Welcome to Impulse, the blog of the Philly Metro Workers Solidarity Alliance. Inspired by the libertarian socialist paper of the same name from 1970s/1980s Milwaukee, we cover regional labor organizing, critical geography, radical social science and the arts. The views of Impulse do not necessarily reflect those of the Workers Solidarity Alliance.
Philly Metro WSA is a local organization of activists rooted in the libertarian socialist tradition. We work to build a movement grounded in self-management (autogestion), anti-racism, anti-sexism, LGBTQ liberation, ecology and syndicalism (unionism). We believe in the power and intelligence of ordinary working people and their right to control their own lives and fulfill their own potential.
Writers and artists, if you are interested in contributing to Impulse, please write to phillywsa AT gmail DOT com.
By Rebecca Croog, An interview series with Sachio Ko-yin.
“In order to have a society where workers manage themselves collectively, we need all of our best group process skills. To have a culture that values all voices and all people equally in decision-making, we need to practice ways of working together that don’t reproduce oppression. Deliberation takes practice!” Clairssa Rogers
On March 13th, 2024, our dear comrade Clarissa Rogers, longtime anarchist organizer and theorist, made her transition after a hard-fought battle with Long COVID. To honor her and as a service to the anarchist movement, we are sharing a series of interviews we did together about Clarissa’s anarchist theorizing and research. Our hope, as was Clarissa’s, is that her ideas and her overall journey as a working class theorist will inspire and galvanize other working class people to seize intellectual power and pursue collective education as part of liberation struggle.
The question of “who is the working class?” heavily motivated Clarissa’s theory work. As an anarcha-syndicalist, Clarissa brought an intersectional lens to this inquiry, meaning that she was committed to hearing and theorizing with the vast number of women, queer people, Black folks, and other non-white workers that make up the working class–groups that traditional anarcho-syndicalism largely ignored, to the great detriment of the movement itself. With this framework always at the fore, Clarissa developed a number of specific concepts, which we explore in detail throughout these interviews. These include: the philosophical implications of anarchist decisionmaking tactics, small group sociology of anarchist communities, anarchist pedagogy and worker self education, working class intellectualism, critical theory of anarchist group processes, and many more.
In Part One of this series, we set the scene, through a discussion of Clarissa’s arrival to Philadelphia in the late 90’s , a golden era of West Philly Anarchism.
We want to offer a disclaimer about the imperfection of memory as it relates to this project. Many of the experiences and conversations that Sachio recounts in these interviews happened decades ago, and these first interviews were conducitd while Sachio was arranging for Clarissa’s memorial and literary estate. We are well aware that many other comrades had the honor of participating in Clarissa’s intellectual journey. We invite plenty of space for corrections, additions, and clarifications. This is a first draft, a living project, as Clarissa herself remains a living memory to us all.
Part One: Setting the Scene – Clarissa in Anarchist West Philly
Rebecca: I thought it could be good to start very broadly, by asking you to tell me the story of how you and Clarissa first met. I know it was in 2003 in West Philly. Where exactly were you and what do you remember about that initial interaction?
Sachio: Alright so to provide some context, I’d come to Philly right as the anti-war movement was ramping up. I remember that there was a meeting of this nice United Nations group, Earth Charter Citizens. And they had on their agenda to talk about the possibility of building a coalition for the anti-war movement in Philly. So I don’t know if they really intended for that meeting to be a coalition meeting, but I jumped on the opportunity. I was new to the city, but I called up all of the Philly organizers I had met so far, and everyone who knew anyone who was doing anti-war work. I wanted to find anyone who might be interested, and to try to get as many groups as possible into that Earth Charter Citizens Group meeting. So we ended up with this giant–these poor Earth Charter Citizens–this giant room full of the Philadelphia left, pacifists, anarchists, Stalinists, free market republicans, and assorted quirky people. So that started the ball rolling of me doing facilitation in Philly. For about two or three meetings, I was trying to facilitate discussion about how the organizers were going to build a coalition.
So it was after one of those meetings that I was on the 36 trolley, the one that goes into West Philly, riding right along Baltimore Ave, and along that route, someone came up, and it was Clarissa Rogers! I’d never met her before and she came right up to me and said, “you were at the meeting last night. YOU are a good facilitator!” And I said, “thank you so much!.” She told me that facilitation was her main thing, and said, “you probably know my friend Daniel Hunter” and I said “oh yes Daniel Hunter!” so we ended up making a connection.
Rebecca: Wow, so if facilitation was Clarissa’s main thing and you were newer to it, her compliment must have felt like a high honor! What happened next?
Sachio: Yes, exactly! So what happened next is that Clarissa invited me over to her place to discuss a bunch of projects that were coming out of that coalition. The Coalition, by the way, came to be known as PRAWN (Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network), a very funny acronym, but that’s what we were–we were PRAWN. And so that work, that was my first experience of radical West Philly! And there were so many things happening at once at the time, so much excitement. So, I of course took Clarissa up on her offer, and went right over to her place, and it turned out to be one of this group of anarchist houses that existed at the time.
Rebecca: Ooh cool! As you know, I am so eager to talk about the geographies of West Philadelphia and anarchism as part of this interview, especially because you, me, and Clarissa all share a love of critical geography. Take me into that world!
Sachio: So Clarissa was living in one of these anarchist houses, and hers was called “the Cindergarden.” The name was like, ya know if you take cinder blocks and turn them into a garden you have Cindergarden… Cindergarden was right down the street from another anarchist house called “Not Squat.” It was called that because squats don’t have permission to exist, but all of these houses were actually part of the Land Trust that was left over from the Movement for a New Society. So it was “Not Squat” like “THIS IS NOT A SQUAT,” but it was like a squat, it was like a squat where they had permission. So right there was Cindergarden, there was Clarissa, and there was a whole giant community of these punk anti-globalization activists running all over the place working on projects, living in community, having all sorts of personal drama, and sitting around strumming the guitar late at night. These were my first impressions… the walls were crumbling down and when you took a step on the floor, I remember, you may just have to be careful that you don’t fall through the floor. That was my recollection.
So Clarissa meets with me there, she introduces me to a bunch of people, and we’re sitting down and we’re working on something related to peacekeeping. More specifically, what we were working on was helping out the peace keeping trainer Dion Loreman. For some context, Dion Loreman was a member of the Movement for a New Society back in the 80s, which was this giant nonviolent anarchist organization in Philly that prefigured a lot of anarchist history that came later after that–I mean obviously anarchism in Philly goes all the way back to the 19th century…
Rebecca: How did the rest of the West Philly anarchists feel about the peacekeeping trainings?
Sachio: Yes, this whole idea of ‘peacekeeping’ seemed controversial in the West Philly scene. Clarissa was helping me navigate some of this controversy, because she felt that when you have a giant demonstration, the more we can be coordinated and in communication with each other, and deal with conflict on our own, the more we can keep the police from having an excuse to jump in and try to mediate our conflicts for us. So, some folks in the West Philly movement were very skeptical about this, they called us the “self appointed peacekeepers.” Clarissa was so crucial at that time in really helping me understand the local culture and helping me reach out to the West Philly activists.
And of course I had tons of history questions, about how this whole anti-authoritarian community in West Philly had come into existence. I had just come from Central Pennsylvania, where I did two and a half years for an antinuclear weapons protest. And when I was there, there was this guy named Eric from Williamsport, a fellow anarchist, who was moving to Philly at the time, and said something like “Sachi, you gotta come to Philly. All the anarchists are moving to Philly, from all over the place, it’s really happening!” So I had already gotten some idea that there was a really big burgeoning new infrastructure of a very DIY antiglobalization movement.
Rebecca: This is SO you and Clarissa, to be diving right into all of these questions about the culture and structure of an activist community you were a part of, figuring out how to build coalitions and accomplish goals amidst various internal conflicts and tensions.
Sachio: Right, exactly! So in my first conversations with Clarissa about Cindergarden, I had so many questions about … what is going on here? What does anarchism mean here? How do you guys make decisions? And Rebecca, you and I of course have had so many conversations about infrastructure anywhere we go, infrastructure in a region, of course, because we are critical geography partners… well oh boy I had questions about infrastructure in this very specific anarchist West Philly area! So those questions took up much of our conversation, and Clarissa was very happy to map it all out for me, she was very excited to talk about it. So that was my first experience with Clarissa, and it was immediately clear to me that Clarissa and I would become comrades in anarchist organizing, but also someone I could do anarchist theorizing with, and later, social science with. And as you point out, this initial conversation fits right in with everything that was to come.
Stay tuned for our next piece in this series, which begins with a discussion of Clarissa’s quirky coinage of “planarchy” and how it relates to her thinking around social anarchism, anarcha-syndicalism, and anarchist tactics.
This reading group is a project of the Labor Committee of Workers Solidarity Alliance — all are welcome whether or not you’ve read the book. Our goal is to help make this difficult book as accessible as possible in a relaxed environment.
Our comrade Clarissa proposed this reading group, after a conversation with a fellow activist about Mutual Aid being a revolutionary act.
“My response was to really ask myself, well, what is mutual aid, really? And is it always as revolutionary as we make it out to be?”
She realized she’d never read Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid. Since this book has had a far-reaching impact on the anarchist and Syndicalist movements, reading the book and the history of its influence would be a good project for us.
She proposed this reading group could be a kind of small focus group on the question of what Mutual Aid is, and what our anarchist and syndicalist literature means when we use the word Mutual Aid. And further, how do our Revolutionary Syndicalist commitments relate to science in our own time?
Especially now, in a time of pandemic, we are more likely to use the word Mutual Aid in our propaganda, as a uniquely anarchist contribution to overcoming the catastrophe.
This could be a perfect time for us to make this re-examination, to ask ourselves some harder questions of when, and under what conditions can Mutual Aid be revolutionary?
In an intimate yet global gathering, a group of like-minded individuals from multiple continents came together for the first time under the banner of the Mutual Aid Reading Group, organized by the Labor Committee of Workers’ Solidarity Alliance.
Participants, including Clarissa (who masterfully facilitated the discussion), Sachio, Danielle, Rebecca, Melissa, Gen, and Adam, took part in a thought-provoking discussion aiming to delve into the ever-relevant concept of Mutual Aid, as described by anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin.
The session began with introductions and shared hopes and fears for the discussion. The complexity of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid soon became apparent—it has been misused as a buzzword synonymous with charity or donations, particularly during the pandemic. However, as the reading group explored, it’s much richer and quite multidimensional, with its roots deeply embedded in the sciences.
Sachio took the lead by summarizing Kropotkin’s magnum opus, published in 1902. The key message: Mutual support among species is a significant factor in evolution, which Kropotkin contrasts with the acts of selfishness found in systems like capitalism, where grassroots processes are often taken over by centralizing forces.
Rebecca wisely reminded the group that Kropotkin didn’t believe mutual aid to be the single most important factor in evolution. He maintained an intellectual humility, acknowledging that more research was needed to understand its relationship with individualism.
Clarissa brought up an intriguing point regarding the disproportionate focus on competition and war in historical studies. Kropotkin sought to redress this imbalance by shining a light on cooperation and mutual aid.
Reflections were abundant and insightful. Sachio expressed admiration for Kropotkin, even as he acknowledged a potential fallacy in deriving an ethical argument from biological sciences. Danielle raised similar concerns, questioning Kropotkin’s selective use of animal examples to support his thesis.
Adam brought the historical perspective into focus, reminding the group of the influence of the Progressive Era’s mindset on Kropotkin’s work. Alex drew a parallel between Kropotkin’s mutual aid and the symbiotic networks found in nature—like mycorrhizal networks, wherein individual competition and mutual aid coexist depending on the environmental context.
Gen introduced the issue of reciprocity, suggesting that Kropotkin held mutual aid in higher esteem. This led to a broader discussion initiated by Harold Barkley’s perspective on stateless societies and their often problematic male domination, even when centered on mutual aid.
Rebecca, digesting the rich tapestry of ideas, questioned whether the mutualism observed in nature could be equated to what we see in society—were we conflating two separate phenomena?
We closed the session by reflecting on what Mutual Aid means to us today as Anarchist-Syndicalists, the scientific worldview of Kropotkin’s time, the connection of his ethical and political values to his scientific perspective, and the conditions under which mutual aid can be revolutionary.
This discussion, the first of more to come, only scratched the surface of the group’s exploration into Mutual Aid. The richness of the discourse left the group eager to reconvene, further unravel Kropotkin’s legacy, and explore how they can apply these learnings practically in their lives. As they move forward, they remain conscious of their commitment to live their politics, striving for intellectual growth and mutual support.
The next meeting, to discuss the Introduction to Mutual Aid, is scheduled for 16 July at 8pm EDT (12am on 17 July, GMT). All are welcome to enjoy a lively, educational, and friendly discussion, and having read the text is not required. We look forward to seeing you there!
Link to the July 16 8pm est meeting, WSA Mutual Aid reading group –
On a beautiful spring day in rural Indiana, Hannah, her husband Sal, and their small child, are at a small, but spacious Middle Eastern cafe. The taste of fresh baklava and cinnamon tea, and the sounds of soothing music, make this place something special, an oasis of peace for them. Outside, all around them, is an otherwise very homogeneous conservative community.
As Sal plays with their child, drawing on the placemats, Hannah is at her laptop on a zoom call, right beside a window bright with sunlight.
A neighbor stops in for coffee to go, and waves to them. But like most in their community, their neighbor has little idea what Hannah is up to, and might be quite surprised to find out.
The truth is that Hannah and Sal are working class anarchists. And the zoom she’s on is the Labor Committee of the Workers Solidarity Alliance, the oldest continuous, anarchist, national group in the US. It was founded in 1984.
Working on labor related news articles Is Hannah’s passion. When she’s not at home caring for her child or doing online work, she often hops cafes with her laptop, where she researches and writes. She texts with Sal, at his full time factory job, and she runs ideas by him about her current thoughts on labor issues and the possibilities of future revolution. When she reaches their favorite cafe, she sits by the great window, and returns to her research. She tries to keep up on the current work of the International Workers’ Association, (IWA-AIT), founded a hundred years ago, and through their work, learns about current solidarity campaigns and how to support them.
But today, being there with her family is especially nice, and her family gets to see her doing democratic decision-making with her fellow workers.
The political tradition of WSA is ‘Anarchist-Syndicalism,’ where the long term goal is idealistic—that is, to build labor unions that not only fight for workers’ rights, but that can also transform capitalist society into a classless society, run by workers’ direct democracy.
Their friend Pete often says this way of thinking is “Ambitious, but noble,” when he gives talks about Syndicalism. He’s very aware that their goals can sound visionary.
The six or so anarchists on the zoom call are located all over the country. Clarissa is in upstate NY, Rebecca in NC, Danielle and Sachi are in Philadelphia, Pete in Ca, and Melissa is calling in from NYC but is on and off the call due to work. And Ben in Wyoming hops in for a moment. Together they constitute a loose subcommittee of a committee, working on an upcoming May Day event, held online in less than a week.
This will be the second year the Workers Solidarity Alliance has had such a May Day gathering online.
Hannah is on mute, attending to some quick family life at the cafe. Another round of tasty food is ordered, and she enthusiastically looks at her son’s drawings on the place mat.
Then, it’s back to the meeting, and off mute, with the beautiful cafe music in the background. She gives a report on scheduling for the May Day event. The group’s musician, Martin Traphangan in NJ, has confirmed, and is doing a sound check with them tonight. He has a new song with a chomsky quote and mood creating sounds for his guitar to feel its way around.
Clarissa , who was asked to read her poem about sex workers’ rights, is practicing reciting it. Like last year, the program will open with a May Day speech…famously only one minute long!
A few WSA families have small children, and last year, the day before the online event, they had a small May Day for the children with a craft, a song and a story, all age appropriate themes of Worker rights. The kids particularly loved it when Clarissa sang a song to them. The parents on the zoom call smile remembering this, & they confirm to the group that yes, they are planning the same thing on Sunday the day before May Day, an afternoon craft, song, and story.
Clarissas driving passion has always been how to better group process.. With decades of activist facilitation behind her, she’s often thought about how our group process is inseparable from our political values. This has been a major contribution she has brought to WSA work since 2016. She’s worked hard to help new WSA members get the practice and hands on skills to facilitate meetings, to rotate the roles.
As an aside in the meeting, Pete mentions that they are working on an interview with her, all about group process and syndicalism. Folks on the meeting express interest.
“In order to have a society where workers manage themselves collectively, we need all of our best group process skills. To have a culture that values all voices and all people equally in decision-making, we need to practice ways of working together that don’t reproduce oppression. Deliberation takes practice!”
Danielle shares with the group some information she’s pulled together about sex work as a labor issue, and efforts to support sex workers banding together in solidarity. The subcommittee was inspired by Clarissa’s poem, and decide that Sex Work and Labor should be the theme this year.
“Anyone who works deserves the protection of their workplace” Danielle explains, “just because the government doesn’t like sex workers doesn’t make a whole section of people, some of whom you probably know , doesn’t mean that their industry doesn’t put them at risk or doesn’t pay them fair wages. There are some people who can’t afford to charge the going rates or excessive celebrity rates. Everyone deserves to be able to pay their bills, it doesn’t matter what sector of labor they’re in.”
Danielle makes reference to the early beginning of May Day, and points out how, from this legacy, standing with Sex Workers is crucial for May Day.
In NYC, Melissa is logging in, visiting the May Day committee. Rebecca in North Carolina was just going over some resources about the history of the Haymarket affair, the 19th century beginnings of the workers’ May Day. On the zoom she asks Melissa, “Wait…weren’t you actually AT the Forest Home Cemetery? Did you see the Haymarket Martyrs monument?”
Back in the early 90s, Melissa, Sachi, and their friend Bob, traveled to Chicago for an activist conference, and while there, made a special trip to the cemetery to see the grave of Emma Goldman, famous anarchist and feminist.
Melissa recounts how the day they made their pilgrimage, the weather was freezing. Finding Emma Goldman’s grave was an inspiring experience, but they also found the monument to the Haymarket martyrs, dedicated in 1892. They actually didn’t know where it was located before they got there!
The monument stands in honor of the men who were executed by the state in the wake of the Haymarket affair, where a bomb that killed and injured people was thrown into a crowd protesting for labor rights. Seven of the dead were police, four were civilians, and dozens of people were injured. Without evidence, 8 anarchists were scapegoated—rounded up and convicted of conspiracy; of the eight, 7 were sentenced to death, and one was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Of the seven who received death sentences, 2 had their sentences commuted to life in prison, one committed suicide in jail before his scheduled execution, and four were killed by the state. At the front of the monument stands a powerful female figure of Justice over the body of a fallen worker. Melissa reads aloud the inscription they read that day: “The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today.”
Melissa describes the powerful effect of this day on her, how remembering it bolsters her conviction to continue to work for labor justice. She references the information that Danielle shared as regards supporting sex workers’ right to organize, how right this is for May Day.
Rebecca is an anarchist geographer of the group. As she’s on the zoom, she’s on her break from her workday at a local farm. Her boots are caked with mud and her hands are tired from pulling weeds. She files through her backpack for some papers to show the group from the previous May Day event.
While the committee works out the details of the May Day meeting, she’s already thinking about the event after: what archive will all this go to? What will future historians of anarchism find in the story of how they decided things together?
As the meeting wraps up, she shows the group some highlights she has from the previous year, and leaves them with a document that has at the top last year’s “One Minute” speech by Melissa, and a short speech from their Paterson NJ comrade Greg, remembering the events of the Paterson Silk Strike of 1913.
“See you next week on May Day!” Hannah says to the group and they say their goodbyes. Hannah closes her laptop, and her family gets ready to head home for dinner.
She has copies of last year’s May Day speech and Greg’s Silk Strike speech, which accidentally fall on the sidewalk outside as the family leaves, opening the possibility that the workers who find them will pick them up, and be inspired.
“We deserve to grow old!” The chant rang out on darkened Center City Philadelphia streets. The 12th annual Philly Trans March, sponsored by long-running activist group Act Up, was held on March 31st, 2023, the Trans Day of Visibility.
This year the march felt dire, with 492 anti-trans bills being introduced across 47 states by the conservative right. There is a pointed attack in this country on the trans community, holding them up as a unifying lightning rod for fear-mongering, in order to gain votes from christian fundamentalists. While this country has never been a safe place for transgender people, the ire of the right is focused directly on them now.
The march began with calls for place and for Indigenous members of the crowd to step forward and lead the march and start the chants. A handful of impassioned speakers came up to the podium to address the audience, one of whom was Zack, a 17 year old student who queried, “Am I now a banned topic? Is my sibling not allowed to bring me up in school?,” referring to bills like the “don’t say gay law” being passed in Florida. There were calls to criticize the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement across corporate America, as well as derision expressed toward companies that are eager to advertise during Pride marches to collect rainbow dollars, but who won’t hire transgender folks who aren’t performing gender to perfection.
The march was robustly attended with an estimate of roughly 500 trans people and trans allies. The crowd marched down Market Street from City Hall, eventually looping around to Broad Street. Along the way, fellow Philadelphians hung out of windows and doorways showing support and waving flags. A woman with her hand to her chest as she stood in her doorway called to the passing marchers, “I love you, be careful;” a young man ran up, offering a box of pizza; cars honked; and most drivers smiled in support to chants of “Drag is not a crime!”
As the march made its way back to City Hall it stopped at the Union League, a hotbed of the city’s wealthiest Republicans, who were holding a formal event. The crowd yelled a hearty chorus of “Fuck you” to the smug, affluent party-goers dressed in suits and formal gowns. A particularly flippant gentleman in a blue suit came to the crest of the double-terminated stone stairs and flashed the Nixon double peace sign, seeming to delight in the anger of the protesters.
Philadelphia is the self-proclaimed city of “Fuck around and find out,” and the energy of the Philly Trans March this year said that Philly’s queers are very ready to help everyone find out what happens when you threaten our trans community.
This reading group is a project of the Labor Committee of Workers Solidarity Alliance — all are welcome. Our goal is to help make this difficult book as accessible as possible in a relaxed environment.
If you’d like to stay in the loop, send us an email:
philly-metro-wsa@proton.me
At the first meeting we will start at the inspiring end, Chapter 9. Please come regardless if you have done the reading. Here is a link to an audio version of Chapter 9:
Some questions we might include:
What does Mutual Aid mean to us today as Anarchist-Syndicalists?
What was the geographic and biological/evolutionary science of Kropotkin’s time?
How does Kropotkin’s ethical and political values connect to his scientific worldview?
How does this book relate to the tradition of Anarchist Geography?
Backstory
Our comrade Clarissa proposed this reading group, after a conversation with a fellow activist about Mutual Aid being a revolutionary act.
“My response was to really ask myself, well, what is mutual aid, really? And is it always as revolutionary as we make it out to be?”
She realized she’d never read Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid. Since this book has had a far reaching impact on the anarchist and Syndicalist movements, reading the book and the history of its influence would be a good project for us.
She proposed this reading group could be a kind of small focus group on the question of what Mutual Aid is, and what our anarchist and syndicalist literature means when we use the word Mutual Aid. And further, how do our Revolutionary Syndicalist commitments relate to science in our own time?
Especially now, in a time of pandemic, we are more likely to use the word Mutual Aid in our propaganda, as a uniquely anarchist contribution to overcoming the catastrophe.
This could be a perfect time for us to make this re-examination, to ask ourselves some harder questions of when, and under what conditions can Mutual Aid be revolutionary?
Since 1991, the A Space in West Philly has served as an anti-authoritarian and community meeting place in a storefront along Baltimore Avenue. On January 5th, 2023, the A-Space Collective announced, “it is with some sadness we are sharing, that the A-Space, as we’ve known it, is closing.”
In honor of this sad and historic occasion, we are sharing an interview we did with comrade Clarissa Rogers back in 2015, about the A-Space and its role in the local community. The original intro and interview follows.
I’ve met with Clarissa Rogers a number of times to discuss anarchist theory. Our conversations have focused on anarchism and community-based organizing, and how to reach outword to the public. A common topic has also been radical “subculture,” which in contrast community-based infrastructure, can tend to be insular and self-referential.
I met with her again in August 2015, to ask more specifically about her work with the A-Space, an anarchist community space in West Philadelphia. We also talked about her recent award and the public reading of her essay “Measuring Distance,” as models of anarchism, community outreach, and a springboard for further ideas.
Sachio- Clarissa, I’m glad you could meet today!
Clarissa- I’m excited about this!
Sachio- Could you explain what the A-Space is, just the basics, so we have some context for the questions?
Clarissa- Basically it’s a small storefront space that functions as an anarchist center, for cultural and political events.1
It’s part of a land trust called The Life Center Association, and that land trust consists of about seven or eight buildings and a garden in West Philadelphia. It was started by Movement for a New Society.2
The A-Space is part of a building called the 4722 Association. That building has two apartments: the organization Books Through Bars, and the A-Space. The A-Space is operated by a collective, and has a rotating delegate that participates in the governance of the 4722 Association. A delegate from the 4722 Association participates in the governance of the Life Center Association, so it’s a bit like a confederation structure, and even a bit like libertarian municipalism.
S- How did you get involved in the A-Space?
CR- I moved to Philadelphia from Vermont in 1998, not long after the big Jericho ’98 political prisoner march in DC. After I was here a while, Scott Lamson, who was active in Books Through Bars, The Wooden Shoe, the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC), and the A-Space, invited me to join the A-Space collective. We were in ABC together doing political prisoner support. He knew I was interested in event planning, free schools, and anarchist theory, so he thought I would make a good addition to the collective. I was really excited and honored to be invited in. I think joining the A-Space Collective was the first thing that truly made Philly seem like home.
S- How many years have you been involved?
C- I think I joined in 1999 and left just recently in 2015, so around 15 years. After being in the collective for about 3 years or so I became the point person for the calendar (I liked to call myself “Clarissa of the calendar”). Then I volunteered to do outreach to bring events to the space, so eventually we named my role “event coordinator.”
S- Since we’re trying to get at the question of anarchism and community outreach, could you describe your own personal vision for what the A-Space is about? And how it presents itself and interacts with the community?
CR- The A-Space has had a lot of evolutions. It stated as a place for anarchists moving into the neighborhood to meet neighbors. Some of the folks who started it hoped that people living in the neighborhood would come in and have coffee with their new neighbors. I’m not sure that was completely successful. So from there it became a very vibrant center for the anarchist community. Having that kind of space is important, and we continued trying to fulfill that role. But we also looked at other ways we could introduce folks outside of our specific community to our politics, if they were interested. We tried to use the privilege of having a space to benefit other radical communities—to treat the space as a commons. Many different kinds of groups use A-Space as a meeting space, and we tried to do lots of arts and cultural events. So while still having specific anticapitalist events, we tried to also have many kinds of community events so that people could use the space and see how our politics function in a concrete way. To me, it was always more important to be an anarchist space rather than an anarchist’s space,
S- That’s a good distinction!
CR- Yes, it’s an important distinction to me. At times we’ve even had non-anarchists in our collective—we had a Maoist member for a while. The idea is that the space is run by anarchist principles: consensus-based decision-making, working to eradicate forms of oppression, free association, etc. So whatever your politics, you have to agree to use anarchist principles to organize the space, and actually, we had no trouble with that. People who didn’t identify as anarchists often put a ton of energy into the space.
We had a brochure with a short definition of anarchism3 that we always tried to make available for people. But most importantly, we invited in anyone who shared our politics about making the world a better place—like getting rid of forms of oppression, capitalism, and war. If people were on board, we invited them in to share the space. Feeling that is important that if we have a privilege—and public space is really a privilege—to share it, as long as those groups would agree to operate according to our principles. Each group would agree to ether clean the space on a rotating basis, contribute money to the space, or otherwise share the work of maintaining the space. In that way, we got to introduce a lot of people to what anarchism is and how it works on a practical level.
We brought in speakers and events to teach about our politics, but we also featured many speakers and events that would teach us about other leftist traditions. One of our big supporters is Khalid Abdur-rasheed, one of the founders of the New Afrikan Liberation Front. He’s done several talks about Radical Black politics and political prisoner support, which as a white anarchist, are things I wanted to learn more about, and wanted my community to learn about. It’s been a great privilege to have a space where that kind of learning could happen.
S- Over the years, I assume you’ve had a range of responses from the public. Walking in, I imagine some people said, “Oh, my god! Anarchists!” and some people walking in and being curious said, “What is this about?”
CR- Yeah, it’s interesting… mostly the responses haven’t been as dramatic as you would think. There would always be people coming in off the street with questions, but I feel like a lot of times it’s people who are oppressed and are dealing with a lot of stuff, and they just kind of take it at face value. And then, we’ve had different engagements with other radicals, like socialists. The people attracted to using the space are usually open to anarchist ideas, so we tend to get more democratic socialists rather than authoritarian socialists. And we definitely have people come in who are skeptical and have questions. People who say, “Well, that can never work.” But I feel demonstrating that it can work on a small scale helps. So instead of being polemical and arguing with people—I mean, that can definitely be fun and cathartic for some people—we recognize that polemics is not the only choice. We also have the choice of just saying, “Let me show you how we’ve been successfully operating since 1991.”
S- Are there any examples of A-Space programs or projects you can point to as good examples of inviting community involvement?
CR- Yes. First, of course, I’m going to go on a typical Clarissa tangent. I studied anarchism a lot with my friend Andrew Dinkelaker, he introduced me to his parents and the anarchist work they did. His mother, Pat Dinkelaker, taught me the term ‘liminocentric” that means ‘empty at the center” (I won’t go off here, on the longer tangent, but it relates to physicist David Bohm’s work about structure, which has greatly influenced my organizing work) and I see the A Space as liminocentric. Because it was usually not the role of the collective to generate events. For most of its history, the collective’s mission was to maintain the space and host and facilitate events. There were shifts and changes in that over time. There were times we invited people in more formally, but I say all that to say—we tried to be open to folks interested in doing events related to collective liberation, even if they didn’t share our political identity.
But back to your question, I have an example of one explicitly anarchist project, and one explicitly not-anarchist project that to me, really represented the A-Space ideals.
And the explicitly not-anarchist project is that we were home to Family & Community United’s (FCU) after-school program. FCU was a New Afrikan organization that did community organizing, especially around prison issues. They ran an after-school program for kids who have loved ones in prison, but they only had a space to meet in three days a week. Two days a week the group leaders were on the road with the kids, in libraries and other public spaces. We had the privilege of space, so we invited them in. FCU was not an anarchist organization, but they were able to experience anarchism as a lived practice.
An explicitly anarchist program was our open mic series that ran on and off for around a decade. It had several incarnations. It started out being called Poems Not Prisons, and was organized by the Philly Anarchist Black Cross to raise awareness of and money for US political prisoners. It started out as a place for folks to share poetry and to share information about their political work; as it evolved, a lot of folks came and performed music too. At different times, it was sponsored by different organizations.
A few years ago we brought it back as a project of the A-Space, without an organizational sponsor. We named it MOSAIC—Movement of Oppressed Sectors Working in Concert, in honor of Russell Maroon Shoatz, who wrote an essay on organizing with that name. Maroon is a US political prisoner who is from West Philadelphia. With MOSAIC we tried to live out Maroon’s vision of bringing all sorts of people from different oppressed sectors to come together to share art, culture and politics.
As MOSAIC evolved, it was organized by local anarchists, some students from CAPA (The Philadelphia High School for Creative & Performing Arts) and folks from Institute for Community Justice’s creative writing program (a writing program for folks who have been incarcerated). So the formally incarcerated folks, the group of teens, and members of the anarchist community, all worked together to make the event. Folks from many different ages, ethnicities, and sexual identities shared their work, feedback, and support with each other. People really felt that it was a safe space where they could come and be authentically who they are, and to me there’s nothing more radical than that. That is my vision of what anarchism is.
S- A number of us loved reading your essay, “Measuring Distance.”
CR- Oh, thank you!
S- And we read that it won an award in your home town?
CR- Yeah. I’m really from Rochester, NY but Cape Vincent, NY is my adopted home town—it’s where my mother lives and I spend a lot of time there. Jefferson County Community College, in Watertown, the nearest city, has an annual creative writing contest. I entered my essay, “Measuring Distance” in the creative nonfiction category, and I was very honored to win first prize. I got to go to Watertown and read it at JCC. Students were offered extra credit if they attended the performances and wrote a response paper. So there were these working class, mainly white students, not exposed to a lot of radical ideas, who came and heard me read about being an anarchist!
They wrote responses papers for their teachers, then the contest organizers sent me a packet of positive feedback from the students on my work. Several of them picked “Measuring Distance” as their favorite work. It was really moving to see students engaging with some of those ideas for the first time.
S- So in a way, this is a remarkable example of anarchism getting exposure to the general public, far outside of radical subculture.
CR- Yes! JCC has a week-long celebration of literature each year4 that ends with the awards ceremony for the contest. I stood there and read the piece to community college students, teachers, staff, and members of the local literary community. I don’t know if there were any activists there at all. It’s a narrative story of a personal journey, but in it I reference a lot of radical ideas. I reference Home Depot using old growth forest; why I often chose not to eat at McDonald’s or shop at the mall. It wasn’t to label those things as wrong, or judge people who do them, but to present why they are problematic and why some people choose not to do them. I got to introduce a lot of ideas that were probably outside of the box for that community, talking about anarchism, veganism and a lot of ideas I just don’t always hear communities in Northern, NY talking about in public spaces. And I feel I got to do that in a way that was not threatening, so instead of pushing buttons or provoking debate, it was an invitation so that people could just…walk with me in my journey.
S- It was life sharing.
CR- Yes.
S- This is powerful. These are great examples of what we’ve been talking about!
I guess my last question for you is, how does this all relates to the ideal of the social revolution? Does a community involvement model imply an evolutionary vs. a revolutionary approach to anarchism?
CR- I think the first thing I’d say, when as an elder I was welcoming new members into the A-Space, was “Hey, we don’t think the revolution is going to happen inside the A-Space.” Something really important to me was making the maintenance of the space as low stress as possible, and as supportive as possible, because what makes an anarchist space really interesting is that the collective members are doing lots of different kinds of work that they can bring to the space. And I never wanted people to feel like they had to prioritize the space over those other projects. Because the revolution is going to happen in the outside world, not inside the A-Space. But I think having a space where different kinds of radicals can come together and think about ideas—that IS revolutionary. And when Maroon started writing about MOSAIC and why oppressed sectors have to work in concert, his analysis (which I agree with), is that oppression is so intense right now that there’s probably no one group that can overcome it alone. That this is a time when it will take many sectors working together to make the revolution.
So back to anarchism. A lot of the specific traditions, philosophy, and practice of anarchism we talk about comes from a european background. Across the world and throughout history there are lots of cultures and groups that have operated on what we, as anarchists, might call anarchist principles. But many of these cultures and groups don’t themselves identify as anarchist. So it’s my belief that we can share and teach what anarchism means to us, why we’re passionate about it, and why we think its revolutionary, but that probably not everyone will become an anarchist. And personally, I’m really okay with that, because to me anarchism means respecting the autonomy of others.
What I think is important about spaces like A-Space is that they demonstrate what anarchism is, and how it works. I don’t think we can unite with other revolutionaries if they just think we’re stinky or dress funny, [laughing] or maybe are interesting—I don’t think that’s enough to build bonds of trust.
When we have a privilege like a space, we can open it up to support other revolutionary work, support other revolutionary events, and be very clear that this is who we are, and this is what we believe. We can identify points of unity, and build trust from there, especially if we’re in the neighborhood doing this work constantly, year after year.
And that doesn’t mean not making mistakes… I’ve made an infinite number of mistakes, and we’re all going to keep making mistakes. But it means being accountable for those mistakes, getting feedback on what our mistakes are without getting defensive, and then working to change, to do it better.
And the A-Space history of mistakes is actually one of the most exciting parts of the work to me. We’ve made a lot of mistakes with the space. Because of them, the space has not felt safe to many people. Many people have not felt welcomed there. We’ve replicated the oppression that happens in other parts of our world. For a long time, we had a reputation as a racist space. We’ve also gotten feedback about not working hard enough to be safe space for trans folks, or for queer folks. We’ve had a lot of events dominated by sexism. The space is not fully accessible. It’s hard to make it family-friendly.
So we’ve had a lot of wonderful opportunities to learn and grow. We listened to that feedback from collective members and the wider community, thought about it, and changed our practices and policies. And I feel like over the years we got to turn some of that around by making sure that when folks are in the space, that they own the space, they make decisions about their own events, and we support the work that they are doing.
And I guess I believe that building trust is revolutionary.
1. From brochure: The A-Space, established in 1991 is an anarchist community space located at 4722 Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia. It is operated by an all-volunteer anarchist collective that shares chores, rotates responsibilities, and make decisions by consensus. The A-Space is home to Philadelphia groups such as Books Through Bars, and Philly NORML. It is also used for lectures, meetings, performances, art showings, films, benefits, as well as cultural, educational, and other events that bring people together.
2. From brochure: The building is part the The Life Center Association (LCA), a land trust that owns several buildings in West Philadelphia. Instead of paying rent to a landlord each month, the people living in these houses pay money toward a common pool that is available for the upkeep of the houses. A representative from each building makes up the board, which meets monthly to discuss any needed building repairs and community issues.
3. Definition of anarchism from the A-Space Brochure:
Anarchists believe that decision-making power should rest not with the state, the market, or religious institutions. Instead, they believe people must come together in communities & in the workplace to make decisions about their own lives.
Instead of decisions about governance, community life & the economy being made by corporations, government bodies, or those with the power and privilege to seize authority, anarchism relies on directly democratic processes to make decisions. Forms of direct democracy allow each individual to have input regarding decisions that affect their life. In direct democracy, research is done thoroughly & the wisdom of those with experience is sought eagerly, but all decision-makers have equal amounts of power. Often, decisions are made by consensus.
A consensus process is a directly democratic form of decision making which optimizes participation. In a consensus process a group Jo to create a decision acceptable to everyone. Instead of resting on an “either/or” paradigm, consensus decisions celebrate human creativity by struggling for solutions that can be agreed on by all the participating parties. Consensus is used to protect the rights & freedoms of the individual as well as supporting the cohesiveness & strength of the community.
Anarchists believe in community and sharing. In anarchism benefits and responsibilities are shared equally, and tasks are rotated. People with special skills and talents are encouraged to develop them for the good of the group. No skill, position, gender, ethnicity, job or religion has more power or status than any other.
As an economic system, anarchism is based on a moral, not market economy. Its underpinnings are of reciprocity, communalism, free association, and mutual aid. People take turns, share freely, pool resources and make their own decisions about their own labor and resources. At the core of anarchism is an analysis of domination. Anarchism attempts to eradicate all forms of domination, such as capitalism, sexism, racism & homophobia, believing that all people must have the right to participate in decisions that affect their lives.
Hosted by Solidaridad Obrera, a group with friends’ status with the IWA, based in Chile, September 17.
This report was submitted to Workers’ Solidarity Alliance’s September 29 International Committee meeting. The Link to the Youtube recording is at the end.
Conversatorio Internacional: “150 años del Congreso Anarquista de Saint Imier”
Facilitating is Nanda, from Revista Libertaria. She introduces the conference by explaining that there are representatives from several different organizations, in different parts of the world, who have come together to remember a very important moment in history—the Congress of Saint Imier, on its 150th anniversary. She says that they have come together to discuss the historical background of the Congress, and how this can be brought to the present.
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There are four presentations ahead, and the first is that of Erick Benítez, a comrade representing the Anarchist Federation of Mexico. He is discussing the antecedents of the Saint Imier Congress. Erick begins:
Two days ago, the 150th anniversary of the Congress of Saint Imier was celebrated, where the definitive rupture between Marxists and anarchists occurred in the 19th century. It’s not possible to understand the Congress without understanding the circumstances that led to it. We will have to look back to a few years before the Congress so that we can establish its antecedents.
Perhaps the most important protagonist of the Congress, in ideological terms, is Mikhail Bakunin. By the time of the Congress, he was quite experienced in terms of his
ideology and had faced imprisonment in Siberia for his actions in line with that ideology. At this time, we see the beginning of a confrontation with the Marxists, first because of the question raised by Bakunin regarding the abolition of inheritance, and also because of other conflicts that had existed since the foundation of the First International in 1864. It will not be a secret to anyone that Proudhonians were the founders of the AIT (in 1864, not referring to the current IWA). Despite being present almost from the beginning, Karl Marx was not its founder. Marx did draft some things for dissemination, but the meeting minutes remain from 1864 to 1869, showing what really happened. Concepts such as reciprocity, mutualism, federalism, and other such foundations of Proudhonian extraction from the French anarchists were of great importance.
Marx, at that time a member of the General Council of London, began a low-intensity struggle against Bakunin and the anarchists. In Marx’s correspondence, he complains that, “the fat man Bakunin is behind all this. It is evident, if this damned Russian really plans to put himself at the head of the labor movement, that we must prevent him from doing damage.”
Marx’s fear was founded. Until then, the preponderance of united anarchist activists— the “damage” to which Marx was referring—was the increasingly growing anarchist influence within the International in Spain. Despite making Engels the delegate for Spain, it was the anarchists, led by Giuseppe Fanelli, that made the Spanish labor movement strong and organized. But, as it was outside Marxist influence, they considered it damaging.
Regarding the Franco-Prussian War (in which Germany tried to impose itself on France in a monarchist movement), Marx wrote the following to Engels in July 1870: “the French need a beating. If the Prussians win, the concentration of State Power will be useful for the concentration of the German working class.” We also see a fairly large
trace of German nationalism in Marx, which fully justified Bakunin’s criticism of him for wanting a strong state like the one Bismarck had built.
Then, when the Paris Commune came together in March of the following year—that is, a few months after the Franco-Prussian War—Marx does react to the uprising with joy. But it must be taken into account that, just a few months before, he applauded the monarchist invasion of France even more so. While the first clashes were taking place at the Paris Commune, Marx was dedicating himself to insulting the communards. Once the Commune triumphs and achieves the recognition of everyone, Marx rushed off to write his book The Civil War in France, a truly discordant piece in Marx’s oeuvre, which shows the chameleon nature of his ideologies and sentiments.
At the end of 1871, the hostility of the General Council of London against the anarchists had not ceased. Federalism and the destruction of the State were the main points that the Marxists disagreed with when the Paris Commune was established in 1871–aspects which Marx wrote about critically in his eponymous book.
The dictatorship of Marx, Engels, and company within the General Council of London was already overwhelming. They were resorting to the censorship of correspondence, direct attacks on anarchists, and manipulation of agreements to maintain control of the labor movement.
In his book The Militant Proletariat, Anselmo Lorenzo has left us a description of that sad meeting of Marx’s lackeys after one such conference. Marx and company dedicated themselves to a series of slanders against the anarchists.
During the Congress of the Hague, the venue was chosen by the London General Council for an express purpose—so that Bakunin could not attend due to warrants for his arrest. The Congress of The Hague was Marx and Engels’ declaration of war against the anarchists. Even the International itself made a summary judgment against the anarchist alliance at the congress, forgetting its true purpose.
Indeed, one of the agreements of the congress and its fictitious majority was to send the General Council of London to the United States, to where the headquarters of the International was being relocated. Marx and Engels extended the power of the council by suspending entire federations if they didn’t submit to their dictates.
There was hardly anything constructive in the congress. All coordination of revolutionary forces was forgotten, the reports were barely touched on, there were no positive plenary sessions for the workers’ movement, nor plans for such at all. All this was brushed aside to make way for the execution of the Marxists’ plans, outlined in advance, to suppress the anarchists and expel Mikhail Bakunin and James Guillaume.
The anarchists, however, would respond to this Marxist attack on the international labor movement. They would declare the Hague Conference illegitimate and meet in Switzerland at the Congress of Saint Imier, which the following speakers will tell you about. In general terms, that was the panorama that existed before the Saint Imier Congress.
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Nanda returns to thank Erick, and express appreciation for the large amount of effort it
must have taken to collect all that background information which will give us a solid foundation for the presentations to come.
She then introduces Pedro Peumo, representing Solidaridad Obrera in Chile, who will speak about the resolutions of the Saint-Imier Congress and the birth of anarchism.
Pedro begins by briefly explaining the difference between the Saint Imier Congress and the Saint Imier International (the latter being the workers’ organization founded during the Congress, after the split from the AIT, which lasted until 1877 when it was succeeded by the International Working People’s Association). He also gives his own interpretation of the conflict between the authoritarian and anarchist factions of the International, a dictatorship of the proletariat versus more grassroots communes—the conquest of political power versus the destruction of political power. The antagonism between the two grew to a fever pitch by 1872, the conflict became unsustainable, and the inevitable rupture occurred.
Eight days after the Hague Conference, the Saint Imier Congress took place on Sunday and Monday, the 15th and 16th of September 1872, in the town hall of Saint Imier, in the Francophone Jura Bernois district in the Canton of Bern, western Switzerland. Delegates who attended the Congress include: James Guillaume and Adhémar Schwitzguébel from Switzerland; Carlo Cafiero, Errico Malatesta, Giuseppe Fanelli, Andrea Costa from Italy; Rafael Farga i Pellicer and Tomás González Morago from Spain, and the French refugees Charles Alerini, Gustave Lefrançais, Jean-Louis Pindy, and of course, Mikhail Bakunin. Bakunin attended as a delegate of the Italians.
Together with the international congress, a regional congress was held, in which they established many of the agreements that would later be embodied in the general congress of Saint Imier.
Practically all the participants in the Saint Imier Congress were anarchists or revolutionary socialists and federalists, and many of them played important roles in the development of the revolutionary socialist movement after the Congress. However, there were quite a few differences between them, as well.
In general, they adopted a federalist structure for this new International. It was thought of as an authentic and legitimate continuation of the First International, carrying on the work that had been done since 1864. One of the main agreements reached was the decree that there would be full autonomy for each of the sections. This was the first time that established textually within the international, that “no one has the right to deprive the federations and autonomous sections of their right to decide for themselves and follow the line of political conduct that they deem best.” They also said that the aspirations of the proletariat cannot have any other purpose than the establishment of an economic organization and federation which is absolutely free, founded on the basis of equality for all, absolutely independent of any political government.
So what did they do? They turned around the resolutions of the Congress of The Hague, instead stating that it has to be absolutely independent of any political government—that the destruction of all political power is the first duty of the proletariat.
The fifteen delegates who attended Saint Imier approved a total of four resolutions in the Congress.
The first resolution was to expressly reject all the agreements of the Hague Congress,
including the expulsion of Bakunin.
The second resolution agreed on this pact of friendship, solidarity, and mutual defense between free federations, which in practice materialized as a confederation of international self-defense against the centralist and authoritarian ambitions of the Marxists.
The third resolution had to do with the nature the political action, as a commitment of solidarity through revolutionary action outside all political power.
The fourth resolution spoke about the Bakuninist theses on economic collectivism.
So in this first Congress of Saint Imier, we find at least two principles of what international anarchism is going to become: the first is that anarchists organize themselves without their participation in politics and parliaments, what is called anti- parliamentarianism. This was the first principle that united and brought together anarchists at the international level. We define ourselves as anarchists by saying that we are going to be anti-parliamentary, we are going to work to destroy all bastions of political power. The second was the principle that had to do with Bakuninist collectivism. These two ideas emerge from this first congress of Saint Imier in 1872. The congress in question did more than save the continuity of the internationalist movement and rescue it from the clutches of the authoritarian politicians that surrounded Marx; it even inaugurated the friendly coexistence of the movement of different tendencies within the same organization to establish the foundations of solid mutual respect for all shades of opinion and tactics.
The resolutions of the Congress received statements of support from the Italian and Spanish federations, Jurassic federation, and some of the English-speaking American federations of the international. Most of the french federations also approved it. In the Netherlands, three of the four Dutch federations approved.
The English federation resented Marx’s attempts to keep it under his control, but “rejected” the decisions of the Saint Imier Congress, The Hague Congress, and the so- called General Council of New York, while also tacitly giving support to the International. In a Congress of the Belgian federation in December of 1872, the delegates also repudiated the Congress of the Hague, supporting instead the “defenders of pure anarchist revolutionary ideas, enemies of all authoritarian centralization and indomitable supporters of autonomy.”
Some will have already realized, however, that on the one hand, there is a resolution that tells us that there is an incontrovertible right of the federations and autonomous sections of the international “to decide for themselves and follow the line of political behavior that they consider best.” In this, one could understand that there is also the possibility that each of the sections participate in politics through political parties. On the other hand, there is another part of the resolutions that tells us emphatically that the destruction of all political power is the first duty of the proletariat. This contradiction between one part of the resolutions that tells us that each one of the sections can organize itself however it wants and pursue whichever tactics it wants, but on the other hand there is one that limits that way of carrying out the tactic that is not to participate in politics.
Sections can organize themselves in the way they want, can establish the structures that they want, with total autonomy—but the principle that unites us is that we must destroy political power. It allows absolute freedom and develops federalism for the first time, in an absolutely open, transparent and libertarian way. At the same time, it establishes a
principle that identifies us as anarchists: anti-parliamentarianism.
The congresses that followed later kept saying the same thing, except for in 1877, when Kropotkin came into the picture. Together with Malatesta and Reclus, Kropotkin changed this principle of collectivism that had been there since the first and the idea of libertarian communism began to predominate. Then, as a result of the Congresses of the Saint Imier International, the principles of anti-parliamentary federalism, of the absolute freedom of each of the sections, and libertarian communism were established. These three principles are established for the first time in the organization, constituting the birth of anarchism at the international level.
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Nanda returns to thank Pedro for presenting us with a lot of background information that listeners can take note of and continue investigating at their leisure. She then introduces Vadim Damier, speaking from Russia as a representative of KRAS, to speak about Kropotkin and the Saint Imier International. Vadim begins:
Peter Kropotkin established contacts with the anti-authoritarian International even before the Congress of Saint Imier, during his trip to Europe in the spring of 1872. Interested in the work of the First International, he met with representatives of its various Belgian syndicalist, Bakuninist, and Marxist currents. He was arrested in 1874, but he managed to escape from Russia in the summer of 1876 and reach Great Britain.
From there, he began to renew old contacts. He wrote to James Guillaume, who began sending materials. In the end of February 1877, he arrived in Switzerland, planning to live and work there.
During the following years, until his expulsion by the Swiss government in 1881, he left the alpine country only for a short time for revolutionary matters. It was in Switzerland, in 1878, where he married a young Russian student, Sofia Ananyeva Rabinovich, who became his life partner to the end. The Swiss years of were the epoch of continuous independent anarchist revolutionary work. It was during this period that anarchism as we would come to know it in the following decades and century, was established.
In the summer of 1877 he edited a newspaper, where he published editorial articles criticizing social democracy and parliamentarianism, proclaiming the constructive ideas of an anarchist alternative. He supported the idea of propaganda of the deed, but interpreted it not as a tactic of assassination attempts and conspiracy, but as the organization of a kind of exemplary uprisings, during which it would be possible to start organizing the ideal anarchist society.
At the same time, he helped organize an anarchist movement among the German- speaking workers of Switzerland and, in August of 1877, was one of the main initiators of the creation of the French federation of the International of Saint Imier. The constitutive assembly of this French federation was held in Kropotkin’s apartment in September of the same year. He moved to Paris in the spring of 1878, actively helping to restore the French movement after the defeat of the Paris commune. He then returned to Switzerland, but soon went to Spain, where he tried to reconcile the rival anarchist factions of the International in in Barcelona and Madrid. In August, he returned to Switzerland and participated in the Jura Federation’s congress in Freiburg. There, he gave an important speech on the anarchist program, with a proposal to intensify agitation with the goal of a free commune, which should become both an organ of insurrection via propaganda of the deed, and the basis of a future free society.
After Freiburg, Kropotkin moved to Geneva, where he finally approached the Geneva branch of the Jura federation, which was at a critical juncture in its reorganization. This was an historical moment in which the movement begins to experience an internal crisis. Together with Paul Brousse, he edited and published La Révolté—the avant- garde newspaper which had become the organ of the federation and indeed of world anarchism until it was banned by th e Swiss authorities. Kropotkin became perhaps the most prominent figure and authority of the Federation. He had to assume the entire burden of organization and propaganda tasks, and he managed brilliantly with this work.
La Révolté became a truly innovative publication in the pages of which comrades formulated and analyzed the main theoretical and tactical questions of the anarchist movement. The articles by Kropotkin have not lost their relevance to anarchist theory to this day. At the same time, he continued to speak at meetings of workers, traveling throughout the country of Switzerland on almost continuous propaganda tour.
The Chaux-de-Fonds Congress, in 1880, was a truly magnificent moment for Kropotkin. He delivered a speech in which he consciously and clearly demonstrated the differences between anarchist/libertarian socialism and democratic/moderate/reformist socialism.
Kropotkin could rightly be considered the main theoretician of the international anarchist movement, the activity of which concerned European governments more and more as time went on. Even to the authorities of Switzerland, he was seen less as a prince, and more as a rebel. His activities aimed at restoring the collapsed international caused particular dissatisfaction. He consistently defended the ideas that later formed the basis of the trade union movement. He insisted that the preparation of the working masses for the revolution was only possible through the economic struggle against the capitalists and landowners, for the immediate interests of the workers—not through the
actions of small clandestine groups, individual attacks, or political struggle for power. He proposed to restore the international as a world union of trade unions—of workers’ unions—within which would operate a more determined union of anarchist militants (such as the Bakuninist alliance). He defended this idea at the social revolutionary congress in London in July of 1881. The congress proclaimed the re-establishment of the international, but this decision turned out to be a formality. In the following years, the anarchist movement was increasingly dominated by tendencies towards disorganization and dispersion.
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Nanda introduces Laure Akai, a ZSP colleague from Poland, who will speak about the end of the federalist International to its reformation. Laure says:
Although it seems that the organizations adhering to the federalist ideologies had common positions, in 1874, you could already see different positions within the federation.
For example, regarding the real role of parliamentarianism, with some delegates thinking a more social democratic vision and others more interested and in the popular revolts (like the Italians) or in propaganda (of the fact). There were differences between the organizations and there was no consensus on what had to be done. Many members of the AIT (again, not the current one) felt more inclined to cooperate with social democratic elements. Many people from the AIT believed that all anti-capitalist or socialist workers should be brought together. In the Bern Congress, two years later in 1876, some others fought concretely for the reunification of the anarchists with all the other socialists, including the Marxists and regardless of their tactics.
The following year such a project of bringing together all socialists was taken up by the world socialist congress in 1877. It can be said that many people resigned due to their hopes of reunification. Many of the former members participated in that congress with ideas that were already different, and in a space of a few years many people and organizations had changed their positions—especially towards social democratic or even Marxist positions.
On the other hand, there was a massive defection from the AIT when they thought that another organization would be formed.
The revolutionized anarchists and syndicalists kept trying to form something else, and the first serious attempt was in 1881. A congress was held in London, and they formed an organization called the Black International. What is interesting is that this organization—this federation—did not have significance at the international level, but it gained importance in the United States. We all know the names of the Haymarket Martyrs, and other people who were active in this federation. In terms of size, however, it was perhaps 5,000 people at its peak. So it was not a very broad federation, but it was important and after the Haymarket situation, it fell apart for 20 years.
There was no serious attempt to form anything for quite some time, but in 1907 there was an anarchist conference in London. It was not a syndicalist conference, but the delegates discussed syndicalism as a tactic. An anarchist international office was founded, and in this office there were two very important people for the foundation of the current situation.
They wanted to make propaganda towards the founding of something new. Then, in
1913, they organized a trade union congress in London. There were many problems.
The first problem was that the French were in another international, a social democratic federation, and they did not want the anarchists to form something new because they did not want competition. Because of this, there were delegates who did not support forming a federation. So there was no consensus, and instead of forming a new movement, they began to publish a bulletin. But soon it was 1914, and WW1 broke out.
The war was a catastrophe for trade unionists, because on the one hand it again showed ideological differences between the organizations that held interventionist ideas, and those that did not.
It was also very difficult to carry out any activity during the war.
And then after a few years it was the Russian Revolution, and this was also a problem for the foundation of a new movement as well. The Bolsheviks had a project to unite all the socialist workers in a red international under the party’s control. Some thought that there was no point in making a desperate organization at that time. Some Russian anarchists indicated that they were organizing and working hard, but they were brutally repressed by the Bolsheviks. Many of them were arrested, tortured, murdered. Some members of the future IWA were aware of this, while others were not.
But when the red international held its congress in 1921, the delegates who had previously been more in favor of working with the Bolsheviks decided that they could not be in this red international, and finally decided to form the current IWA-AIT and this year is the centenary of the foundation of that international, which was founded in December 1922.
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Nanda returns to thank Laure for her presentation, and gives the floor back to Erick, who wishes to add some more information. Erick says:
When comrade Pedro talks about the resolutions of the Saint Imier Congress, it is important to add that most of the sections of the international were not even aware of the Congress in The Hague. The unions in London, which at that time were beyond a million members, did not even know Karl Marx, despite the fact that he had spoken on behalf of these unions. They joined the proposals of the Saint Imier Congress, not because they were all anarchists, but because there were unions that shared the idea of autonomy of the sections, even as pertains to the level of ideological questions. That is, as long as they were independent and respectful of the autonomy of the federalism of the other sections, it was even possible for them to have ideas outside of anarchism, and have those ideas be respected.
Marx and Engels, who tried to liquidate this autonomy, this federalism, this freedom of action within the international…when there are people who say that what happened in Russia, [the authoritarianism which occurred in the wake of] in the Russian revolution has nothing to do with Karl Marx..well, they are blatantly lying.
Because there is a fairly clear antecedent in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels of the aspiration to centralism, even before taking political power within the international. Since its inception, Marxism is centralist and tries to attack autonomy and federalism from the beginning.
Another thing that I found very interesting about Vadim’s presentation—he was very right when saying this is the concept of propaganda due to the fact that it is one of those who give it its name, referring to a series of events, organizations, acts, uprisings or even facts that could promote the ideas of anarchism already on the field of practice.
It did not refer to those attacks of which the tabloid press takes great advantage to exploit against anarchism, events that happened because the anarchists were forced to act in that way to defend themselves—not because it was an aspiration of the anarchists to act violently, but because they were attacked, harassed, imprisoned, murdered in the streets. Violence is not necessarily propaganda in and of itself.
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Nanda announces the beginning of a brief Q&A session, as viewers have asked the following three questions:
1. Today the democratic paradigm appears hegemonic, so workers act as citizens and vote every few years. In what way does anarchism currently participate in social struggles without falling into asking for solutions from the state and thus legitimizing it?
2. What would be the reflection that you make regarding the present of anarchism, in thinking about the past?
3. What role has the platformist tendency played in the IWA?
Pedro spoke first, saying: Unfortunately, the International of Saint Imier declined towards social democracy mainly because the governments were opened at that time, from the 1870s. For example, in the United Kingdom, laws were created in favor of legal trade unionism. That began to happen throughout Europe, the legalization of unions to bring them within the structure of the state as institutions—part of the gear of the proletarian meat-grinding machine—and also the political parties were growing with workers’ militancy.
As Laure described, this caused large masses of workers who were to go over to social democracy. This is a phenomenon that did not occur so much in Latin America, because in Latin America this sort of thing always occurs with a time lag. So for us, the Congress of Saint Imier was very important. There are many who said that it was impossible that things like railways and other public works could be developed through workers’ organizations, and that it was necessary to maintain a certain state—that was a discussion that took place within the San Imier international. They allowed it to develop in a completely anarchist way. The reason this
International is interesting is because it built all the characteristics that would later be repeated in anarchist organizations throughout the world—including ours,in 1922. So, although it was a first attempt that failed, the postulates that remained allowed, for example, in Latin America to develop the workers’ organizations at the beginning of the 1900s that collected all that remained, thanks to those who were part of the Saint Imier International, who condensed and collected these ideas.
In Latin America, for example, from 1900 onward there was an explosion of labor
organizations that knew these European texts. Revolutionaries began arriving who already had experience from the Saint Imier International, or at least knew of it and what happened there. So it was possible to put together a large number of workers’ organizations prior to 1922, because of that knowledge and experience.
When it comes to the tendency of elements within radical movements to transition toward social democracy, this is a story that has repeated over and over, and is still relevant to us today. So it’s important to know this story.
Pedro adds: Social democracy was one of the things responsible for the catastrophe that occurred in the 20th Century. Social democracy bears much of the responsibility for Hitler coming to power, due to its lukewarm measures, as does the communist party for trying to sabotage all kinds of independent action. If we take into account these serious events that happened in the context of the 20th century, the lesson of the Congress of Saint Imier is that you cannot have alliances in a concrete way with people or with organizations that aspire to the conquest of political power. I measure as one of the decisive moments of the Congress of San Imier, the resolution that says that the destruction—not the conquest—of political power is the first duty of the proletariat. It does not seem to me that we can base all the actions, attitudes, organizations, or thoughts that we may have for the present on what happened 150 years ago. But today, as 150 years ago, political power is not conquered. It is not reformed. One cannot attempt to beautify it. Rather, it must be destroyed. That idea has to be the backbone, so to speak, of our actions.
And finally, Vadim says: Two things are important for participation in current social movements. The first is to propagate and defend the sovereignty of the general assemblies of the workers in struggle. The second is to defend the independence of the workers in struggle against all the institutions of the state and all parties in the social democracy. That is our legacy of anarchism from the past and our duties for the
present time.
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Nanda closes the presentation by thanking the colleagues who participated, as well as the listeners in the audience, and those who asked question, and stating her hopes to meet again in a space where we can share experiences and other important things that are part of the history of anarchism.
Philly Metro Area WSA 