Feeder Marches and "Diversity of Tactics" in Northeast Ohio Anti-war Activism

Introduction
The time period of Fall 2002 to Spring 2003 saw unprecedented anti-war activism throughout the world. In Cleveland, an organization called the Northeast Ohio Antiwar Coalition (NOAC) formed to counter the US push for war against Iraq. Cleveland anarchists organized with NOAC, but also independently, sponsoring “feeder marches” that “fed into” the official NOAC events. Feeder organizers did this to project an autonomy of action and promote a broader philosophy. Their un-permitted and radical events marched under the banner of “Stop the War – Fight the System!” The public announcement of the first feeder provoked a long-standing fear from mainstream peace activists of “anarchist violence” and property destruction, concerns that were eventually proven to be un-substantiated. These events grew the anti-authoritarian movement in Cleveland and helped to lay the groundwork for mass civil disobedience after the war began.

Anarchism and Social Movements
The anti-war movement in the US has included the organized presence of anarchists. Anarchists believe in and work towards the two-fold goal of (1) dismantling oppressive institutions, hierarchies, and authorities, and in their place, (2) creating cooperative and horizontal social relationships based upon the principles of self-determination, mutual aid, direct action, and voluntary association.

Fitzgerald and Rodgers (2000) offer one of the best scholarly models for classifying anarchist organizations. Radical social movement organizations (RSMOs) are non-hierarchical and participatory organizations, which use diverse tactics and alternative communication channels, and are very likely to have few resources and intense institutional opposition. This typology works well even with anarchistic “non-organizations”.

There are two main ways in which anarchists have contributed to radical activism in recent history. First, anarchists themselves have become an important presence in protest movements. Secondly, anarchist thought has influenced the general aesthetic of direct action politics. For example, affinity groups, spokes-council arrangements, black blocs, and now feeder marches – tactics widely known in radical activist circles – are either modeled upon or owe a substantial debt to anarchist principles.

Two of these key anarchist principles are autonomy and solidarity. Although it may seem contradictory, anarchists regularly practice both concurrently. These two ideas converge most with the concept of a “diversity of tactics” (DoT). This concept suggests that activists will respect and not publicly criticize others who chose tactics different than what they chose. Some recent large demonstrations have been organized with this concept in mind; the anti-Free Trade Area of the Americas demonstrations in Quebec City in 2001 had a “three-tiered, color-coding of events to indicate varying possibilities of arrest risk and militancy” (Milstein 2001).

Very little has been written in academic circles about DoT specifically, possibly since it is a relatively new term.[1] Albertani (2002) and Starr (2006) stand in relative isolation in academic literature when favorably discussing the use of aggressive tactics in protest situations. In activist literature, however, the debates surge both strongly against (Lakey 2002, Schutt 2003) – though often on pragmatic grounds – and loosely in favor of (Starhawk 2002).[2] Lakey and Schutt conclude that “DoT” is code for “violence is permissible if not recommended”. Starhawk does not make this assumption, but instead demands more clarification. None of the above writers embrace the concept fully or without clarification.

To further muddy the waters, social movement theorists regularly conflate property destruction with “violence”, in fact so repeatedly that I will not reference the scores of works doing so. Yet, since anarchists are a central component to the upcoming discussion, I will adopt the basic anarchist assumption that property destruction is nothing other than property destruction, while violence is harm caused towards living beings.

... in Northeast Ohio
Cleveland activists began organizing against the Bush Administration’s “War on Terrorism” after the US invasion of Afghanistan began. Disputes within the local anti-war movement, specifically between anarchists and liberal anti-war-veterans, spurred a publicly-held activist dialogue to discuss differences and look for common ground. An event entitled “Building Bridges” was, according to some activists, later dubbed by some as “Burning Bridges” for the way that “conversations” took place without others listening, particularly in regards to DoT.

Faced with the growing need to counter the Bush Administration's intensified saber-rattling regarding Iraq, the Northeast Ohio Anti-war Coalition (NOAC) was formed. Participation was drawn from traditional leftist groups, anti-war and pacifist organizations, socialist and communist parties, ANSWER and NION-affiliates[3], and anarchists circles.

Social movement participants often have very strong preferences and assumptions for organizing.[4] Those who participated in NOAC were no exception and conflicts were clear from the start, with debates over whether to apply for a city-approved march permit. Interviewed activists pointed towards age/generation and ideology as the greatest source of conflict within NOAC. But the two primary differences between NOAC at-large and the anarchists were in the area of message and tactics.

NOAC's general message is reflected in the slogans it eventually settled on for its first permitted march (and all subsequent events): “Stop The War On Iraq!”, “No War for Oil!”, “Not In Our Name!”, and “Money for Jobs, Health Care & Education ... Not for War!”.

Approximately 10 days before NOAC's planned anti-war march in Cleveland November 16th, the Burning River Revolutionary Anarchist Collective (BRC), composed mainly of young adults in their twenties, made a general call on the Internet to activists for an unpermitted “feeder march” to begin beforehand, that would “feed into” the main NOAC march:

The Burning River Collective hopes to see everyone that opposes this war [at the NOAC event]. In addition to the demonstration, we are calling for a feeder march and contingent within the march under the slogan, "Stop the War, Fight the System!"

At the same time as the Bush administration is threatening war on Iraq, it has already bombed Afghanistan, stripped Muslims, Arabs, and South Asian immigrants of any semblance of civil liberties, passed policies nearing police state-like measures, and rained batons and bullets on the urban warzones of our communities. We say that we not only need to stop this war but we need to fight the entire system that is pushing it!

Join the "Stop the War, Fight the System" contingent and feeder march on Saturday Nov. 16th at 11:00am at W.44th and Lorain as we march through communities drumming up opposition to the war on our way to the larger demonstration. (NEO-RAN message 2308.)

This declaration sparked immediate concern with NOAC activists. Some thought it was a call for street violence (possibly due to the words to “fight” the system). Some were likely concerned because it was an anarchist group that had called for it. Others feared that demonstrators were cryptically declaring their intention to destroy property or cause confrontations with police. One expressed a strong concern about the anti-war movement being marginalized by “extreme messages/tactics” that would “scare off” those who were just entering the anti-war movement (McLellan 2002).

The main NOAC concern ended up being a fear that media attention would be distracted from the NOAC event, since such a march organized by anarchists was guaranteed to attract the attention of the Cleveland Police Department. NOAC organizers felt that conflict with the police – especially if resulting in arrest – would have surely become the media story of the day, blotting out the rest of NOAC's message. This concern was informed by other large protests in the US that had recently resulted in mass arrests.

Thus, concerns over public image and “protester violence” dominated the attention of key organizers in NOAC during the last week of planning the march and rally.[5] One NOAC leader later estimated that these concerns could easily have been put to rest with a face-to-face meeting amongst key organizers of NOAC and the feeder.

In response to many of the above concerns, the BRC circulated the following notice on various activists email lists:

Organizing for the "Stop the War, Fight the System" feeder march and contingent on Nov.16th in Cleveland are going well. There have been concerns brought up to us about our intentions and message. While our message may very well be different than others, we think diversity in the anti-war [movement] is a strength not a weakness. We will be marching into the larger to be a PART of it. This feeder march is to create more of an effect in the community and to bring forth our politics at the same time. (NEO-RAN message 2362)

As one anarchist elaborated, opposing a single war is not itself enough, since war is “tied to the systems of capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and unnecessary hierarchies”, and to not oppose that entire system is to miss that “war is the health of the State”. BRC members hoped that the feeder would inject this more radical critique into the anti-war movement and also reach other Clevelanders along the feeder route.

About 30 activists showed up for the feeder march, which went without police engagement until it turned onto Lorain Avenue a few blocks from the NOAC march's starting location. Police attempted briefly to contain the feeder, but quickly gave up and settled on blocking traffic for the marchers. The march lasted just under one mile in length (Turner 2002). Feeder organizers and participants stated that most activists responded favorably to their actions and analysis (when it was offered) during and after the event.

The NOAC march ended up being the largest anti-war event in Cleveland since the Vietnam War—the Cleveland Plain Dealer estimated that nearly one-thousand people took part (Stephens 2002), while other local media estimated more. As the march crossed over the Detroit-Superior Bridge into downtown, the crowd swelled to the point where the Cleveland Police Department had to close down the entire 4-lane bridge. This closing was, in addition to an earlier incident with the feeder banner briefly in front of the NOAC banner, the only problem cited by NOAC organizers about the march.

Anarchists wanted to expand their ranks and chose an “exciting” method for doing so. Traditional anti-war activists were in the majority within NOAC and were concerned mainly with the overall anti-war movement’s public portrayal in the mass media and with attracting more mainstream participation. These differences in method, with slightly different short-term goals, had similar long-term goals. The usage of both tactics – large march and smaller feeder – clearly constituted the practice of DoT, as well as a diversity of messages.

BRC called for another feeder march for a second NOAC march and rally in Cleveland in December. The call issued beforehand hinted more clearly at the organizers’ strategic motivations:

We... are appalled by the blatant disregard for humanity that imperialist war, imperialism and capitalism entail. We want to see a lively, militant, creative movement emerge that paves new ground on the road to liberation.

Although the typical, formulaic protest is a good way to show the U.S. government the sheer numbers of people who oppose its policies and is a needed demonstration of solidarity among progressive, radical and revolutionary forces, there are also many other forms of protest we can engage in and a plethora of tactics we can use that might be just as effective or more effective. Furthermore, using a wide and creative assortment of tactics allows us, as a movement, to not stagnate. (NEO-RAN message 2501)

These non-permitted marches laid the groundwork for a “day-after” march that started at downtown Cleveland’s Public Square.[6] Anarchists and other anti-imperialists led a crowd of 300 – mainly youth – into the streets, marching throughout downtown for approximately an hour. The marchers faced a strong police response, but no resistance and were essentially escorted through the streets by police on foot and squad cars blocking intersections. After these subsequently larger and larger youth-based responses to the war, the police struck back a few days later, arresting half a dozen people for doing essentially the same thing.

Conclusions
Olzak and Uhrig (2001) point out that the viability of a social movement increases when there is no competition from other movements. In this case, the feeder and NOAC organizers were drawing upon (usually) separate resources and audiences. The tactics used reflected a choice of repertoires, which is based upon the breadth and structure of the tactical options available. Ideology and cost-benefit analysis can influence how a protest repertoire is chosen (Ennis 1987), an analysis that rings true in Cleveland's case.

There was a general consensus amongst the activists I interviewed that the feeders were not “a problem” – at least in retrospect. Most lamented not conversing more with each other or being more involved in solidarity organizing. They appreciated the need for diverse methods of resistance and personal expression, and gained (or retained) a tolerance for each other's choices. As a Vietnam-era activist put it plainly, “anarchists are part of the anti-war movement in Cleveland” and that anarchists always participated within the accepted parameters of the NOAC events. Thus, despite their different approaches, both liberal and radical tactics permitted diverse people the opportunity to participate in protesting war on the basis of their interest and comfort level.

Activist debate on the efficiency and effectiveness of certain tactics in creating mass movements of resistance will likely continue. As with other movements, this injection of radical participation and action can and did re-frame the typical mode of anti-war protest and organization. The experience in Cleveland shows that diverse tactics and messages can be useful to social movements, granted there is a certain degree of transparency and dialogue between activists.

End Notes
[1] However, it is often pointed out that few tactics are actually “new”, and DoT is likely not an exception.
[2] Incidentally, all three are nonviolent direct action trainers.
[3] ANSWER (Act Not to Stop War and End Racism) and NION (Not In Our Name) are national organizations, initiated by the International Action Center/World Worker's Party and Revolutionary Communist Party, respectively.
[4] What James S. Coleman might refer to as “zealotry”... which is not to denigrate the level of their concern and passion.
[5] Later, the usage of profanity would also become a key concern. See McLeod and Detenber (1999) on media selection bias.
[6] Many communities through out the US preplanned “day after” protests (that often included civil disobedience) that would go into action the day following a US invasion of Iraq – an event that activists had been predicting for months prior.

References

• Albertani, Claudio. 2002. “Paint It Black: Black Blocs, Tute Bianche and Zapatistas in the Anti-globalization Movement”. New Political Science, 24 (4): 579-595.
• Ennis, James G. 1987. “Fields of Action: Structure in Movements' Tactical Repertoires”. Sociological Forum, 2 (3): 520-533.
• Fitzgerald, Kathleen J. and Diane M. Rodgers. 2000. “Radical Social Movement Organizations: A Theoretical Model”. The Sociological Quarterly, 41 (4): 573-592.
• Lakey, George. 2002. “Diversity of Tactics & Democracy”. clamor, March/April: 62-63.
• McLellan, Nina. 2002. “Open Letter”. Distributed via email, by nina@apk.net.
• McLeod, Douglas M. and Benjamin H. Detenber. 1999. “Framing Effects of Television News Coverage of Social Protest”. Journal of Communication, 49 (3): 3-23.
• Milstein, Cindy. 2001. “Something Did Start in Quebec City: North America's Revolutionary Anti-Capitalist Movement”. The Northeastern Anarchist, 2, Summer.
• Northeast Ohio Radical Action Network [NEO-RAN] electronic mailing list. Yahoo!Groups.
• Olzak, Susan S. and C. Noah Uhrig. 2001. “The Ecology of Tactical Overlap”. American Sociological Review, 66 (5): 694-717.
• Schutt, Randy. 2003. “Well-Designed Strategic Nonviolent Actions”. www.vernalproject.org.
• Starhawk. 2002. “Getting Our Tactics Right: Lessons from the Calgary G8 Mobilization”. www.starhawk.org, July. http://www.starhawk.org/activism/activism-writings/tacticsright.html
• Starr, Amory. 2006. “’Excepting Barricades Erected to Prevent Us From Peacefully Assembling': So-Called 'Violence' in the Global North Alterglobalization Movement”. Social Movement Studies, 5 (1), May: 61-81.
• Stephens, Scott. 2002. “Many Voices, 1 Message: Avoid War”. Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 17.
• Turner, Patrick. 2002. “1000 People Take to Streets, Oppose War on Iraq”. Cleveland Independent Media Center. November 17. http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2002/11/2462.php

Epilogue
Thanks to the unsung activists who organized against war and gave their time to be interviewed. And, for all those who continue to make the effort to resist the Bush Wars – using all tactics. Paper also presented to the North Central Sociological Association (NCSA), Cleveland, Ohio. April 2, 2004.

This piece was accepted as an entry in a yet-to-be-published book, edited by Nom(a)d, entitled The Anti-War Movement and its Discontents: A Reader on Social Movement Theory and Practice. It was/is to include other essays by: Clive Gabay, Lori Baralt, Tom Good, Bill Weinberg, Jim Macdonald, Jeff Gibbs, the Catalyst Project, Nom(a)d, and Peter Gelderloos.

Anarchism in Cuba

[Entry in the International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, 1500-Present, edited by Immanuel Ness (2009).]

Anarchism in Cuba predominantly took the form of anarchosyndicalism and was largely indistinguishable from the militant labor movement. Anarchism influenced the independence movement, the growth of the labor movement, and general strikes in particular during the early 1900s. Anarchists were continuously repressed by Cuba’s dictators, and particularly in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution of 1959, which caused many to go underground, into prison, or into exile.

The first trace of anarchism in Cuba may be found in the 1850s and 1860s, when followers of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon created a mutual aid society. Some of the first worker newspapers and organizations were created at this time; the first anarchist paper, El Obrero (The Worker), was started by anarchists Enrique Messonier and Enrique Roig San Martín in 1872, as well as the Centro de Instrucción y Recreo (Instruction and Recreation Center). A flurry of anarchist activity occurred during the 1880s. Messonier was the secretary of the Círculo de Trabajadores (Workers’ Circle), which was dominated by anarchist participation. Roig San Martín began another newspaper called El Productor (The Producer), a weekly anarchist paper that was Cuba’s most important labor periodical and lasted until 1890, when it was closed. Alianza Obrera (Workers’ Alliance) helped to coordinate anarchist activity in Cuba as well as Cuban communities in Florida, especially Key West and Tampa.

The influences upon Cuban anarchism are diverse and unique. Spanish anarchism was influential within Cuba, particularly the ideas and writings from Catalonia, Spain. Commercial trade between Catalonia and Cuba aided in the transportation of anarchist periodicals from Spain to Cuba during the late 1800s. Spanish workers in Cuba also helped to transmit ideas from Europe. Yet Cuban anarchism was not strictly analogous to Spanish anarchism. A major Spanish anarchocollectivist organization – Federación de Trabajadores de la Región Española (Workers’ Federation of the Spanish Region) – continued to be an important model for Cuban anarchists, even after it folded in Spain. The influence of slavery and colonialism also created distinct conditions that separated the Cuban experience from the Spanish one. According to Casanovas (1998), most of the island’s first anarchists initially came from reformist labor organizations and made the eventual transformation to anarchism, often due to interactions and experiences within the labor movement. Reformist labor leaders such as Saturnino Martínez were relentless in their critique of anarchism, going so far as to characterize “anarchism [as] an evil spreading throughout Europe . . . [and that to] avoid social upheaval, workers had to become small property owners” (Casanovas 1998: 155). Still, anarchism took deeper root in Cuba’s labor movement than reformism or Marxism did. The inability to influence colonial elections stymied reformist labor efforts for power, and thus encouraged collectivism and unionism independent of political parties.

After Spain outlawed slavery in 1886, Cuban anarchists allowed ex-slaves, called Afro-Cubans, to enter their organizations following anarchist congresses in 1887 and 1892. Anarchists also used the imagery of slavery to their advantage to characterize other exploitive relationships as akin to slavery. Anarchists considered Cuban society to be rife with a “slavery” (namely industrial and colonial capitalism) that transcended the abuse of Afro-Cubans and affected those of all races. In order to strengthen the position of labor groups, anarchists tried to incorporate workers of all races into the Alianza Obrera and other groups, since all workers were needed in order to exercise labor strength during strikes. While most labor leaders remained white, the 1888 cigarmakers’ strike brought some Afro-Cuban labor leaders to the forefront, including Fernando Guerra and Eduardo González. The Alianza even demanded in 1889 that a particular factory allow workers of all races to work there. Thus, racism became an important target for anarchist organizers in the post-slavery period of the early labor movement.

The Alianza was the first union to criticize and focus upon the unique oppression and exploitation faced by women workers in the tobacco industry. The poor treatment of tobacco workers also included sexual abuse of women. Even though the increased employment of women had begun to depress male wages, the largely male labor movement still fought for improved working conditions for women. There were paternalistic attitudes expressed by some labor and anarchist leaders – such as Roig San Martín, who thought women should support their husbands and sons – but the movement largely supported women’s efforts. Female worker grievances were aired in newspapers (even when the focus was upon abusive male workers) that also promoted the unionization of women workers. The anarchist-led labor movement was unable to unionize women, even though female leafstemmers went on strike in 1889 to demand higher wages and a stop to sexual abuse by foremen, as well as joined other strikes led by men. Instead, anarchist-feminism in Cuba tried to encourage women to take an active role in public life. It also advocated “free love,” argued for the right of women to choose their romantic partners, and criticized the exploitation faced by housewives.

As Cuban nationalists advocated for independence from Spain, they met growing resistance from workers influenced by anarchism’s socialist ideas about socioeconomic independence from capitalism and the bourgeoisie (Spanish or Cuban) more than just independence from a colonial power. José Martí, the leader of the independence movement, modified his rhetoric to address the anarchist emphasis upon class struggle by incorporating demands for a classless society and other matters of social justice into his propaganda. Anarchists distributed literature to Spanish soldiers, encouraging them to not fight against the Cuban independence movement and to instead join anarchists fighting for freedom. Separatists, including anarchists, planted bombs to destroy pipelines and bridges, and tried to assassinate the Spanish officer Valeriano Weyler – who was also the governor of Cuba at the time and had imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Cubans in concentration camps. Spanish repression followed these efforts, with the closing of labor organizations, forbidding of certain political events, and the deportation of Spanish anarchists.

However, anarchists were torn over participation in the independence movement. Proponents of joining the struggle for independence saw greater opportunities for freedom in a strictly Cuban polity. Others believed in Martí and his rhetoric of a future classless Cuba after independence. However, Martí died before independence, so the accuracy of such promises cannot be ascertained. Opponents of the independence movement noted the participation (and active funding) of Cuban bourgeoisie elements that were sometimes the target of labor movement struggles. An independence movement led by Cuba’s wealthy would be unlikely to end in freedom for the Cuban working class, with just a replacement of one system of domination by a more indigenous leadership.

The eventual independence from Spain led to control by the United States. The US immediately exerted its influence over Cuba as well as other lands formerly controlled by Spain (Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines), after paying $20 million to Spain for the islands. American business interests invested heavily in Cuba and the US military itself occupied the island from 1898 to 1902, and subsequently intervened from 1906 to 1909, 1912, and 1917 to 1922. These repeated interventions, justified by the US Congress’s Platt Amendment and the Cuban Constitution itself, fueled Cuban nationalist sentiment, called cubanía, as well as anarchist opposition to US imperialism.

After independence, anarchists began to organize Cuba’s most profitable industry: sugar. Anarchist influence spread throughout the rest of Cuba as well, with anarchosyndicalism being the ideology of choice within much of the labor movement. The Cuban republic’s first general strike, in 1902, was led by Gonzalez Lozana and other anarchist tobacco workers, who aimed to end the system of apprenticeship that kept apprentices bound to employers in exploitive ways that amounted to indentured servitude. The strike was crushed by the threat of US intervention, but it set the pattern for growing strike activity up to World War I. During this period, anarchists assisted in the formation of worker cooperatives throughout the island; 200,000 people were members of the cooperative system, who paid dues to have access to recreation and cultural facilities, and medical services. In addition to producer and consumer cooperatives, anarchists also led a movement for the creation of agrarian cooperatives (such as the later Asociaciónes Campesinas), although these were later largely replaced with state farms by the Castro government.

Government repression beginning in 1913 by General Mario García Menocal – the island’s first dictator – was severe. Anti-anarchist laws were passed in the years prior to World War I. Spanish anarchists in Cuba were deported before and after the war began. During the war, despite Cuban anarchists’ neutrality, general strikes provoked a response by the US, which sent the navy to Havana. Cuban law enforcement gave the US government a list of Cuban unions and leaders’ names. The Centro Obrero was closed and anarchist publications were prohibited.

During the postwar lull, Cuban anarchists convened a workers’ congress, which decided to form the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labor; a similarly named organization existed in Spain). Many anarchist periodicals began during this period. For example, ¡Tierra! (Land!), which had been Cuba’s longest-running newspaper at the time, in print from 1899 to 1915, began a second run. Alfredo López, a key member of the Federación Obrera de La Habana (Workers’ Federation of Havana), helped begin an anarchosyndicalist campaign to unite all worker and campesino organizations into a single organization, regardless of ideology.

The Bolshevik victory in Russia created a schism in the Cuban Left. As in countries around the world, many anarchists in Cuba were initially sympathetic to the socialist-led revolution and some began to change their ideological affiliations to communism. According to Shaffer (2005), during the 1920s, anarchists debated the merits of aligning with the Marxists, with anarchosyndicalists in greater favor of such a move than anarchocommunists.

During the 1920s the Machado government cracked down on anarchists, closing the Sindicato de la Industria Fabril Industrial, arresting anarchosyndicalist leaders Margarito Iglesias, Enrique Varona, and López (all of whom were later murdered or “disappeared”), deporting strikers, and prohibiting all strikes. In response to repression the anarchist movement went underground. Militants formed various groups, including Espártaco (Spartacus), Los Solidarios (Those in Solidarity), and the Federación de Grupos Anarquistas de Cuba (Federation of Cuban Anarchist Groups). Anarchists struck alliances with university students and some politicians, fought against the government in street battles, and failed in a number of attempts to assassinate Machado. In 1933 a US-backed military coup forced Machado from office. In the wake of Machado’s overthrow, communists and anarchists aligned with the Federación Obrera de La Habana engaged in a gun-battle after anarchists denounced the Partido Comunista Cubano (Cuban Communist Party) for its assistance in ending a general strike that year that was started by transportation workers. Thus, the tentative relationship between the communists and anarchists was permanently torn asunder. Fulgencio Batista became the dictator of Cuba and the PCC subsequently created an alliance with his government.

In 1940 anarchists formed the Asociación Libertaria de Cuba (Libertarian Association of Cuba), which involved itself in labor organizing, publishing Rumbos Nuevos (New Paths), and distributing anarchist propaganda, and which even gained leadership within certain major unions. Anarchosyndicalists during this time had near-control over transport, culinary, construction, and electric utility unions. Through the end of the Batista dictatorship, the Solidaridad Gastronómica (Culinary Workers’ Solidarity) was able to keep publishing its anti-communist, anticapitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-fascist views.

Some anarchists fought with Castro’s Movimiento 26 de Julio (July 26th movement) and when Batista fled in late 1958 all anarchists – and most everyday citizens – rejoiced. However, the Castro government, having taken over the major labor federation, Confederación de Trabajadores de Cuba, expunged leading anarchosyndicalists from their strongest unions, issued authoritarian dictates for the unions and stacked union meetings with pro-Castro non-members, suppressed a critical pamphlet by German anarchist Augustin Souchy, and arrested “counter-revolutionary” critics. The suppression and restriction grew pronounced after Castro declared his government to be Marxist-Leninist and moved toward closer relations with the Soviet Union. While some anarchists tried to join in guerilla actions against Castro, some anarchists joined the Castro government and others fled into exile in Florida (where many Batista supporters had gone). Since this time there has been no active anarchist movement within Cuba itself.

SEE ALSO: Anarchism and Culture, 1840–1939; Anarchism and Gender; Anarchism, Puerto Rico; Anarchism, Spain; Anarchosyndicalism; Castro, Fidel (b. 1926); Cuba, Anti-Racist Movement and the Partido Independiente de Color; Cuba, General Strikes under Batista Regime, 1952–1958; Cuba, Struggle for Independence from Spain, 1868–1898; Cuba, Transition to Socialism and Government; Cuban Post-Revolutionary Protests; Cuban Revolution, 1953–1959; Cuban Revolutionary Government; Martí, José (1853–1895) and the Partido Revolucionario Cubano; Russia, Revolution of February/March 1917; Russia, Revolution of October/November 1917; Souchy, Augustin (1892–1984)

References and Suggested Readings
Casanovas, J. (1998) Bread, or Bullets! Urban Labor and Spanish Colonialism in Cuba, 1850–1898. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Dolgoff, S. (1976) The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
Fernández, F. (2001) Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement. Tucson: See Sharp Press.
Poyo, G. E. (1985) The Anarchist Challenge to the Cuban Independence Movement, 1885–1890. Cuban Studies 15, 1: 29–42.
Shaffer, K. R. (2005) Anarchism and Countercultural Politics in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba. Gainesville: University of Florida Press.

Explaining the Geographical Dispersion of Red and Green Anarchisms in the United States

[From a 2009 article in the Journal of Political Ideologies, entitled "Red vs. green: regional variation of anarchist ideology in the United States". Study based upon 2002 survey data from the prominent anarchist website, Infoshop.org.]

First, who are the red and green anarchists? Do Infoshop survey respondents reflect the concerns that one would expect of those who hold each particular ideological variant? Infoshop respondents were asked to choose their first and second ‘priorities for the anarchist movement’ from a list. There are statistically significant differences (based on t-tests, results not shown) between red anarchists and others, and between green anarchists and others. Red anarchists were more likely than all others to prioritize anti-capitalist organizing, cooperatives, organizing new federations, tenant organizing, and workplace organizing. Green anarchists were more likely than all others to prioritize radical ecology. Green anarchists were more likely than all others to choose as their second priority direct action, riots, and smashing the state. Unsurprisingly, both red and green anarchists’ priorities match the expectations that ought to derive from the previously described red and green ideological variants. Red anarchists strongly emphasize the role of organizing, especially in terms of economics, while green anarchists emphasize the importance of ecology and action.

If the priorities of red and green anarchists match those expected of their ideological variant, the next question is: how do these ideologies vary across space? Bivariate correlation analysis was done on the Infoshop survey, comparing region to ideological variant. This method is employed to show statistically significant relationships between both red or green anarchists, and their residence in a given US region. The results show interesting relationships that have previously been unmeasured. Although long suspected by activists, the Infoshop survey provides quantitative evidence supporting the relationship between anarchist ideological variants and region.

Significant correlations between region and ideology were found in the West and Northeast regions. Northeastern US anarchists were positively correlated with the economically focused ideological variant of red anarchism. Western US anarchists were positively correlated with the environmentally focused ideological variant of green anarchism. Also, there was a significant negative relationship between Northeasterners and green anarchists, meaning that those in the US Northeast tended not to have an environmental ideology. Westerners also had a negative correlation to an economic ideological variant. This evidence supports the notion of a regional red–green split in the US anarchist movement. See Table 2 [not shown] for the correlation coefficients.

Neither of the other two geographic regions, Midwest or South, had significant relationships to either ideological strain. This suggests that there was no clear, dominant tendency within these regions. The only other significant finding here is that anarchists without adjective (‘anarchist’, ‘anarchist without adjective’, or ‘anti-authoritarian’) are more likely to be found in the Northeast than expected at random. See Table 3 for the percentages of ideology per region that reinforce the correlation results.

Given the significant differences between anarchist ideological variants and regional difference for the Northeast and West, are there conditions in either region that might be providing support for either red or green anarchists? The rest of the paper discusses two different types of factors that help to explain this relationship: structural factors and organizational factors.

Structural factors
Factors within the structural environment of a region first include historical factors, such as the period of westward expansion funded and campaigned for by the US government that entailed massive settlement of the Western portion of the United States, and the subsequent displacement of both indigenous inhabitants and ecosystem. Additionally, economic factors that contribute to the nature of each region’s economy are important. The West is the least industrialized area of the United States and has traditionally served as an extractive region for supplying raw resources to the industrial corporations based primarily in the Northeast and Midwest regions. The Northeast is itself the most urbanized region in the country, with the highest concentration of population--and thus the highest concentrated workforce--in the country.

Then there are the logical consequences of this economic primacy—the impact upon where the forests are, where the unions are, and so forth. For example, Western states account for 73% of all public lands surface area managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the US. ‘Eastern States’, in which the BLM considers the inclusion of more than just the Northeast, do not have any BLM administered lands. Since much of green anarchism involves practices referred to as ‘eco-defense’--such as physically preventing corporate logging of public forests by ‘tree-sitting’--it is reasonable to assume that there must be large tracts of relatively untouched land around to be defended by activists. As Table 4 [not shown] demonstrates, National Forest lands are clearly more prevalent in the West than the Northeast, by two orders of magnitude, in fact (NFS 2002). This regional difference is likely the result of US economic development and ‘Westward expansion’ that industrialized the Northeast to a higher degree than the West, as opposed to there simply being more forests in the West—the forests of the Northeast have simply been mostly chopped down.

National forest acreage shows one environmental explanation. Another explanation could be offered by forestry workers who would be engaged in the harvesting of such timber. Table 4 shows the ratio of both low- and high-density forestry workers per region. In this case, the South has the greatest number of such workers per capita, followed by the West. The Northeast is lowest.

Although the Northeast has the fewest forestry workers, it has the highest level of unionization (strongly related to red anarchism) in the US (see Table 4), while the South has the lowest level--nearly one-third percent unionized in the Northeast.

Organizational factors
To address the presence of anarchists more directly, there are deliberate anarchist institutions that may aid in explaining the regional variation between ideologies in the US, rather than the incidental structural occurrences outside the anarchist movement discussed in the previous section. All manner of organizations and communication mediums may foster regional variation.

Anarchist organizations may be seen as responses to and as outgrowths of more moderate organizations. Fitzgerald and Rodgers indicate many differences between ‘moderate social movement organizations’ (MSMOs) and ‘radical social movement organizations’ (RSMOs), primarily in terms of organizational structure, ideology, tactics, communication, and assessment of success. As seen above, unions are more prevalent in the Northeast, thus suggesting a higher percentage of pro-labor, economic-focused anarchists and organizations. The Infoshop survey clearly demonstrates that there are more individuals in the Northeast expressing a red anarchist ideology. Yet the above data on regional unionization does not suggest that Westerners do not deal with issues of class. Indeed, the anarcho-syndicalist union the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) remains active in the West, especially in Portland, Oregon. In fact, there are more IWW unions in the West than any other region, including the Northeast (see Table 4). It is difficult to state a clear historical predominance of the IWW in any one region—although the West is where the IWW was most active during the early-1900s. Since the period of the 1920s--when the IWW and other radicals were repressed by the Palmer Raids--the IWW has lost the majority of its membership, and has diversified its organizational approaches and the industries in which it organizes. Some IWW organizations are workplace unions, while others are general membership branches (GMBs) for people who adhere to anarcho-syndicalism and class struggle ideology, but do not necessarily work directly with a labor union. With more IWW chapters found in the West as opposed to the Northeast, the ideological distribution appears somewhat contradictory and suggests that red anarchists may not be benefiting as much as expected from the organizations in their region. Or, IWW members may be older than average and/or less likely to use the Internet.

The existence of MSMO environmentalist groups--such as the Sierra Club--could also be associated with the location of green anarchists. The Sierra Club tends to be reformist in politics, recreational in behavior, and not all members are likely to consider themselves members of the environmental movement. Table 4 shows the number of Sierra Club groups in all four US regions compared to the general population. As expected, this MSMO follows the already suggested pattern of difference between the two US coasts: the West has the greatest per capita Sierra Club membership and the Northeast has the lowest. Other research has also noted such a relationship between established movements, supportive political sentiment, and more radical activism.

The perceived strategic shortcomings of certain MSMOs may spur the formation of more radical organizations. The anarchistic environmentalist organization Earth First! (EF!) is one such radical organization that is on record for (in fact, formed as based on) its critique of reformist environmentalist organizations for not doing enough to protect the environment.

It is plausible for anarchistic organizations to be in the same areas as MSMOs. This seems true in the case of the Sierra Club and EF!. As evidenced in Table 4, Northeastern anarchists do not necessarily neglect issues of the environment--there are a number of (EF!) collectives throughout the region. The geographic presence of these organizations should be taken with a large grain of salt, since the number of collectives may be misleading--it does not suggests the size of the collective (which could be two or over 100 people) or its level of activity. Predictably, Western EF! collectives dominate the US, both in terms of raw number and per capita.

An EF! spin-off, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), is also heavily rooted in the West region. The ELF is a clandestine direct action moniker under which people engage in destructive ‘monkey-wrenching’ activities (usually arson), usually against corporations involved in resource extraction, development, and genetic engineering. Thirty-nine percent of ELF actions occurred in the ‘Pacific Northwest/West Coast’ and another 11% in the ‘West/Southwest’ regions. Only 18% total occurred in the Northeast.

The prevalence of anarchistic organizations in a region is important to consider because of the easy in-roads these organizations facilitate for anarchists in the formation of their ideological beliefs. Organizations have resources that allow them to do outreach into their local communities, to attract and socialize new members, and to engage in regular social and political activities that draw sustained attention and activity. Due to the young mean age of the Infoshop survey respondents (24 years old), it is likely that these anarchists have had less time to fully and maturely develop their beliefs independent of social factors. Thus, people may adopt ideological variants from the organizations and other anarchists available to them. Organizations help to socialize individuals who come into contact with them and can even assist in the formation of ideological orientations. Longer term and more stable organizations often provide support for social movement growth and diffusion. Consequently, the relative stability of EF! compared to the IWW (in recent years, at least)--organizations in the same anarchist ‘social movement industry’--is of primary importance.

Similarly, large regional organizations may also provide stability and easier induction into an ideology. For example, the continent-wide federation called the North Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists is located in the Northeast US and Eastern Canada, and has 19 member collectives. Although ‘communist’ in name, members also express some pro-syndicalist sympathies for worker selforganization. The Federation is based on the aforementioned anarcho-communist Platform. An ideologically similar federation called Northwest Anarchist Federation formed in the US West, including collectives from Seattle, Portland, and Victoria, BC.

Regional clustering is important to consider, such as the concentration of green anarchists around the influential personality of primitivist writer John Zerzan in Eugene, Oregon. Yet, anarchists are notoriously independent and share a common ‘anti-hero’ tendency. If Zerzan’s presence is important, it likely stems from the organizational structures and actions he has helped influence, not his residence in Eugene itself.

Finally, print magazines and publishing groups are a good measure of a social movement organization’s support base, since media can act as the vehicle that circulates the ideas of a movement. The coasts again feature predominantly the expected strain of ideological media outlets. For example, the red anarchist journal Anarcho-Syndicalist Review from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is usually filled with updates on current strikes throughout the world, historical essays on past syndicalist campaigns, and theoretical pieces discussing unions and anarchism. The green magazine called Earth First! Journal is published in Tucson, Arizona and features stories about ongoing campaigns against corporations who harm the environment, government inaction to prevent such harms, and letters-to-the-editor debating radical environmentalist strategy. Until just recently, there was no ideological publication that crossed-over between the coasts; the Northeast did not publish a green publication and the West did not publish a red publication. Yet, in 2004, The Dawn published from Oakland, California--which focused some attention on unions, workers, and strikes from an anarchist perspective--was the first periodical to violate this trend (although it is not currently publishing). There may have been earlier periodicals that violate this norm, but they are also not currently in print. These media organizations are listed in Table 4.

Anarchist Re-Socialization

[More from a forthcoming Contemporary Justice Review article.]

If most people tend to be socialized within hierarchical societies to obey authority figures, then counter-socialization strategies are mandatory to create even a limited degree of autonomy from those hierarchical institutions. Fostering this autonomy within “the system” is a central anarchist goal. Murray Bookchin wrote in Post-Scarcity Anarchism (2004) that

[anarchists] try to prevent bureaucracy, hierarchy and elites from emerging in their midst. No less important, they attempt to remake themselves; to root out from their own personalities those authoritarian traits and elitist propensities that are assimilated in hierarchical society almost from birth.” (p. 141, emphasis in the original)

And according to Graeber (2002), “ultimately [anarchism] aspires to reinvent daily life as whole” (p. 70). These prescriptions are no easy task. The goal of “taking-in” hierarchically-socialized people, broadening their world-views, and perhaps make them anarchistic requires long-term, rigorous, wide-spread, and thoughtful efforts on the part of anarchists. As indicated above, political or economic revolution without a parallel revolution in social norms is unlikely to remain a permanent revolutionary current and will be apt to roll-back into hierarchical practices.

Anarchists have a long and rich history of attempting conduct the re-socialization they believe necessary for long-term transformation. For example, in the decades leading up to the Spanish Revolution, anarchists organized across Spain. By the 1930s a particularly Spanish form of anarcho-syndicalism had deeply embedded itself into Spanish working class culture. The influence of anarchism grew--most noticeably through the success of the CNT-FAI—through the slow, organic formation of affinity groups. Once the Republic was declared and Franco's uprising occurred--creating both space and motivation--it was only “natural” for sizable portions of the Spanish working class to act upon their anarchist socialization and behave in-line with anarchist norms.

The counter-cultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s--which contained a strong anarchist aesthetic--also attempted to established different norms that were at odds with the dominant society. For example, housing communes, intentional communities, food cooperatives, and squats, as well as more temporary configurations like “be ins” or Rainbow Gatherings (Amster 2003) were designed to foster alternative norms, socialize people in the ways of positive deviance, and create social spaces autonomous of dominant norms. Many of these examples still persist and are places of refuge for individuals with values at odds with hierarchical society.

Contemporary, yet usually unidentified, examples of anarchistic norms exist, too. In most small groups of friends there is often a sense of egalitarianism and comradery. Neighbors regularly cooperate with and aid each other. Sizable minorities (and sometimes majorities) in most societies harbor a strident distrust of authority figures, especially politicians. Many profess solidarity with the disadvantaged (however inappropriately manifested). The people of most societies have strong support for various “commons” and collective property, ranging from social security to libraries to public parks. Regardless of how ill-formed or superficial some of these patterns are, they do exist and it is important to highlight them and consider their persistence in society, despite relentless efforts by state capitalism to atomize people into obedient workers and consumers. But, how to expand the desirable norms and weaken the undesirable norms? Anarchist opinion on this question differs from state socialists and communists in that it is unethical to force others to adopt new anarchist norms, or to merely preach the merits of revolution. Instead, anarchists show by example the merits of more desirable norms, in the hopes of non-coercively convincing wider anarchist norm adoptions.

Anarchists, along with many other politically-active groupings, attempt to re-socialize others. These efforts to “anarchize” sympathetic and interested persons take a variety of approaches. First and foremost, anarchists are actively involved in re-socialization through propaganda. Propaganda raises anarchist concerns, critiques, and alternatives that can be applied to everyday life by their intended recipients. Most of the central anarchist theorists that historians identify were also authors and publishers of anarchist propaganda that attempted to sway the masses of Europe and North America towards revolution. In fact, Jun (2009) considers the populist medium of the pamphlet to be a central factor that helped to position anarchism within the militant working class labor movement. Today, propaganda takes a variety of forms, in addition to the traditional pamphlet and newspaper: books, websites, radio programs, magazines and zines, graffiti and stencils, and guerilla art and culture jamming (see Atkinson 2006, Atton 1999, Downing 2003, Hertog & McLeod 1995). These mediums are designed to reach wide and diverse audiences, challenge their assumptions, rationally convince, and provoke and inspire emotions.

Re-socialization also takes place through the regular interactions that anarchists have with other non-anarchists. By “practicing what they preach”, anarchists demonstrate what their beliefs are in both conversation and action. This is likely the most common way in which “new anarchists” are created--through basic, perhaps mundane, conversations and relationships. Once this connection has been made and the character of anarchism is clear to the new adherent (even if not identified as “anarchist ideology”), re-socialization can begin. Anarchists re-socialize non-anarchists in the practice of anarchist norms using anarchist-friendly rewards and sanctions. Relationships between anarchists and non-anarchists are advanced by utilizing supportive rewards for non-anarchists’ more anarchistic behaviors; for example, the expression or practice of collectivism or anti-authoritarianism is verbally affirmed and endorsed. “Soft” sanctions are also used for un-anarchistic behaviors, such as classism, racism, or sexism; anarchists tend to express general disagreement with these ideologies, provide evidence for their inaccuracies or inappropriateness, and indicate better orientations to others.

Various anarchist-sponsored events help to re-socialize people. Protests provide the opportunity for many to experience collective and (hopefully) liberatory participation with others. Anarchist tactical approaches differ from conventional protest and are premised upon anarchist values like autonomy, self-determination, and anti-authoritarianism. Protest tactics including blockades, lock-downs, sit-ins, black blocs, snake marches, disobedients, flying squads, and others teach people about the merits of these anarchist values and provide practical experience of anarchy in action (see Atkinson 2001, Starr 2006). But, it is not just the mere experience during an event that matters, but also the skills, values, and aesthetics absorbed during the planning of events with other anarchists. One can learn the importance of incorporating as many people as possible in an event, designing the protest to be radical in orientation, and working to defend the event against those who would take it hostage for their own purposes (whether liberals, fascists, or police). Less physically-intense events like teach-ins or workshops serve a similar function for anarchists. Here, energy is focused in a more explicitly intellectual way and efforts are made to raise consciousness, and offer an anarchist critique and resolution to some social problem.

Anarchists also re-socialize others within their organizations and informal groupings. For example, formal collectives often intensely discuss not only their goals, but the means by which they are attempting to achieve them. Collectives usually discuss their internal power dynamics and attempt to refine their working relationships, decision making processes, and socio-political vision (c.f. Rothschild-Whitt 1979, Fitzgerald & Rodgers 2000). More broadly, anarchist circles (or scenes) allow for social networking and the creation of an independent counter-culture. Anarchist infoshops are an example of geographically-rooted projects that practice anarchist values, while actively spreading such ideas (Atton 2003). It is within these loose communities that anarchists learn from each other and develop new ways of living. The eventual norms that emerge from this complex process serve as the ground rules and framework that guide the local anarchist movement's operation and direction.

Finally, the act of creating dual power institutions also accomplishes re-socialization. Dual power is the establishment of counter-institutions that serve useful functions for society, accomplishing goals and fulfilling needs, but in a way in-line with anarchist values (Mumm 1998). For example, instead of trying to change corporations to be kinder and gentler, dual power means the creation of producer and consumer cooperatives accomplish necessary economic functions. In doing so, the power, necessity, and attractiveness of the corporate capitalist model would diminish and eventually disappear. Or, as opposed to mandatory schooling, the legitimate goal of learning could be alternatively achieved during the life-long process of learning via homeschooling, alternative schools, free skools, popular education, teach-ins, skill-shares, and the like. In the practice of these alternative institutions, people will learn better ways of acting that are founded on values like cooperation, anti-authoritarianism, horizontalism, and self-determination (c.f. “revolutionary transfer culture”, Ehrlich 1996). Dual power requires people to adapt oneself and one's community to the calculus of values and practicality, often in a free-flowing and emergent environment. Learning to solve problems in the absence of hierarchy is challenging, as well as an amazing re-socializing experience. Re-socialization could help to guarantee the thorough overthrow of hierarchical institutions, through the permanent establishment of anarchist norms.

Present concerns for the future

But, how well do these re-socialization efforts work? In particular, is there “roll-back” for participants? It is unknown--and no conclusive efforts have been made to understand--for whom re-socialization fails, why it fails, and how. Not only do some “anarchists” unsuccessfully adopt anarchist norms, but would-be anarchists regularly “drop-out” of anarchist scenes, perhaps through burn-out, disillusionment, frustration, value-change, or some combination of these. These questions are not only concerned with the short- and long-term sustainability of local anarchist scenes, but the eventual success of anarchistic social revolution. If nurturing a justice-oriented society is a goal, how best can anarchists and like-minded people guarantee progress and critical mass?

Past anarchist movements socialized youth into anarchist norms and values less painfully. During anarchism's “golden age” (late-1800s, early-1900s), working class culture and labor movements kept anarchist norms alive from generation to generation. Various phenomena have wiped out this anarchist culture, thereby reducing the capacity of the anarchist movement to reproduce itself through conventional socialization agents (such as families and peers). Many popular commentators have remarked (usually disdainfully) upon the seemingly youthfulness of the anarchist movement and how it lacks “elders” and older, experienced cohorts. Supporting anarchist aging in an affirming and supportive culture not only assists “institutional memory”, but also establishes wizened socialization agents who can assist in the re-socialization of younger would-be anarchists. Thus, anarchist re-socialization strategies must appreciate the long-term vision and effort needed to expand, diffuse, and strengthen anarchism within most societies.

Ultimately, “revolution” cannot be a singular event, disconnected from the past, with no uncomfortable growing pains before or after the fact. Deliberate efforts to change society are hard work, as are efforts to retain the revolutionary nature after rebellions occur. Revolution will likely involve fits and starts, and years (or even decades) of re-socialization to change practices, values, and attitudes. Anarchist norms must be fostered prior to revolution, remade during the process of revolution, and then spread and defended afterwards. Crucially, anarchists and others interested in a just social order need to appreciate the quiet strength that social norms have and seriously consider how to transform these as much as they consider the transformation of the polity and economy.

According to Geertz (1980), performances occur to illustrate relationships of power. These performances are composed of meaningful symbols that need to be understood in order to understand--and dismantle--hierarchical power. Following this logic, it is crucial to subvert the performance of everyday actions and common symbols in order to transform social order. For example, orienting chairs in a circle during a meeting not only makes the meeting more direct and functional for all involved, but also symbolically de-centers “leaders” from the meeting. Or, eliminating formal, privileging titles (e.g. “sir”, “professor”, “your honor”) not only makes conversations shorter and more multi-directional, but also imbues the conversation with an air of egalitarianism. Of course, it is not enough to just change the symbols--the form of relations must also change. But, Geertz argues that symbology is an important part of power relations. Thus, one avenue towards social transformation is through changing the many performances people do that project and reify inequality and domination.

Thus, the key objective for those concerned with seeking greater social justice is to present to others hierarchy as a human creation and something under our control. This means nurturing an anarchist imagination and fostering self-efficacy. As German anarchist Gustav Landauer (2010) famously wrote:

The state is a social relationship; a certain way of people relating to one another. It can be destroyed by creating new social relationships; i.e. by people relating to one another differently. (p. 214)

This destruction/creation requires individual and collective action. The ways that each person decides to engage with this project will vary (especially due to one’s skills, interests, values, and social positions). But, the important factor in any anarchist re-socialization will be a principled, value-driven practice (Milstein 2010, Gordon 2007). Academics and students within universities could move towards anarchist norms and re-socialization via experimentation with alternative learning environments and pedagogical styles. For example, these approaches could emphasize student-driven learning objectives, student-control over syllabus and course design, and participatory action research and community-service learning embedded within social movement organizations. Efforts could also be made to de-center the site of learning to outside of the university itself, through the creation of popular learning institutions, skill-sharing, and community-based networking. Scholars who conduct research could break-down the barriers between the Ivory Tower and “the masses” by embedding themselves within movements (as partially suggested by Burawoy (2005) in his so-called “organic public sociology) and providing their expertise in struggles for emancipation. For example, Howard Ehrlich and other ex-social scientists helped social movement organizations survey their memberships, strategically design campaigns, and pursue other research endeavors beneficial to justice struggles (see Ehrlich 1991). Regrettably, most social science scholarship tends to either be isolated within universities and their inaccessible journals that few non-academics have access to or can understand, or exist for the partisan purposes of social policy makers.

More generally, the promotion of collective organizations that are not based upon profit, self-interest, or consumerism is crucial. If there were more visible groupings within societies (especially in North America) that overtly, unabashedly advocated progressive social change in a democratic, cooperative, and horizontal context, then norms would not merely be affected for those immediate participants, but also those who indirectly encounter such groupings and their values. For example, anyone could join together with a number of other colleagues, friends, neighbors, or classmates under the auspice of a collectively-run project that had a deliberate name, agenda, and principles of unity. Such organizations could shamelessly promote the key anarchist values of self-management, horizontalism, solidarity, and direct action, through their words, but also their behavior. The possible objectives are endless, but some possibilities include: a print or web-based collective that provides a critical (anarchist) analysis of local conditions and issues; a study group that would read about and apply ideas about cop-watching, restorative justice, prison abolition, worker cooperatives, community self-defense, direct democracy, or anarchism; or an organizing campaign to help facilitate community empowerment through direct action and dual power creation.

These ideas are not meant to delineate a limit upon strategies for anarchist re-socialization, but to serve as food for thought. As is true with any anarchistic endeavor, strong-armed proscriptions are not only unhelpful for generating anti-authoritarian norms, but also limit the collective, creative imagination of peoples in struggle. Anarchist re-socialization will succeed if and only if people are reflexively active in trying to change themselves, others, and social expectations. Linguist and anarchist social critic Noam Chomsky put it thus in the film Manufacturing Consent:

The way things change is because lots of people are working all the time... they’re working in their communities, or their workplace, or wherever they happen to be, and they’re building up the basis for popular movements which are going to make changes. That’s the way everything has ever happened in history... whether it was the end of slavery, or whether it was the democratic revolutions, ... you name it, that’s the way it worked. (cited in Achbar 1994, p. 192)

References

Achbar, Mark. (1994). [ed.] Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media: the Companion Book to the Award-winning Film. Montreal: Black Rose Books.
Amster, Randall. (2003). “Restoring (Dis)order: Sanctions, Resolutions, and ‘Social Control’ in Anarchist Communities”. Contemporary Justice Review, 6, 9-24.
Atkinson, Ian. 2001. “May Day 2001 in the UK, the News Media and Public Order”. Environmental Politics, 10, 145-150.
Atkinson, Joshua. (2006). “Analyzing Resistance Narratives at the North American Anarchist Gathering: A Method for Analyzing Social Justice Alternative Media”. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 30, 251-272.
Atton, Chris. (1999). “Green Anarchist: A Case Study of Collective Action in the Racial Media". Anarchist Studies, 7, 25-49.
Atton, Chris. (2003). “Infoshops in the Shadow of the State”. In J. Curran and N. Couldry, Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World (57-69) Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Bookchin, Murray. (2004 [1971]). Post-Scarcity Anarchism. Edinburgh: AK Press.
Burawoy, Michael. (2005). “For Public Sociology”. American Sociological Review, 70, 4-28.
Downing, John D. H. (2003). “The Independent Media Center Movement and the Anarchist Socialist Tradition”. In J. Curran and N. Couldry (Eds.), Contesting Media Power: Alternative Media in a Networked World (243-257) Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Ehrlich, Howard. (1991). “Notes from an Anarchist Sociologist: May 1989”. In M. Oppenheimer, M. J. Murray, and R. F. Levine (Eds.), Radical Sociologists and the Movement: Experiences, Lessons, and Legacies (233-248) Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Ehrlich, Howard J. (1996). “How To Get From Here to There: Building Revolutionary Transfer Culture”. In H.J. Ehrlich (Ed.), Reinventing Anarchy, Again (331-349). Edinburgh: AK Press.
Fitzgerald, Kathleen J. and Diane M. Rodgers. (2000). “Radical Social Movement Organizations: A Theoretical Model”. The Sociological Quarterly, 41, 573-592.
Geertz, Clifford. (1980). Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gordon, Uri. (2007). Anarchy Alive! Anti-Authoritarian Politics from Practice to Theory. London: Pluto.
Graeber, David. (2002). “The New Anarchists”. New Left Review, 13 (Jan/Feb), 61-73.
Hertog, James K. and Douglas M. McLeod. (1995). “Anarchists Wreak Havoc In Downtown Minneapolis: A Multi-level Study of Media Coverage of Radical Protest”. Journalism & Mass Communication Monographs, 151, 1-47.
Jun, Nathan J. (2009). “Anarchist Philosophy & Working Class Struggle: A Brief History and Commentary”. Working USA: The Journal of Labor & Society, 12, 505-519.
Landauer, Gustav. (2010). Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
Milstein, Cindy. (2010). Anarchism and Its Aspirations. Oakland, CA: AK Press.
Mumm, James. (1998). “Active Revolution”. http://www.infoshop.org/texts/active_revolution.html. Date accessed: July 20, 2004.
Rothschild-Whitt, Joyce. (1979). “The Collectivist Organization: An Alternative to Rational-Bureaucratic Models”. American Sociological Review, 44, 509-527.
Starr, Amory. (2006). “'Excepting Barricades Erected to Prevent Us From Peacefully Assembling': So-Called 'Violence' in the Global North Alterglobalization Movement”. Social Movement Studies, 5, 61-81.

Concluding analyses of the Anarchist Yellow Pages (AYP)

[The conclusions section from a paper published in Humanity & Society, co-authored with Matthew Lee.]

This research has explored an organizational-level data source of international anarchist organizations. There are no other comparable datasets for the anarchist social movement, and perhaps few as unique as this one, with as much variation by type. Thus, although we do not consider the attitudes or actions of individual anarchists, nor macro-scale goals and strategies of the anarchist movement writ large, our analysis offers many original insights. We began by providing an overview of the geographic distribution of anarchist organizations. We then used political opportunities theory to explore the population ecology of anarchist organizations in a restricted number of countries for which a sufficient number of cases were available.

We found that general anarchist organizations constitute the largest single category of organizations. Yet, when categories are grouped together, physical spaces outrank both class and media organizations. Organizations tend to be found in North America and Europe, and, unsurprisingly, in major urban cities in those countries. Germany and Italy are dominated by physical spaces, France and Spain by class organizations, and the US and Canada by media organizations. The number of comparable anarchist organizations has also grown since an earlier version of the AYP in 1997, increasing over 40 percent in size. This growth could be indicative of an evolution in social movement politics that could have long-term consequences, or could be a temporal “protest cycle” (Tarrow 1998) that may presently be peaking and could recede in upcoming years.

Political opportunities are associated with the geographic distribution and density of anarchist organizations across countries and therefore may plausibly represent an important environmental force for the “natural selection” of such organizations. Countries with a greater per capita rate of anarchist organizations are significantly related not only to all manner of rights, but also to the democratic nature of the polity. In each case, there is a greater density of organizations in countries with more rights and a more democratic political system. Instead of anarchist organizing coinciding with a formally closed society, the opposite appears true--at least as measured by the AYP. Ironically, anarchists appear to prosper more in those countries that appear to be supportive of radical dissent and thus where revolutionary change to an autocracy would seem less necessary. Yet, anarchists are not satisfied with merely an “equal opportunity” society, but rather seek equality of outcomes, and are especially concerned with building a society that lacks a hierarchical and centralized authority or bureaucracy. So, even though these findings seem problematic for an anti-state movement like anarchism, such patterns make sense given the literature on political opportunities and the radical demands of anarchists that require continually expanding freedom and some protection from repression.

One of the central criticisms of the population ecology approach to understanding organizations is that it ignores the power of organizations to shape the environment. For example, one influential critique disputes the notion that the biological theory of natural selection is appropriate for explaining whether certain kinds of organizations are “negatively selected” (killed) or “positively selected” by the environments in which they are located (Perrow 1986:209). The argument is that many corporate organizations are so powerful that they actually control and reshape the environment, rather than the other way around. In this view, the population ecology perspective plays a “mystifying” role by “removing much of the power, conflict, disruption, and social class variables from the analysis of social processes” and substituting “vague natural forces,” almost implying that “God does the negative and positive selecting” (Perrow 1986:213). However, the population ecology model would seem well-suited in the case of anarchist organizations because none of these have anywhere near the power or resources of a giant corporation like General Motors or British Petroleum. Anarchist organizations are often small by design, given the preference for decentralized action, and totally disconnected from the power structures that corporations use to control their environments. The striking variations that we have found across countries with respect to the relationship between political opportunities and the existence of types of anarchist organizations suggests to us that anarchist organizations are shaped by ecological constraints in ways that participants may not expect or consider. If the anarchist movement is to grow internationally, future efforts at organizing will have to pay more explicit attention to such concerns.

This paper offered an initial foundation on which other studies can be built. With the global picture in mind, future researchers may wish to investigate a broader range of ecological conditions in a smaller number of countries as they impact the presence or absence of types of anarchist organizations. Cross-national case studies could reveal the historical development of the movements and provide clues as to particular geographically specific characteristics and emphasis. Our exploratory findings suggest strategic locations for such research, as well as specific political factors that should be examined.

Revisiting Kropotkin: Mutual Aid and Anarchism as Altruism?

[Recently published in the newsletter of the Altruism and Social Solidarity Section-in-Formation of the American Sociological Association.]

Peter Kropotkin was a contemporary of many early sociological theorists, who highlighted factors that contributed to cooperation and sociability. He argued these phenomena are regular characteristics in all societies, although their presence is usually submerged and out of view. Instead, sociologists during his time and ours have tended to focus their scholarship upon the deviant, unequal, and hierarchical. Sometimes it takes extreme circumstances to see the merit in Kropotkin’s ideas, rattle people’s cynicism, and see other possible forms of social order. For example, recent disasters like the 2010 earthquake in Haiti or Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the Gulf Coast in 2005 stand as a testament to the “natural” sympathies of people for the suffering victims of natural phenomenon. Or, recall the outpouring of support and solidarity extended to all sorts of Americans--directly affected or not--following the terrorist attacks of September 11th. In each case, complete strangers helped each other, without hope for reward, status, or self-interest, and did what they thought was “right” in a given situation, regularly incurring great personal risk, sacrifice, and hardship on their part. Gone--even if only temporarily--was the typical egotism, individualism, and coldness that define much of life in the modern, capitalist world.

In 1997, I saw through a similar window into a new world. I was a student at the University of North Dakota when the Red River thawed in Springtime at a pace that caused record high-levels of flooding along the river, especially in the town where I lived, Grand Forks. For an entire week leading up to the flooding and eventual evacuation of the town of 50,000 people, life completely changed. Classes at the university were canceled, people didn’t go to work, and youth stayed home from school. Instead, the entire community reoriented its efforts to saving their neighbors from the encroaching water. I spent time on the tall sandbag dikes, protecting the houses of complete strangers, who thanked us with hugs, tears, and sandwiches. I witnessed thousands of people spend every waking hour helping other people. People (including me) hitched rides from random drivers for the first time ever, without fear. It was unlike anything I had ever seen or imagined before. And, although there were surely organizations providing material support and coordinating infrastructure in the struggle against the floodwaters, most people self-organized themselves within each neighborhood: college students, kids, parents, seniors, and soldiers from a nearby military base all chipped-in and made decisions on the ground, with little regard for one’s special status, except for who could offer the most sensible ideas at the time.

In the aftermath of this event, I wrote of my experiences to one of my favorite authors, Noam Chomsky. I was surprised (and honored) that he wrote me back to say he found my observations interesting. He called the phenomena I observed “mutual aid” and recommended I read what he called the most important work in the area of “socio-biology”, Peter Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. Chomsky said the book was rarely recognized or acknowledged by scholars because the book’s implications counter the dominant narrative of meritocracy, free markets, and legitimate authority figures. It took me far too long to get around to actually reading Kropotkin, but after receiving Chomsky’s letter, I immediately started seeing “mutual aid” everywhere.

Mutual aid includes cooperative behaviors that benefit the initiator as well as others. Kropotkin includes countless actions that support the strengthening and continuation of social solidarity, ranging from community self-defense to resource-acquisition and sharing. He argues that mutual aid is “not love, and not even sympathy”, but “a far wider, even though more vague feeling or instinct of human solidarity and sociability” (Kropotkin 2006: xv). Mutual aid is thus the underpinning of community.

For the anarchist Kropotkin, mutual aid is present in many varieties of animal species and communities, as well as most of human history, including the long epochs ranging from the period of “savages” to the medieval age. Most research on this phenomenon--of humans helping others, without immediate expectations or governments--has been done in the area of anthropology. For example, David Graeber’s Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (2004) illustrates this history of non-state social order; or Sam Mbah and I.E. Igariwey’s African Anarchism (1997), focuses on tribal African communalism. Additionally, anthropologists like Harold Barclay (1990), James C. Scott (2009), and others argue that humans have lived without hierarchical authority until all but recently, or have at least lived with autonomy from centralized states. In other words, mutual aid is a very “natural” pattern in the human experience. According to Kropotkin (2006), recent governments and bureaucracies normalize social problems and thus reduce the tendency towards mutual aid:

In the guild -- and in medieval times every man belonged to some guild or fraternity [and] two “brothers” were bound to watch in turns a brother who had fallen ill; it would be sufficient now to give one’s neighbour the address of the next paupers’ hospital. In barbarian society, to assist at a fight between two men, arisen from a quarrel, and not to prevent it from taking a fatal issue, meant to be oneself treated as a murderer; but under the theory of the all-protecting State the bystander need not intrude: it is the policeman’s business to interfere, or not. And while in a savage land, among the Hottentots, it would be scandalous to eat without having loudly called out thrice whether there is not somebody wanting to share the food[…] all that a respectable citizen has to do now is to pay the poor tax and to let the starving starve. (p. 188)

Just as a self-respecting public sociologist would today, during his time Kropotkin sought to make his ideas as accessible to everyone. For example, Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid appears during a period in which radicals and the working-class are being pulled in opposite directions, by authoritarian Marxism on one side, and individualistic and nihilistic Nietzscheism on the other. Kropotkin not only disagreed with those trajectories, but tried to argue the case for an anarchist interpretation of social relations--thus he wrote Mutual Aid as an anarchist response to these competing frameworks. He thought the modern state suppresses humans’ normal inclination to cooperative organization, a problem that could not be overcome by utilizing the state in a “popular” revolution (as the Bolsheviks were to do) or by ignoring our social responsibilities to others (Kinna 1996).

Kropotkin’s argument was also a statement against social Darwinism--particularly as advocated by Thomas Huxley--that people are naturally competitive and that vigorous conflict produces the best possible societies. Instead, Kropotkin showed that human communities survive and thrive, not through competition amongst their members, but through cooperation and sociability. Although this insight has generally been ignored by natural scientists, a few have appreciated mutual aid’s broader significance. Evolutionary biologist and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould confirms Kropotkin’s emphasis upon mutual aid over mutual struggle: “I would hold that Kropotkin’s basic argument is correct. Struggle does occur in many modes, and some lead to cooperation among members of a species as the best pathway to advantage for individuals” (Gould 1997: 21).

Despite the audacity of his work, Kropotkin is largely unknown inside the academy, likely due to never holding an official university position. He wrote scholarly works (including The Conquest of Bread and Fields, Factories, and Workshops) which have been more enduring in the long-run than most sociologists of his era. Unfortunately--but not surprisingly--Kropotkin’s work is not taught in sociological theory classes when describing social solidarity. To my knowledge, courses that focus on demography or social change never use his arguments about mutual aid as an important condition for group selection. Enterprising sociologists (and anthropologists, political scientists, historians, and economists) could work to update Kropotkin’s famous study, by conducting contemporary scholarship based on his fundamental argument about mutual aid. But, this shift in scholarly attention would require an ethical re-emphasis upon the things that make societies work “well” as opposed to what makes them work “poorly” or harm people. Such a shift, I believe, is the general goal of this ASA Section on Altruism and Social Solidarity.

To simply reframe altruism as mutual aid would change its meaning, of course. While both are understudied, altruism is definitely rarer, while mutual aid happens all the time (but is nearly never noted in our discipline). Mutual aid is not altruistic in the pure sense, since people do get something back for their efforts. Yet, mutual aid might be better thought of as karmic--even without the sense of an immediate “payback” for one’s efforts, good deeds eventually benefit yourself as others will help you in your time of need, too.

Or, mutual aid may be a prime example of altruism: what seems to be selfless and sacrificial (thus altruistic), could easily serve to strengthen social solidarity (i.e. mutual aid). Neither phenomena can be driven by authority figures and both require individuals to exercise a fair amount of agency. The adoption of stronger communal norms would likely increase both practices. A society in which everyone offers altruistic assistance to everyone else would be a society filled with Kropotkin’s mutual aid. But this form of social solidarity is only truly possible within horizontal social relationships.

Altruism is well-known for falling victim to free-riding: people who have things done for them by exceptional others are less likely to do for themselves (and perhaps for others). Kropotkin’s conception of mutual aid illustrates that self-sacrificing altruism reduces collective orientations to problem-solving. Instead, true sociability avoids the alienating aspects of altruism and focuses upon community and group action (Glassman 2000). Consequently, mutual aid occupies a more stable position than altruism as the social facilitator of the common good.

Altruism scholars tend to find much merit in the notion of “positive deviants” and “exemplars” within social movements; this could be even more the case within radical, value-driven movements that avoid the approach of “charity provisioning”, such as anarchism.[1] Yet, unlike altruists, anarchists do not do things for people, they will work with others and thus lead by example. In fact, anarchists wholly refuse official leadership and deny the right of the state (even if its power is wielded for supposedly “good reasons”). Countless movement figures--most completely unknown, uncelebrated--have anonymously martyred themselves in pursuit of “the ideal” (as Emma Goldman referred to anarchism). Anarchists sought—and still seek—the transformation of society into a horizontal social order based upon egalitarianism, cooperation, and mutual aid. An individual’s freedom is completely wrapped-up in the freedom of the collective (and vice-versa). To further and accomplish such ends, anarchists have struggled within labor movements, insurrections, and civic organizations of all types. Much effort has been given to deepening, expanding, and radicalizing human tendencies for mutual aid. In pursuit of these formidable goals, anarchists have been incredibly unsuccessful over the long-term, although small pockets of freedom have occasionally existed, and continue to endure within sub-cultures around the world. In return for their efforts, anarchists have been libeled as terrorists, executed by states, arrested on behalf of robber barons and corporations, and “disappeared” by Communist parties.

Short of an anarchist society in the near future, what immediate structures and relationships are worth obtaining and emphasizing? While altruism is clearly instructive of human potential for contributing to the common good, it is overshadowed by the mutual aid people practice every day. Kropotkin’s observation was far more mundane than that of altruism, but so much more important.


References
Barclay, Harold. 1990. People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy. Seattle: Left Bank Books.
Glassman, Michael. 2000. “Mutual Aid Theory and Human Development: Sociability as Primary”. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 30 (4): 391-412.
Gould, Stephen Jay. 1997. “Kropotkin was no crackpot”. Natural History, 106 (June): 12-21.
Graeber, David. 2004. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.
Kinna, Ruth. 1995. “Kropotkin’s Theory of Mutual Aid in Historical Context”. International Review of Social History, 40 (2), August: 259-283.
Kropotkin, Peter. 2006. Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution. Mineola, NY: Dover.
Mbah, Sam and I.E. Igariwey. 1997. African Anarchism: The History of a Movement. Tucson, AZ: See Sharp Press.
Scott, James C. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Endnotes:
[1] It is crucial to dispense with cartoonish, pop-culture stereotypes of anarchism as pertaining to chaos and violence. Instead, a scholarly understanding of anarchism ought to emphasize the vision articulated by actual anarchists--like Kropotkin--which is founded on anti-authoritarianism, self-management, solidarity, and egalitarian social order.

Anarchists in Labor Unions -- Conclusions

[This is an excerpt from a paper published in a special issue of Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society, focused on anarchism, syndicalism, and working people that I co-edited with Immanuel Ness. The earlier part of the paper featured analyses of anarchists who did and didn't belong to labor unions, based on data from the 2002 Infoshop.org user survey.]

Union members represent a sizable sector of the anarchist movement (as per the Infoshop data). Yet, how do various aspects of NSM [new social movement] theories explain characteristics of the modern anarchists found in the Infoshop survey? There are points of convergence and departure with the theories and empirical observations. The level of union membership of employed Infoshop respondents in the US (19 percent) was somewhat higher than in the general American population. This unionization level is half that of employed respondents from Europe (40 percent). Compared to the height of the anarchist movement in the early-1900s, these levels of union membership are likely to be lower than in the past. NSM theories apply to developed Western nations and thus the higher European membership rate should be included when considering anarchism and NSMs. This suggests that other regions may deviate from the NSM framework more clearly than North Americans. The Infoshop survey was dominated by North American respondents and thus the focus is upon anarchists in that region whom were only slightly more likely to be in a labor union than their fellow, mainstream citizens.

While NSM theories emphasize the importance of new, emergent collective identities, anarcho-syndicalism and anarcho-communism are nothing “new” per se. They are, however, oriented towards the goals of achieving autonomy from the dominant economic order, as other collective identities like “feminism” or “gay liberation” might infer. Neither of the economic anarchist ideologies wishes to be embedded within a “business union movement”, but rather wish to see the economy transformed into a more equal, liberatory, and cooperative institution. Yet, since the types of unions that Infoshop respondents belong to is unavailable, it is possible that even these respondents with non-assimilation ideologies are members of assimilated and reformist unions.

This paper has begun the task of creating quantitative research looking at North American anarchists in regards to NSMs. The statistics presented suggest a number of key socio-economic, demographic, ideological, and identity-based differences for anarchist union members within the Infoshop survey. It has sought to address the assumptions of anarchists as participants in a middle-class movement, as is the case with NSMs generally. As for the portion of anarchists who are also union members, the working class is more likely to be the participating class—insofar as self-identification matches an empirical reality. This strengthens the NSM argument about the so-called old social movements (like labor), as the working class, and not the middle-class, is labor’s main constituency. Yet, the current anarchist movement still does belong, in part, to this old social movement.

It should be noted that although this research has tested the characteristics of anarchists who do or do not belong to labor unions, it does not suggest anything beyond that. Active participation or activism within unions is unknown for these individuals. Since NSM theory suggests that traditional movements were active labor and class-based movements, it is not possible to claim that simple membership in a union constitutes participation in a labor movement. Other organizations that also engage in class-focused activism include Food Not Bombs, Homes Not Jails, or others.

Future research should consider the philosophical and real support of unions as part of anarchist ideology, not just that which is economic in focus. It may be that “anarchists without adjective” are equally likely to participate in unions as their economic-focused counterparts, a conclusion impossible to derive from the way the Infoshop survey was conducted. Questions that expand on simple union membership, such as activity within a union or union-organizing itself, would be useful.

Unions are not the only working class or economic-focused organizations that exist, but they are the most prevalent and prominent. Future research should consider other organizations that derive from the working class or focus on economic issues. Anarchist participation in such organizations is likely to be different than membership or participation in labor unions. This possibility would strengthen the confidence that other structures of traditional movement values are still being utilized, even if in new organizational forms with new strategies, not just unions. The extent to which unions may be viewed as “social movement organizations” also needs to be considered, since some unions are remarkably more activist-oriented and radical than others. Clawson (2003) also differentiates between unions and the labor movement—the former being a “circumscribed institution” while the latter is a “fluid formation… [which] depends on high-risk activism, mass solidarity, and collective experiences” (p. 24).

Using a different measure for class, such as annual income, may provide a different result than the question used by the Infoshop survey, which asked respondents to determine their own class background. Anarchists may have ideologically aligned themselves with the working class, regardless of the economic background of their parents or their current occupation. The ability to separate certain sectors of the middle-class—non-profit workers, students and academics, and retirees—would aid in testing who in the middle class is supportive of the anarchist movement according to NSM. Educational status would facilitate analysis of NSM theory’s traditional characterization of middle-class activists as intellectuals. Finally, efforts to seek out anarchists of older generations to further test the impact of age upon union membership would help provide a richer context for how anarchism has changed.

More importantly, future research may wish to seek a better way to more comprehensively explore connections between the anarchist movement and NSM theories. This study did not test anarchist values and attitudes, so a comparison based upon these criteria is not possible. It is difficult to answer these larger questions with just one survey, especially a limited one. One way to evaluate anarchist beliefs and action in lieu of other NSM characteristics is to consider the other characteristics suggested by Sutton and Vertigans (2006), such as anti-hierarchical organization, symbolic direct action, and self-limited radicalism.

Subsequent work on this highly under-analyzed movement should heed these considerations. Anarchism’s complex, contentious, and sometimes contradictory advocates and organizations deserve greater study.