Anarchism has many meanings - it means chaos, quirky individuality and a school of political thought and a social movement, born in 19th century. As a movement, anarchism has both over- and underperformed during its history. Overperformed, because no-one questions importance of individuality. Underpeformed, because promised future without state and capital has failed to materialize. Its classical thinkers are simultaneously completely out of date, and clairvoyants of the present reality and struggles. As Max Stirner wrote, people of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss. What is anarchism as a social movement, and its relevance in the 21th century? Lecture recording from Wednesday 14th of April 2021. Lecture was part of the Anarchy, Art and Anachrony 12.4.-16.4. intense week in Aalto University in Helsinki. First part: https://www.slideshare.net/AnttiRautiainen5/actuality-of-anarchism Check out this lecture as a podcast: https://soundcloud.com/arautiainen/actuality-of-anarchism-22 Check out this lecture as a video: https://youtu.be/NbYLpY8ffyU Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/arautiainen Twitter: https://twitter.com/ARautiainen Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/arautiainen Spotify: https://sptfy.com/arautiainen Blog: https://avtonom.org/en/people/antti-rautiainen Google podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/Arautiainengoogle Itunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/fi/podcast/antti-rautiainen/id1512789511 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/antti.i.rautiainen Instagram: anttiraut Ask: https://ask.fm/AnttiR Bio: https://anttirautiainen.livejournal.com/profile

1. Actuality of Anarchism
Part 2

2. Two questions
 Can anarchism provide you with
relevancy, grants and fame in the art
world?
 Can anarchism help artists and
cultural workers to organise as a
class?
Individual vs. collective struggle

3. (Sidenote on materialism)
Materialism undervalued:
 Materialism is often a blind spot
 Nationalist etc. mythical arratives live and kicking
Materialism overvalued:
 Materialist criticism often trivial
 Not everything comes down to materialism
19th Century Marxism, Anarchism heavily
materialist. Later not always (Gramsci, Liberation
Theology, Simone Weil… )

4. (Sidenote on history)
Why history is not important
 Boring
 Too much data, may support any argument
 Mostly problematic men, should be cancelled
Why history is important
 Possibility to learn from mistakes
 Most of the questions have already been asked
by someone

5. Revolutionary Syndicalism
Confédération Générale du
Travail (CGT), La Charte
d’Amiens 1906
 Workers should take over
capital with a general strike

6. Industrial Workers of the World
1905
 One Big Union
 Unskilled,
migratory workers,
migrants and
blacks
 Against
employment
contracts until
1938
 After 60's

7. Emma Goldman 1869 – 1940

 "If I can't dance, it's not my
revolution"
 Mother Earth -paper 1906-
1917, pioneering issues such
as rights of sexual minorities
 Anarchist communist
 Jailed several times, for
example for spreading
information about birth control
 Deported to Russia 1919
 Hostile towards feminism, but
a feminist icon since 1960's.

8. Lucy Parsons 1851 – 1942

 Wife of Albert Parsons,
hanged in Chicago
1887
 Black according to
contemporaries, but no
black identity. A class
reductionist
 In conflict with Emma
Goldman

9. Rosa Emilia Lemberg (Clay) 1875-
1959

 Likely first black Finnish
 Revival of interest in
Finland after 2010's
 IWW member after
emigrating to US in
1904

10. Madeleine Pelletier 1874 – 1939
 Originally a suffragette,
then communist and
anarchist
 (Anachronistically)
Gender-nonconforming
 "100 years ahead of my
time"
 Provided illegal abortions,
died after being sent to
asylum

11. Anarcha-feminism
 First wave of feminism dwindles after general
suffrage
 Womens consciousness raising groups from
late 1960's
 Emma Goldman rediscovered
 Anarcha-feminism becomes anti-parliamentary
fraction of second-wave feminism
 Blends to enviromental movement in early
1980's
 Intersectional feminism grows (mostly)
independently from black (Marxist) feminism

12. What about Marxism?

13. Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) and
collectivism
 Collectivism: Wage
according to hours worked
 Praxis, not theory
 Joined, or attempted to
join 7 insurrections
 Supported revolutionary
conspiracies and
vanguards
 May be cancelled

14. Insurrections of Bakunin
 Baden 1848 (attempt to join)
 Posen 1848 (attempt to join)
 Prague 1848
 Dresden 1849
 Poland 1863 (attempt to join)
 Lyon 1870

15. Marx and Bakunin
 International Workingmen's Association
founded 1864, Bakunin joins 1868
 Split in Hague 1872 on the issue of
elections, taking over the state power
 Other differences on issue of revolutionary
class: industrial proletariat or any
insubordinate group, such as peasants,
marginals, artesan workers (such as
watchmakers in Jura federation)

16.  Marx: Indecision, lack of socialization
 Trotsky (and Lenin): No Vanguard
party (Marx & Engels: Spirit of
Commune was democratic)
 Kropotkin: Reforms not decisive,
government alienated from the
masses
Reasons of the defeat of the Paris
Commune (1871)

17. Foucault:
When the proletariat takes power, it may be
quite possible that the proletariat will exert
towards the classes over which it has just
triumphed, a violent, dictatorial and even
bloody power. I can’t see what objection one
could make to this.
Chomsky and Foucault debate
(1971)

18.  Core definition: Using tools of production for
workers own good
 Wider definition: Action which is not
representative, appeal to authorities or symbolic
action
 Widest definition: Do it Yourself
 Revival since 60's: Anti-war movement,
environmental movement, squatting etc.
 Connected to concept of activism.
Direct action

19.  According to Marx (extrapolation): Hopeless,
contaminated by petty-bourgeois mentality
 According to Bakunin: There is hope! Anarchism
provides models of struggle with direct
democracy and direct action.
 However, what are means of direct action for
artists? Can artists strike, boycott, sabotage?
 Existing initiatives: Carrot collective in London,
Night schoolers, Museum of Impossible forms
etc. in Helsinki.
Can anarchism help artists and cultural
workers to organise as a class?

20. On class position of artists
 Boris Groys: Art Power
Gregory Sholette: Dark Matter: Art and
Politics in the Age of Enterprise Culture
On anarchism:
 Anarchist FAQ
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/the-
anarchist-faq-editorial-collective-an-
anarchist-faq
Further reading