RED ALERT by Unpopular Books

World Revolution (WR) prides itself on a series of articles where it has subjected Bakunin the nineteenth century anarchist to an avalanche of criticism. But Bakunin is dead. But in response to well-founded criticism from the London Psychogeographical Association and Unpopular Books, the WR springs to the defence of Green Anarchist (GA), a right-wing anarchist group which has consistently dismissed the notion of class struggle as outdated, and has instead promoted a pseudo-existentialist notion of the revolutionary which draws its inspiration from the Oklahoma bombing in the USA and the Aum cults sarin poison attack on the Japanese underground system:

"Over all areas; animal rights, the environment, roads, the anti-JSA protests, we are going to see an increase in militancy, why? Because the ossified political structures are wholly unresponsive to peoples' needs and aspirations. The Unabomber, the ALF, Justice Department and ARM, the Oklahoma bombers and the Japanese Aum cult all show the direction it is going in. Outside of Middle Eastern Terrorism, events like the Oklahoma bomb would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. Such developments are inspirational and open up wide ranges of new possibilities. As far as I know, Britain has yet to develop some equivalent of the armed militia groups, but given the moronic totalitarianism of British politics, this can only be a matter of time." Into the 1990's with Green Anarchist (Green Anarchist Books, 1996)

Unpopular Books recently published Militias: Rooted in White Supremacy featuring two articles discussing the militia movement in the USA and a further essay on Anarchism and the Militias exposing GA's championing of the US militia movement and linking in the fascist apologetics of Nigel Pennick published in 1979 by the Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review. WR makes no mention of this, but pretends that our activity revolves around denouncing the International Communist Current of which they are the section in Britain. While it is true that we have spent a certain amount of energy exposing their clumsy attempts to present themselves as "the only organisation at present prepared to defend the revolutionary milieu" (WR No.190, Dec 1995). In fact, their energy goes into defending themselves from any criticism, denouncing anyone who dares breath a word against them as 'parasites'. In fact on two occasions (Is Subversion Sane? and Green Parasites) we have defended the ICC from unjustified allegations of Stalinism. This is because our goal is not a blind attack on the ICC out of petty jealousy, pique or some sort of stunt, but because we want to expose the Leninism which lays at the root of their behaviour.

Before looking deeper at the degeneracy of the ICC, it is necessary to clarify beyond doubt how Green Anarchist reject any sort of working class politics, and in fact despise the working class, seeing themselves as part of a 5% moral elite. Back in Spring 1994, Green Anarchist N0.34 devoted 5 pages to the class question. A few quotes:

"Class politics is attractive because it removes responsibility from the individual and places it on the working class as a whole."

"In practice, the class paradigm is not about a one-off battle between cops and strikers, nor a sustained campaign, class war or revolution, but it is really about keeping the conflict flowing along predictable lines, it is about political business as usual. the class paradigm uses the confrontational energy as a bargaining tool. It asks for higher wages, it asks for re-instatement if your sacked strikers, less pit closures etc. You know the script. Ultimately, the class paradigm reinforces the bosses right to rule."

"The class paradigm is not against the system but part of it, a vehicle for turning anger into hot air rather than activity, a way of wanking off creative energy into uselessness and futility. It is time we ditched this bankrupt ideology."The Class Paradigm by Lancaster Bomber

"What really motivates the revolutionary? The individual revolutionary, the person seeking change "Given that all of us want change . . ." etc is not in the first instance a sense of solidarity with the oppressed everywhere but the existential need to deny, the need to act against his or her own existential negation. Class in itself is not meaningfully homogeneous. We need to get rid of this wishful thinking, and start to think about ways in which we ourselves can act against our oppression. If we wait for other people, for the working class to do it for us, we shall be waiting a long time." The Dogma of Class Denied by Stephen Booth

"Society is split up so much that Steve Booth is probably right, the working class will never come together as a homogenous revolutionary group. This is not so much a defence of the Marxist sense of class but we need to be real about what is possible. Anarchism must be relevant to ordinary people because they have the power to change things for the better." The Dogma of Class Defended by Boris

"So support 3rd world peasant revolutions anyway, and let the working class here rot. And the so-called underclass could further undermine the property status quo by sowing seeds for food everywhere. Imagine town council flower beds ruined by a crop of spuds!" Class and Land by Mr Blobby

More recent articles in GA and Lancaster Bomber (part of the Green Anarchist Network) are even more disturbing. They have attacked resistance to the Job Seekers Allowance. Rather than seeing as this as an attack on workers and claimants, forcing people into low paid work, they propose Oklahoma style bomb attacks on dole offices. Apparently it doesn't matter if workers or claimants are killed as we are "passive clottery ticket buying masses" "who do not buy the Socialist Worker but the Sun and vote Tory/Tony". "Ordinary factory workers, maybe even your next door neighbour make the CS gas and electric torture prods, apply the telephone taps, operate the CCTV cameras and feed information into the black list scheme." (Anarchist Lancaster Bomber No.17 Jan 1997) They talk about developing an underground economy but fail to explain what exactly they mean by this. In fact there is an underground economy of child prostitution, crack dealing and extortion run by organised crime i.e. a strata of the capitalist class.

These few quotes serve to illustrate that far from being a "confused expression of an effort to relate to the class struggle" GA are virulent enemies of working class autonomy and instead want to promote an existentialist individualist view of revolt. It is no surprise that one of their heroes is Count Claus von Stauffenberg, a career soldier who tried to stage an anti-Nazi coup by assassinating Hitler. Lancaster Bomber suggest that his attempt failed "because he was not prepared to take the necessary steps to see it through to the end. Stauffenberg should have stayed with his briefcase." What stupidity! How can you stage a coup by blowing yourself up? They haven't even worked out that Stauffenberg was an elitist who wanted to get rid of the jumped up little corporal in order to patriotically take over the helm of the German state. These are the people who the ICC defend.

And as to the provocation? We have published Green Apocalypse which contains a detailed analysis of GA, and in particular applies a critique of Bakuninism in the context of contemporary politics, rather than simply tackling the old man's skeletons like the ICC. In it we can see where the provocations come. After the Neoist Alliance criticised GA for being as fascistic as their ideological architect Richard Hunt (Re:Action No.1, Winter Solstice 1994, reproduced in Green Apocalypse), GA responded with the fabrication that the editor of Re:Action was associated with the Nazi band Skrewdriver and indeed had acknowledgements on a record sleeve a decade ago. This was a simple lie. This was a provocation. Green Apocalypse scrupulously reproduces both texts from GA, Lancaster Bomber as well as those from the Neoist Alliance, LPA, G-Spot, Student Outlook as well as other texts. The ICC's defence of Green Anarchist is inexcusable. Implicit in this they are suggesting that GA's allegations concerning Skrewdriver are true, but without having the bottle to say so outright. Enough of such snide hiding in the shadows of Green Anarchist. Let them withdraw the allegation of provocation or present the evidence. GA have failed to present any evidence after two years because there is none.

Despite all the fine words criticising Bakunin, they end up going along with contemporary Bakuninism as analysed in Green Apocalypse. the reason because they know that the criticisms piled up by the LPA/Unpopular Books are exposing them for the shucksters they are. They are terrified because our publication The Revolution is Not a Masonic Affair, shows how freemasonry was used by the revolutionary bourgeoisie. Their critique of Bakunin is centred on his freemasonry/secret societies approach. Implicitly this refutes their theory of decadence, according to which bourgeois forms remain progressive until circa 1914. They have accused us of "gangster methods" (without giving any examples of what they mean). However it will be with the merciless logic of history that we will fully expose their fatuous posturing, their use of the German Left Communist to act as a fig leaf behind which they can hide the bourgeois role of bolshevism. But that must wait for a detailed pamphlet. In the meantime we hope this Red Alert, has clarified the latest degeneracy of World Revolution, which has reached such a stage that they can no longer be considered part of the revolutionary milieu.

Published by Unpopular books

GA clutches at straws from Cultwatch (May 1999)

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