Anarchism at the Working Class Movement Library
In this blog post, researcher and writer Seth Wheeler explores the history of anarchist movements through the collections at the Working Class Movement Library.
Anarchism has exerted an important, albeit often marginalised role, throughout the history and activity of the global communist and working-class movement(s).
While anarchism can be used to signify several distinct, and often contradictory tendencies (including communist, syndicalist, individualist, illegalist, green, feminist varients), anarchist communism has remained its most dominate and influential expression throughout the last century. The WCML holds significant collections of material pertaining to anarchist communism and anarcho-syndicalism dating from the 1880s onward.
For ease anarchism’s history can be broadly broken down into four distinct periods through which its influence is said to have been most sharply felt.
The 1870s-1890s – in which anarchism held a significant influence over the internal debates of the First Internationale- dividing the organisation into two overlapping camps; those influenced by Bakunin, who constituted the Internationale’s anti-statist contingent, and the followers of Marx, who would eventually break away to form their own organisation away from anarchism’s influence.
The WCML holds large collections of material from this classical period of anarchism’s history, in particular material redressing anarchism’s birth and reception within the British context. Materials from this period include a large run of early editions of the newspaper Freedom (the longest running English language anarchist paper) established by Peter Kropotkin and Charlotte Wilson in 1886. The WCML has a near complete run of the paper’s early years, that we are currently digitising in conjunction with the Sparrow’s Nest in Nottingham, an archive and reading room dedicated to collecting and making accessible anarchist histories.
Other material from this period includes a handwritten exercise book containing notes made in preparation for a lecture on anarchism by Ambrose Barker (dated 1881), a figure who connects Chartism to early anarchism. Alongside this remarkable document, the archive holds a selection of pamphlets dated from the 1880s produced by Henry Seymour, the editor of ‘The Anarchist’, England’s first anarchist newspaper, that demonstrate how the split within the Internationale was initially understood by Britian’s anarchists. The archive also holds several pamphlets produced by the Freedom collective and other sympathetic publishers from across the UK, dating from the 1880s to the 1930s and covering topics as diverse as the First World War, Internationalism, women’s suffrage and anti-militarism and anarchism in Manchester to name but a few.
The 1930s – which saw anarchism grow into a mass popular movement of peasants and workers (numbering several million) across Spain and Iberia. Given the global outpouring of solidarity across the international left for the Republican cause during Spain’s Civil War (1936-39) it is perhaps unsurprising that the WCML holds significant collections of material relating to the cause of anarchism in Spain during the conflict. The archive holds collections of posters produced by the revolutionary anarcho-syndicalist union the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (C.N.T) and the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (F.A.I), alongside a small selection of their respective newspapers.
The international support felt for their comrades abroad is reflected in the many leafets, pamphlets and calls for solidarity with the Spanish people produced by British anarchists at the time. The library holds large collections of domestic anarchist material redressing international solidarity and militant anti-fascist sentiment.
The late 1960-1980s. The international events associated with 1968 would witness a sea-change in the fortune and reception of anarchism at home and abroad. Between the close of the Second World War and the arrival of the 1960s anarchism – in the British context- had been in a slow decline, with many of its organised expressions seeing a fall in membership. However, 1968 ushered in an intense period of reflection, particularly among younger activists, that heralded the emergence of an ‘anarchist sensitivity’ within socialist organisation, predicated on ‘rank and file’ led organisation, a rejection of vanguardism that was associated with Marxist-Leninism, and a desire to platform and centre the experience of social subjects other than the white male industrial proletarian. These sensitivities would hold a profound influence over the new left and extra-parliamentary activity throughout the following decade, and the library holds a sizeable amount of mimeographed leaflets from the 60s-70s reflecting this growing sensibility within the domestic extra-parliamentary left.
As to the fortunes of anarchism ‘proper’ the late 60s saw a publishing boom for anarchism, in part a response to a growing appetite among younger activists for anarchist literature that the 60s libertarian impulse had created. The library holds a complete run of Colin Ward’s Anarchy Journal from this period alongside a near complete run of the journal’s second edition, that for a short time was produced by Stuart Christie’s Anarchist Black Cross collective.
As to more organised anarchist groupings, the library holds a near complete run of Direct Action the magazine of the DAM – the Direct-Action Movement – an anarcho-syndicalist union who would later become the Solidarity Federation.
Alongside a short run of Freedom from this decade, the library also holds a sizeable collection of Cienfuegos Press publications, the publishing house of General Franco’s would be assassin, and Angry Brigade defendant, Stuart Christie and his close comrade Albert Meltzer.
The arrival of Punk rock in 1977 would also see a growth spurt in anarchism, in part a generational desire to answer the Sex Pistol’s clarion call to establish ‘Anarchy in the UK’, the library holds runs of Britain’s most unruly tabloid ‘Class War’, mouthpiece of an anarchist influenced organisation of the same name that sort to marry the confrontational attitude of punk rock in an attempt to overhaul the state of Britian’s moribund street politics as they saw it.
The 1990s-2010s – a period in which anarchist and anti-authoritarian practices came to dominate the discussions and practices of a militant wing within the international anti-globalisation movement; establishing consensus based forms of decision making, advocating for general assemblies as a means to articulate politics and make strategic decisions through mass participation, marrying with a commitment to confrontational, albeit combative forms of street politics, exemplified in the riots and civil disturbances that often accompanied the meetings of the rich and powerful (G8, the IMF and the World Bank). The archive contains pamphlets and materials from a wide range of anarchist groups from this period, including the late 90s eco-anarchist organisation Reclaim the Streets. The influence of these forms of politics could be felt transnationally during the global occupy moment in 2010, materials of which are also held at WCML.
WCML’s collections of anarchist material can be searched online and viewed by appointment.