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The myth of 1648: class, geopolitics, and the making of modern international relations - Benno Teschke
This work presents a myth-busting account of how class conflict and economic development, and not only interstate rivalry, led to the emergence of the modern state system.
Inspired by the groundbreaking historical work of Robert Brenner, Teschke argues that property relations provide the key to unlocking the changing meaning of 'international' across the medieval, early modern and modern periods.
A truly first-rate piece of work … he completely demolishes a reigning consensus. Robert BrennerBolsheviks shooting anarchists - Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman
Letter from Emma Goldman and Alex Berkman written to warn workers of the persecution of revolutionaries in Russia by the Bolsheviks, originally published in Freedom in 1922.
We have just received the following letter from our comrades Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who are now stranded in Stockholm. This letter gives us the truth about the terrible persecution of Anarchists in Russia.
We have just received the following letter from our comrades Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who are now stranded in Stockholm. This letter gives us the truth about the terrible persecution of Anarchists in Russia54 - Wu Ming
1954. Hollywood actors, cold warriors, mobsters, drug dealers and homing pigeons. What will Yugoslavian president Tito do, now that Joe Stalin is dead? What is the hidden link between Lucky Luciano in his Italian exile, Cary Grant in schizophrenic combat with himself and a stolen TV set which turns out to be self-conscious and sensitive to boot? So far, the most ambitious Wu Ming collective novel.
GI revolts: The breakdown of the US army in Vietnam - Richard Boyle
Two stories of revolts by US troops, including the shooting of a top sergeant and the mutiny of Bravo Company at Firebase Pace near Cambodia, written by Richard Boyle, a war correspondent who spent three tours in Vietnam.
The Vietnam War was one of the least popular in American history. It was also the least “popular” with the GI’s who were sent to fight it. By the late 1960’s, news of GI unrest was being carried on TV and in newspapers around the country and Vietnam vets were speaking at anti-war demonstrations.
The Vietnam War was one of the least popular in American history. It was also the least “popular” with the GI’s who were sent to fight it. By the late 1960’s, news of GI unrest was being carried on TV and in newspapers around the country and Vietnam vets were speaking at anti-war demonstrations.I am an anarchist - Lucy Parsons
American anarchist Lucy Parsons writes on what it means to be an anarchist in 1913.
I am an anarchist. I suppose you came here, the most of you, to see what a real, live anarchist looked like. I suppose some of you expected to see me with a bomb in one hand and a flaming torch in the other, but are disappointed in seeing neither. If such has been your ideas regarding an anarchist, you deserved to be disappointed. Anarchists are peaceable, law abiding people.
I am an anarchist. I suppose you came here, the most of you, to see what Ia real, live anarchist looked like. I suppose some of you expected to see me with a bomb in one hand and a flaming torch in the other, but are disappointed in seeing neither.NUT Executive votes against strike action in March
NUT executive votes against strike action in March despite accelerated attacks on education
The National Union of Teachers Executive Committee today voted 22-20 against strike action in March. An initial date of 13 March had been expected.
This total disavowal of the rank and file by union 'leaders' will come as no surprise to most of us, but that makes it no less contemptible.Requiem for a campaign
An organizer's overview of an ended Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) campaign in the Twin Cities.
Oftentimes as workplace organizers, we have a difficult time admitting our mistakes. We are driven and strong-willed, and though these attributes often aid us in the struggle, they can also hold us back from self-reflection and acknowledgment of our flaws. As Wobblies, how do we cope with the realization that our entire campaign was perhaps a mistake from the start?
"I wouldn't want my anarchist friends to be in charge of a nuclear power station": David Harvey, anarchism, and tightly-coupled systems
An industry-specific response to David Harvey's popular claim that anarchists can neither run nor combat 'tightly-coupled systems', specifically nuclear power plants and air-traffic control. This paper is examines the the former and critiques Harvey's understanding of how such systems meet anarchist theory and practice, arguing that hierarchy does not make such systems safer or more efficient - quite the contrary.
Quote:The big problems arise, however, when you seek and try to ask yourself the question how can the international division of labour be so orchestrated so that all of us have enough to eat and reasonable material need are met and that - right now that is organized, of course, partially through command and control structures of corporate capital and partly through market engagements and when you Groups that rule out all forms of hierarchy thereby give up on any prospect whatsoever for democratic response not only to the problem of the global commons but also to the problem of continous capital accumulation. David Harvey - The Enigma of capital and the crisis of time (2010)
‘Fighting for ourselves: Anarcho-syndicalism and the class struggle' review
Collective Action's review of Solidarity Federation's recently published book 'Fighting for Ourselves: Anarcho-syndicalism and the class struggle'.
Fighting For Ourselves: Anarcho-Syndicalism and the Class Struggle (from this point on referred to as FFO) is an important contribution to existing introductory anarchist works and an essential read for those aiming to familiarise themselves with both historical and contemporary anarcho-syndicalist thought and practice.
FFO, however, as a work of anarchist theory falls short of expectations and misses a number of opportunities to answer more robustly the challenges facing revolutionary organisations in the 21st century as well as longstanding criticisms of the authors’ own tradition. Collective ActionThe freedom of the press - George Orwell
George Orwell's original preface to Animal Farm about unofficial censorship of the press in the UK, a supposedly "democratic" country. In a shocking bit of Orwellian irony, this preface is unofficially censored from almost all print editions of the book.
This book was first thought of, so far as the central idea goes, in 1937, but was not written down until about the end of 1943.
Down and out in Paris and London - George Orwell
Tramping memoirs from Orwell, where he worked in Paris as a dishwasher and then travelled around London, going from one bedsit to another.
O scathful harm, condition of poverte! - Chauser
I
The Rue du Coq d’Or, Paris, seven in the morning. A succession of furious, choking yells from the street. Madame Monce, who kept the little hotel opposite mine, had come out on to the pavement to address a lodger on the third floor. Her bare feet were stuck into sabots and her grey hair was streaming down.
Animal Farm, a fairy story - George Orwell
Erroneously considered a damning of collectivism, Orwell's allegorical fantasy is a critique of the Bolshevist and Stalinist regimes set on a farm as animals attempt to create a society.
Chapter I
1984 - George Orwell
A world with constant surveillance, perpetual war and a militarised police state, George Orwell's most famous novel was a warning against totalitarian governments, all the more relevant now then when it was written.
PART ONE
Chapter 1
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.
Guilt, choice, and responsibility in the austerity kitchen
Some thoughts on low-income cooking, health, guilt, and the punishment of the poor.
Food has always been characterised with angst, guilt, and worry for me. As a teenager I was dangerously underweight and tried to remedy this by stuffing my face with processed food, fizzy drinks, cakes and chocolate, in the hope that I'd develop a body shape other than that of an etoilated ten year old. I mostly just passed out a lot after the sugar rush had plummeted away.
Whichever angle you look at it from, the neoliberal shit sandwhich of choice, personal responsibility, and the ability to eat your way out of poverty and illness is laden with moral judgements about the shopping habits of the poorOn prisons, screws – and their unions
An attempt to sketch out my attitude as an anarchist towards the prison system. Why do we oppose them? Why does our solidarity go to the jailed over their jailers? How do we view the role of trade unions such as the Prison Officers Association?
Outsourcing and privatisation is a big part of the government's austerity agenda. Under this banner the drive, going back to the opening of HMP Wolds in 1992, to privatise the prison system in the UK has accelerated.
Rethinking sex and gender - Christine Delphy
Christine Delphy on the social construction of sex, gender, hierarchy and division.
- 1. An earlier version of this article, Tenser le genre: Quels problemes? ’, appeared in Marie-Claude Hurtig et al. (Eds) Sexe et genre: de la hierarchie entre les sexes, 1991, Paris, Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. The present version was translated (by Diana Leonard) and appeared first in 1993 in Women’s Studies International Forum, 16(1), pp. 1-9.
Greek anarchists on anarchist movement in Greece
Last weekend in the largest show of strength in over a decade thousands of anarchists marched to protest against the violent eviction of the squats of Villa Amalias and Skaramagka and Patision Sts in Athens and also the very repressive climate that police and state have created the last months in Greece.
Below is an interview with one of the largest anarchist groups in Greece- the Anti-Authoritarian Movement (AK) in relation to the present political and social climate in Greece, the threat posed by the far-right and of course the work of the anarchist movement.
Can you provide some background regarding the current crisis and austerity programme in Greece and how it is affecting the working class?



