by Thadeaus Fri Aug 12, 2005 04:02 NYC

The title of the article "The state of the anarchist movement in the USA and Canada" is a little misleading. The anarchist movement in the USA and Canada is for the most part not mentioned, the only parts of it which are mentioned are the anarchist groups structured as federations. These two federations make up a small portion of the anarchist movement and cover small geographical areas of the country. The only account the piece makes to explain what the state of these two federations is "struggling. " That is it one word, despite the fact that the author claims to be a member of one.

Perhaps the reason federations are disbanding rather than proliferating or growing lager is because they are in one word uninspiring. Also Crimethinc., Infoshop.org, Anarchy Mag, and Green Anarchy are not groups as the author claims. Crimethinc. is a publisher like Autonomedia and AK Press, and one which inspires many people in North America who relate to their publications. Infoshop.org is an online anarchist hub, best known for it's daily updated news section. Anarchy Mag, or Anarchy a Journal of Desire Armed is a "post left" magazine. Green anarchy or green anarchism is a variety of anarchism which includes those who question technology and primitivists. There is a magazine of the same name based out of Eugene Oregon.

by Andrew - Anarkismo Fri Aug 12, 2005 16:47

The title is actually something I choose when adding this article to the site as its more descriptive for an international readership than the original. This is an article about the anarchist movement in North America even if as you suggest it is only a discussion of one part of the movement - the author doesn't seem to see much relevance in the other parts.

I'm not sure what way you are using the word groups above but Crimethinc., Infoshop.org, Anarchy Mag, and Green Anarchy as I understand it are all projects that involve more than one person. So while for instance Crimethinc does indeed publish it is also a group - the two are not exclusive.

These are both side issues through in the context of the article itself which is a call for a 'mobilized, active, and educated milieu of revolutionaries'. That call is something that addresses the movement as a whole rather than just the federations - at least I presume that is why 'milieu' is used.

I find the conclusion of the article a little odd - that is we'd "better be damned sure we aren't leading them to certain failure, defeat, slaughter, and repression". The current federations are tiny - I'd guess their combined membership to be at best about one person in every million people living in the US and Canada. I can't see how a movement that size could lead anyone to 'defeat, slaughter, and repression'.

If things went well it will be decades before the anarchist movement is in a position to take the state on (for good or bad) with the possible consequences suggested in the article. And the movement that did so will have grown so much and learned so much in comparison with what currently exists that the idea that the current movement could be responsible for such future events makes little sense.

A perspective that recognises this seems to be non-existant in almost all forms of anarchism in the US. That is there exists a general (and quite rhetorical) call for revolution on the level of the long term. Then in the short term there are various projects and involvement in struggles. But there appears to be no proposal as to what happens in the medium term. This presents a big difficulty because it means there is nothing to gauge progress against apart from recruitment or print runs. And there are no goals beyond immediate ones - is anyone organising towards a five year goal for instance?

by Thadeaus Fri Aug 12, 2005 21:44 NYC

One could also talk about a group called the Black Bloc, but in reality no one is a member of the Black Bloc, as nobody is a member of Crimethinc., Infoshop.org, Anarchy Mag, or Green Anarchy. I believe that your guess as to the combined membership of the two groups mentioned is on the high side. I don't know how many people are part of either organization but in NYC (which is the largest city in the North East) the North Eastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists (NEFAC) collective consists of three people. It's fine if the author only thinks that anarcho-communist federations are relevant to anarchist organizing, but one shouldn't mislead their readers and claim to be reporting on the state of an entire anarchist movement in a large part of a continent.

by oliver - capital terminus Sat Aug 13, 2005 01:47

CrimethInc, Infoshop.org, Anarchy Mag, and Green Anarchy have no members eh?

Who makes decisions for them?

(and doesn't the answer actually raise a lot of critiques of, for instance, Crimethinc's critiques of democratic organizations like NEFAC and NAF, where it is clearly defined how you can join and be an equal part of the decision making process?)

Anyhoo, to cite NEFAC in NYC isn't exactly a scientific approach to figuring out NEFACs influence (and anyways, security wise i always cringe when people cite numbers - on the net or off). NEFAC NYC is widely known to be the smallest branch of NEFAC.

As far as your estimations Andrew, thats probably loosely correct for those two organizations, but anarchist-communists and class struggle anarchists exist in far greater numbers in an unorganized fashion (clearly a problem); There is also the Southern California anarchist federation, the Furious Five collective, us (CTC), and the remaining ex-FRAC collectives, as well as WSA, the ABCF, and a few others (such as the Missouri Prisoners Labor Union). So overall our size is a lot larger than your estimate. (And this is all excluding Mexico).

The problem is how to wield it. Us class-struggle anarchists need to bring ourselves together if we're gonna have any lasting effect and we need to do it while we have lots of momentum.

by lucas - NAF Sat Aug 13, 2005 10:21

the part that touches on 'leading people to slaughter and repression', i think in my interpretation is more addressing the issue of responsible organizing. There are those anarchists, for example, who think it is fine to go into poor neighborhood and advocate rioting as a revolutionary tactic, even though rioting gets more people killed than problems solved or demands met.

White RCP members show up black anti-police brutality protests, try to get people to fight the cops, and then ditch. this is another example of irresponsible organizing.

then again, looking at numbers is deceptive. one well-equipped organizer can wield more influence over a group of people than a mob of thirty insurrectionary anarchists. there is a relationship between organizer and organized, revolutionary and masses, that changes the equation. our question in figuring out how to bridge the gap between being a revolutionary organizer who organizes people and being a revolutionary organizer who empowers people to organize and fight- a thin line between vangaurdism and revolutionary struggle. look at the relationship and numbers of the CNT and the FAI. look at the relationship of the central organizers of the CGT in france back in the day, or even the BPP. BPP maybe had 10,000 members at their peak, yet they wielded mass influence. Dont expect anarchist federations to bloom into millions upon millions of members, that simply unrealistic and not really our strategy.

NYC is NEFAC's smallest and oldest (everyone is 40 plus)branch. this is not really reflective of NEFAC as an organization.

by andrew Sat Aug 13, 2005 11:38

Thanks Lucas for the clarification - I'd presumed from the context that you were talking of the repercussions of an anarchist communist organisation arguing for a revolution - it makes a lot more sense in relation to insurrectionism

On the issue of mass membership I have to disagree. Revolutionrary situations tend to come to fruition very quickly - unless you have mass organisations of revolutionaries before this happens they end up being dominated by social democracy or 'coup' based leninism (where a small organisation manages to take positions of leadership)In the USA right now an imagined revolutionary crisis would probably end up with Nader in the driving seat as there is no sizeable left whatsoever but his presidental attempts have given him the national exposure to end up there.

In the context of US and Canada your probably talking of a need for 3-4 million revolutionaries before the situation ripens. That 1% has some hope of making the arguments and having the experience to initate succesful self- management experiements - this can't be done by organisations that only organise one in a million.

This is a very simplistic summary of a much longer article as I have to go get a train. I'll return to it during the week if I've time

by Mitch Sat Aug 13, 2005 17:12 wsany at hotmail dot com

Lucas writes:

"NYC is NEFAC's smallest and oldest (everyone is 40 plus)branch. this is not really reflective of NEFAC as an organization."

Full disclosure: I'm 50.

Ok, I'm sure that the NEFAC comrades might address the particulars on their own. But what I found striking about this comment is the seperation of age, group size and the implied inability to advance ideas (or share experiances).

Building a movement that is effective will be quite mixed, with all "shapes and sizes" being a part of it. Young and old, experianced and inexperianced.

One thing that impressed me many years ago while I was at a conference in Paris, was the multi-generational aspect of the Spanish and French comrades. Here were grandparent, parent and their offspring militants. Some only had memories and experiance. Others has piss and vinigor. Inspiring to see that mix and inspiring to see that "the idea" carried from generation to generation.

I think one thing some folks of my generation lacked was that link between generations and between experiances. In NYC we were lucky enough to have old timers who retained both their idealism and revolutionary zeal. Some of these folks were a real treasure trove of information and, from time to time, inspiration.

I guess the point is regardless of the size of a group or their age, they can play an equally important role in development and overall organization building.

by Kim Keyser - Anarkismo Sat Aug 13, 2005 23:08

I was supposed to do this right now, but you got ahead of me.

Full disclosure: I´m currently 22.

I also had positive experiences and learned much from people that´s both younger and older than me.

by nestor - FdCA (pers.cap.) Sun Aug 14, 2005 11:14

I have to admit I too got the impression that the comment about NEFAC-NYC implied "small, old, therefore unlikely to do much or grow much". Hell, FdCA has members ranging from 18 to 80 (literally)! I know 60-year-olds that are 10 times more active than 20-yr-olds.

by Chekov Sun Aug 14, 2005 22:52

I understand where he is coming from. In the US at the moment the anarchist movement is heavily dominated by younger folk. If all of your membership in an area is much older than the bulk of the rest of the movement it just makes it that bit more difficult to appear relevant and like something that they should join. It would be the same if all your members were substantially younger than the movement around them.

by Jered - Firebrand/NAF (personal Capcity) Sun Aug 14, 2005 23:43

To quickly make a comment about pauls article, i think his point is that the organized anarchist movement in the U.S. and Canada needs to continue to build itself internally as revolutionary organizers. Without doing this, are organizing will either be irrelevant to the social movements or we will be influencing them in a negative way. We need to continue to develop our praxis through trial and error, theory, and just sticking to the organizing we are doing and making damn sure we are being reflective and critical of our organizing.

About the age issue. Like in any situation, we will always be benefited by a diversity in age. This will always allow for the conglomerated abilties to produce a better organization.

I think alot of younger anarchists sometimes feel like they have been left with an ideal and little direct assiatance by more expericed comrades. Yet perhaps this is a unique situation to the US/Canada...

Personally, i was always fond of the old model of having feeder organizations that were for younger anarchists, eg. youth organizations, that trained the new generation to participate in the larger organization. Yet, in the US/Canada, we are in no way large enough for this to work.

Another way i think that would help bridge the age gap is to have more experienced comrades take on younger, less experienced comrades as apprenentcies. I think this would stop the problem of not having development programs for less experienced comrades and thus having alot of frustration over how to organize when you are just starting out in the anarchist movement.

Oh, and to clarify my age, I am 19.

In Struggle and Solidarity,
Jered

by lucas - naf Mon Aug 15, 2005 06:13

im 20 years of age, and in my time i've dealt with alot of static/dogmatic anarchists who are old. my major issue is that alot of older anarchists who've been involved for years upon years feel like they own this shit, and that they are the only ones doing it the right way. and then they bitch because the movement is never growing, mostly as a result of the ineffectiveness of their organizing methods, but put down everyone who tries something new.

in the IWW this dynamic has been particularly strong. the IWW remained small for such a long time but is finally breaking out of the ice age. the IWW's growth is happening simultaneously with older laborite activists in the wobs losing influence.

sorry to be bitter, buts thats just my experience.

by Mitch Tue Aug 16, 2005 06:03 wsany at hotmail dot com

Thanks lucas for your comments.

"im 20 years of age, and in my time i've dealt with alot of static/dogmatic anarchists who are old. my major issue is that alot of older anarchists who've been involved for years upon years feel like they own this shit, and that they are the only ones doing it the right way. "

I can't address the particulars of your situation, but I can try and address some of the impressions. In fact, I'm sure the older comrades you refer probably felt the same way when they were younger, if they had some older comardes around them.

I am a firm believer that every generation tries to reinvent the wheel and that can be frustrating. By the same token each generation faces new challenges and this often gets lost.

While I do not agree with, say, the black block, I will say that it played a role in exposing "anarchism" to a wider audience than many of the daily grind activities that workplace militants are involved with. So this has been a positive aspect of what this generation has brought to contemporary anarchism.

Conversely, I suspect, milutants of my generation want to see more than "flash in the pan" events and more long term "daily grind" efforts. More efforts that are aimed at building stable revolutionary organizations that grow from a multiplicity of activies.

So, as with everything, there's a push and a pull. A push to try "new things" and a pull to continue with the old. The toughest organizational question is how to build a bridge incorporating different efforts and different generations. Often times tough indeed. But I supose if we can respect each others efforts and work in common on particular issues and build bonds of respect then notions about "age" we can make some progress. It is a two way street.

The one thing I always liked about the now deceased anarchists Sam & Esther Dolgoff, were their encouragement. Even if Sam & Esther absolutely disagreed with you, they would shrug their shoulders and still offer encouragement with, say, the overall project.

From them I can say that they made an effort to bridge the ideological divide from one generation to another. That is, to pass along the important ideas; the encouragement to build anarchism; to educate others; to be constructive and to organize around a firm set of principles.

They were very giving of their time, their ideas, their experiances and their hopes.
No question Sam could be dogmatic in a debate, but he never turned a comrade away
in their effort to learn about the past and about anarchist communism and anarcho syndicalism.

So in that spirit, those of us who act as the bridge between our generation and others need to do so in a way that is both encouraging and principled.

by MaRK - NEFAC Tue Aug 16, 2005 17:39

I'm still relatively young (29), but I have about 15 years worth of anarchist activity under my belt, so in "North American anarchist years" I guess I am a crusty old man.

When I first got interested in anarchism it was initially through the anarcho-punk subculture, and my politics were basically alot of class anger dressed up in crude anarcho slogans. Then I joined the Anarchist Youth Federation, which had some informal with Love & Rage at the time. It wasn't until I started to develop a relationship with older, more experienced militants (from Love & Rage, Black Rose, etc.) through my participation in AYF that I got exposed to both a more solid anarchist theoretical grounding (I poured over alot the "classics" that people would lend me), and also a much richer culture of debate and sense of tradition.

I am really grateful for being exposed to an older generation of anarchists while my ideas were still forming, which obviously played a huge role in shaping my politics of today. But I agree with Lucas that, on the whole, this kind of culture does not really exist anymore, at least not in the US. But there are still pockets of "old timers" around who are more than willing to work with younger people and pass on experience and knowledge (Mitch being a great example) and I think it is important for those of us from the newer generation of anarchists to seek them out, engage them, and try and apply some of their experiences and insight to our organizing.

Cheers,
----MaRK

by lucas - NAF Tue Aug 16, 2005 22:04

I'm not saying all my experiences with old anarcho folk were bad. The mentor that taught me the basics of community organizing was 50 somethin'.

but in many other experiences, old folk have been very hesitant to get out there and act (not in a "riot-black bloc" sense, in a "organize/educate" sense), and i have gotten alot of discouragement from older comrades, based more on their dogmatic politics than on having a logical reason.

as for reinventing the wheel, well, every generation is different and if it takes re-inventing the wheel to communicate to the poor youth of our generation, than so be it.

in my original comment about NEFAC-NYC, what i was trying to get at was simply that older comrades dont necessarily know how to communicate with the younger generations and can potentially be very stifling. a divirsity of ages is good, for experience sake, but a concentration of older folks suggests to people on the outside that the ideas of anarchism are dying out and not relevent to the youth.