Text of Workers Solidarity Movement leaflet to anarchy in the UK festival 21st-30th Oct. Creating anarchism Anarchism has a great potential to become the dominant force in oppositional politics following the collapse of the authoritarian left. But this collapse also means we have no longer any excuse for failing to reach that position. This conference will hopefully highlight that potential, however if in the future we fail to build mass anarchist movements, then that failure falls on our heads. Mass anarchist movements have been built in the past. In other countries sizeable anarchist movements exist today, and in most countries outside Africa anarchism is represented by at least one or two organisations. In the last twenty years, although the rest of the left collapsed, anarchism has seen not only a recovery but real growth, both in numbers and geographical spread. Britain unfortunately seems to be the exception Despite the fact that over the last couple of decades tens of thousands have referred to themselves as anarchists, the organisations that exist today are tiny. All the groups appear to be drifting away from anarchism, to 'revolutionary unionism' , council communism or undefined post-anarchism. Another national organisation the Anarchist Workers Group (AWG) imploded over two years ago. The bulk of its members have either dropped out of politics or a few, more bizarrely, joined authoritarian organisations from the RCP to the Labour Party. What can anarchists do in this situation? How do we go about creating a mass anarchist movement, capable of overthrowing capitalism? This leaflet is an international contribution to that debate, produced by an organisation based in Ireland. Firstly we have to recognise this is not a short term process. There will not be an anarchist revolution next year. Anarchism will only become possible when the majority of society understands and also wants to introduce it. Too many people spend their political life searching for the quick fix, the magic wand, instant revolution. Trotskyists see this wand as a collection of 'right slogans and right leaders'. Too often anarchists have echoed this by seeing the magic wand as media exposure resulting in a sense of importance. From the period of the Poll Tax on, anarchists have received considerable media exposure but almost nothing has come out of this. We advocate a more long term approach, one that recognises the possibility of revolution, but also recognises the need to build for it. Ideas have to be developed and clarified. Organisation(s) are needed that put forward coherent ideas and collectively act on these ideas. We have to be able to develop and implement strategy for our organisations in a democratic fashion. Anarchists have to be able to argue confidently with activists from other areas of the left and win these arguments without resorting to sectarianism. There has to be involvement in real struggle. This means learning to work alongside other activists including those who may be hostile to anarchism. There has been too much of a tendency to stay aloof from struggle in the interests of maintaining ideological 'purity' or setting up anarchist alternatives to much larger campaigns. The need to confront other ideas has thus been avoided. We need clear ideas on getting involved in struggles. There has been a tendency for anarchists to end up as the foot soldiers of campaigns, doing all the donkey work but not contributing much to the direction taken. We have to be able to develop, put forward and win the argument for campaign strategies based on anarchist tactics. There has to be a real commitment to building anarchist organisations, one that is reflected in the investment of time, energy and money. This commitment has to come from all the members, not just a core group who volunteer and finance just about everything. It's only with this sort of commitment that the small groups that are currently possible, once formed can grow to much larger organisations. This outlines what we are currently trying to implement in Ireland, a strategy which has yielded us some success to date. We are currently too small to put significant resources into helping people set up a similar group in Britain. What we can do however is start to develop contacts here and help in putting like minded people in contact with each other. If you find yourself agreeing with the broad outline of what we are putting forward then check us out further. Talk to any of the people distributing this leaflet (or selling Workers Solidarity) or write to us at WSM, PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland. If you want to be put on our international mailing list, fill out this form and send it to us. Include a donation towards postage costs if you can. (Please use block capitals). Name Address Phone Number Donation An introduction to the WSM We can create a better society. A world where everybody is treated equally. A world where we, the working class, get to have the best of what we produce, and where we get to make the decisions about how we run our lives. In order for capitalism to function, it must exploit the working class. It is only when capitalism is eliminated that we can end poverty, war and oppression. We believe that the working class, as a whole, should take control of the means of production, factories, schools, hospitals, etc. The state must be destroyed and all forces of oppression, such as the police, army and judiciary, disbanded. A socialist society should be formed, based on workers federations, organised at the lowest possible level. We are part of the "platformist" tradition within anarchism. The best known statements from this current are the "Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists" (whose authors included Nestor Makhno) and "Towards a Fresh Revolution" by the Friends of Durruti in Spain. That is, we believe that the best way to fight for our goal is through an organised anarchist group, with clearly stated policies and objectives. We believe: * The ends cannot be separated from the means. We must fight now against all forms of oppression against the working class, be it sexual, sexist or racist. We have to make sure that our methods of struggle are thoroughly honest and democratic. * We believe in working within trade unions, in order to fight for greater union democracy and to argue our politics within the trade union movement. * We are anti-imperialist. We want to see British withdrawal from Northern Ireland. We believe that it is important for anarchists to be anti-imperialist because only then can we be truly anti-racist, and support international working class solidarity. * To be an anarchist is to be libertarian and socialist. Anarchists do not have to wear uniforms or act in a certain way. Groups such as new age travellers or punks are not anarchist movements, they are lifestylist counter cultural movements which may have anarchists among them. * We do not believe that fighting for revolution should be a hobby nor should anarchist groups make themselves out to be some sort of joke. We are asking people to fight with us, so we can better our lives. If we do not take ourselves seriously, then nobody else will. The Workers Solidarity Movement is an Irish anarchist communist group. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland or by anonymous e-mail to an64739@anon.penet.fi Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18 or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu") or WWW at http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Jack.Jansen/spunk/Spunk_Home.html in the directory /pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM