THE BENEFITS OF NON-CLASS STRUGGLE ANARCHISM TO THE MOVEMENT AS A WHOLE

The author of the excerpt below is unknown to me. I would be very appreciative to be apprised of the author's identity.

Revolution is a process ever going. Like a river it flows; changing shape, altering its course, sometimes slowing down, sometimes becoming a rapid. At times we lose sight of it behind the dogma of some ideology or another. But it can never be stopped. Since the first slave said 'no', since the first people rose up against the tyrants, since the concept of Freedom was formed, the Revolution has always been there. As a comrade wrote to me, "Revolution is a process, not an historical event". The nature of the Revolution stems from the forces it encounters, the aspirations of those within it, and the strength of the reaction. If it can progress unrestrained, then it is likely to be peaceful. The ends will never justify the means, they are inextricably bound together and what better way is there of taking someone's freedom than by killing them. Violence is the basis upon which government stands, and as such it is the counter Revolution. From the writings of Kropotkin up to Colin Ward there have been attempts to hi-light points in existing society where the river may flow - worker co-ops, food co-ops, alternative welfare and education, and countless examples of how order is spontaneous, and springs up from the very act, and point of association itself: "What kept us together was our work, our mutual interdependencies in this work, our factual interests in one gigantic problem with its many specialist ramifications. I had not solicited co-workers. They had come of themselves. They remained, or they left when the work no longer held them. We had not formed a political group, or worked out a programme of action...Each one had made his contribution according to his interests in the work...There are, then objective biological work functions capable of regulating human co-operation. Exemplary work organises its forms of functioning organically and spontaneously, even though only gradually, gropingly and often making mistakes. In contra-distinction, the political organisations, with their 'campaigns' and 'platforms' proceed without any connection with the tasks and problems of daily life". Like the fishermen in Brixham, or the miners in Durham or Brora, Scotland, workers co-operatives provide small, rare examples of how a task provides its own point of association, and provides the associates with a focus, that transcends any necessity for coercive pressure. In short, the act of society provides its own order internally, whereas all ' governments attempt to impose it externally, stifling and smothering the social instinct. These examples exist in modern society. They are not memories of an age before the nation-state, but are modern facts. Paul Goodman once described anarchism as both conservative and radical, for we must attempt to conserve those places where liberty may be developed in full, as well as create new ones. Gustav Landauer also wrote along the same lines "The state is not something which can be destroyed by a revolution, it is a condition of human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently". Even, according to the film 'Michael Collins', the Irish Republican leader Eamon de Valera spoke along the same lines by claiming roughly that "We defeat the British Government by ignoring it".

Of course, that which is said in the passage above about the British government is applicable to any and all governments that stand above the populace, which is considered the governed.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
visualviolet@hotmail.com