tolerant in allowing views fundamentally opposed to their 
own to appear unchallenged in the paper. These included at various times, pacifism, trade 
unionism, and ‘critical' support for Russia...". Wildcat also noted that: " The APCF also 
seemed to suffer from a lack of proper organisation. It appeared to be content to remain a 
locally based group, with no interest in trying to form a national or international 
organisation. It is sometimes argued that revolutionaries should only organise informally 
in local groups, to avoid the dangers associated with larger organisations...These dangers 
have to be faced up to, not run away from". These comments should be taken seriously by 
revolutionaries at the present time.

The APCF with Willie McDougall as its leading light, transformed itself into the Workers 
Revolutionary League in 1942, eventually becoming a Workers Open Forum and continuing into 
the 50s.
As for Aldred and Patrick, their United Socialist Movement had become a populist 
organisation, espousing things like World Government and fellow-travelling with Russia 
after Stalin's death. As Nicolas Walter notes in (Raven No1.),  Aldred was an: 
"extraordinarily courageous but essentially solitary man whose vanity and oddity prevented 
him from taking the part which his ability and energy seemed to create for him in the 
revolutionary socialist movement". Like Pankhurst, Aldred's egotism contributed towards 
hindering the development of a libertarian communist movement in this country, as did the 
differences between Anarchist Communists and Council Communists which were at first swept 
under the carpet and then totally polarised with no attempt to work out a practical synthesis.

Despite all this, the contributions of these groups and individuals were important. They 
courageously pursued revolutionary politics at a time of great isolation. They must be 
recognised as the forebears of present day libertarian communism in this country.

POST WAR LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM

A specific libertarian communist current did not re-emerge in Britain until the sixties 
and seventies. Anarcho-syndicalism was to be the dominant current within the Anarchist 
movement, alongside the newly emerging ‘liberal' anarchism that was developing through the 
likes of people like George Woodcock. In one part, this was a response to the major 
defeats of both revolutionary Anarchism and the working class movement as a whole, in 
another part it was an uncritical adaptation to the rise of the anti-war movement 
(Committee of 100 and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament). It was, of course, correct for 
Anarchists to aim their propaganda at mass movements, putting a revolutionary case against 
capitalism and the State as the root causes of war. What was lacking however was a 
theoretical strength that allowed for the recruiting of activists from C100 and CND that 
fought against the dilution of ideas and transformed these activists into fully-fledged 
revolutionaries. This was not the case, however, and the revolutionary core of Anarchism, 
already deeply effected by the erroneous ideas of the Synthesis as devised by Voline and 
Faure (which sought a fusion between individualism, syndicalism and libertarian communism 
within the same organisation) was further diluted in Britain. The development of the hippy 
and alternative culture movements were to further dilute and confuse the movement, as once 
again the Anarchist movement showed itself wanting in ways of relating to these movements 
on a revolutionary basis without surrendering to pacifism and marginalisation.

Solidarity
One healthy development was the group of activists who had been expelled from the 
Trotskyist Socialist Labour League of Gerry Healy in 1959, many of whom had served on its 
Central Committee. Revolted by the authoritarianism of Healyism, this group began to 
develop libertarian socialist ideas, continuing to base themselves on class struggle and 
class analysis. They began to edit a journal, Solidarity, from October 1960, as well as a 
flurry of pamphlets, at first on a monthly basis! They developed trenchant analyses of the 
industrial struggle as well as the peace movement, and their analysis of the unions was a 
huge step forward, as was their rejection of syndicalism. As time progressed Solidarity 
began to identify themselves more and more as libertarian communists. However, they had 
developed a distrust of organisation as such as a result of their experiences of Healyism. 
Their unflagging publishing programme and their perceptive analyses had gained a great 
deal of respect among many activists. Their wilful failure to translate this into the 
establishment of a national organisation was a disaster, as International Socialism (the 
precursor of the Socialist Workers Party) was able to build on this territory abandoned by 
Solidarity (and by the Anarchist Federation of Britain). They failed to engage as fully 
with the Anarchist movement as much as they could have, as their contributions at meetings 
and conferences could have considerably strengthened the class struggle current within it. 
Finally, there was their use of the ambiguous term self-management (which could be open to 
a number of interpretations, including one involving a market society) and their assertion 
that the main differences in society were not so much between classes as between 
order-givers and order-takers. In the end the contents of the magazine became less and 
less distinguishable from the contents of Freedom, with, for example, long articles on 
Gandhi. Solidarity magazine stopped appearing in the early 90s and the group is to all 
intents and purposes, dead.-failing to live up to its promises of the 60s.

The Organisation of Revolutionary Anarchists (ORA)
The Anarchist Federation of Britain (AFB) had slowly emerged in the aftermath of the 
political dead-end and decline of the Committee of 100 and the growing new radicalism of 
the 1960s, with its founding conference in Bristol in 1963. There was an impressive list 
of group and individual contacts featured in Freedom. National conferences began to be 
organised that were well attended. On the face of it things looked very good indeed, with 
the potential for an Anarchist movement to grow and once again have some influence as the 
pre-WWI movement had. In reality things were far from rosy. Anyone could attend 
conferences, often to make contributions and then never to be seen again. There was no 
structure of decision-making, and therefore no decisions made at conference. There was no 
paper controlled by the AFB, and often groups loosely affiliated within it contained all 
sorts of ‘anarchists' from individualists, pacifists and gradualists, lifestylists and 
agrarian communards, through to syndicalists and anarchist communists. No clear analysis 
could be developed because of the huge array of differing and opposing ideas. Indeed the 
AFB only had an internal bulletin from late 1969.

The AFB was unable to respond to the huge potential offered to it, and began to drift. 
Indeed there was a massive exodus of activists to International Socialism (IS) and the 
International Marxist Group (IMG). A group emerged in the AFB around Keith Nathan and Ro 
Atkins, the former who had been a driving force in the very active Harlow Anarchist Group. 
This group produced a document called Towards a History and Critique of the Anarchist 
Movement in Modern Times as a discussion paper for a conference of Northern Anarchists in 
November 1970. Militants in Lancaster and Swansea (including Ian Bone, the future founder 
of Class War) also had criticisms of the AFB. The people in Swansea dropped out of the 
fray after their open letter was published, but their action had encouraged people in 
Lancaster, Leeds, Manchester and York to put a motion to the AFB that it call a 
‘reorganisation conference' to discuss the criticisms raised" (from The Newsletter, 
bulletin of the ORA May 1971). The Critique and a joint statement produced by all the 
critics were taken from the conference to the AFB conference in Liverpool the same month. 
It should be pointed out that this critical current was made up of both anarchist 
communists and anarcho-syndicalists as well as those who had no specific identification 
other than Anarchist.

The Critique was a trenchant and deeply honest document. It is worth quoting at length on 
the state of the Anarchist movement: "the omission of an attempt to link present short 
term action with the totality of capitalist society and with the totality of the future 
alternative society, means that when the short term issue dies, as it will, then so does 
the consciousness created by this short term action. ....bitter personal disputes based 
upon spuriously advanced positions; battles for the soul of the revolution / movement / 
Individual / reified anything, fought in reams of paper attacking and defending positions 
long since overrun by time. This is our ‘theory'. Usually it totally replaces even the 
pretence of activity".

Ginger
Following on from the Liverpool Conference the group in York decided to set up the 
Organisation of Revolutionary Anarchists to act as a ginger group within the AFB. The 
attention at this time was not to leave the AFB. It wanted the AFB to open its doors to 
other libertarian tendencies e.g. Solidarity. "...The ORA people do not want to form 
another sect-we see our role as acting within and on the libertarian movement in general, 
as well as initiating our own work...we hope it can act as a link and a catalyst not only 
for ORA and the AFB but also to all libertarians". (ORA Newsletter see above).

ORA's objections to the traditional anarchist movement then, were more on the level of 
organisation than of theory. Their advocacy of collective responsibility, the use of a 
Chair and voting to take decisions at meetings, formal membership and a paper under the 
control of its "writers, sellers and readers" while warmly greeted in some quarters for 
example the May 1971 Scottish Anarchist Federation Conference was viciously attacked by 
others.

But the ORA itself was a hotchpotch including all sorts of anarchists, including 
syndicalists and those who argued for a pacifist strategy. When the ORA decided to bring 
out a monthly paper, Libertarian Struggle, in February 1973, it proved to be a forcing 
house for the development of the group, and these elements fell away. Also significant 
were contacts with the Organisation Révolutionnaire Anarchiste in France which had 
developed along similar lines within the Federation Anarchiste. Through the French ORA the 
British discovered the pamphlet the Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists 
which had been written by a group of Russian and Ukrainian Anarchists, including Nestor 
Makhno and Piotr Arshinov. This argued for a specific anarchist communist organisation, 
and ideological and tactical unity.

The ORA produced a number of pamphlets and a regular monthly paper. At first this was 
lacking in theoretical content, in the main consisting of short factual articles on 
various struggles. Quite correctly, Libertarian Struggle gave extensive coverage to both 
industrial struggles and struggles outside the workplace, including tenants struggles, 
squatting, women's liberation and gay liberation. By issue 8 a greater analytical and 
theoretical content emerged. For example in an article on the Spanish Revolution of 1936 
in Libertarian Struggle 1973 we can read about: "The failure of the anarcho-syndicalists 
who make a far too ready identification of their union with the working class as a whole. 
The way forward in a revolutionary situation is the rapid building of workers 
councils...union committees are no substitute for direct workers power". These 
anarchist-communist criticisms of anarcho-syndicalism were to be further developed within 
the libertarian communist movement over the years.

Similarly, the analysis of Labour was to be a consistent feature of British 
anarchist-communism over the following years. For example we can read in Libertarian 
Struggle November 1973: "Only by carefully explaining and exposing the role of the Labour 
Party to the working class can any progress be made to building a revolutionary anarchist 
alternative...It cannot be done by first insisting we vote Labour". The Labour Party was 
defined as a bourgeois party.

On the unions, however, the ORA was not so clear. The criticisms of the union 
bureaucracies were clear enough, and this included the ‘left' NUM leadership. Also clear 
was the call to create workers action committees leading to the establishment of workers 
councils. However this was mixed up with calls to democratise the unions (!) and to 
democratise the various Rank and Files (all of which were IS fronts).

Standstill
The events of 1974, the Miners Strike and the 3-Day week, led many to think (falsely) that 
revolution was just around the corner. This led to the formation of the Left Tendency 
inside the ORA. They concluded that it was in the nature of anarchism that the attempts to 
form a national organisation were bound to fail, and turned to Trotskyism. Most of this 
group ended up in the horrific authoritarian Healeyite outfit, the Workers Revolutionary 
Party (WRP), whilst others joined IS. Nathan himself, whilst not a supporter of the Left 
Tendency, also left at this time to join the WRP.

The Left Tendency had called for an elected Editorial Board rather than a paper edited in 
rotation by each group and for a "more coherent position on Ireland" among other things. 
The organisation came to a virtual standstill, as these members had been among the most 
active, and many others, who were not prepared to take on the workload, dropped out. 
Amongst those who remained, some took the initiative to revive the organisation. A limited 
edition (1,000) Libertarian Struggle was put out in November 1974 and sold out in 10 days. 
There followed a period of recruitment and consolidation, until May 1975 when the paper 
began to appear again on a regular monthly basis.

The Anarchist Workers Association

At the beginning of 1975 ORA changed its name to the Anarchist Workers Association, which 
it was felt implied more of a class commitment, although others criticised this change as 
a mistake, implying workerism, and a too narrow obsession with the workplace. It was true 
that most of the membership in this period were heavily involved in workplace activity.

By 1976 the AWA had 50 members, most of them active, with 3 groups in London, groups in 
Oxford, Yorkshire, Leicester, and Scotland. The paper now called itself Anarchist Worker, 
was a regular monthly with sales of 1,500-2,000, mostly street sales. It was to some 
extent ‘a libertarian version of Socialist Worker' but the coverage was wider, for example 
covering the struggles of claimants and squatters and provocatively questioning the work 
ethic.

The organisation went through a vicious split between Spring 1976 and Spring 1977. The 
Towards a Programme (TAP) Tendency was founded primarily to change the 1976 Conference 
decision on Ireland, where the majority, had argued for an abstentionist, anti-Republican 
position on Ireland, and that "Troops Out" was only meaningful if they withdrew through 
united class action. The TAP kept to the classic ‘Troops Out' formula as well as the 
leftist "Self-determination for the Irish people as a whole". The TAP also argued for a 
less "ultra-left " position on the unions that is for "democratisation of the unions", 
"extend unionisation" etc. This tendency included Nathan who had returned to the fold.

The AWA did not have a tradition of political debate. Much of the debate there was 
conducted at a puerile level. The TAP tendency accused their opponents of "traditional 
anarchism" and wishing to "lead the AWA back to the days of the AFB" whilst the TAP 
tendency was accused by its opponents of "Trotskyism". The debate was clouded by 
controversy over the issue of abortion with a leading opponent of the TAP tendency taking 
an anti-abortion position., as well as some of the opponents of TAP (though only a small 
minority) taking increasingly anti-organisational positions.

Disgust

Eventually at a conference in May 1977, on a motion sprung from the floor expulsions 
against the opposition to the TAP tendency was carried by 2 votes, with no prior notice or 
discussion at previous meetings or in the Internal Bulletin. Others left the organisation 
in disgust at these manoeuvres.
The expelled comrades committed to organisational politics regrouped under the title 
‘Provisional AWA' which then changed its name to the Anarchist Communist Association, 
producing a paper Bread and Roses and an introductory pamphlet to the ACA. The internal 
disputes had proved debilitating, however, and the ACA disappeared in 1980. The ACA had 
attempted to carry on some of the better traditions of ORA/AWA
As for the TAP tendency and those others who remained in the AWA, the coming period was to 
be one of complete capitulation to leftism. The name of the organisation was changed to 
the Libertarian Communist Group, there were defections to the International Marxist Group, 
and then the LCG announced that it had moved from class struggle anarchism to a 
"libertarian, critical, Marxism". The LCG backed "United Front Work" which in practice 
meant working in the Socialist Teachers Alliance, and the Socialist Student Alliance, 
fronts dominated by the IMG. This United Front work which in practice meant collaboration 
with leftist political formations, led to the LCG committing one of their most heinous 
errors-entering an electoral front set up by IMG called Socialist Unity (SU) and backed by 
other groups like Big Flame. Socialist Unity put up candidates where it felt they had the 
strength, and advanced the slogan "Vote Labour But Build a Socialist Alternative" where it 
did not. The LCG was supposed to be "critically" supporting SU, but failed to make any 
serious criticisms of this support for Labour. The SWP for their part, peeved by the SU 
running candidates, and perceiving this as a threat, decided to stand their own 
candidates. The LCG endorsed these candidates as well, completely forgetting all the 
criticisms it had made of electoralism and of the nature of the Leninist groups. Finally, 
after the IMG, in their usual fashion, got bored with SU as a way of recruiting, it was 
wound up. The LCG failed to deliver any post-mortem on this.

The end was soon to come. The LCG compounded these errors by supporting a slate run by an 
anti-cuts group called Resistance (Keith Nathan and friends) for council elections in Leeds.

Relinquished
The LCG moved for fusion with the "libertarian Marxist" group Big Flame in 1980. This 
organisation had been previously described in Anarchist Worker as "schizophrenic 
libertarians/Leninists": "Big Flame leads in uncritical copying of Lotta Continua in 
Italy, from their spontaneism to softness on Stalinism". For its part Big Flame was unable 
to withstand the instabilities of its politics. The ‘left' "victory" orchestrated by Tony 
Benn in the Labour Party resulted in the collapse of Big Flame as most of its members 
decided to enter the Labour Party, where they eventually wound up as apologists for 
Kinnock. The LCG had argued that they were "too small to give us an acceptable forum for 
political discussion" and that there were "no serious political differences between the 
two organisations". The LCG had relinquished any idea of constructing a specific 
libertarian communist organisation as well as any serious political analysis. But in any 
case, the politics of the LCG had transformed so much that there really was little 
difference between their leftism and that of Big Flame.

CONCLUSION

This history of the ORA/AWA/LCG with its history of splits, defections and gross political 
errors is far from inspiring. But these developments, sometimes as unedifying as they 
were, signal the first attempts of libertarian communism to re-emerge in the post-World 
War II period. These attempts to re-emerge were as one member of the ACF noted in 1991 
bound to be effected by the "present comparatively weak state of anarchist communism". Two 
"magnetic poles of attraction" would be at work, he went on to say. One would be Leninism, 
which would exert its influence through comrades moving physically and ideologically over 
to Leninist outfits, or adopting Leninist style politics whist still professing to be 
within the revolutionary anarchist movement as happened with the LCG, and later with the 
Anarchist Workers Group.
The other pole of attraction would involve comrades committing some of the errors 
associated with parts of the left communist milieu-spontaneism, refusal to construct a 
revolutionary organisation, and where theoretical elaboration was divorced from effective 
practice and intervention, and seemed to involve finding as many differences as possible 
between comrades.

The appearance of the Anarchist Communist Federation marked a dramatic move forward, a 
significant development in both the strengthening and elaboration of Anarchist Communist 
theory, as well as an ongoing practice.

REFERENCES
Thomas Spence: Morris, Brian (1996), The agrarian socialism of Thomas Spence in Ecology & 
Anarchism, Images Publishing, Malvern Wells; Rudkin, Olive D (1927) Thomas Spence and his 
Connections
Kitz, Lane, Mowbray and the Socialist League: Quail, John, The slow burning fuse, Picador, 
London
Organise 42, publication of the Anarchist Communist Federation

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