Anarchist Sampler: Social Revolution

anarchist militia bound for the front, Barcelona c. 1936

We do not want the death of men but the abolition of positions and things.
Mikhail Bakunin, The Lullers
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
IWW, Preamble to the Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)
Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who laid his plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with him, without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct actionist.
Voltairine de Cleyre, "Direct Action"
Direct action may be the extreme of violence, or it may be as peaceful as the waters of the Brook of Shiloa that go softly. What I say is, that the real non-resistants can believe in direct action only, never in political action. For the basis of all political action is coercion; even when the State does good things, it finally rests on a club, a gun, or a prison, for its power to carry them through.
Voltairine de Cleyre, "Direct Action"
It is by and because of the direct acts of the forerunners of social change, whether they be of peaceful or warlike nature, that the Human Conscience, the conscience of the mass, becomes aroused to the need for change. It would be very stupid to say that no good results are ever brought about by political action; sometimes good things do come about that way. But never until individual rebellion, followed by mass rebellion, has forced it. Direct action is always the clamorer, the initiator, through which the great sum of indifferentists become aware that oppression is getting intolerable.
Voltairine de Cleyre, "Direct Action"
A balance must be achieved between the suffocating tyranny of unbridled authority and the kind of "autonomy" that leads to petty local patriotism, separation of little grouplets, and the fragmentation of society. Libertarian organization must reflect the complexity of societal relationships and promote solidarity on the widest possible scale. It can be defined as federalism: coordination through free agreement -- locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. A vast coordinated network of voluntary alliances embracing the totality of social life, in which all the groups and associations reap the benefits of unity while still exercising autonomy within their own spheres and expanding the range of their freedom.
Sam Dolgoff, "The Relevance of Anarchism to Modern Society"
Society without order (as the word "society" implies) is inconceivable. But the organization of order is not the exclusive monopoly of the State. For, if the State authority is the sole guarantee of order, who will watch the watchmen? Federalism is also a form of order, which preceded the establishment of the State. But it is order which guarantees the freedom and independence of the individuals and associations who freely and spontaneously constitute the federations. Federalism is not like the State, born of the will to power, but is recognition of the ineluctable interdependence of mankind. Federalism springs from the will to harmony and solidarity.
Sam Dolgoff, "The Relevance of Anarchism to Modern Society"
Some anarchists support the idea of building giant unions controlled from the bottom up, rather than the usual top down structure. This syndicalism is a clear strategy for revolution which has been shown effective in the past. The union ideally includes all the workers in each place and aims to develop self-organisation to the point where the workers can easily take over the factories. Strikes can, where necessary, be backed up by solidarity action from other workers.
Eventually, enough workers will have joined and become active for a general strike. The State is paralysed and can do nothing if it cannot trust the army to kill its own relatives. The general strike may be a general takeover by the people, or develop into one.
The Anarchist Media Group, "Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Anarchy (But Were Afraid To Ask)"
Before long, all those bloody butcheries and massacres must arouse against them [terrorist revolutionaries] everything that is human in man.
Mikhail Bakunin, Philosophical Considerations
Collectivism can be imposed only upon slaves -- and then collectivism becomes the negation of humanity. Among a free people collectivism can come about only in the natural course of things, by force of circumstances: not by imposing it from above, but by a spontaneous movement from below, which springs forth freely and necessarily when the conditions of privileged individualism -- State politics, the codes of civil and criminal law, the juridical family and inheritance rights -- have been swept away by the Revolution.
Mikhail Bakunin, Letters to a Frenchman
In a highly developed society, the Establishment cannot survive without the obedience and loyalty of millions of people who are given small rewards to keep the system going: the soldiers and police, teachers and ministers, administrators and social workers, technicians and production workers, doctors, lawyers, nurses, transport and communication workers, garbagemen and firemen. These people -- the employed, the somewhat privileged -- are drawn into alliance with the elite. They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.
That will happen, I think, only when all of us who are slightly privileged and slightly uneasy begin to see that we are like the guards in the prison uprising at Attica -- expendable; that the Establishment, whatever rewards it gives us, will also, if necessary to maintain its control, kill us.
Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present (Revised and Updated Edition) , ch. 23
Revolutions are not improvised. They are not made at will by individuals, and not even by the most powerful associations. They come about through force of circumstances, and are independent of any deliberate will or conspiracy. They can be foreseen ... but never can their explosion be accelerated.
Mikhail Bakunin, The Politics of the International
Hierarchy, dominance and submission, repression and power -- these are facts of everyday life. Revolution is a process, and even the eradication of coercive institutions will not automatically create a liberatory society. We create that society by building new institutions, by changing the character of our social relationships, by changing ourselves -- and throughout that process by changing the distribution of power in society. It is by the constant building of new forms of organization, by the continual critical evaluation of our successes and failures, that we prevent old ideas and old forms of organization from re-emerging.
Howard J. Ehrlich, Carol Ehrlich, David DeLeon, and Glenda Morris, "Questions and Answers About Anarchism," in Howard J. Ehrlich and Carol Ehrlich (eds.), Reinventing Anarchy: What Are the Anarchists Thinking These Days?

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