THE BENEFITS OF NON-CLASS STRUGGLE
ANARCHISM TO THE MOVEMENT AS A WHOLE
The author of the
excerpt below is unknown to me. I would
be very appreciative to be apprised of the author's identity.
Revolution is a process ever going.
Like a river it flows; changing shape, altering its course, sometimes slowing
down, sometimes becoming a rapid. At times we lose
sight of it behind the dogma of some ideology or another. But it can never be
stopped. Since the first slave said 'no', since the first people rose up against
the tyrants, since the concept of Freedom was formed, the Revolution has always
been there. As a comrade wrote to me, "Revolution is a process, not an
historical event". The nature of the Revolution stems from the forces
it encounters, the aspirations of those within it, and the strength of the
reaction. If it can progress unrestrained, then it is likely to be peaceful.
The ends will never justify the means, they are inextricably bound together and
what better way is there of taking someone's freedom than by killing them.
Violence is the basis upon which government stands, and as such it is the
counter Revolution. From the writings of Kropotkin up
to Colin Ward there have been attempts to hi-light points in existing society
where the river may flow - worker co-ops, food co-ops, alternative welfare and
education, and countless examples of how order is spontaneous, and springs up
from the very act, and point of association itself: "What kept us together
was our work, our mutual interdependencies in this work, our factual interests
in one gigantic problem with its many specialist ramifications. I had not
solicited co-workers. They had come of themselves. They remained, or they left
when the work no longer held them. We had not formed a political group, or worked
out a programme of action...Each one had made his
contribution according to his interests in the work...There are, then objective
biological work functions capable of regulating human co-operation. Exemplary
work organises its forms of functioning organically
and spontaneously, even though only gradually, gropingly and often making
mistakes. In contra-distinction, the political organisations,
with their 'campaigns' and 'platforms' proceed without any connection with the
tasks and problems of daily life".
Like the fishermen in Brixham, or the miners in Durham or Brora,
Scotland, workers co-operatives provide small, rare examples of how a task
provides its own point of association, and provides the associates with a
focus, that transcends any necessity for coercive pressure. In short, the act
of society provides its own order internally, whereas all ' governments attempt
to impose it externally, stifling and smothering the social instinct. These
examples exist in modern society. They are not memories of an age before the
nation-state, but are modern facts. Paul Goodman once described anarchism as
both conservative and radical, for we must attempt to conserve those places
where liberty may be developed in full, as well as create new ones. Gustav Landaur also wrote along the same lines "The state is
not something which can be destroyed by a revolution, it is a condition of
human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other
relationships, by behaving differently". Even, according to the film
'Michael Collins', the Irish Republican leader Eamon
de Valera spoke along the same lines by claiming
roughly that "We defeat the British Government by ignoring it".*
* Also see: reference to Etienne de
La Boétie in PROPHET OF COMMUNITY by Eugene Lunn, pg. 296.
Of
course, that which is said in the passage above about the British government is
applicable to any and all governments that stand above the populace, which is
considered the governed.
Doreen
Ellen Bell-Dotan,