Workers of Fiat in Italy take over the Factories

Anarchism is today finally emerging out of its long held position as ‘the conscience of the workers’ movement’, as the eternal critic of Leninism and state centred politics.

It long took the side of the working class against the Party, a position Lenin mocked when he wrote: “The mere presentation of the question—"dictatorship of the party or dictatorship of the class(1); dictatorship (party) of the leaders, or dictatorship (party) of the masses?"—testifies to most incredibly and hopelessly muddled thinking....to contrast, in general, the dictatorship of the masses with a dictatorship of the leaders is ridiculously absurd, and stupid.”(2) Interestingly this was not written about anarchists, but rather about the position held by a Dutch-German Marxist tendency that was part of the Comintern. This tendency and others comprise what is known as ‘left-communism’.

On this page we have put together links to texts of talks given to WSM meetings dealing primarily with revolutionary periods in France, Russia, Spain and Ireland, but also more general histories, as well as accounts of some important anarchist figures of the past.

Please bear in mind that all opinions are those of the respective authors.

Money issued by the 1919 Limerick Soviet

Articles on 1916, the War of Independence and related issues published by the WSM as well as material by other anarchists and documents from the period.

UVF training in 1914

May 3rd was the 88th anniversary of the largest 'Mayday' demonstration in Irish history, when what the Belfast Newsletter described as ""a little band of disgruntled Red-Socialists"" led 100,000 workers through the streets of Belfast. Everywhere else in Ireland in 1919 had also seen massive Mayday demonstrations, with 10,000 demonstrating in Burr Co. Offaly.

Outside of the North East, these had been called for the 1st of May in order "to demonstrate the solidarity of workers and to reaffirm their adhesion to the principles of self-determination"". But Belfast marched to a different theme on the 3rd May. Both North and South a massive wave of working class militancy had grown and although these struggles shared a common rhythm they happened in isolation from each other.

Anarchist Milita woman during the revolution

Today a social revolution that took place seventy years ago is remembered by libertarian socialists as an example of how our ideas can work. The Spanish revolution came closer to realising the possibilities of a free stateless society on a huge scale than any other revolution in history.

Liberty hall after the rising

At 11.30 in the morning of April 24 1916 Bugler William Oman, a member of a syndicalist workers militia the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), sounded the 'fall-in' outside his union headquarters. This was the start of an insurrection in Dublin which was to see around 1,500 armed men and women seize key buildings throughout the city, and to hold these positions against thousands of British Army soldiers for almost a week.  In the course of putting down the insurrection, 1351 people were killed or severely wounded and 179 buildings in the city centre were destroyed.(1)

O'Connell street after the insurrection

This article is an anarchist analysis of the 1916 insurrection and the war of independence in the context of the struggle for socialism in Ireland and internationally. It concentrates on the 'unknown' but intense class struggle that ran alongside the war of independence and the role republicanism played in the suppression of that struggle. It asks 'what is freedom' and shows how anarchism originated amongst earlier European left republicans as an answer to the limitations of republicanism