New ASR Available

ASR 68 (Fall 2016)

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Contents:

2. Editorial: Rebuilding a Revolutionary Labor Movement
4. Obituaries: Jack Grancharoff and Bob McGlynn
5. Wobbles: Trusting Hillary, Economy Booming – For the Top 5%, Unaffordable Healthcare, $15 for Campaigners? …
7. International News: Chileans Protest, Ukrainian Miners, Indian general strike…compiled by Michael Hargis
9. Articles: Che Guevara’s Authoritarian Vision by Wayne Price
12. Socialists and Workers: The 1896 London Congress by Davide Turcato
14. International Congresses and the Congress of London by Peter Kropotkin
17. The Spanish Revolution of 1936  by Vadim Damier, translated by Malcolm Archibald
19. The Anarcho-Syndicalist Genesis of Orwell’s Revolutionary Years by Raymond Solomon
22. Two New Books on Spanish Anarchism Review essay by Jeff Stein
24. Reviews: In Defiance of Boundaries: Anarchism in Latin American History Reviewby Martin Comack
25. Contemporary Anarchist Studies Review by Chad Anderson
27. China on Strike Review by Jon Bekken
28. Left of the Left: My Memories of Sam Dolgoff Review by Peter Cole
30. Kropotkin: Reviewing the Classical Anarchist Tradition Review by Iain McKay
30. Ludlow and Its Aftermath  Review essay by Jon Bekken
31. Individualism versus Egoism Review essay by Iain McKay
34. Reviewed Briefly, Letters

New Anarcho-Syndicalist Review

ASR 67 is on the press, and features articles on the folly of electoral politics, a history of anarchism in Ukraine, anarchism in the 21st century, and a short piece from me looking at the devastation posed by 50 years of economic stagnation — to the point where nearly half of Americans tell the Federal Reserve Bank that they would not be able to come up with $400 if they were hit with an unexpected expense that high, and would have to borrow the money or let other bills slide to cover it.

New Anarcho-Syndicalist Review

ASR 66 (Winter 2016) has shipped to subscribers. For more: http://syndicalist.us

Contents:

3. Editorial: The Bernie Sanders Illusion

3. OBITUARY: Federico Arcos

4. Wobbles: Vulture Capitalists, Economic “Boom,” Killing Your Own Job, Jailed for Poverty, Profiteering Off Pensions…

6. Syndicalist News: Union-busting in Kyrgyzstan, Polish Nurses Strike, U.S. Job Deaths Rise, Repression in Iran, Paperworkers Build Global Links, Autoworkers Fight Two-Tier, Polish & German Amazon Workers Coordinate Struggles, CNT Strike…  compiled by Mike Hargis

9. Articles: Ready to Fight: Developing 21st Century Community Syndicalism  by Shane Burley

15. Imperial Wars &  Their Losers: A Critique of ‘Labor Aristocracy’ Theories by Lucien van der Walt

16. The “Sharing” Economy  by Jon Bekken

17. The Attempted Rehabilitation of the Communist Party by Wayne Price

21. Poor Adam Smith  by Iain McKay

23. Proudhon, Property & Possession  by Iain McKay

26. Regarding Louis Blanc – The Present Utility and Future Possibility of the State by P. J. Proudhon; translated by Shawn P.  Wilbur

29. Anarchists in the Russian Labor Movement: 1900 – 1930 by Anatoly Viktorovich Dubovik, translated by Malcolm Archibald

32. REVIEWS: The Realities of Self-Managementreview by Jeff Stein

34. Anarchists & the French-Algerian War  review by Wayne Price

35. Joe Hill’s Living Legacy review by Jon Bekken

35. The “Progressives” and Labor Reform  review by Dylan B.

38. Germany’s “Wild Socialism” review by Jon Bekken

39. Reclaiming the Commons  review by Jon Bekken

39. Letter: Like A Bag Over Our Heads by Kenneth Miller

New Issue of Anarcho-Syndicalist Review

click for details

Bakunin bicentenary

Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #63 completes a two-issue commemoration of the bicentenary of Bakunin’s birth with articles on the emergence of anarchism within the First International, the introduction of anarchism to Spain, and a brief review of recent scholarship on Bakunin.

Other articles examine anarchism and technology, the consequences of austerity in Great Britain, Colin Ward’s anarchism, the London dock strike of 1889, anarchism and Kobani, and Malatesta’s anarchism.

Bakunin and the First International

I will be speaking Saturday at the Platypus International Conference, representing the anarchist cause on a panel on the split in the First International and its implications for contemporary movements. It is of course quite clear that Marx and his allies deliberately set out to destroy the International when it became clear that they could maintain their dominance only through bureaucratic means. Since then, we have had many opportunities to test in practice the Marxian program for a statist road to socialism, and as “scientific socialists” we might expect general agreement that Bakunin was right. After all, his hypothesis has been tested again and again, and has been confirmed each time!

I and another member of the ASR editorial collective will also be speaking on our work with the magazine. We have started work on a new issue, which hopefully will come together next month…

New Anarcho-Syndicalist Review

A new ASR is in binding, and will start shipping soon. http://syndicalist.us

Free Bradley Manning

There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so terrible: “for reasons of state.” — Mikhail Bakunin

Bradley Manning faces more than a hundred years in military prison for peeling away the veil of secrecy that shields the government’s crimes. Some have tried to claim that his acquittal on the aiding the enemy charges proves that the system works. But he was convicted on espionage charges, and of many other offenses against the “order” and “discipline” required to sustain the modern state in all its brutality.

Not that those who claim the Espionage Act has been misapplied have any basis for their claims. The Espionage Act was passed during World War I precisely to protect the government from criticism. Like Manning, the overwhelming majority of those convicted under it have never been charged with anything resembling the popular understanding of the term. Rather, it has always been a means of silencing the government’s critics. Thousands of Wobblies, anarchists and socialists were imprisoned during the World War I-era espionage cases (and some tortured to death) not for revealing government secrets (unless the fact that the government serves to promote the interests of the rich, and has not the slightest regard for the lives and welfare of working people around the world is a secret), but rather for having the temerity to protest – to refuse to lend their silence to the facade of “national unity” that governments always rely on to conceal their crimes.

A couple issues back, Anarcho-Syndicalist Review referred to Obama as a Nixon Republican. So true. He doesn’t burgle his critics’ offices, perhaps, but that’s because he doesn’t need to. He has the NSA working overtime intercepting phone calls, sweeping up emails, and generally casting a surveillance net that would have left the old-time totalitarian states green with envy.

The commentariat are up in arms just now about Russia’s criticisms of the U.S. human rights record, and there’s no doubt that there’s more than a little hypocrisy at play given the Russian regime’s dismal record. But torture is now government policy – at Guantanamo as with Bradley Manning. No one even pretends that there’s any reasonable basis for caging most of those at Guantanamo – Obama is quite open in declaring that he’s doing it only for political reasons. I very much doubt whether the Russian regime has ever dreamed of the sort of total surveillance machine that we are assured is perfectly legal (at the very same time that they threaten those who made it public with the direst consequences).

Bradley Manning released video that made it clear for all to see that the U.S. army was murdering civilians and journalists in cold blood. He leaked documents proving the duplicity and deceit that underlies U.S. foreign policy – and the foreign policy of all states. Those who care to trudge through the Wikileaks archives can see the sorry spectacle of government at work – bullying Haiti to protect bosses from paying higher wages, shoring up corrupt regimes, coddling dictators, doing the nasty things that governments have always done.

It should be pretty clear who’s the criminal here.

Free Bradley Manning

ASR 60 is on the press

Anarcho-Syndicalist Review #60 is on the press, check it out: http://syndicalist.us

This issue has an interview with an Egyptian anarchist, an in-depth look at the rebellion in the South African mines, a review of a book on anarchism in the colonial world, reflections on Maggie Thatcher’s death, and much more…

New ASR (59)

Anarcho-Syndicalist Review 59 (Winter 2013) is on its way to the printer.

It’s a solid issue, with pieces on the renewed push for “right to work” legislation in the U.S. (no, such bills don’t mean that you can make the bosses give you a job), the crisis of capitalism, rebuilding the infrastructure of the anarchist movement, the anarchist tradition of workplace struggles, and reviews including a recent comparative study of the international syndicalist movement, Anarchist Seeds in the Snow, and the Anarchist Frequently Asked Questions book, etc.

http://syndicalist.us/2013/01/25/anarcho-syndicalist-review/