****************** Which way to the revolution *********************

From the 1870's the world has been rocked by revolutions, but all 
have gone down to defeat.  Anarchists believe they understand why 
previous revolutions have failed, but do we know how a successful 
revolution can be made?  Are there steps we can take today to prepare 
and nurture such a revolution, or is it a question of waiting for the 
ripening of time?

The first thing to consider is the kind of revolution that we are 
fighting for, because the ends we have in mind will, to a large extent, 
determine the means we use.  We are not interested in exchanging 
one set of rulers for another; when we speak of revolution we do not 
mean a coup d'Žtat.  Anarchist revolution is a fundamental change in 
the way society is ordered - we want to replace the dictatorship of a 
minority, not with the dictatorship of another, but with freedom for 
all.

What we reject is political revolution.  Whether they use the ballot 
box or the Armalite, we know better than to trust our would-be 
leaders.  No matter how well-intentioned they may be, a minority 
cannot deliver real change from above.   Real socialism comes from 
below, through mass participation.  As Daniel Webster (American 
revolutionary) said, "In every generation, there are those who want 
to rule well - but they mean to rule.  They promise to be good masters 
- but they mean to be masters."

A social revolution, on the other hand, is a much broader change in 
society, involving a much greater number of people.  An anarchist 
revolution cannot happen without both this widespread mood for 
change, and some idea of what change is necessary.  The best example 
of this is the revolution in Spain in 1936.

What is striking about the Spanish Revolution, particularly in 
Catalonia and Aragon, is how profoundly life was transformed.  
Certainly, the economic changes were amazing enough, with most 
industries in Barcelona being collectivised, run by the workers, as 
well as many farms in Aragon.  The revolution was not limited to 
economic change, rather this went hand in hand with social change.  
Of course, the revolution wasn't perfect, and in the end was defeated 
by a combination of Stalinism, fascism, and the mistakes that were 
made1.  For a time though, living, breathing socialism could be seen , 
and this in a spirit of liberty, with no need for, indeed sometimes 
contrary to, orders from any central authority.

Of course, the whole point of the Spanish Revolution was that it took 
place from the ground up, and the same effects could never be 
produced through seizing government in a political revolution (How 
do you legislate for freedom?).  But could a similarly far-reaching 
change take place this way, introduced by a caring and progressive 
party?  The historical evidence would suggest not (not that we can 
point to many examples where it's been tried).  Why is that?  To 
understand that, we have to examine those factors that lead to a 
revolution.

What causes a revolution?

The simple answer to that is, of course, capitalism.  Capitalism, as an 
economic system, and its chief weapon, the state, are dedicated to one 
thing - maintaining the ascendancy of a minority over the majority.  
It is the major cause of wars, of famines, of sexism, racism, poverty, 
unemployment and too many other social ills to list, let alone 
describe.  All these things mean that most people have little stake in 
keeping society from changing, indeed most would welcome change.  
The problem is that people don't see any alternatives, or dismiss 
those they are presented with as utopian and unreachable.

Although this problem is exacerbated by the low level of struggle at 
the moment, this does not mean that people's minds are totally 
closed to radical ideas.  Capitalism sows the seeds of its own 
destruction.  It brings workers together into workplaces, forcing them 
to organise collectively, and the relentless drive for profit constantly 
reminds workers that they have collective interests, diametrically 
opposed to those of the ruling class.  This means that, even when the 
confidence of the class as a whole is at its lowest, there will still be 
areas where people are fighting back.  For example, in the past few 
years, the WSM has been involved in struggles for union 
recognition, for abortion rights, against racism, and against increasing 
taxation of working class people.  Even though these campaigns may 
have started small (and some of them stayed small!), people got 
involved because they knew that things had to change.  This 
recognition that there are problems in the way society is run, though 
it may be focused on one issue initially, can lead people to realise that 
tinkering with the system isn't enough, real improvement requires 
real change - revolutionary change.

In theoretical terms, the direct cause of a revolution is generally 
expressed in terms of two sets of conditions - objective and subjective 
factors.

Objective Factors are the things outside your head, independent (at 
least directly) from your thoughts and emotions.  If you get laid off 
work, if a war starts, if it rains on you on your way to the pub, you 
can't change things by closing your eyes and wishing them away.  Of 
course, your thoughts may have an indirect effect, when they lead to 
action, like joining a union or remembering your umbrella, but 
generally you don't have much control over what happens in the 
world.

The objective factors in a revolution are events outside the control of 
any individual or small group, such as a stock-market crash or an 
invasion, which lead people to re-examine their society, and, possibly, 
act to change it.  For example, changes in British society at the end of 
the second World War2 were triggered to a certain extent by the 
hardships of war.  In Russia, in 1917, rather than lead to renewed 
optimism, the experience of war generated a deep anger directed 
towards the Tsar and the system that was causing so much hardship.

Subjective Factors, on the other hand, are the things inside your head 
- your thoughts on life , the universe and everything, down to 
whether you think it will start raining while you're on your way to 
the pub (it will - bring your umbrella!).  Since the subjective factors in 
a revolution are those that depend on individual people, they are 
obviously the ones that revolutionary groups try to change.  Of 
course, there can be no strict division between subjective and 
objective factors - it is the thoughts in your head that decide whether 
or not you will join a union, vote for a strike or pass a picket, which 
side of the barricade you will be on.  Equally, your decisions, and the 
actions that result from them, will have an effect on the ideas of the 
people around you.

Opportunity for revolution only arises at particular times, when both 
the subjective and objective conditions necessary for success are 
present.  In other words, some crisis occurs, and the level of 
consciousness of the people is such that they choose revolution.  
Even though tension is usually building for some time beforehand, 
when the moment comes it can come with breathtaking speed, and 
can be triggered by even the smallest events.

For example, in France a massive increase in strikes in 1967 was 
followed in 1968 by student demonstrations which grew into a 
general strike that almost toppled DeGaulle's government.  In 
Budapest in 1956, it was a student march that started the Hungarian 
Revolution, which saw, in the short weeks before it was crushed by 
Soviet tanks, over twenty independent newspapers set up, and a 
Parliament of Workers' Councils which proclaimed the right of the 
workers themselves to manage their workplaces.

Although these uprisings can sometimes look as if they come out of 
nowhere, this is far from true.  Rather it is as if a rising tide of 
militancy reaches some critical point and breaks the dam - sudden, 
yes, but not spontaneous.  Before the Hungarian Revolution strikes 
were widespread, before the October Revolution in Russia there was a 
series of strikes and struggles, which themselves followed on from 
the unsuccessful revolution in 1905.  So with hindsight, every revolt 
can be seen as part of a process, the continuation of previous 
struggles.

More Than Marking Time

Anarchism is a very simple and very natural idea, but when you're 
used to capitalism it can seem a little weird just because of this 
simplicity.  Although people may want change, nearly everybody 
thinks, at first anyway, that all that's really needed are a few 
adjustments to the system, and everything will be fine.  Then when 
you pass that stage, and realise that the whole world needs to be 
'adjusted', it is easy to think that such a jump needs a vastly 
complicated body of theory, and possibly a few great leaders, if it is to 
succeed.

On the other hand, when anarchism is put into practice, it works, and 
it's always more convincing to point at a house than to point at a 
blueprint.  In Spain during the Revolution, huge numbers of 
industries and farms were collectivised by their workers, and the 
militias were run on anarchist lines.  Would all of this have 
happened if people had not already seen that anarchism worked?

What role then does the revolutionary group have to play in the 
build-up to a revolution?  In general where there is no established 
channel through which the desire for revolutionary change is 
expressed, those that arise will tend to have a libertarian form3, but 
sometimes there are established 'alternatives'.  In France in '68, a 
potentially revolutionary movement got side-tracked into voting for 
the Communist Party, because they were seen as the only potential 
alternative to capitalism.  We must remember that vanguardist ideas 
and organisations will not automatically become irrelevant.  If people 
have had little prior experience in politics, it can take time for them 
to realise how manipulative and deceitful vanguardist groups are, by 
which time it may be too late.

Rather than waiting for the revolution to come, and then hoping that 
people don't go down another initially promising dead-end, we have 
to think about what kind of organisation we would like to see arise, 
and then start laying the framework for it today.  In Spain we had an 
example of how things could work.  For all our problems with 
anarcho-syndicalism (see last issue), the fact that the CNT was 
established as a revolutionary union long before 1936 meant that, 
when people started looking for a different way of doing things, they 
could see that anarchism wasn't just a nice idea, it actually worked.  
Most people, in Catalonia and Aragon at least, would have had some 
experience with the CNT, and so would have seen that things could 
actually be run by the workers themselves.

Our Role Today

How we can provide examples of anarchism working today, and 
prepare the ground for the development of forms of organisation that 
could play a part in an anarchist revolution, is linked to the second 
main role of an anarchist group, to spread the ideas of anarchism.

Earlier in this article, we looked at the objective and subjective factors 
that lead to a revolution, and said that the subjective factors were the 
ideas people had, about contemporary society, and about other, 
different societies.  Also, we said that, in situations of potentially 
revolutionary change, people can sometimes get drawn into groups 
and organisations which will lead nowhere.  These two are linked, in 
that people are more likely to be drawn into dead-ends when they are 
just looking for something that will change their society, but don't 
know what kind of change they want, or what kind of society they 
would rather live in.

If our aim was just a political revolution, then we would be happy to 
channel general discontent into equally general support, not for our 
ideas, but for us.  A social revolution, though, has to be a positive 
revolution, directed towards some goal.  Therefore, if we are to be 
successful, we must start by informing people about what anarchism 
means, about what an anarchist society would be like, so that, when 
people think of revolution as a real possibility (which, at the 
moment, most don't) they will know what there is to be fought for.  
Producing papers, pamphlets and books is an important way of 
achieving that, but when people don't see the relevancy of 
revolution, they are hardly likely to be interested in reading about the 
kind of society that a revolution should create.

This is not always the case, though.  When people are involved in 
struggle, even for limited goals, this causes them to question wider 
issues, and become more open to new and radical ideas.  For 
anarchists, involvement in these struggles means that, as well as 
getting the chance to spread anarchist ideas, by putting forward 
democratic methods of organisation, you also demonstrate how 
anarchism works in practice.  When anarchist forms of organisation 
are shown to be effective, they are more likely to be used in other 
struggles.

We should always be ready to work in campaigns, to add our 
experience and commitment to the struggle, but if people are always 
looking to us to set up campaigns, and to provide the ideas, then we 
are failing as anarchists.  Self-activity is the key to anarchism, that is 
the self-confidence to do what needs to be done without looking for 
others to step in and take over.  For this reason our role is to work 
with people and not for people.  It is important that others gain 
experience in organising activities and so in the future will institute 
campaigns themselves.  Our aim should not be to organise 
revolutionary activity, but to inspire it in others.

It's not over yet

In 1967, George Woodcock said that anarchism, though a good idea, 
had missed its chance, and could now only serve as an aspiration, 
never to be realised.  A year later, the French government was 
brought to its knees by a wave of strikes, riots and marches that were 
definitely libertarian in their forms of organisation.  Though 
revolution may sometimes seem no more than a distant dream, we 
would do well to remember how fast things can change, sometimes 
when we least expect it.

After all, anarchism is a good idea, and an anarchist society would 
fulfil people's needs much more successfully than capitalist society 
ever could.  It's not as if we have to convince everybody that 
capitalism is a bad system, it is continually creating and recreating the 
conditions of its own downfall.  Poverty, starvation, unemployment, 
alienation - everybody's lives are lessened by capitalism, and at some 
stage, people always think, 'There must be a better way'.

At the same time, we are surrounded by examples of how life could 
be, if we were to have the confidence to reach out and grab it.  
Workers who know that they could run their workplaces much better 
than their bosses, and have found that, when they stand together, 
they are stronger.  Volunteers who, in caring for others prove that 
there are stronger motives than greed.  Even any normal group of 
friends, who show that we don't always have to be divided into 
leaders and led, into rulers and ruled.

There will always be revolts, but if they do not have any aims, or any 
idea of how to get there, they will probably end up being bribed away 
by reforms, or led into the blind alley of statism.  What we can do 
today, what we must do now, before things have already started and it 
becomes too late, is to spread the ideas of anarchism, and, in our 
campaigns, demonstrate how real democracy can be achieved, and 
how well it can work.

Society will change, but even if there were a million anarchists we 
could not set a time and date for this change, we can only know that it 
is coming.  We don't want a revolution led by anarchists, the 
revolution doesn't even have to call itself anarchist.  What is 
important, and what will happen, if we work now (and have a little 
luck), is that it will be anarchist.

Footnotes
1  For more details, see Anarchism in Action, a brief history of the 
Spanish Revolution (available from the WSM Bookservice).  
2  i.e. the introduction of the welfare state. 
3  i.e. non-hierarchical, decentralised, controlled by all of those 
involved rather than a select few.  A contemporary example would be 
the network of groups organising against the Criminal Justice Act in 
Britain.  More consciously anarchist, or directly revolutionary 
examples could be given, but this should give you the idea. 


[This article should be read with 'How can we get to 
the revolution']

   ******  The 1931 Barcelonia rent strike   ******

The Barcelona Rent Strike of 1931 not only served to 
reduce rent costs for working class families but was 
also an education in self-organisation for thousands of 
workers.  It, along with other stuggles in those years, 
created an organised working class that in 1936 made 
the most succesful attempt yet to overthrow capitalism 
and create libertarian communism.

Shanties and Slums

In the 15 years leading up to the strike Barcelona's 
population had increased by 62%.  The city was one of 
the fastest growing in Europe.  Inflation was running 
rampant but wages had not risen.  There had been rent 
increases  of up to 150%.  Only 2,200 council houses 
had been built.  Barcelona was in the midst of a huge 
housing crisis as shanty towns grew around the city.

The CNT1 was an illegal organisation during the 1920's 
and thus many members had been reduced to the role of 
passive spectators as dedicated militants battled with 
the police and pisteleros.  The dictator, Primo de 
Rivera, had fallen in 1930 and the new government (who 
declared a republic in '31) let the CNT re-emerge. 

As anarchists, the CNT wished to widen the union into a 
real participatory social movement.  To do this they 
had to broaden its realm of influence.  They knew that 
only via mass organisation, participation and struggle 
could the foundations be laid so that people would 
acquire the skills to construct a new society.

The Idea

In January 1931, Solidaridad Obrera2 published an 
article calling for action around the housing crisis.  
In April that year the CNT construction workers set up 
the Economic Defence Commission {EDC} and said they 
would study the "expense that corresponds to each 
worker for the wage earned" in relation to rents.  On 
May 1st the EDC presented its first basic demand that 
there should be a cut of 40% in rents.  Three articles 
quickly appeared in Solidaridad Obrera.  The EDC 
followed these up, demanding 

-> a 40% reduction in rents.

-> that the unemployed enter the workplaces to demand 
that the bosses hire 15% more men.

-> that food prices would be agreed and local defence 
groups would weed out speculators.



After the publication of these demands individual 
actions began to take place.  Workers re-installed an 
evicted family on May 4th.  The EDC sought to encourage 
this action by holding meetings in working class areas 
of Barcelona and the surrounding towns.  Many of these 
meetings were held through June and into July.

Large numbers of women attended and got involved as it 
was usually left to them to pay the bills and rent.  
Mass leafleting took place and a huge rally was built 
for.  On 23rd June an evicted family was re-housed by 
the local people in Hospitalet and this caused great 
discussion in that part of the city.

The mass rally on July 5th declared the demands of the 
campaign to be :

-> For July the security (deposit) should be taken by 
landlords for rent.

-> From then on rent would only be paid at 40% of the 
previous rate.

-> That the unemployed should not have to pay rent.

If the landlords refused to take the reduced rent then 
they would get nothing as a rent strike was 
recommended.  

No rents for Landlords.

The EDC claimed that there were 45,000 strikers in July 
growing to 100,000 in August3.  Every working class 
estate became organised so that the authorities did not 
have enough guards to prevent evicted families from 
being re-entered onto property.  

From the end of July onwards the repression of the 
strikers grew with the Chamber of Catalonia (i.e. 
Chamber of Commerce) ordering the arrest of all 
organisers.  The EDC rally and leafleting due to be 
held on July 27th was banned.

In early August the EDC began to publish a series of 
articles exposing landlord tax-fraud, pointing out how 
there was one law for the rich and another for the 
poor.  In turn the state arrested 53 members of the 
CNT.  This lead to a riot inside the prison and a 
general strike outside.  By October, the EDC were 
forced to go underground after the CNT had been heavily 
fined for not turning over the names of those involved.  

The strike was ending, however it never entirely ended 
in many districts.  What successfully broke it was the 
practice of arresting tenants when they returned to 
their homes.  Some tenants put their hope in a Rent 
Decree (December 1931) which depended on legal ways of 
pursuing a claim for fair rent, but unsurprisingly it 
proved completely useless.

The Fruits of the Rent Strike

It had taken major repression by the state to end the 
strike but a valuable journey had begun.  For many 
young people this was the first time they had been 
exposed to the ideas of anarchism and direct action.  
They would go on to join the CNT and become the 
revolutionaries of 1936.  The rent strike was the 
beginning of many campaigns which established anarchist 
ideas and practices in the communities.  People were 
exposed to playing a vital part in fighting their own 
oppression.  They became fuelled with a belief in 
challenging the way things were.  All illusions in the 
Republican government were quickly shattered.  

The lessons of mass action and self organisation would 
later be put to use by the people who went on to make 
history in 1936.  

When the fascist coup happened in 1936 in Spain, the 
left there and in other countries called for the state 
to put down the fascists.  The more radical Marxist 
groups called upon the state to 'arm the workers' 
(earlier the same demand was heard when the fascists 
took power in both Italy and Germany).  Yet the 
anarchists of the CNT got out onto the streets, took 
the arms for themselves and immediately began to defeat 
the fascists.  

Why did this happen?  Anarchism has a proud tradition 
of self-activity and mass participation.  The 
anarchists in Spain did not cry out for the state to 
put down the fascists.  In 1936 tens of thousands of 
anarchists were ready to seize arms and fight the 
fascists.  No leaders, no calls on the state, just 
people who knew what to do and went out and did it.  
This self-organisation was in part the legacy of the 
Barcelona rent strike of 1931.

Dermot Sreenan

Footnotes
1  National Federation of Labour, a union organised 
along anarchist lines.
2  Solidaridad Obrera  (The paper of the CNT)
3  Solidaridad Obrera  (5th and 8th August 1931.)


