Anarchist Groups Research Articles

Rhetorical Situations and the Straits of Inappropriateness: Teaching Feminist Activism

This essay argues that the rhetorical strategies of radical activist groups can complicate our theoretical understanding of rhetorical situation. It first examines the textual practices of the Situationist International (SI), a group of French anarchists who in the 1950s and 1960s purported to make accessible to non-elites modernist experimentation in art, literature, architecture, and urban design. It then describes and reflects on what happens when these practices are utilized in a women's studies classroom with an explicit activist orientation.

Cai Hesen: A Provincial Scholar becomes a Young Radical

LIYAN LIU 84 CAI HESEN: A PROVINCIAL SCHOLAR BECOMES A YOUNG RADICAL LIYAN LIU, GEORGETOWN COLLEGE In the 1910s, Cai Hesen (蔡和森 1895-1931), Mao Zedong (毛澤東 1893-1976), and many other important Communist leaders were educated at the Hunan First Normal School (湖南第一師範學校 Hunan diyi shifan xuexiao) in Changsha, the capital city of Hunan province. Their schooling there shaped them profoundly. It was a period of political upheaval and intellectual ferment, and a “modernized” school system had supplanted the traditional Chinese educational system that had been centered on the classical and had been directed toward the civil service examinations. At First Normal, those students who would become so crucial in China’s history underwent an intellectual transformation. As Stephen C. Averill notes, the new schools provided multi-channeled networks , which were major transmission routes and staging areas for spreading new concepts and movements out of China’s major cities. Study societies formed the essential interfaces through which these ideas and energies were “operationalized” and translated into concrete political action.1 For Cai and his friends, the national moral crisis, and the new knowledge and new ideas they acquired, made them consciously and seriously question established ways. Many became cultural iconoclasts and then communists as a result of the sharp differences between the two worlds, home and school, past and present. In particular, many of those students at the First Normal who took an active role in the May Fourth Movement as members of the New Citizens Study Society (新民學會 Xinmin xuehui) eventually became the founders, principal ideologues, and activists of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Such actions confirm Averill’s argument that urban study societies served as incubators for anarchist groups and the early CCP in the late 1910s and 1920s.2 Contextualizing the education at First Normal into the larger changing circumstances of China shows the distinctiveness of this particular school. It shaped the students’ thoughts and mindsets and contributed to their intellectual transformation in the first decade of the twentieth century. In general, much of the school’s curriculum had followed the standard early-Republican curriculum, with extensive Chineselanguage classes, moral cultivation classes, and physical education. However, First I am indebted to Lindsey Apple and James Klotter for their thoughtful remarks and editing, and wish particularly to thank Professor Klotter who read several drafts of the paper and raised invaluable questions. I am also grateful to Dai Zuocai and Sun Hailin who helped me gain access to relevant materials at archives in Hunan. Special thanks go to Xiaoping Cong, Robert Culp, and Christopher A. Reed for their insightful comments and suggestions. 1 Stephen C. Averill, “The Cultural Politics of Local Education in Early Twentieth Century China,” in this issue, 32. 2 Ibid., 33. Volume 32, No. 2 TWENTIETH-CENTURY CHINA 85 Normal reformed that curriculum to suit its own needs and added some more distinctive features. For instance, it allowed students to pick moral exemplars from among their peers and it held regular essay-writing contests. Cai Hesen was greatly influenced by First Normal, especially by his mentor, Yang Changji (楊昌濟 1871-1920). Under Yang’s influence, Cai became an idealist. He encouraged Cai to attend the meetings of the Chuanshan Association (船山學社 Chuanshan xueshe), whose members studied, discussed, absorbed, and selected the most useful parts of traditional Chinese learning. As directed by Yang, Cai became a serious reader of the most radical and Westernized journal, New Youth (新青年 Xin Qingnian). In such ways, Cai acquired at First Normal the foundation of his worldly knowledge and his political ideas. Like Mao, Cai was prepared for his transformation by his training at First Normal and the May Fourth activities in the New Citizens Study Society. In fact, Cai personifies what Hunan First Normal School meant to those who attended, and to the China that they eventually crafted. His life provides a detailed example of the intellectual transformation of his fellow students and supplements the better-known example of Mao. An examination of Cai Hesen’s thought and mindset at First Normal, and his eventual ideological transformation, tells much about the era and those it shaped, and who, in turn, would shape modern China. One of the first Chinese Marxists and apparently the first Chinese to...

Anarchy Is Order

Anarchy Is Order

Anarchism, environmentalism, and anti-globalisation

While anarchism has never enjoyed the authority of the major ideologies, this paper contends that it has had considerable influence in shaping the modern political landscape. The paper explores anarchism's participation in the environmental and anti–globalisation movements, where its influence is most prominent. It first examines how anarchism was reconceptualised into green anarchism. It then traces green anarchism's participation in the anti–globalisation movement in the 1990s and beyond, where it coalesces with other anarchist groups. The paper highlights the paradox of an anarchist revival fuelled by the very technologies that underpin the globalised capitalism that many anarchists decry.

THREAT ASSESSMENTS AND RADICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM

Recent claims that Radical Environmentalists are becoming increasingly likely to deploy weapons of mass death are characterized by a selective reading of the facts, a failure to apprehend significant differences among radical groups, and injudicious speculation. A more careful analysis of the likelihood of violence emerging from radical environmentalist, animal rights, and green anarchist groups requires an analysis of the differences that characterize these groups as well as their intersections. Such an analysis suggests that among these three groups, only green anarchism can provide a possible ideological rationale for the use of weapons of mass death, but even in this case, there are many reasons to doubt they will utilize such tactics.

Reshaping Social Movement Media for a New Millennium

This article contextualizes Indymedia, the Internet-based network of Independent Media Centres (IMCs) that has developed since the 30 November protests in Seattle against the World Trade Organization talks there in 1999. In a short space of time this network has become the backbone of communication for the broad coalition of groups that comprise the anti-capitalism movement. Context is sought from three perspectives: first, through a consideration of new social movement use of the Internet as a radical, socio-technical paradigm to challenge the dominant, neoliberal and technologically determinist model of information and communication technologies (ICTs). This perspective is approached through Paschal Preston's recent work on ICTs in late modernity ('Reshaping Communications: Technology, Information and Social Change', London: Sage, 2001). Second, the article regards Indymedia as the most current manifestation of radical Internet use. It examines the (inevitably) brief history of such use, exploring examples of praxis by anarchist groups, the Zapatistas and factions of the anti-capitalism movement, and assesses Indymedia's place in this history. Finally, the nature and value of Indymedia are assessed using the theoretical tools afforded by recent alternative media scholarship (Atton 2002: 'Alternative Media', London: Sage; and Downing 2001: 'Radical Media: Rebellious Communications and Social Movements', Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage): in particular, Indymedia is examined in terms of its organization, its socio-politics and its news cultures.

From “La Mujer Esclava” to “La Mujer Limón”: Anarchism and the Politics of Sexuality in Early-Twentieth-Century Chile

From “La Mujer Esclava” to “La Mujer Limón”: Anarchism and the Politics of Sexuality in Early-Twentieth-Century Chile

The may 1973 terrorist attack at Milan police HQ: Anarchist ‘propaganda of the deed’ or ‘false‐flag’ provocation?

Between 1968 and 1974 Italy was subjected to an unusually virulent campaign of right‐wing terrorism and subversion. An illustrative episode associated with this so‐called ‘strategy of tension’, which was characterized by the systematic use of covert ‘false flag’ operations, was the 17 May 1973 grenade attack outside Milan police headquarters that resulted in four dead and over 40 injured. Although the perpetrator, Gianfranco Bertoli, claimed to be an ‘individualist anarchist’ and had in fact established contacts with certain anarchist and leftist groups, subsequent judicial investigations revealed that he had been an informant and infiltrator for the Italian military intelligence service, that he had long maintained links with various anti‐communist and neo‐fascist organizations, and that he apparently received ‘cover’ and some type of logistical support prior to the attack from one or more ‘international secret services’. Although many aspects of the crime still remain murky, in all probability Bertoli w...

The German communists in disarray

The early 1990s find German communism in the throes of a crisis. Only the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), which no longer defines itself as communist, but as a left‐wing socialist party, is of any political relevance as an electoral and parliamentary force. The German Communist Party (DKP), which did not merge with the PDS after Germany was united, has been badly battered by the collapse of communism in the GDR and is an almost irrelevant political factor. Other splinter groups and sects such as Trotskyist, anarchist and autonomist groups are isolated and of no political influence. The unsuccessful August 1991 coup d'etat in the Soviet Union, as well as Gorbachev's move to dissolve the CPSU, took the German communists by surprise and called their own existence into question.

Idéologie et sémantique : Le vocabulaire politique des anarchistes russes

Michael Confino, Ideology and semantics: the political vocabulary of the Russian anarchists. This article deals with the formation of the political terminology (and of the specific jargon) of the Russian anarchists as expressed in their publications and in their everyday discourse and utterances (speeches, lectures, private letters). This distinctive anarchist terminology was shaped by two main factors: first, by the need of words and terms (of a "language") different from those of their nearest political and ideological adversaries, that is - in the present case - the left in general and the revolutionary groupings in particular. The continuous debate with the Marxists and the Russian Social Democrats (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks alike) was one of the sources for the formation of an important and significant set of terms reflecting, at one and the same time, the ideological differences between the two movements, and the strong disdain of the anarchists for "state socialists" and all brands of "authoritarian socialism". Another area which generated an original and interesting constellation of terms and buzzwords was the terrorist action and the "expropriations" (eksy). Finally, the study examines the widespread use of war metaphors in the writings and everyday speech of the anarchists, a linguistic phenomenon rather surprising and paradoxical in a political milieu so strongly committed to combat all and any kind of militarism. Throughout the article an attempt has been made, whenever possible, to translate the Russian anarchists' terms and jargon words, by French equivalents used during the same period in the anarchist groups in France.

Pierre Kropotkine et les agents de l'Ohrana [Étude suivie de treize lettres inédites de P. Kropotkine à M. Goldsmith et à un groupe anarchiste russe

Michael Confino, Peter Kropotkin and the agents of the Okhrana. A study and thirteen unpublished letters of P. Kropotkin to M. Goldsmith and to a Russian anarchist group. This article deals with two sets of closely interrelated subjects. The first includes the attitudes and activities of the Okhrana towards Russian anarchist groups abroad in general, and P. Kropotkin in particular. In this portion of the study are examined the techniques of shadowing ("external surveillance"), letters' interception (perliustraciia) , the reports of the secret agents infiltrated in the anarchist groups ("internal surveillance"), as well as the collaboration between the Okhrana and the police organizations of other European states, whether within the framework of the "Anti-anarchist International," or outside of it. One of the conclusions that emerges from this analysis is the remarkably wide scope of the Okhrana1 s activity in this area, and the impressive amount of information which it was capable to collect on P. Kropotkin and on the anarchist groups. The second part of the article is a discussion of P. Kropotkin's attitude, on the one hand, towards this activity of the Political Police and its use of secret agents ("agents provocateurs") in the revolutionary movement, and, on the other hand, towards the infiltration of informants into the Okhrana by revolutionary organizations. In this context are examined several historical types of events such as degaevščina , azefščina, and bogrovščina, as well as the less notorious cases of N. Kletočnikov, N. Pauli and A. Petrov. Kropotkin had been following directly (as a member of "courts of honor") and indirectly (through his contacts with Vladimir Burcev) these occurrences which were shakening time and again the Russian revolutionary movement. His views on these tactics and techniques give an opportunity for a reassessment of several important aspects of the movement's action, such as political efficiency, revolutionary ethics, and the perennial dilemma of "ends and means." The article is followed by thirteen unpublished letters of P. Kropotkin, which focus on most of the topics discussed.

The New Socialist Movement in Quebec: A Report

During the past few years there has appeared in Quebec a significant network of progressive individuals and groups who have been groping towards the creation of some form of independantiste and democratic socialist political movement separate from the Parti Quebecois, the New Democratic Party and the Communist Party, on one hand, and from the marxist-leninist, the trotskyist and the anarchist groups on the other.

Kropotkine en 1914 : la guerre et les congrès manqués des anarchistes russes [Lettres inédites de Pierre Kropotkine à Marie Goldsmith, 11 janvier-31 décembre 1914

Michael Confino, Kropotkine in 1914: the war and the abortive congresses of Russian anarchists. Unpublished letters of P. Kropotkine to Marie Goldsmith. January 11-December 31, 1914. This publication comprises 14 letters of P. Kropotkine written in 1914 and an introduction to these documents, dealing with the two major problems roused by these letters (and which were also the most important questions on the agenda of the Russian anarchist movement ) . The first problem is that of the unification of the movement. The article describes the convocation and the development of the First unification Conference of Russian anarchists abroad (Paris, December 28, 1913-January 1, 1914) and analyzes its debates, its decisions and the profile of its composition. This conference took the decision to summon a Congress of anarchist groups abroad and a general Congress of the Russian anarchist movement. Both Congresses were to be held in August 1914 and did not take place because of the beginning of the war. The secondary questions that have been dealt with are: organization of the movement, presence of the Okhrana agents within the groups and the part played by them, relations between the federations, etc. The second problem is that of the attitude towards militarism and the war, more especially that of Kropotkine. In the light of these documents a new explanation of his position is suggested, and another interpretation of the motives that had incited him to adopt, in August 1914, a "defensist" line, different from that of the majority in the anarchist movement. Finally, the article as a whole proves, implicitely and explicitely, that the year 1914 was critical and tragic for the Russian anarchist movement. The year starts in the midst of enthusiasm and hope, and finishes in an atmosphere of pessimism due to dissensions provoked by war.

Age and Correlation of the Kobau Group, Mount Kobau, British Columbia

The Kobau Group, found in south-central British Columbia, consists of highly deformed, low-grade metamorphic rocks derived from a succession of sedimentary and basic volcanic rocks of pre-Cretaceous, likely post-Devonian age. Deformation began in Carboniferous times and recurred with decreasing intensity up to the Tertiary Period. Possible correlative successions are found surrounding Mount Kobau. These include possibly late Paleozoic formations west and northwest of Mount Kobau, the Carboniferous to Permian Anarchist Group found south of the 49th parallel and east of the Okanagan Valley, the pre-Upper Triassic, possibly Mississippian Chapperon Group west of Vernon, and parts of the Shuswap Metamorphic Complex east of the Okanagan Valley. Prior to deposition of the Kobau Group, part of the Shuswap Complex was subjected to deformation, presumably in mid-Paleozoic time.

Anarchists in Britain Today

IN 1965 IT WAS POSSIBLE FOR THE AUTHOR OF AN ARTICLE ON THE anarchists in Britain to begin by observing that anarchists no longer figured in the popular consciousness and that the existence of anarchists could occasion as much polite surprise as the continued existence of the Independent Labour Party. This present article and its inclusion in a special issue on Anarchism is perhaps in part a proof that this situation is no longer true, and that anarchism has recently attracted sufficient attention to justify a new and closer look at anarchists in Britain today. It would hardly be rash to argue that whatever else may be true of the Left in Britain in 1970, the anarchists’ presence deserves to provoke much less polite surprise than it may have done five years ago.This article is not, however, a description of the shape and variety of anarchists and anarchist groups to be found in Britain today. It is rather an attempt to describe one particular facet of anarchist thought which has characterized anarchism in the 1960s and to relate this to the ‘anarchhation’ of the New Left described by James Joll in his concluding article. It is to that extent an extrapolation and abstraction from a very wide range of alternatives and undoubtedly presents a picture which many anarchists would not recognize or would repudiate.

Toward a New Understanding of Anarchism

America, not one. Toward the end of the first quarter of the present century it became accepted practice for political scientists to draw a hard and fast distinction between anarchism and anarchist communism or collectivism on the grounds that the former did not embrace violence whereas the later did. Thus in 1926 Charles E. Merriam maintained that anarchist groups in the United States may be divided into the philosophical and the fighting anarchists, one believing in the attainment of anarchy by the peaceful processes of evolution and the other by the employment of force and by revolution.' A few years later Westel W. Willoughby gave support to Merriam's definition when he maintained that the anarchist is to be distinguished from the anarchist of deed or of action on the grounds that the former believes that anarchism must be established by the peaceful processes of persuasion and enlightenment, whereas the latter does not believe that society will naturally evolve toward its perfection without the assistance of the revolutionary act.2 This neat but misleading dichotomy has dogged the anarchist movement ever since with the persistence of a shadow. But a careful study of anarchist theory reveals that the division of anarchist ideas into two separate categories on the basis of whether or not violence is considered a legitimate social means is not a valid distinction.

Anarchism and Individual Terrorism

A significant aspect of anarchism, which brings it close to Russian nihilism and in the minds of some people is responsible for the erroneous identification of the two, is individual terrorism. Individual acts of violence, known especially in the last century as “propaganda by deed,” have been regarded by some anarchists as part and parcel of the over-all revolutionary activity which is to culminate in the overthrow of the existing social system by acts of mass violence. There were and are anarchists of different schools opposed to violence as a means towards the establishment of an anarchist society, and they include not only religious anarchists like Leo Tolstoy and individualists like Benjamin Tucker, but also many of those who at one time or another could be classed as anarchist communists, for instance, Francisco Ferrer, Louisa S. Bevington, and Gustav Landauer. The so-called philosophical anarchists are also opposed to violence, if by them are meant people who believe in the possibility or at least the desirability of realizing the ideals of anarchism but do not accept the usual anarchist analysis of the existing system or the methods generally advocated by anarchist groups for the achievement of anarchism. Thus Godwin, Tolstoy, and Tucker, could be included in this group, and among our contemporaries Bertrand Russell.In the present century anarchists have almost ceased in theory and practice to view individual terrorism as important. Violent acts have been usually perpetrated by people who had practically no significance as thinkers and writers. Alexander Berkman is probably the only notable exception here, while men like Kropotkin, fortunately for anarchism, propagated anarchist ideas by the written and spoken word rather than by “deed.”