(en) Southern Arica, African Anarchist Collective Newsletter Tokologo #2 - TOKOLOGO AFRICAN ANARCHIST COLLECTIVE (TAAC) - STATEMENT OF INTENT -

Adopted at TAAC general meeting, 16 March 2013 ---- A. What is the TAAC? ---- The Tokologo 
African Anarchist Collective is a loose collective of anarchists and 
anarchist-sympathisers who are community and worker activists. Its members function 
primarily as educators. ---- It seeks to meet regularly to learn about and work towards 
spreading the ideas of anarchism within the working class residing in South Africa. These 
ideas are aimed at contributing to building: ? a revolutionary counter-culture, and ? 
revolutionary organisations of counter-power to fight and defeat domination and 
exploitation. This can be done by promoting direct working class organisational democracy 
and accountability

B. What does the TAAC seek to do?

The members meet regularly at general meetings once a month
to discuss, debate and learn about the ideas of anarchism. The
members meet to learn community and worker organising
skills.

The members meetThese are:
to co-ordinate the activities of the TAAC.

1. Organising and carrying out working class community-
based workshops

2. Creating and distributing propaganda relevant to the work
of the TAAC and anarchism (this propaganda includes, but
is not limited to TAAC newsletters, statements and t-shirts).

C. Why do we do this?

The TAAC seeks to develop an understanding of anarchism
? its ideas, strategies and tactics ? amongst those living and
organising in working class and poor communities in South
Africa. The TAAC seeks to do this through the activities
mentioned in B.

The TAAC seeks to organise these activists and communities
around the ideas, strategies and tactics of anarchism.

The TAAC seeks to build itself by attracting more people to
join the TAAC.

The TAAC seeks to revive a spirit of counter-culture and
optimism about struggle and organisation against domination
and exploitation in these communities. Another way of doing
this is by seeking to regularly meet with active community-
based organisations.

D. Who can join the TAAC?

Membership to the TAAC is not open to everyone on request.
Members must be educators of the ideas of anarchism. As such
those who seek to join the TAAC must have been educated
about these ideas beforehand, as well as being taught how to
educate others about the ideas.

The TAAC seeks to develop an individual?s understanding
of anarchism. In so doing, the individual must become
fully aware of the ideas of the TAAC and the processes and
commitments required to join the TAAC.

Membership is granted to an individual by collective member
decision. It will be based on:

1. An individual having participated in a community-based
workshop. At the workshop, individuals either approach
TAAC members with a desire to continue their anarchist
education, or are identified by a TAAC member present;

2. These individuals are then invited to participate in the
already existing process of education (the Anarchist
Political School, APS); and then

3. the individual?s own desire to join once they have graduated
from the APS

Membership is open to APS graduates who identify as
anarchists or to those who do not identify as anarchists.
However, membership is granted to those who share the
vision of the TAAC. Members then commit to spreading the
ideas of anarchism in working class and poor communities as
determined by collective TAAC decision.

E.How are TAAC decisionsby whom?
made and

All TAAC decisions are agreed to at the monthly general
meetings of the members. It is at these meetings that mandates
are decided on and volunteered to.

These decisions and mandates are decided by general
agreement at these monthly general meetings.

The TAAC may choose to form smaller collectives to carry
out specific tasks, e.g. an Editorial Collective. These collectives
are decided on and formed at their monthly general meetings.
These collectives may decide on their own tasks. However,
these collectives must be accountable to the general body
of members. These decisions and tasks must fall within the
mandate for these smaller collectives as decided by the
members at the monthly general meeting. These collectives
must report back to general monthly meeting, as determined
by their mandate and collective decision.

(en) Southern Arica, African Anarchist Collective Newsletter Tokologo #2 - The Story of the Makhnovists and the Anarchist Revolution

SECTION: The Story of the Makhnovists and the Anarchist Revolution in the Ukraine, 
1918-1921 ---- NOTES FROM A TAAC WORKSHOP ---- The mass ?Makhnovist? (anarchist) movement 
emerged in 1917 in Ukraine, a colonial country in East Europe that was until then divided 
between the Russian and Austrian (or Austro-Hungarian) Empires. the Makhnovists made an 
anarchist revolution. The anarchists were a central force in the 1917-1921 Ukrainian War 
of Independence, ---- Russian Revolution, Ukrainian Revolution ---- In 1917, the Russian 
empire underwent revolution. Many forces struggled. Some wanted to restore the Russian 
imperial government (and the Russian royal family), overthrown in March. Others wanted to 
create a new, better society.

Ukraine was a split between the Russian and Austrian
empires. It was the richest colony of the Russian Empire,
exporting wheat and producing agricultural equipment.
Now, in 1917, everything was set to change.

What was the Russian Revolution?

Before the Revolution, most land was held by a small
landowning class; government and private industries
exploited workers; the empire had many oppressed
nationalities who wanted independence. (Russia itself was
only half the Russian empire).

The Revolution overthrew the Emperor (Tsar); the army split;
peasants started to take over land; oppressed nationalities
demanded independence; and workers began taking over
cities and industries. Many forces in Ukraine fought for
independence, but they did not agree on the content and
form of that independence.

Who was Nestor Makhno?

In Ukraine, anarchists were the main revolutionary force.
They fought for decolonisation through anarchist revolution,
meaning the independent Ukraine should be reconstructed
on anarchist lines: self-management and participatory
democracy, equality not hierarchy and domination,
collectively-owned property, and the abolition of the class
system, capitalism and the state.

They were called ?Makhnovists,? after the leading Ukrainian
anarchist militant, Nestor Makhno. He came from a poor
peasant family, had been a factory worker, and former
political prisoner.

Who were the enemies of the Makhnovists and why?


* Monarchists (so-called ?White armies?) , who wanted
to bring back the Russian Empire, the Russian emperor
(Tsar)and the unequal society these created;

* Marxists (so-called ?Communists?) like Lenin and Trotsky,
who were creating one-party dictatorship in central
Russia,;

* Ukrainian nationalists, who wanted to create an
independent, capitalist, Ukrainian state, with Ukrainian
(not Russian) landlords, capitalists and political elites;

* German / Austrian imperialists, who wanted to take over
the whole Ukraine, making it a colony again.

Why were they enemies?

Actually, the monarchists, Marxists, nationalists and
imperialists stood for something similar:

1) a tiny elite would control the land, factories and state, and
rule the peasants and workers; and, along with this

2) no independence for the Russian colonies.

For example, the Marxists built a revolutionary one-party
dictatorship, nationalized industry and land, and repressed
all their enemies. In reality, this meant a tiny unelected
Marxist elite crushing trade unions, social movements,
and anarchists ? and controlling all wealth. From 1918,
the Marxist state reconquering the numerous breakaway
Russian colonies.

This meant the Marxists were against the Makhnovists, who
were a threat to their dictatorship, by their example, ideas,
and independence.

What did the Makhnovists want instead?

The anarchist Makhnovist movement wanted to destroy
class rule, which means the rule of a wealthy and powerful
elite, over the peasants/ family farmers and working class
majority.

Every ruling elite, regardless of being German/ Austrian,
Russian, or even Ukrainian, always dominated and exploited
the popular classes. Fighting class rule was part of the genera
anarchist struggle to end all oppression and hierarchy
(including colonialism and racism).

The anarchists wanted society to be run democratically
by ordinary people, no matter their race or culture, using
the wealth for human needs ? not elite profits and power.
Where no person oppressed or exploited another. Where all
nationalities were freed from imperialism.

This meant they politically opposed the Marxists as well as
the nationalists and monarchists

In the turmoil of the War of Independence, from 1917-1921,
they pushed for their radical agenda in the face of intense
Marxist and nationalist and monarchist opposition.


The Anarchist Revolution in the Ukraine


A free ?soviet? system

In much of the Ukraine, especially the south, the anarchist
Makhnovists created a free, independent worker-peasant-
soldier council (in Russian: ?soviet?) system. The first
elements of this were developed in 1917, when Makhno
and his militants began to organize unions, factory and
farm workers committees, and assemblies ? moving to land
reforms and strikes.

This was disrupted by a German imperialist occupation of
the territory, permitted by the shameful First Treaty of Brest-
Litovsk, signed by the Russian Marxists Lenin and Trotsky
In February 1918

But in 1918, the anarchist Makhnovist movement exploded
into life again as armed partisan groups and mass-based
popular struggles and structures pushed forward. Now, the
revolution took hold on a larger scale than ever.

Ordinary people ran things through neighborhood,
workplace and soldiers councils. Council delegates were
always accountable to regular mass meetings of neighbors
and workers. They took orders from the people; they did
not give orders and they were not a ruling elite. They were
comrades and indeed servants, not masters. And workplaces
and communities were under the direct control (the self-
management) of the ordinary people. Collectives were
formed, land was redistributed and life was changed.

Councils were federated, and linked through congresses.
Congresses expressed the demands of the working class and
peasantry on a large scale, and developed democratic plans.
Land, factories and other wealth were commonly owned
wherever possible, run through the councils and used for
quality services, good jobs, equality, and solidarity.

A working class/ peasant militia

The Makhnovists permitted Marxists and nationalists to
participate (peacefully) in the Ukrainian free councils, and
to promote their views, newspapers and delegates.

But at the same time, violent attacks against the councils,
common property, racist violence and attacks by monarchists,
Marxists and nationalists had to be met with force.

The anarchist Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of the
Ukraine, controlled by the councils including the soldiers
councils, acted to protect the independent revolutionary
Ukraine.

Even its commanders were elected: Makhno
himself was elected, and could be forced
to step down. And he did step down. It was a democratic
?militia?: a people?s army, recruited form the people, not an
army used by a ruling class against the people.

The real world

This was the anarchist society ? the Makhnovists? words made
flesh. An anarchist revolution took place in a large territory.
It showed a concrete alternative to monarchists, Marxists and
nationalists.


The following chart shows how the anarchist zone (Ukraine) was different to the Marxist 
zone (Russia)


ANARCHIST UKRAINE || MARXIST RUSSIA

Free speech  || All opposition banned

Free soviet system  || Soviets subject to control of Bolshevik party

Different currents allowed in soviets || No free political activity or debate in soviets

Soviets are main locus of power || Soviets are controlled by unelected state officials

Soviets could be won over, || No free elections or real debate
democratically, by new political forces ||

Land, factories are controlled by the || Land, factories are controlled by the state
people ||

Self-managed workplace || State-run workplace

Democratic army || Top-down army



Ukraine?s Revolution as Anarchist,
Popular Class National Self-Determination
and Decolonisation

Through the council system, the working class and peasantry
of Ukraine also achieved independence for this colony. The
federation of free Ukrainian councils meant there was a new,
independent and anarchist Ukrainian system.

The puppet state of the Germans, called the Hetmanate, was
ejected from much of the territory. The efforts by the Russian
Marxists to reconquer the territory and create a puppet
Ukrainian ?Soviet Republic? was resisted. The attempt by
the rightwing monarchists to reinstall the Russian emperor
in the territory was resisted. The attempt by the Ukrainian
nationalists to create their own state, like the Central Rada
and the ?Directory?, were resisted.

Power and wealth was placed firmly in the hands of the
working and poor masses, not a small elite ? local or foreign.
The new anarchist Ukraine was free of Russian, German and
Austrian imperialism. It also rejected the shameful treaty of
the Russian Marxists, which assumed a central Russian state
had the right to dispose of Ukraine.

And it also fought to be free from capture by the emergent
Ukrainian elite of state managers, landlords and capitalists.

The men and women of the anarchist Makhnovist forces
? these included the army as well as the councils and the
workplaces ? included peasants, ethnic Ukrainian as well
as others like Greeks and Cossacks, some urban workers,
Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking; the persecuted Jewish
minority was also included. Independent anarchist Ukraine
was inclusive of all working and poor people; its enemies
were the rich and powerful of every race and nation.

So, the anarchists had established the independence of
Ukraine ? but through a revolutionary anarchist society. They
rejected the occupations by Germany, and Austria, and they
rejected the right of any elite to recapture Ukraine, even if it
was a Ukrainian elite.


WhatHappened to the Makhnovists and the Revolution?

The Makhnovists were defeated by the continual armed
attacks by monarchists, nationalists and Marxists. Eventually
the Marxists won. They made Ukraine into a colony, called
?Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,? part of a recreated
Russian empire, the ?Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?
(USSR/ Soviet Union). There was nothing ?socialist? about
the system; it was state-capitalist colonialism.

Why were they defeated?

One obvious reason for the Makhnovist defeat was that they
were outgunned: too many enemies, on too many fronts, for
too long.

The attacks undermined the councils and workplace and
military self-management. When the Makhnovists were
pushed out of territory, the invading forces terrorized the
local people and killed anarchists. When Makhnovists took
the areas back, they had to start from scratch. The military
effort was exhausting, consuming resources, men, women
and materials.

Errors in alliances

But why were they outgunned all the time? Why are the
enemies so powerful in the first place?

The Makhnovists had no choice but to make alliances
with different forces at different times: sometimes with
the Marxists and nationalists against the monarchists,
sometimes with independent armed groups.

But they made too many alliances with the Russian Marxists
? despite repeated betrayals by the Marxists and their refusal
to provide weapons to the anarchists, alliances with the
Marxists were prioritized.

It is worth thinking about whether other allies should have
been considered more often. For example, the anarchist
Makhnovists could have worked with the nationalists, who
also wanted independence, while at the same time winning
over the rank-and-file of the nationalist forces ot anarchism.

And they might have been able to negotiate a better deal
than with the Marxists.

Why? Because the Makhnovists were much stronger
compared to the nationalists, than the Marxists. If the
alliance frayed later, the Makhnovists would have been
better placed to sort matters out in their favour. It is true the
nationalists often attacked the anarchists. But how was this
diff erent to the actions of the Marxists?

The disorganized Russian anarchists

Another problem is that the anarchists in Russia itself were
very disorganized and confused ? although there were
exceptions, like G.P. Maximoff ?s anarcho-syndicaists. If the
Russian anarchists were better organized, they could have
weakened the Lenin-Trotsky Marxist dictatorship ? and
potentially created a second anarchist zone in Russia itself.
This would have tied up the Marxist forces, and provided a
powerful ally and example.

Chronic disorganisation is one reason why the much smaller
but much better organized Ukrainian anarchist movement
made a revolution ? and why the bigger Russian movement
failed to do so. In exile, many of these disorganised
anarchists refused to learn the basic lessons: these are that
anarchism must go to the masses, be unified in word and
deed, and operate on collective responsibility.

Makhno, his comrade Piotr Arshinov and others, in exile,
drew these hard-won lessons in the important Organisational
Platform of the Libertarian Communists.

Lessons

Badly organized, anarchism / syndicalism is crippled and
weak ? well organized, it can help change the world. This
is what the Makhnovists show us. Let us remember their
heroic example.

(en) Southern Arica, African Anarchist Collective Newsletter Tokologo #2 - Wake Up the Power of the Working Class and Poor By LUCIEN VAN DER WALT

Our country is in a mess. Hunger, poverty, exploitation and injustice stalk the land. ---- 
Th e working class and poor face, at every step, the high walls of injustice, the chains 
of unemployment, and the bullets and batons of the police. ---- Confl icts shake the 
country, and hopes that shone in 1994 are fading, rusting under the waters of greed, 
oppression, and inequality; those hopes seem like a dream that fades when you awake to a 
grim reality. ---- Th e national question, our deep divisions of race and nationality, 
remains unsolved: politicians, black and white, make the situation worse in order to get 
votes. ---- We see the African National Congress (ANC), a party that embodied for so many 
working class people, so many hopes, breaking those people and tarnishing those hopes. We 
see ANC politicians buying votes, stealing money, running a broken school system, and 
grinding down the working and poor people.

3We see breakaway factions from the ANC making the same
false promises, but their record speaks for itself: in offi ce,
they were exactly the same. We see the big opposition
parties, like the Democratic Alliance (DA): more promises,
more lies, and all with a terrible record in offi ce. It cannot go on like this.
While millions are unemployed, those with jobs work endless
hours, sweating, bleeding, faces lined with exhaustion. Big
capitalist corporations like Lonmin squeeze the blood out
of the working class; big government companies like Eskom
drive down wages, and force up prices. Th is means going back to basics, and building the 
power of
the working class and poor, through mass organisations,
political education, and a real understanding: the shining
light of anarchism and syndicalism.
Who killed the workers at Marikana? Th e police? And who
sent the police?
Th e ANC government and its close friends, the army and
police generals, and the big capitalist corporations.
Little breakaway ANCs claim to be diff erent, and even give
themselves new names , but they aim only at getting back
into the circle of the rich and powerful, riding the suff ering
of the masses back to high paid offi ce, tenders and mansions
in the wealthiest suburbs.
It is time to wake up the power of the working class and poor
so we can break the chains, break the illusions, break the
cycle of misery.
To quote from the Industrial Workers of Africa, the
revolutionary syndicalist union our predecessors founded
in 1917 in Johannesburg, and the fi rst African black trade
union in the country:
While you were asleep, the mills of the rich man were
grinding your sweat, for nothing.
Wake up! Open your ears. Th e sun has arisen and the
day is breaking.

(en) Southern Arica, African Anarchist Collective Newsletter Tokologo #2 - Pre-Paid Electricity Meters or Power to the People? By PITSO MOMPE

In 2000 the South African government announced its policy was to provide ?free basic 
services.? Th e free basic electricity policy was released in 2003 and claimed that it 
would ensure that a ?basic supply? of electricity is made available free of charge to poor 
households. ---- In practice, the amount provided in the ?basic supply? is very limited, 
and soon runs out. Th e policy further states that poor households generally have a lower 
demand for electricity, and so their needs can be adequately met by restricting the 
current drawn from their supply to about 20 Amperes. So, the free electricity also cannot 
support most appliances. ---- Further, the same policy states that indigent homes applying 
for free basic electricity have to be fi tted with pre-paid meters fi rst.

Th e irony is that people have to buy a voucher to activate
the free basic allowance. How can electricity be ?free? if you
have to buy it?
Th e imposition of a pre paid meter system continues
inequality in access to energy. Poor people are oft en unable
to aff ord the vouchers and as a result, their homes are left
unlit. In addition, the unit cost of electricity is higher for
those using a pre paid meter in working class areas. When
the free power runs out, households buy more power. Th e
higher rates then pay back the state and ESKOM for the
?free? power.
Free electricity is better than no electricity, and the state
would not have even considered it without the mass protests
around electricity from the late 1990s.
But there are serious problems in the policy. However
this will not be addressed by the ruling class as it does not
increase profi t and control.
And let us remember that ESKOM is nationalized: it is
stat-owned. Evidently nationalisation does not benefi t
the working class, as certain politicians say. It is not an
alternative to privatisation. Th ese are both anti-working
class, and obstacles to genuine freedom. We must fi ght for
collectivisation, including placing ESKOM under democratic
working cla

(en) Southern Arica, African Anarchist Collective Newsletter Tokologo #2

Welcome to the second issue of Tokologo, produced by the Tokologo African Anarchist 
Collective. ---- Why do we publish this? We publish it because our country is crying out 
for an alternative. And that alternative is anarchism, which stands for a free and 
democratic society, run from the grassroots, in communities and workplaces, and based on 
equality and freedom. In such a society, wealth like land and factories would be 
collectively owned; production would be directed to meeting basic needs and ensuring 
environmental sustainability. In such a society, everyone would have a say in all matters 
that affect them; poverty and deprivation would be abolished; hatred and competition would 
be replaced by cooperation and mutual aid by all peoples.

Corruption, exploitation, police brutality, poverty, and unemployment wreak havoc on 
township communities, on families, on youth. Desperation provides grounds for hatred, by 
race, by nationality, by sex. The dreams of freedom of the1980s and 1990s have evaporated. 
Politicians make promises that they do not keep. Workers are killed when they demand 
higher wages. While Marikana comrades bury their dead, the super-rich spend millions on 
weddings and parties ?

The black working class, in particular, finds itself held by the chains of capitalists and 
politicians, and weighed down by the national oppression of the apartheid past. But all 
working class and poor people, of whatever race, find themselves in chains.

The solution is to fight for something better, a new society. This means organising our 
working class movements to fight for a new society, And it means freeing our minds of 
confusion, by educating ourselves with the truth about what is wrong, and the truth about 
how to make things right.

Tokologo aims to contribute to this project. If you agree with what we say, or want to 
know more, or want a workshop, why not contact us. Our email address is 
tokologo.aac@gmail.com or phone us on 072 399 0912.

Download Issue #2 of Tokologo at:
http://zabnew.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/tokologo-newsletter-2.pdf