The ACN will be attending as many bookfairs as we can. So far we are confirmed at Sheffield and Bradford. Unfortunately we cannot make the Weston Super Mare one.
Sheffield:
Weston Super Mare
Following the success of the first radical bookfair in WSM, we have set a date to co-host again with the wonderful team at North Somerset LGBT+ Forum on Sunday 12th Feb, 11am to 4pm.
The war in Ukraine continues with all the negative consequences for much of the world. However, acts of desertion and draft evasion also continue, which, if widespread, could lead to the end of the war. Anarchists from the Central European region are therefore publishing this call to organise active support for deserters. Wherever we live, let us make every other day a day of international working-class solidarity and resistance against the war. Let us organise in workplaces, schools and streets to strengthen the influence of desertions. Let us fight for dignified conditions for all who refuse to serve as a cannon fodder in the inter-imperialist war.
At least 200,000 people are fleeing Russia to escape Putin’s military mobilisation, and tens of thousands more are avoiding mobilisation in Ukraine. Yet some voices claim that “the number of deserters is so negligible that it is strange to even begin to talk about it.” These cynical attempts to “make invisible” people who choose not to serve in the army, to defect or to emigrate for political reasons, must be opposed. Their voices must be heard and practical help must be given. Anti-war speeches do not yet have the subversive power needed to stop the war, which is why it is necessary to create conditions that make it easier for other people considering a desertion to move from reflection to action. It is not a question of standing on the front line between the tanks of both armies and thinking that this will make the soldiers lay down their arms. It is about achieving the conditions at the international level that ensure that deserters can safely defect and live in another country without a risk of prosecution and social stigmatisation.
At present, opponents of the war in Russia and Ukraine have almost nowhere to go. They are trapped between national borders by their ‘own’ governments, while neighbouring countries refuse to accept them and provide them with decent material conditions. If people’s choices remain limited to the options of ‘either being forced to serve in the army or face persecution’, we can hardly expect an increase in desertions. It is necessary to achieve the opening of borders not only for civilian refugees, but also for deserters from the armies on both sides of the war line. This is precisely what can significantly weaken the dynamics of war.
But this will never be done by negotiation with the various governments which are only the local minions of the world capital state, nor will it be done by a social-democratic call to “make concessions in the area of migration policy”. Our only weapon for us, the proletarians, is the class struggle, it is the mobilization in the streets, it is the sabotage of the economy, and it is the direct action against permanent war… It is then, and only then, that the frightened ruling class is forced to let go, which will never constitute for us the goal of the struggle but only a moment from which new offensives must be carried out against the whole of this world of misery and war…
After all, the proclamations of politicians criticising the aggression of the Russian army are an expression of hypocrisy whereas they refuse to share material conditions and resources with people who refuse to serve in the army. And besides, why and how would they act otherwise, these worthy representatives of the bourgeois order!? It is necessary to stand consistently against Putin’s aggressors, as well as against the statesmen of other countries who, through their own policies, allow the army to retain its war potential. It is the governments of the countries in which we live that effectively make it more difficult to desert, and thereby they contribute to the continuation of the war.
Those who are concerned about saving lives should be thinking about how to weaken the fighting capacity of armies, how to get soldiers off the front lines, how to get them to disobey, how to motivate them to use their weapons against those who force them to go to war. Let us think about this and organise direct actions that will turn these considerations into concrete results.
SOME ANARCHISTS FROM THE CENTRAL EUROPEAN REGION (NOVEMBER 2022)
As 2022 comes to an end we celebrate the founding of our organisation. In just 4 months we have come together and formed an amazing network which while small has produced a lot of articles, 2 pamphlets as well as our newsletter Rebel Rose. We have attended demo’s, pickets and held our founding conference (in December 2022):
Below is a report of our founding conference and the subsequent Aims and Principles (for our full constitution please see the associated page).
Here is to growing and carrying on our revolutionary role.
AnarCom Network Founding Conference
The outbreak of war in the nuclear capitalist heartlands; the climate catastrophes of the last year; the unfolding consequent barbarism of total hunger and destruction, and the resurgent global struggle of our class has added urgency to our challenges as revolutionists.
Last summer, a group of us started discussions on how a new network could better contribute to the wave of resistance we as workers were already involved in. From this came the idea of the AnarCom Network and our discussions to develop it.
Unfortunately delayed due to climate and righteously reconfigured due to striker’s militancy, the conference’s inaugural meeting to establish it took place online on December 18th, 2022.
Our aim was to create a structurally flexible network around a concise and coherent set of agreed revolutionary principles we would define as Anarchist Communist.
A flexible network to enable comrades from other traditions, local groups and non-aligned to manage their route to engagement with us.
Coherent because lessons from centuries of revolutionary class struggle are not open to endless debate or unlearning with fleeting fads or expedience.
Anarchist Communist because our consensus lies firmly within this tradition while recognising members bring their own rich experience from the traditions of other anarchist movements, council, left and libertarian communism.
Our aims and principles were formulated and discussed ahead of the conference and unanimously ratified at it.
Aims and Principles:
1. We are committed to the class struggle and liberation through our own collective action and organisation.
2. It follows that we reject the state, political parties and leaders of every persuasion. All are the source of our organised repression and subjugation.
3. We therefore oppose parliamentary democracy and the sham of elections as a deliberate deception to paralyse and subdue working class choice and action. The idea that the ballot box makes us equal, that the banker and the beggar somehow share power in the voting booth is a spectacular deception.
4. It follows that in refusing hierarchy and power, we reject the god concept and religion. While hope, faith and spirituality are humanistic qualities, their organised manipulation is not. We seek a truly human community free from delusion or fantasy.
5. We recognise the importance of the trade union movement in defending working people whilst acknowledging their inability to be the organisations capable of ridding society of the scourge of capitalism. It follows that we are opposed to the action-limiting role of trade unionism and its Labour establishment.
6. The capitalist class divides and exploits us internationally. Consequently, we must struggle for its overthrow through resistance and solidarity across the globe. It follows that we reject illusory ‘national’ solutions and the concept of national liberation.
7. We refuse to play along with reformism, cross class alliances, fronts and collaboration that seek ultimately to divide our class and dilute our struggle.
8. We do not shy away from confrontation and support the right of working people to defend themselves. We also know that individual acts of violence- under any banner – cannot destroy the social relationship we fight against; capitalism. The fight against capitalism and for a liberated society is founded on organisation, education and agitation.
9. Our struggle is both practical and urgent. The generation that may witness our extinction is probably here. We face a binary choice of capitalism’s war against us in all its forms, or its revolutionary abolition. War or Revolution!
10. We are revolutionary internationalists. We reject sectarianism and work for principled cooperation with other class struggle revolutionary activists, groups and Internationals at home and abroad.
AnarCom members today (24/12/22) joined the CWU (Royal Mail) picket line at the Wellington Road Sorting Office in Leeds.
We handed out our picket line stickers – which everyone took and they were really appreciative of our support.
We talked to the pickets who told us that at this office that support for the strike is still strong with only 2 scabs (along with a few agency staff) out of 70 in total working.
We were also told that the Armley, Leeds Office (Tong Road) it is a different picture with only 10 out 30 staff supporting the strike, and with the union rep resigning and becoming a scab.
Elsewhere in Leeds the strike is solid with very few scabbing.
A picket talked to a couple of agency staff explaining why it was wrong for them cross the picket line and that it was undermining the strike. They did say they understand and apologised but still went into work.
This is the last official strike day as the workers now legally have to be balloted again, the expectation is they will again overwhelmingly vote to strike.
Manchester:
RMT Picket Line Manchester
An AnarCom RMT member attended the December picket on the Piccadilly Approach to Manchester’s principal train station which also houses both Northern Rail and one of the largest Network Rail centres in the country.
Around 80 people attended bringing together a range of workers from disparate sections of the transport sector many of whom were new to each other, lacking opportunities outside of the strike to meet.
The atmosphere was celebratory with lots of support expressed by other workers and passers-by, including the local high street chain coffee shop that provided free refreshments to the picket throughout the day. The public clearly knows which side it’s on! Solidarity was warmly shared and new friendships made.
A festival of freedom from the daily grind of wage labour!
Two things are mounting, strikes by the score and blame by the shit shovel. Two things are being hidden, the extent and scale of resistance and where the responsibility lies.
A while ago we said it wouldn’t be long until the striking public will be derided as the enemy within. Perhaps it’s come sooner and more vociferously than we expected, as many workers, once hypocritically praised as heroes of the frontline of a pandemic created by capitalism have been moved from the category of ‘good’ workers to bad ones, inconveniencing the Covid exhausted public.
This despite the evidence that the more than a million days taken back so far in the current strike wave demonstrate how interwoven the ‘public’ and the ‘strikers’ are. Whilst strikes are increasing, many are actually deliberately being unreported as most mainstream news agencies are either ignoring all but a few “main” ones, while some, including the BBC as well as the right-wing press, are trying their hardest to turn the public against the strikes and strikers.
The press is concentrating on “pay deals” and how “reasonable” the pay offers have been in these times of financial crisis. They are forgetting that the vast majority of strikes are also about conditions, safety and cuts. As Reuters News Agency has reported:
“Workers across a range of sectors have gone on strike in recent months, from rail workers to teachers, postal staff to lawyers, as inflation, which hit a 41-year high of 11.1% in October, squeezes household budgets.
The responsibility for the conditions forcing workers to give up pay by withdrawing their labour lies squarely on the shoulders of the state – its anti working-class ideology practiced through its financiers and policy makers. The government chooses rather than address hardship and distress, to face down every worker behind a screen of lies and defamations.
The nurse and the postie are traitors “..doing just what Putin wants”; the train driver and station guard are “..stealing Christmas”; ambulance staff are ‘bullying the vulnerable’, while firefighters, baggage handlers and the rest of us are “…holding the country to ransom”. One comrade from the RMT has even reported to us unsolicited contact from his team suggesting he is “lower middle class” and on the wrong side!
Some smaller, mostly private sector disputes, have been resolved, but the government has so far refused to budge on public sector pay and is instead looking to tighten the already draconian anti labour laws to make it harder for those in key sectors to strike”. Backing this with the rushed training up of military personnel under operation MACA (Military Assistance to the Civil Authority) to cross picket lines and break strikes
Strikes we are so far aware of (taken from various sources) include:
• RMT – rail workers
• RCN – Nurses
• CWU – postal workers
• Unite – Shelter staff
• PCS – Driving Schools
• UCU – University
• Unison University support staff
• Ambulance staff
• Baggage handlers
• National Highways staff
• Bus drivers (various places)
• Teachers
• Paramedics
• Physios, Midwives and Junior Doctors being balloted
• FBU – Fire services looking to ballot
• GMB – Energy workers
• Teachers (in Scotland) in England looking at balloting
We know this list to be far from exhaustive and expanding, reaching, according to the Office of National Statistics, over 400,000 strike days in the last month alone.
The government by refusing or sabotaging negotiations while changing the law and bringing in the army is working from the 1984 playbook of the miner’s Strike, choosing the sledgehammer to crack the nut. In doing so, the myth of consensus and liberal democracy is blown. They know the importance of defeating working class resistance to their wealth and power, we need to match this realisation too!
If anyone is emulating Putin, it is the government cronies of the capitalist state, banking on the long winter and worsening conditions of life to cause despair and break morale. Anyone who doubts their capacity need look no further than its barbaric treatment of refugees, turning the channel into a Berlin Wall and threatening Indefinite detention in camps of concentration formerly known as Pontin’s.
Meanwhile, Belarus is preparing for war under pressure from their paymaster Putin. Capitalism has its eyes on the prize in the Ukraine war and whilst alleging all our woes are down to Russia, they continue their expansionist planning in the east. Their war there is being waged necessarily against us here first. The more we fight to win here, the more they risk losing abroad. We are their enemy within and we should prepare for more lies, more repression and escalation of our resistance.
On Saturday a handful of no-mark fascists tried to hold an anti-refugee protest at the Britannia hotel in Seacroft Leeds. They met at the Cricketer’s Arms in Seacroft (which turned out to be shut) before waddling over to the hotel with a makeshift banner.
Despite what has been claimed elsewhere, 8-10 miserable looking fash stood in the rain with a banner, protected by the police. No one took any note of them, and they went as quick as they came. Pointless action all round.
There was another group of anti-fascists in attendance. They had the chance to engage the fascist no-marks (being the much larger group) but instead opted to hide in bushes for 20 minutes until the police arrived.
We acknowledge the work of other groups in attendance, and support the fact they mobilised. But we do question why there was a ‘squad photo’ taken, and a write-up/report put out that didn’t represent what happened in any clear or factual way.
We also question what the point is in mobilising a “squad” if you’re just going to stand on a bridge and talk to the police? Posturing isn’t going to put mobilisations of fascists off. We have seen that elsewhere with left-wing groups who poster & shout, but never confront.
We were passed the info on the day by a member of the public and only managed to get a couple of people into the area at short notice to observe. Had the other anti-fascist group approached us in advance, or shared the intel with FLAF, we would have happily backed them up.
On this day, 9 December 1842, revolutionary, scientist, and philosopher Peter Kropotkin was born in Russia. He later abandoned his aristocratic background in favour of the working-class struggle.
He participated in the 1917 Russian revolution, and wrote numerous influential works, including Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution. In this work he criticised interpretations of the ideas of Charles Darwin which focused on competition, and highlighted instances of cooperation in the natural world. “If we … ask Nature: ‘who are the fittest: those who are continually at war with each other, or those who support one another?’ we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development of intelligence and bodily organisation.”
These ideas continue to be influential today. Evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote of Kropotkin: “I would hold that Kropotkin’s basic argument is correct. Struggle does occur in many modes, and some lead to cooperation among members of a species as the best pathway to advantage for individuals. If Kropotkin overemphasised mutual aid, most Darwinians in Western Europe had exaggerated competition just as strongly. If Kropotkin drew inappropriate hope for social reform from his concept of nature, other Darwinians had erred just as firmly (and for motives that most of us would now decry) in justifying imperial conquest, racism, and oppression of industrial workers as the harsh outcome of natural selection in the competitive mode.”
Kropotkin’s ideas were central in the theoretical foundation of contemporary anarchist communism.
Considering the announcement by Sunak and the apparent support of Starmer regarding restricting and even outlawing certain strikes, calling it a war on the “public” we reproduce this text from the Angry Workers and Health Workers United leaflet on the upcoming NHS strike action.
Inflation is running at 14%, the current pay ‘increase’ by the government is a severe pay cut and the announced increase for 2023 is only 2%. This means more NHS colleagues will leave the job, and staffing shortages will get worse. it’s time to get real!
We haven’t fought in a long time. Apart from the junior doctors there hasn’t been a bigger strike in the NHS for 30 years.
Who has the experience to organise the struggle? A successful struggle needs united action by workers on different bands, in different trusts, in different unions.
If we look at what has been happening in the last month we can see that the unions won’t be able to organise this unity. So, what’s been happening?
After pressure, the Scottish government decided to increase the annual wage by £2,200, compared to £1,400 in England. Given the inflation rate, this would still be a real pay cut. members of most unions refused this pay ‘increase’ and voted for industrial action. Unison officials ignored this, negotiated a lower increase for band 5 and above and recommended that members accept the offer, while the other big union, the RCN, recommended to refuse. In the ambulance service, the GMB and Unite did not coordinate their strike action so as to strike on the same day.
In the end most unions in Scotland called off industrial action and pushed members into yet another ballot. In England, the RCN called for strikes on the 15th and 20th of December, but decided that not all members who voted for strike will actually join. Unison didn’t manage to mobilise more than 40% of their own members to vote and failed to meet the legal threshold in most trusts. Sending emails and calling individual members at home is not enough to create the collective spirit necessary to organise a strike – none of us saw any visible pay rallies in and outside hospitals in the run up to the vote. The government must be happy that the unions keep workers apart like this.
So, what should we do?
We need open & independent assemblies, we need independent and open assemblies in each hospital or department, open to all workers, regardless of profession or union membership, to discuss how this struggle should be organised. In France in the early 90s, health workers managed to coordinate assemblies like this on a national level – before WhatsApp or the internet. Let’s turn the RCN pickets in mid-December into assemblies or organise them independently if necessary.
At the assembly we can take stock of which wards and departments are present and make sure we invite delegates from those that are absent. We can discuss concrete demands and different actions to enforce them, from overtime boycott, work-to-rule, to strike. We can discuss whether to put pressure on the unions to back our decisions or to go it alone. We could figure out how to coordinate with assemblies in other trusts.
During recent hospital strikes in Germany, we could see how strong a strike can be if delegates from each ward coordinate the struggle together. As a result of the strikes, workers now get a day off for every five shifts that have been understaffed. Strikes in hospitals are tricky, but they can be effective without putting lives at risk. There are other ways to put pressure on the government. If thousands of NHS workers would support the current strikes at royal mail, universities, railways and food factories by blockading sorting offices, station entrances or factory gates, the government would be in trouble. In Argentina, health workers and teachers blockaded main roads to oil fields and tourist resorts to cause financial losses for the government. By doing so, they managed to enforce a massive pay increase.
These are bold actions. It won’t be easy, and there will be plenty of people trying to dampen down any kind of boldness and initiative. But we, as NHS workers, need to be clear what would be necessary to actually win, rather than settle for some crappy deal.
In the bigger picture we see that more strikes are happening, from universities to railways to the postal services. These strikes are a chance to come together across sectors and discuss what we, as workers, can do to change the current social atmosphere of doom.
Are the current strikes powerful enough to defend our wages against inflation and attacks like ‘fire and re-hire’?
We often see that strikes by different unions and sectors are not coordinated and end up being isolated. We often see that the unions’ fear to break the strict strike laws make our struggle less effective. We often see that fellow workers get frustrated, because the decisions of how to organise the strike are made not by the strikers, but by the union leaders. We need to reflect on these questions together and independently, as most organisations have their own interest when it comes to strikes. They only want to recruit us as members or voters. They don’t have an interest in us understanding and leading our own struggles.
But it is not all about wages. The law tells us that ‘political strikes’ are illegal. They want to keep us in a box. As workers we are supposed to only care about our bread and butter. But as ‘essential workers’ in health, transport, food production or manufacturing, we know how society is run and we have the potential power, knowledge and togetherness to change it for the better.
The current moment is dangerous. We see an escalating global crisis. The fight over markets turns into wars, the climate crisis looms. The scary thing is that we are in a mess not mainly because powerful and rich people have an interest in keeping things as they are. The scary thing is that even those who we see as powerful, from politicians to big corporations, are not in control of the situation. This society is run in such a fractured way – disjointed by millions of separated companies, government departments, local and national markets, wobbling on fluctuating share and currency values – that no one can claim to be in control.
The chaotic reactions to the pandemic, to global supply-chain issues and climate change prove this.
But the current moment is full of hope. We, as so-called ‘essential’ workers, know how to run things and could do it much better if we would not have to deal with profit margins and management hierarchies. The current strikes are also a chance to discover this potential. we have the social responsibility to take control of the means to produce our lives and wrest them away from this system that no one controls.
If everyone would work only for socially useful purposes, we could all work much less and have time to learn and enjoy our lives. In the end this is a question of power: Who owns and controls the stuff that we use to produce the conditions for life? If we can lead and coordinate effective strikes, do we use this new power to challenge those who claim to make decisions for us? The current strikes put this question on the table and put a spotlight on our responsibility as workers for the future of society.
Health Workers United – who we are?
We are NHS healthcare workers who want to be able to tell it like it is. We’re not the voice of any political party or trade union we are local health workers. check out our blog: www.healthworkersunited.wordpress.com
These are new times that force us all to learn together. write to us and tell us your thoughts and what is happening at your workplace. we will publish reports anonymously on our blog.
…it’s not me, it’s you. It really is you, I just hadn’t gotten around yet to letting you know.
This may feel like it’s come out of the blue, but I’ve been rethinking our relationship for some time now. I think it may have always been better for you than it was for me, I guess I just felt I had to go along with it.
Yes, I admit, in terms of satisfaction I was mostly faking it. To be blunt, I don’t feel you’ve ever been interested in meeting my needs. Frankly, you’re a little selfish. It’s all take take take with you.
Date nights were always a strange affair. ‘One to One’s’ as you called them. You pretended it was about us, you even said once how much you appreciated me, whilst somehow managing to let me know I was never quite good enough. I was never enough for you – there was a third party in our relationship. You let slip their initials once, H.R. as I recall.
Did you ever listen to my worries or interests like I listened to yours? Oh I know you’re always under pressure but why is that my problem? When I told you I didn’t like getting up early, had a headache or just didn’t feel like it today you made it all about me. That’s gaslighting and began making me think.
And then I remember that time you made me do that course, as if ‘Performance Management’ would ever be my choice. Theatre’s not my thing, and if there’s anyone here acting out, it’s you. At times, to put it bluntly, you can be pretty passive aggressive! No, a right tosser actually. There, I said it and I’m glad!
It pisses you off that I’ve never heard of the KPI’s or the Targets, and I don’t care how many records of theirs you have, it’s just another example of how little we’ve got in common, despite what you said and how nice you seemed when we first met. But thinking of it, I had just left school and probably didn’t know better.
I realise now you were probably grooming me. I should have known when you approached me online, I mean, who does that! I assumed you wanted to play when you asked if I was up for a challenge. I should never have listened to that person at the Job Centre, I think they may have put you up to it, but you knew what to say and what you were doing.
The final straw is when you cut my house-keeping and still expected me to be grateful! Now I just feel cold, not just towards you, but just cold. The flame has gone out and I can’t afford to replace it.
I told my friends down at the ‘Prole & Picket’. They said I should leave you, that I look bored and have done for some time. I know they’re right, they know me so much better than you.
I’m not interested in your overtime, just time to get one over on you. Oh, and by the way, you can keep your records collection, maybe H.R. would like them! But I’ve had enough of dancing to your tunes, I gave already!
AnarCom Network 