Clash not Crass

Posted on February 18, 2008February 19, 2008 by AL Puppy

It was the long hot hot summer of 1976. I was in London for a few days. I’d spent the past 17 years of my life living in the countryside – see it here

Now I was in West 11 looking for my hippy heaven underneath the Westway – the place where Hawkwind and the Pink Fairies had played back in 1971. I never found the place, but I wandered around getting more and more hot and bothered until I found the Portobello Road made famous by the Pink Fairies song ‘Portobello Shuffle’.

So I went back to where I was staying – a caravan in Gloucestershire- until the summer ended with a thunder storm so strong I thought the flashes were nuclear bombs taking out Bristol.

Nine months later I was an effing student in Scotland. Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ was still played in the uni bar with no irony at all. At a disco a song came on which confused me into dancing . It was White Riot by the Clash. Up until this point – March 1977 – I knew nothing of punk. I was listening to second hand sixties records being flogged off by older students. The Incredible String Band. Country Joe and the Fish. Quintessence. I was living in 1967 not 1977.

But White Riot … it was a ‘what the fuck’ moment. Not sure how long it took, but eventually I worked out it was about a real riot that had happened at Notting Hill Carnival in August 1976 – in place I had been just a few weeks before. And these punks were my age – born in the fifties not the forties. And they were singing songs about what was happening now, not then.

But…it still took awhile. I found ‘Anarchy in the UK‘ , EMI version, remaindered for 37p in Woollies but that didn’t do it. Saw the Rezillos play in Castle Douglas Town Hall in summer 77 – which was impressive. And tried to find a copy of ‘God Save the Queen’…but no luck.

Then I heard Complete Control (released 23 September 1977) by the Clash played on Radio One. SHEE-IT. (Shee- ite in Scotch) Total aural orgasm. Utterly and totally blown away by the sheer intensity of the music. Though I still had long hair and a beard (well I was an anarchist, wasn’t I, and the anarchists I met at uni had long hair and beards. Apart from the one female anarchist, who did not have a beard) .

To cut this short – didn’t go back to university, went to Gloucestershire to help look after some goats and ducks and chickens and guinea fowl on a small holding in the Forest of Dean and got a job working for the Lydney branch of London Rubber. Only music I had for first few months was a tape of Clash first album. Which I played over and over again. Couldn’t make out the words so got the Clash Song book in 1978.

This had the words in Dynotape lettering plus pictures. I did get more punk records – mail order from Small Wonder – but it was the combination Clash music, words and pictures which was ‘punk’ for me. I even shaved off my beard and cut my hair short. [This caused much startlement at work]

On 1st January 1979 moved to London to work at London Rubber HQ. Lived in a bedsit in Ilford. No record player, but had tape recorder so first album Clash tape played over and over again.

And my point is?

When I talk of ‘punk’, deeply embedded in my idea of what ‘punk’ means is the combination of words, images and music of the Clash / Clash song book. The images – of the 1976 riot, of the Westway, of concentration camp victims, of tower blocks …of the City of the Dead of yankee soldiers shooting skag, of having the will to survive (to cheat if I can’t win) … that even if you close your eyes, it will not go away, – you have to deal with it – hate and war is the currency.

Hate and war not anarchy and peace.

Which is why I never could get Crass. “Are you going backward or are you moving forwards?” [White Riot]

It seemed straightforward to me. Punk was moving forward . Punk realised that the hippy dream of love and peace was dead, that the world of windmills and psychedelic dreams [General Bacardi/Crass and Undercurrents magazine] was over.

“All the power is in the hands of people rich enough to buy it”.

But was it over?Or had something new only just begun?

As I passed beyond the wall of sleep last night it came to me. “Green is the missing word” – like I had already said, the long-haired eco-friendly veggie anti-nuke anarchist group I joined in 1876 (oops, time slip, there) 1976 would nowadays be a group of green activists, not anarchists.

So maybe what Crass invented in 1978 was not ‘anarcho-punk’ but ‘green-punk’.

If you stop trying to wrestle greenish punks into an anarchist straight-jacket (as in “if it hadn’t a been for all those damn punk kids back in the eighties, we would have won the class war … “) then it kinda makes more sense.

50 comments

gerard
February 18, 2008 at 10:20 pm

God reading AL – good reading even! (Freudian typo!)

As I’ve argued elsewhere and from the other side of the argument, there was never a need for choice between Crass and Clash anymore than you need choose between breakfast and dinner. Indeed it was a letter from you that introduced to me the story of the finger pointing at the moon… or fingers in this case!

How did people get into anarchism before punk? Was it tied in with the counter culture? I was surprised to see the eye of horus & pyramid on your cienfeugos membership card – I can’t imagine my grandad or any of his generation knowing or caring about anything like that…?

I guess what I’m asking is was the pre-punk anarcho scene in any way connected to the hippies / rock n roll etc or not? Difficult to imagine Albert Meltzer being, but what about the rest?
alistairliv • Post Author •
February 18, 2008 at 11:40 pm

Damn – I just struggled to write a reply and it got lost.

I will try again – but difficult not to get lost in contradictions and confusions.

For example – I was not aware of Crass until my kid 13 year old kid brother bought Feeding the 5000 and played it to me- probably in 1979. It didn’t think much of it, but didn’t think of Crass then as being an ‘anarchist’ punk group. Or knew that they were supposed to be ‘hippies’ not ‘punks’ .

I don’t think any of the pre-punk anarchos I knew had any interest in hippy counterculture/ rock n roll – to them it was all part of the mass media ‘pop culture opium for the masses’.

But the anarchist group I joined at Stirling University were long-haired vegetarians, anti-nuclear etc – they would probably be Greens today, [as I now am- member of Scottish Green Party] I but back then there was no Green Party etc so if you were a radical but were not a Marxist, anarchist was the alternative option. This seems to be close to what Penny R says on page 128 of ‘Story of Crass’ – that he knew about anarchism as a ‘loose term’ but not the full on Black Flag/ Stuart Christie/ Albert Meltzer version.

And in ‘Granny made me an Anarchist’, Stuart Christie describes arriving in London in1967 having been released from a Spanish jail -and not being impressed by the ‘flower power’ / counter culture scene.

The pre-punk hippy counterculture was ‘vaguely’ anarchist as an alternative to the 57 varieties of Marxism – Maoist/ Revolutionary Communist/ International Socialist/ CPGB (Stalinist)/ CPGB(Leninist)/ CPBG (Trotskyist)/ CPGB (Marx Brothers) – but not actually anarchist.

Which is pretty much how ‘anarcho-punk’ was/ is viewed.

Finally – I have no idea why Cienfeugos/ Stuart Christie used the eye of Horus and pyramid… it does seem a bit strange in retrospect. Unless a Illuminatus piss take? Immenantize the Eschaton…
Nuzz
February 19, 2008 at 7:49 am

The Clash and Crass were the 2 bands that influenced me most. I can still listen to The Clash today, Crass on the other hand………and my point is?
alistairliv • Post Author •
February 19, 2008 at 8:24 am

Its green, not anarchist. The missing word. So I changed last part of Clash not Crass … to ‘Neither Clash nor Crass – just the eternal struggle of the working class towards ultimate victory!’.
Nic
February 19, 2008 at 2:54 pm

I’ve held back from posting on these Clash-related threads for seeming to come across like Mr Killjoy, but I was writing a response to Gerard’s question(s) and thought I’d throw in my goldspots about the Clash…

Personally, I never took to the Clash in any great way. I think they were perhaps one of those artists (like Dylan or Bowie) who you need to hear at just the right time, otherwise you miss the moment…
To paraphrase Chuck D of Public Enemy “Joe Strummer was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me”…

All I could think of when I considered the Clash were:
– Posers who took on the trappings of rebellion in a cynical and jaded manner as they knew that left-wing chic and rebel posing would be a good seller (particularly in the social climate within which they existed). They dropped a lot of this later when they were essentially based in America – charitably you could say it was because they had ‘grown up’ a little…cynically you could say it was a good marketing ploy as America has never really been a great market for selling anything infected by notions of Communism…
– Liars who postured on a grand scale but ultimately didn’t mean what they said (because all they really wanted was to be stars)…doubly damaging as it sent out a message to their fans and admirers that such two-faced lying was not only acceptable but a way to get what you want…
– Hypocrites who said one thing and did another – they were only bored of the USA until the USA offered them all of the American dream and then they took it with open arms. This hypocrisy was doubly damaging as it sent out a message to all their fans and admirers that such behaviour was not only acceptable but also the way to get what you want…
– Bullies who had used the same old peer pressure tactics to push themselves forward in the early Punk scene (just as the Sex Pistols had done) – they created a climate of who was ‘hip’ and who was not in order to gain power and to control others…not something I respect in human beings…and no room for freedom there…
– Throwbacks to the same old ‘rock n roll’ dynamics which privilege a certain restrictive approach to music making…
– A perfect example of how the Spectacular Society uses culture as a means of control: people like The Clash adopt the role of secular priest, standing above the ‘mere’ masses on a pedestal (the stage) where they are looked to for arcane knowledge to which the rest of society is not privy in a process of specialisation (which helps to underpin hierarchical power structures)…

On a purely musical level, I had no time for their music at all: I didn’t like their tendency towards Pub Rock with its insistence on key changes (too old school rock ‘n’ roll – all bluster, pomp and circumstance), their insipid attempts at reggae, and the unnecessary inflections in Mick Jones’s singing (all those ‘woh-oh-ohs’ still make me cringe if I hear them)……
I’m not exaggerating when I say they seemed (at the time) about as relevant to me as Elgar…

My good friend ‘Dangerous’ Davis and I always seem to find the time to get around to the ‘Clash / Crass’ discussion whenever we’re having a few drinks / chemicals…
He’s a dyed-in-the-wool Clash fan (like his school friend Martin from Primal Scream), so I know I can always get an amusing rise from him by quipping something along the lines of “Of course, The Clash were just the Freddy and the Dreamers of the 1970’s” and waiting for him to start fuming…hehehe…
These Clash-fans can’t seem to lose it: it’s like Catholicism…
😉

I’m at the other end of the spectrum to you, nuzz: I still find time (and – more importantly – the inclination) to listen to Crass…

(I’m trying to finish a response to Gerard’s questions by the end of today)
Nic
February 19, 2008 at 3:29 pm

Gerard – I just found this very interesting article (by Dave Wise) about one person’s movement towards radical politics from the late 1960’s onwards…
http://www.revoltagainstplenty.com/archive/local/1969.html
It may give a clue as to how these ideas spread…

I think you may find it very useful too, Al…
Chris
February 19, 2008 at 3:45 pm

Alistair, i actually had a chat about this not that long ago with some anarchists i know who were either too old or regarded punk simply as another flash-in-the-pan fashion when punk came along. Most said they originally thought it was just a joke, kids dressing up etc and a complete irrelevance to them, but with hind-sight – and mellowing with age – look upon it now quite favourably.

things, politically, were very very different back then. I know folk who got into ‘anarchism’ through a variety of diverse avenues. from their local CND group, anti-fascist confrontations, post paris ’68 student politics, the counter-culture press (Oz, IT etc), the angry brigade defence trials, even the anti-internment movement. When Crass came along there was apparently a feeling that they were usurpers appropriating the @ symbol as a marketing tool.

re The Clash. their first album was the first ‘punk’ record i ever heard as a mate and me went to our local Woolworths and prized the cassette out of the perspex display rack with a screwdriver and ran home with it, as excited as if we’d just robbed the crown jewels. I recall feeling very, very disappointed when I first heard it as, compared to the appearance of punks I’d seen photos of in sunday papers etc, the music just seemed very pedestrian and rock and roll. Not really too dissimilar to the sort of music you’d hear emenating from your mates older brothers/sisters rooms. Nic, you mention Bowie, whose music around that same period I would say was a lot more anti-rock and roll than the clash’s ever was. I think some of The Clash’s music is excellent but i’d always say they were more a ‘rock’ band than a ‘punk’ band, musically and stylistically.

That said, i have always thought one of the reasons crass types slag off the clash is just down to simple jealousy – if, hypothetically, i could choose which band i’d have been in there wouldn’t have been any contest. the Clash lived the rock’n’roll lifestyle which I think, despite what folk may say, is the main motivating factor most folk ever form bands in the first place, if they were to be honest.

Plus, having met him quite a few times i can safely say Strummer was a sound and very genuine guy. Something I cannot say for many of the anarcho-punk wanks I’ve encountered who would have been slagging him off.
alistairliv • Post Author •
February 19, 2008 at 4:50 pm

Nic – I put a short (3000) word chunk of Dave Wise’s piece on Greengalloway last March
http://greengalloway.blogspot.com/2007/03/everything-turned-into-its-opposite.html

with a similar ‘situationist critique of anarcho-punk’ slightly later
http://greengalloway.blogspot.com/2007/03/situationist-critique-of-anarcho-punk.html

And then had fun with colourful cut-ups prompted by one of my readers having a go at Jamie Reid
http://greengalloway.blogspot.com/2007/11/feeding-5000-arty-wankers.html

Chris – quote “I know folk who got into ‘anarchism’ through a variety of diverse avenues. from their local CND group, anti-fascist confrontations, post paris ‘68 student politics, the counter-culture press (Oz, IT etc), the angry brigade defence trials, even the anti-internment movement.”

This suggests ‘anarchism’ is something different from CND, anti-fascism, student politics the counter-culture etc if people moved to an anarchist position from these starting points. I think that is why Ben Franks came up with “class struggle anarchism” to distinguish the real thing from other anarcho-brands.

But then you can end up with (sorry for all the -isms) anarchism as ‘anti-statist Marxism’ or ‘anti-vanguardist council communism’… then there are the situationists who slagged off anarchos and all 57 varieties of marxism…
Nic
February 19, 2008 at 5:27 pm

Ah, I should have guessed that it would have been in greengalloway, Al…

No time to finish my blurb today – I’m off out of here…
Have a good evening, you…
gerard
February 19, 2008 at 9:43 pm

“Chris – quote “I know folk who got into ‘anarchism’ through a variety of diverse avenues. from their local CND group, anti-fascist confrontations, post paris ‘68 student politics, the counter-culture press (Oz, IT etc), the angry brigade defence trials, even the anti-internment movement.”

This suggests ‘anarchism’ is something different from CND, anti-fascism, student politics the counter-culture etc if people moved to an anarchist position from these starting points. I think that is why Ben Franks came up with “class struggle anarchism” to distinguish the real thing from other anarcho-brands.”

Cheers for some interesting thinking people!

…But when I mentioned my grandads generation I was specifically thinking of the pre-60s anarchists – spanish civil war etc.

All the pre-punk references referenced here seem to start in the 60s or later, aside from the anti fascist strand. But plenty of disparate groups were and are anti fascist, so how did ‘anarchism come into it?
alistairliv • Post Author •
February 19, 2008 at 10:32 pm

Ben Franks: Rebel Alliances:2006: page 50

The anti-fascist movement in Britain was dominated by the CPGB. The left-intellectual millieu was dominated by pro-Soviet Union sentiment, tothe extent that all active opposition to Franco was credited to the communists. The Communists accused CNT-FAI and POUM as being ‘fascist agents’…

Following the outbreak of the Spanish civil war British anarchists [of whom there were about 500 at the time] took an increasingly syndicalist stance influenced by the CNT-FAI who opened a London Bureau. An Anarcho-Syndicalist Union (ASU) was formed… whose work was mostly dedicated to rallying support for anarchists in Spain.

Quotes end.

“Anarchism” proper comes from Proudon who said “I am an anarchist” in 1846… the first punk rocker? But Bakunin developed the ideas and was attacked by Marx for doing so on grounds of ‘dividing the working class struggle’ – I think. Bit rusty on all this.

Anarchism proper (Ben Franks cover all this) arrived in UK in 1880s with exiled Russian/ Jewish anarchists and developed in old East End up to WW1. The rise of Leninist/ Stalinist Marxism isolated the anarchists – who were dismissed as ‘petit bourgeoise deviationists’. (Anarchist in Leninist Russia were ‘liquidated’ – see ‘The Guillotine at Work by ?- on my shelves somewhere’)

Which takes us up to Spanish Civil War – although just found out thanks to google that there were Scottish anarchists circa 1911.

This European tradition of anarchism proper is therefore different from English/ British cultures of resistance going back to the Diggers and Levellers of 1640ies and on through into Chartists.

Enough for starters?
gerard
February 19, 2008 at 11:15 pm

“British anarchists [of whom there were about 500 at the time] ”

…er, who counted? and on what grounds / defintions? bullshit statement.

i can’t believe there will ever be a moment in my life when i’m bored enough to read ben franks book, unless someone can suggest me different? seems like it says nothing to me about my life (…after morrisey, as cartoonists would say)

another intersting quote here: “The rise of Leninist/ Stalinist Marxism isolated the anarchists – who were dismissed as ‘petit bourgeoise deviationists’.”

essentially, that was my main feeling about much of the anarcho-punk scene. not as a slag off necessarily.

PRINCE proudhon, wasn’t it?

interesting chats about cuba today following fidels retirement – the media presentation on telly and radio is startlingly pro-bush, and i’m talking the bbc here: the semantics used are shockingly pre-biased…
alistairliv • Post Author •
February 20, 2008 at 12:42 am

Ah… it was Ben wot counted them. Or rather who found that someone called Espero White tried to set up a Federation of [Anarchist] Groups in 1933 and carried out a telephone survey using a reputable market research organisation to ask “Have you ever considered joining an anarchist federation?”… or at least added up the subscriptions to all known anarchist publications to arrive at the figure of 500 militant anarchists.

And wasn’t it Kropotkin who was a Prince, not Proudhon?
Chris
February 20, 2008 at 1:03 am

Yes, Kropotkin was a Prince, descended from Russian nobility.

JP Prudohn was a raging anti-semite.

both wrote very boring books.

the only @ stuff worth reading IMO is on the more ‘colourful’ characters like Stirner, Nechayev, Ravachol, Victor Serge, Durutti, the Bonot gang, Johann Most, Lucy Parsons, the Haymarket Martyrs…folk like that. Nutters basically, but at least they led interesting lives and got up to lots of mentalness rather than debating dialectics in the 2nd International and all that dullness.

“The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion – the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose – to destroy it”

from “The Revolutionary Catechism ” by Sergei Nechayev. Always liked that, but perhaps he wouldn’t exactly have been the best of companions on a night out.
Chris
February 20, 2008 at 1:08 am

Oh yea, think he had a ‘disagreement’ with one of his young Helegian comrades about the nature of the propaganda they should be producing and won his case by strangling him and submerging him in a frozen lake. Evidently a man not easily swayed by the opinions of his peers 🙂
Wildebeest
February 20, 2008 at 8:00 pm

In response to Nic’s diatrible about the Clash, with all due respect are we talking about the same Clash? Clearly you never met them as they were all incredibly down to earth, really nice, gracious individuals. I remember a couple of years before Joe died he was in New York hanging out in this bar filled with ‘crusties’. I can’t bring myself to use the term punk rockers because these guys are basically drug casualties/homeless guys with no connection to anything that I would call punk rock. Joe was in there patiently telling them stories and answering their questions and buying them drinks in a very unpatronizing like manner which blew me away. Back when we used to see him, Mick and Paul at Notting Hill they always nodded hello to everyone that looked like they might recognize them and were nothing but great people.
When I look back at my music collection and recollections it’s hard to ignore the fact that before Crass we were all really listening to some great music, the Subway Sect, the Gang of Four, the Ruts, I could go on, but seriously listen to ‘West one (shine on me)’ or ‘Staring at the rude boys’. On a purely musical level some of these bands were amazing. When Crass came along what you ate became more important than your music. In fact your music was probably one of the last things people considered when they were weighing up whether they liked your band. Your artwork, politics, diet etc all had to read like a check list as a group of aging hippies sucked all of the individuality, talent, musicianship, free will, thought and fun out of punk. If this message board was an anarcho-punk message board there is no way in hell I would bother to read it or post on it, but it isn’t it’s a KYPP board started and run by people that I knew really well and was great friends with. To be honest I can’t remember ever going into anyone’s house back then and hearing them playing a Crass record. Sorry Nic, you can have your memories and I’ll have mine and I have no interest in a back and forth clash vs crass argument, history has already answered that question.
Nic
February 20, 2008 at 9:18 pm

Fair play, John – you have your memories and that’s great…
However, they are as subjective as mine, and certainly not worth getting cross over…

I’m interested in the dialogue and the debate of the deeper ideas beyond the manifestations of pop bands which is why I’m here…not to convince anyone or bully them into it – just to discuss and take in the ideas, to mull them over, and to attempt to add to the flow of thought…

History is what’s happening…

🙂
Chris
February 21, 2008 at 1:36 am

I think whatever anyone might think of the Clash’s music or image, all i can say about Strummer is the first time I saw The Clash (must have been around 1981) i went round the back of the venue – Glasgow Apollo or Edinburgh Odeon maybe? – with my mates, as we always used to do to try to watch the bands soundchecking or just meet other punks. After running through a few tracks Strummer came over to speak to us and said if we just hung about we wouldnt have to go out and buy tickets. In 1999 – best part of 20 years later – I was in San Francisco and saw Strummer was playing one night. I’d spunked all my money and had barely two dollars to rub together so walked all the way there the afternoon of the gig, told the folk at the door I knew Strummer, to no avail, and was about to give it my best blag when he came out the venue. The bouncer went ‘hey, this guy says he knows you’, to which, Strummer, without hesitation, responded “Yea of course, how ya doing mate?” Needless to say he didn’t know me from Adam! After a short chat he told me he was sorry but he had to rush off and did I have a ticket for the gig? Replying ‘no’ he pointed me in the direction of a girl with a clipboard who he shouted over to “This is a mate of mine from Scotland, put him and a plus one on the list for tonight”. I’ve heard similar anecdotes from others and that, to me, pretty much says it all about the bloke.
luggy
February 21, 2008 at 11:46 am

They always used to let as many people as they could in free, often putting up with shit from hostile bouncers. Blagged my way in to a couple of their gigs this way.
Remember about 60 of us having to wait in their dressing room at the Harleden Roxy until just before they came on & the houselights went out , then rushing out past the bouncers into the crowd.
Great adrenalin rush which carried on as they hit the stage. They were a great live band which unfortunately cannot be said of Crass.
simon
February 21, 2008 at 12:05 pm

Is this the ‘God Told Me To Do It’ thread?! ;-D

Sorry, I was told to do it, bloody voices in my head…
Chris
February 21, 2008 at 1:07 pm

Objection m’lud. I thought crass were an AMAZING live band. Don’t think they would ever have had the impact they did if they were anything less.
sean
February 21, 2008 at 1:13 pm

they were only any good with james,me and will de beest as their saxophone section at the bingo hall.With cardboard sax’s.And our trousers down.
Wildebeest
February 22, 2008 at 8:44 am

Be forewarned this post is to make people laugh, if your don’t have a sense of humor stop reading now.
Comparing the Clash to Crass to me is kind of like the difference between going to a friends house for a great meal verses the same meal that someone has sprinkled huge piles of dog shit on it. If I could actually bring myself to listen to one of their records on i-tunes I could point out which Crass song lifted the guitar riff from ‘Clash City Rockers’ and turned it into a crap song (Though I suppose Who fans will feel the same about ‘Can’t explain’ where the Clash stole it from in the first place) Then the vocalist of Crass paraphrases the intro to ‘Guns on the Roof’ to slag the Clash off. Hmm sounds like a fan to me. Also the name of Crass’ samplers was ‘Bullshit detector’ which was of course lifted from a Clash lyric.
Now not that I have any kind of problem with a small crap band making themselves look bigger and better by attacking a bigger and better band. After all that was exactly what GTMTDI did from their first show and all the way through their long and illustrious ‘career’.
Okay well sorry if that didn’t make you laugh, but it did me.
betab
February 22, 2008 at 1:22 pm

Picking up Gerard’s comments above (not sure if we’re stilll on the right thread – should this shift to rebel alliances area?) I’m just ploughing my way through and losing the will to live.

I do know that there were some wonderfully inspiring nutters around the london scene at the end of the 19th centruy, whatever they get called if Franks et al decide they were not anarchists, who set up urban wholefood co-ops, rural communes, brotherhood churches, bike co-ops etc united by a rejection of external authority and celebration of Tolstoyan pacifism. I keep finding out more and more about them and find them regenerating my desire to try and build change.
Chris
February 22, 2008 at 1:33 pm

not to in any way denigrate the undoubtedly good and inspirational work they did but wouldn’t they be ‘Tolstoyan Pacifists’ then?
George Orwell wrote a bit about many of these early ‘back to the earth’ groups in , i think, ‘the road to Wigan Pier’. In the same book he was also, quite justifiably, scathing about anarchist ‘life-stylists’, a phenomenon which seemed to have emerged even in the late ’30s.
betab
February 23, 2008 at 10:30 am

Fair comment, but I’d have to insist that all other brands of anarchist be called likewise – Bakunininsts, Malatestists (? ..testes?), Rockerists, Mostists, Kroptkinists and even Bone-ists.
My point was more that Franks draws a very sharp line as to who can play in his anarchist playpen and who is not part of the game. I would have thought that Tolstoyan Pacifism qualified as anarchism through its critique of all forms of hierarchy. It certainly qualifies under my reading of Franks’ own 4 point definition he doesn’t make it clear how those he excludes fail to be part of it.
(Actually, in terms of disqualification Franks says that means must prefigure ends and I’m reminded of – I think it was Robert Blatchford in the Clarion – the flippant comment that “i’ve never understood how advocating class war helps build a sense of universal brotherhood”)
More worrying is that Franks’ entire book reads more like an obsession with Leninism and a frantic desire to refute its credentials – I think it gets more mentions than anarchism does. I confess I’ve never seen Leninism as the biggest problem form of authority in the UK but maybe I’ve not been looking in the right places.
alistairliv • Post Author •
February 24, 2008 at 11:05 am

Scotland? Rebel Alliances was published in 2006 at which time ex- Militant memberTommy Sheridan’s Scottish Socialist Party appeared to be moving ever onward and upward. Within the SSP there was a debate between advocates of ‘revolution from above’ (ex SWP platform) and ‘revolution from below’ (Republican Communist Network platform) carried on in pages of Emancipation and Liberation see http://republicancommunist.org/journalsindex.html
over several issues ( 5 to 10 from memory). The focus was ‘can there be a left nationalism?’ as in a separate Scottish path to socialism.

I will ask Ben, but maybe this Trotskyite (rather than Leninist) advance into the mainstream of Scottish politics influenced the writing of Rebel Alliances.
Chris
February 24, 2008 at 7:04 pm

BETAB: I would have thought that Tolstoyan Pacifism qualified as anarchism through its critique of all forms of hierarchy.

Technically, No, as the disollution of the state and class structure were not central tenets of Tolsyoism and are clearly integral to anarchism.

Not that I see ‘the disollution of the state and class structure’ as attainable anyway.
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Jah Pork Pie
July 14, 2008 at 11:45 am

How fantastic – who says that spambots don’t have a sense of humour?

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Penguin
July 14, 2008 at 5:51 pm

Will keep these last two comments up due to the genius of Porks reply, but please refrain from commenting on spammers adverts in the future as both the spam and any comments concerning the spam will be deleted. Since changing site hosts we have had the spam count hitting KYPP at least double. Most of it is caught but some get through. I can only access the site mornings before 10.00, during lunch breaks (in my case 17.30 – 18.30 and when I get home after 19.30. This is when I sweep the shit out of the site.
Anyone interested in penis extensions, (no doubt out of date) mail order pills and viagra, teen sex * and all the rest of it can contact me directly!

* Goverment site snoopers, this is a joke by the way.
Jah Pork Pie
July 14, 2008 at 6:11 pm

Interesting thread which I wouldn’t have come across if it wasn’t for the spammer above!

One thing I couldn’t quite work out, though, is the quote by Chris from Nechayev above: “The Revolutionist is a doomed man….” (etc)

I wasn’t sure if Nechayev was being terribly complimentary, but then reading it again and having known a goof few revolutionary types over the years, perhaps he’s paying them a very big compliment indeed!

Thoughts?
Jah Pork Pie
July 14, 2008 at 6:37 pm

Oops… that should have been “a good few revolutionary types”. But then again, a few of them were at the needle, so maybe I did mean “goof” 😉