Since the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC), has been on the frontline in supporting those imprisoned for struggling for freedom and liberty. Until recently, the history of the ABC movement has been lost to the pages of time. The present generation of ABC collectives were left rootless with little known information about this organization. Now, specific questions regarding our origin can now be put to rest. We have now begun to rediscover our roots.

The year of origin has been a nagging question regarding the history of the Anarchist Black Cross, also known as the Anarchist Red Cross (ARC). According to Rudolph Rocker, once the treasurer for the Anarchist Red Cross in London, the organization was founded during the “hectic period between 1900 and 1905.” Despite his involvement in the early stages, we do not feel these dates are very accurate. According to Harry Weinstein, one of the two men who began the organization, it began after his arrest in July or August of 1906. Once released, Weinstein and others provided clothing to anarchists sentenced to exile in Siberia. This was the early stages of the ARC. Weinstein continued his efforts in Russia until his arrival in New York in May of 1907. Once he arrived, he helped to create the New York Anarchist Red Cross.

Other accounts place the year origin in 1907. During June and August of 1907, Anarchists and Socialist Revolutionaries gather together in London for two conferences. It is believed that Vera Figner, a Socialist Revolutionary, met with Anarchists to discuss the plight of the political prisoners in Russia. After this meeting, the Anarchist Red Cross organized in London and in New York. In addition to this information, we do know that members of the organization were on trial in 1906-1907 in Russia. Therefore, we feel the most accurate date of origin for the Anarchist Red Cross would be late 1906- early 1907 for the Russia section; June or August 1907 for the creation of the International section.

However, the reason for the creation of the Anarchist Red Cross is not in dispute. It was formed after breaking away from the Political Red Cross (PRC). The PRC was controlled by the Social Democrats and refused to provide support to Anarchist and Social Revolutionary Political Prisoners, despite continued donations from other Anarchists and Social Revolutionaries. As one former Political Prisoner and member of the Anarchist Red Cross stated,”In some prisons there was little distinction made between Anarchists and other Political Prisoners, but in others Anarchists were refused any help.” The newly formed ARC considered these actions criminal and vowed that any prison where Anarchists were in the majority, the ARC would provide support to all Anarchist and Social Revolutionaries Political Prisoners.

Because of their support for Political Prisoners, members of the group were arrested, tortured and killed by the Tsarist regime. The organization was deemed illegal and membership was reason enough for arrest and imprisonment in Artvisky Prison, one of the worst hard labour jails in Siberia. ARC members and prisoners who managed to escape from prison fled from Russia creating chapters in London, New York, Chicago and other cities in Europe and North America.

The 1917 Revolution caused a celebration throughout the Socialist, Anarchist, and Communists communities. The ARC liquidated and members began to make plans to return to Russia in hopes of participating in the new society. Sadly, their return was met by Bolsheviks repression, similar to that of the Tsarist era. After a few years of hibernation, the group was forced to resurface to assist the Political Prisoners in the new Bolshevik society. Once again the organization was made illegal and membership meant imprisonment and/or death.

During the Russian Civil War, the ARC’s name changed to the Anarchist Black Cross to avoid confusion with the International Red Cross, also organizing relief in the country. It was also during this period that the organization organized self-defense units against political raids by the Cossack and Red armies.

During the next seven decades the group has continued under various different names but has always considered itself part of the Anarchist Red Cross/Anarchist Black Cross formation. ABC’s support for Political Prisoners spread to the four corners of the globe. What was once a typically Russian-Jewish organization now had many faces and ethnicities.

In the 80’s, the ABC began to grow and new ABC groups began to emerge in North America. In the United States, the ABC name had been kept alive by a number of completely autonomous groups scattered throughout the country and had grown to sup¬port a wide variety of prison issues. Today, there exist chapters of the ABC spread all across the world.

[www.abcf.net]

Look upon the “Popular Action Movement” (PAM) as being the New State. Unlike the current State this new state would be us, the people ourselves, organised. There should be no State that stands above the people and governs them: for the state must in fact be the people. There should be no departments and ministries. There will have to be people doing specific jobs at specific times, but this does not mean that there will need to be an administration; in fact, we must eliminate administration and management. In other words, we are not describing a protest movement here. Nor are we describing a political party. Thus the programme becomes: How do we provide goods and services for ourselves? How do we want to control the ownership of private and capital property? Do we want to outlaw interpersonal exploitation? We have to get used to thinking as a free people rather than as petitioners who beg the state for crumbs here-and-there. We are interested neither in begging the state to look after us nor in voting for which people will look after us. It is necessary that we get used to being free and having to figure out how to run society for ourselves. We will figure these things out in the process of doing them.

For some time now, in fact for longer than many care to admit, but especially for the last ten years and intensifying over the past four or five years, there has been a marked concentration?of wealth in the hands of very few people. Entities referred to as Corporations are drawing the wealth of society into themselves. This concentration of wealth has been accompanied?by very little actual wealth creation with the result that most people have been getting poorer while a few people have been getting much richer.

Where is this wealth coming from and where is it pooling? In general wealth is flowing away from wage and salary earners and towards people who are deemed to own capital. The situation is more nuanced than this of course. Corporate financial entities are gaining control over most of the wealth and the people who control these financial corporations are directing the use of this wealth. In other words there is a group or class of people who work for wages and salaries and a group or class of people who control and direct the wealth that is created. (There are also people who partake of both aspects and also those who fall beneath the entire process.) The two sets or classes of people mentioned first thus have an antagonistic relationship with each other and have different interests. The people controlling the wealth understand these things. Most of the people being stripped of their wealth don’t. Most of those being stripped of their wealth don’t want to understand these things. In fact, many working people don’t even want to be considered working people, and in spite of every sign of a shrinking personal and social wage, deny that this drift of wealth away from themselves is happening. Many people who acknowledge that it is happening claim that this drift of wealth into the hands of transnational bankster cartels is a good thing. Or others claim that nothing can be done about it: we can work to overcome the worst of the consequences but the process itself is?untouchable and unstoppable (the NDP line).

Although most people know and understand, very few will acknowledge that the concentration of wealth in the hands of the very rich is a political decision, agreed to and supported by all of the major parties in Canada, and in fact does not have to be happening. Let me repeat: the impoverishment of working people is actively (actively!) sought by all of the major parties (Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Bloc) in Canada. The mass media support the impoverishment of working people. Most of the supporters of the impoverishment of working people don’t claim to be supporters of this policy. The supporters of the concentration of wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer and fewer people mainly pretend that it is not happening, or that it has to happen, or even that it is a good thing.

[...]

Let’s return our gaze to capital stripping the state. This process is quite far advanced in the United States of America. The National Debt continues to rise. The interest on the National Debt for the month of June 2006 was US$ 98,255,216,240.82. There will come a time when they can’t even afford the interest on the debt. It is our contention that the system in the U.S. of A. will be destroyed by the forces of Capitalism itself. Capitalism is beset by periodic crises of overproduction which lead to crises of unemployment. These crises are chronicled; we know when they happened, the events leading up to them, the severity and the duration etc. At the time that this document was originally written, everyone was predicting an oncoming serious recession or depression. We are currently in the midst of the predicted depression. Unfortunately, the current depression will not destroy the current system; it will take two more downturns in the economy, each one more severe than the previous, to destroy this system. In other words we are three downturns away from the end of the system. One will happen almost immediately and two more will occur with eight to twelve years between them. As State services terminate chaos will develop.

This is where PAM: The New State comes in. There has never been a situation where poor people have made a Revolution to overthrow rich people. That is a romantic fantasy. A Revolution occurs when the Rich and Powerful do not control the State: for example, the English Revolution 1642 – 1649, the French Revolution 1789 – 1793, the U.S. Revolution 1776 – 1783. The other time a Revolution can occur is when the State ceases to function owing to general collapse of State Institutions: for example Russia 1917 – 1919, China 1924 – 1949. (At present there are several Revolutions going on in remote areas of the world where there is no effective State presence). We are building the Popular Action Movement now, so that it can be an organised force when the Institutions of State Power dissolve sometime between 2020 and 2050.

From The Manual: A Brief What, Why, and How of the Popular Action Movement: Part 1 - Social Revolution (SR)
[sorev.wordpress.com]

By Wayne Price

Coming out of capitalism, Marx believed, it is not possible to immediately create “a more advanced phase of communist society”. A “dictatorship of the proletariat” will be needed during a transitional period – usually interpreted as a new state. Many anarchists have argued that it is possible to go immediately into a fully communist economy. The post-revolutionary society would begin with a technology of immense productivity, an end to capitalist waste, and an expanded productive force. Potentially modern technology is so productive that it could provide everyone with a high standard of living while requiring a small amount of the total social labour.

The reported view of Bakunin leads to a third position: that of an experimental economy. The capitalists will be expropriated and the economy will be some from of cooperative, collectivized, and democratically managed by those who work in it. But exactly how this will work out may not be the same at every time and place.

Different communities, regions, or nations might try out various models of anti-authoritarian socialism, adapted to their conditions. One such model is the free-communist economy. Everyone works, not for money but because they like to keep active and productive, or because they feel responsible, or because they do not want to be called “lazy bums”. People might take turns doing the dirtiest jobs. Consumption of plentiful goods is free; people take what they want from the shelves. Scarce goods have to be rationed.

Parecon is a proposed system of “decentralized socialist planning” or “participatory economics”. Local consumer councils would list their wants. So would factory councils, listing what materials they need for production. The factory councils would state what they could produce. This would be helped by the fact that the consumers and producers are ultimately the same people. Eventually a plan would be developed, without any central planning bureaucracy.

We could imagine a society which “pays” people for their work, while gradually increasing the free-communist sector of their economy. Even under capitalism, most roads, public schools, libraries, fire protection, and public water are “free” – that is, communally paid for and available to all. A socialist society might expand this “free” sector, providing basic food, clothing, and shelter for all regardless of work.

An alternate model might be called “decentralized market socialism.” There would be a market, regulated by communal authorities, but big corporations or state enterprises would not be allowed. There is to be no exploitation; workers do not sell their labour power to bosses. Instead, the economy would consist of worker-run businesses (producer cooperatives), consumer cooperatives, small businesses, craft shops, community-owned enterprises and family farms.

I am neither advocating or opposing any of these models. I have preferences, for anything which moves towards anarchist-communism, but I do not know which is best. Under the right circumstances, any of them may work. Following a revolution, I hope that different regions would try particular models, becoming social experiments from which the world can learn. I am proposing that, instead of seeing revolutionary society as “transitional”, it should be seen as an “experimental society”. It would always be in transition.

From The Abolition of the State: Anarchist and Marxist Perspectives.

By The Fool on the Hill

I am responding to a couple of items in the March Iconoclast -Issue 20. These items reflect a perception of the Left that I can’t agree with. Anarchists especially have identified with non-authoritarian, highly democratic structures.

First in the editor’s note (pg 1) is stated that one problem compounding the inability of the anarchists to “get behind a common platform” has been “the historical predisposition of the so-called ‘leftist’ governments towards totalitarianism.” This might be forgiven if the term ‘so-called’ were emphasized. Instead this image is then reinforced by Neon Trotsky by saying that “the majority of states that have proclaimed … leftist governance have been heavily state-controlled and state-centralized.” (pg 4-Rethinking the Left)

If ‘the Left’ is understood to include ‘Bolshevism’, then I would dissociate with that Left. In my opinion, Lenin was one of the greatest enemies of socialism. Even long before Lenin, Bakunin warned about the ‘Red Bureaucracy’ that would institute “the worst of all despotic governments.” The brutal and tyrannical Bolshevik system was as much ‘socialist’ as it was ‘democratic’. It claimed to be both. The latter claim was ridiculed in the West, while the former was eagerly accepted, as a weapon against socialism.

Murray Bookchin identifies social anarchism with the “left”, by which he refers to the “great tradition of human solidarity and a belief in the potentiality for humanness,” internationalism and confederalism, anti-militarism, and rational secularism. Social anarchism aims for “free association of people living together and cooperating in free communities.”

The question of conquest or destruction of state power is what Bakunin regarded as the primary issue dividing him from Marx. In one form or another, this has persisted ever since, dividing ‘libertarian’ from ‘authoritarian’ socialists.

Editor:
Bakunin’s dire warning of a “Red Bureaucracy” emerged from his criticism of MARX during the First International. The fact that his warnings were validated by the emergence of the Bolsheviks suggests that the Soviet government had its roots in classical Marxism (hence, the Left). there is nothing inherent in socialism that says it has to be democratic.