Before communism, anarchism and syndicalism were central to labour and the Left in the colonial and postcolonial world.Using studies from Africa,Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, this ...groundbreaking volume examines the revolutionary libertarian Left's class politics and anti-colonialism in the first globalization and imperialism(1870/1930).
Examining the theory and practice of 'mass' anarchism and syndicalism, this paper argues against Daryl Glaser's views that workers' council democracy fails basic democratic benchmarks and that, ...envisaged as a simple instrument of a revolution imagined in utopian 'year zero' terms, it will probably collapse or end in 'Stalinist' authoritarianism-Glaser also argues instead for parliaments, supplemented by participatory experiments. While agreeing with Glaser on the necessity of a 'democratic minimum' of pluralism, rights, and open-ended outcomes, I demonstrate, in contrast, that this 'minimum' is perfectly compatible with bottom-up council democracy and self-management, as envisaged in anarchist/syndicalist theory, and as implemented by anarchist revolutions in Manchuria, Spain and Ukraine. This approach seeks to maximise individual freedom through an egalitarian, democratic, participatory order, developed as both means and outcome of revolution; it consistently insists that attempts to 'save' revolutions by suspending freedoms, instead destroy both. Parliament, again in contrast to Glaser, from this perspective, meets no 'democratic minimum', being part of the state, a centralized, unaccountable institutional nexus essential to domination and exploitation by a ruling class of state managers and capitalists. Rather than participate in parliaments, 'mass' anarchism argues for popular class autonomy from, and struggle against, the existing order as a means of winning economic and political reforms while-avoiding 'year zero' thinking-also building the new society, within and against, the old, through a prefigurative project of revolutionary counter-power and counter-culture. Revolution here means the complete expansion of a bottom-up democracy, built through a class struggle for economic and social equality, and requiring the defeat of the ruling class, which is itself the outcome of widespread, free acceptance of anarchism, and of a pluralistic council democracy and self-management system.
This paper examines the development of anarchism and syndicalism in early twentieth century Cape Town, South Africa, drawing attention to a crucial but neglected chapter of labor and left history. ...Central to this story were the anarchists in the local Social Democratic Federation (SDF), and the revolutionary syndicalists of the Industrial Socialist League, the Industrial Workers of Africa (IWA), and the Sweets and Jam Workers' Industrial Union. These revolutionary anti-authoritarians, Africans, Coloureds and whites, fostered a multiracial radical movement - considerably preceding similar achievements by the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) in this port city. They were also part of a larger anarchist and syndicalist movement across the southern African subcontinent. Involved in activist centers, propaganda, public meetings, cooperatives, demonstrations, union organizing and strikes, and linked into international and national radical networks, Cape Town's anarchists and syndicalists had an important impact on organizations like the African Political Organization (APO), the Cape Federation of Labour Unions, the Cape Native Congress, the CPSA, the General Workers Union, and the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa (ICU). This paper is therefore also a contribution to the recovery of the history of the first generation of African and Coloured anti-capitalist radicals, and part of a growing international interest in anarchist and syndicalist history.
This article examines the early history of anarchism and revolutionary syndicalism in South Africa, a topic that has been almost entirely neglected in the existing literature. Opposed to national ...oppression and segregation, yet critical of black African and Coloured nationalism, the anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists developed an increasingly sophisticated analysis of national oppression. The deeply intertwined anarchist and revolutionary syndicalist traditions developed locally, evolving into a multi-racial and anti-capitalist movement, one that continued to influence regional labour movements, white and black, and the left in general, even after the formation of the Communist Party of South Africa in 1921.
Cet article examine les débuts de l’anarchisme et du syndicalisme révolutionnaire en Afrique du Sud, presque entièrement négligés dans la littérature existante. S’opposant à l’oppression et à la ségrégation raciales tout en critiquant le nationalisme noir africain et métisse, anarchistes et syndicalistes révolutionnaires développèrent une analyse de plus en plus complexe de l’oppression nationale. Ces courants imbriqués se sont transformés localement en un mouvement multiracial et anticapitaliste, centré sur une stratégie de construction d’une Grande Fédération Unifiée révolutionnaire comme moyen de libération de classe et nationale, et qui influencera encore le travail régional, blanc et noir, et la gauche en général, après la formation du Parti communiste d’Afrique du Sud en 1921.
This special edition, which draws together studies of workers' struggles in Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Ecuador India, Indonesia and South Africa, provides the basis for an assessment of the politics ...of organized labour at the start of the 21st century. The papers in this collection are drawn from a highly successful September 2011 Global Labour University conference on "The Politics of Labour and Development", held in Johannesburg, South Africa. On the basis of the studies, we argue for the importance of unions, despite their contradictions, as an irreplaceable force for progressive social change for the popular classes. Post-colonial ruling classes have been active authors of the neoliberal agenda, at the expense of the working class. The current context affirms the centrality of unions, and of organized workers more generally as it is union struggles -- and alliances with other sectors of the popular classes -- that make the Standard Employment Relationship possible. The more the fracturing of the popular classes is challenged by linking unions to other popular class forces, the more successful such struggles become.
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The failings of classical Marxism, social democracy and anti-imperialist nationalism point to the need for a radical left politics at a distance from the state. This paper examines the impact, ...revival and promise of the anarchist/syndicalist tradition, a rich, continuous praxis in labour, left, anti-imperialist, anti-racist and egalitarian movements, worldwide, since the 1860s. Outlining its core ideas - anti-hierarchy, anti-capitalism, anti-statism, opposition to social and economic inequality, internationalist class-based mobilisation - and critique of mainstream Marxism and nationalism, it highlights the arguments there is a basic incompatibility between state rule, and bottom-up, egalitarian, democratic, socialist relationships. The anarchist/syndicalist project cannot be reduced to an organising style, protest politics or spontaneism: for it, transition to a just, self-managed society requires organised popular capacity for a revolutionary rupture, developed through prefigurative, class-based, democratic organs of counter-power, including syndicalist unions aiming at collectivised property, and revolutionary counter-culture. Success needs formal organisation, unified strategy and anarchist / syndicalist political organisations.
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South Africa has a long-established independent left, outside the big traditions of nationalism and Marxism-Leninism. Post-apartheid its fortunes have varied considerably, as space opened up for ...movements to the left of the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party, but opportunities declined as the state increased its legitimacy, penetration of civil society, and systems of patronage. This paper looks at cooperation, competition and convergence on the independent left, with particular reference to independent Marxists (mainly the well-established Trotskyist tradition) and revolutionary anarchists and syndicalists (a movement that revived in the 1990s). These intersections have taken place in study groups, popular education, student struggles, and post-apartheid social movements and unions, and indicate the vitality and fragility of the independent left, and the ongoing importance of cooperation and overlaps, as well as of long-standing divisions over theory and strategy. Particular attention is paid to Keep Left, the Socialist Group, the Democratic Socialist Movement, and the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front.
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