(en) Swiss, Alt. media, The forgotten history of the libertarian Left (it)

The libertarian movement has been part of Swiss history for 150 years. Marianne Enckell,
archivist at the International Centre for Research on Anarchism in Lausanne, tells
swissinfo.ch about the cradle of anarchy. ---- In 1872, the Jura Federation, a workers?
organisation, provided a meeting place at St Imier for delegates of anti-authoritarian
groups opposed to the centralist policies of the International Workingmen?s Association.
-- Karl Marx had just succeeded in getting Michail Bakunin and other anarchists expelled
from the International. ---- swissinfo.ch: How important was the St Imier congress for the
history of the anarchist movement? ---- Marianne Enckell: One could say that the anarchist
movement started here, even though the 1872 congress was not a specifically anarchist
congress.

It was rather an anti-authoritarian, federalist congress
opposed to the central power of the International Workingmen?s
Association (also known as the First International).

Among the many issues decided on that occasion, the best known and the
most symbolic was the affirmation that the first duty of the proletariat
is the destruction of all political power. The congress also created a
pact of solidarity between the groups represented, based on two
principles: autonomy and federalism.

The thinking behind this was that every person is autonomous and belongs
to a group on a voluntary basis. A group unites with other groups
federally, maintaining its autonomy at all levels. The federation serves
to develop contacts, providing for solidarity in the event of a strike
or an insurrection. At that point they were not yet talking about a
final insurrection.

swissinfo.ch: What role did Michail Bakunin play in this event?

M.E.: The idea of anarchism had existed for about 50 years, for it had
been expressed by Proudhon. But there were no anarchist groups, or an
anarchist movement. The key to the birth of the anarchist movement was
the encounter between Bakunin and the workers in the clock- and
watchmaking industry of the St Imier valley.

At this point Bakunin had a long experience as a revolutionary behind
him: he had been all over Europe and a prisoner in Russia, but he
remained attached to the revolutionary model of the earlier half of the
19th century ? secret brotherhoods and small groups of conspirators.

In 1869, he came to Le Locle to give lectures, and he met the
watchmaking industry workers who were starting to create the first
autonomous resistance groups. These workers wanted to organise
themselves, educate themselves and win better working conditions.

So it was an encounter between a theoretician of revolution and people
just starting to experience the concrete task of organising. And there
was an attraction on both sides. Bit by bit, the Jurassians moved to
anarchist positions, and Bakunin got more interested in practical issues
regarding the workers? movement.

swissinfo.ch: The Jura Federation did not last long. But in Switzerland
the anarchist movement went on, didn?t it?

M.E.: In the first half of the 20th century the centre of the movement
was Geneva, where Luigi Bertoni published the magazine Il Risveglio/Le
R?veil. Before World War One, revolutionary syndicalism also took hold
in French-speaking Switzerland with the F?d?ration des Unions Ouvri?res
(federation of workingmen?s associations).

After the war, new syndicalist groups for direct action were founded. In
Geneva, there was the Ligue d?action du b?timent (construction industry
action league), led by Lucien Tronchet. But from the 1920s on, one of
the main preoccupations of anarchists became the struggle against fascism.

swissinfo.ch: How did the anarchists react to the Spanish Civil War?

M.E.: Lucien Tronchet, who had many useful contacts for getting across
the border under cover, sent trucks with humanitarian aid to Spain.
Under the humanitarian goods, arms were hidden. Tronchet?s Spanish
contacts were asking for arms, but they did not want men, especially men
not ready to fight. That is why the anarchists who went to Spain were
not too numerous. But other volunteers fought in the anarchist columns
and came back with experience not only of war, but of social change and
revolution.

swissinfo.ch: During the Second World War, anarchist activities in
Switzerland were banned. What condition was the anarchist movement in
after 1945?

M.E.: In the early postwar years, the anarchist movement was very weak.
Luigi Bertoni and Fritz Brupbacher, the Zurich doctor who was the
rallying figure of anarchism in German Switzerland, both died. Anarchist
activity was reduced to almost nothing. But the movement got new wind in
1968, as in other parts of the world; indeed perhaps even earlier, in
the Sixties, with the struggle for freedom in Franco?s Spain.

This was a different movement from what it had been before: a movement
of young people, students rather than workers, not a mass movement.
There were generational cycles ? 1968 was a turning-point, then perhaps
the Eighties, with the punk movement, and the Nineties, with the
insurrection of the Zapatistas in Mexico, the beginning of the
anti-globalisation movement and the coming of the internet.

swissinfo.ch: What was the role of women in anarchism?

M.E.: In all the history of the anarchist movement only two emblematic
female figures really stand out: Louise Michel, who fought in the Paris
Commune, and Emma Goldmann, a Russian Jewish immigrant to the US who
promoted the emancipation of women. But there were others, too, less
well known.

There was Virginie Barbet of Lyon, who wrote in newspapers and debated
with Bakunin. She advocated the abolition of the right of inheritance
and the rejection of military service. For some time she took refuge in
Switzerland. Then there was Margarethe Hardegger, a trade unionist, who
advocated birth control and free love. Or Nelly Roussel, a Frenchwoman,
who gave many lectures in Switzerland on the emancipation of women.
There were not many, but they were there.

Andrea Tognina, swiss info.ch
(Translated from Italian by Terence MacNamee)

Bron :  a-infos-en@ainfos.ca

Swiss, Alt. media, Anarchism still inspires

Anarchists have always been a small minority on the Left. Their history is littered with
failures but their basic libertarian ideals are enjoying a resurgence in social movements
like Occupy Wall Street. ---- Anarchism has ?largely taken the place of Marxism in the
social movements of the 1960s?, according to the American anthropologist David Graeber,
one of the intellectuals most quoted by the Occupy movement. ---- ?Even those who do not
consider themselves anarchists feel they have to define themselves in relation to it,? he
wrote. ---- That may be wishful thinking on the part of a militant anarchist, but classic
libertarian thought is increasingly being picked up by today?s social movements. For
example, the principle of ?self-management? where decisions are based on consensus and
hierarchies are rejected.

Anarchism today appears to be feeling the belated after-effects of 1989 and the fall of
the Berlin Wall.

?In the last 15 years anarchism has been on the up,? says Gabriel Kuhn, an anarchist
philosopher originally from Austria.

Kuhn attended a recent global anarchists gathering in one of the ?cradles? of anarchy, St
Imier in northwestern Switzerland. The event marked the 140th anniversary of the founding
of the anti-authoritarian International Workingmen?s Association (see related story).

Kuhn believes that the fall of the communist regimes proved anarchists right to some
extent. For the anti-capitalist Left, he says, traditional Marxist thinking has lost its
attraction.

?In the 1990s, many people were prepared to criticise dictatorial forms of socialism, but
still had their reservations about anarchism? he told swissinfo.ch.

?It was considered utopic, romantic and chaotic. But those same people have since ended up
taking over many of anarchism?s principles: a democracy where everyone has his or her say,
a horizontal structure, a sceptical attitude towards hierarchies and politicians, as well
as the principle of direct action.?

St Imier was a milestone in the initial phase of the anarchist movement, which saw
significant numbers of anarchists taking part in the workers? struggle in different
countries, getting revolutionary experience during the Paris Commune, in the Ukrainian
Soviets and finally Republican Spain.

But this phase of anarchism is considered to have ended with the Second World War.
=====

From class struggle to social change

Anarchist thought re-emerged among the movements of the 1960s, where libertarian
inspiration was strong.

?As part of the New Left of 1968, anarchism changed its character. Cultural aspects took
on a more important role. Rebelling against the bourgeoisie replaced traditional class
struggle,? Kuhn said.

Anarchism influenced the New Left and was influenced by it in turn, and the movement
opened up to other perspectives.

?Economic issues were considered more critically, while attention also shifted to other
forms of domination: patriarchy, racism, sexual discrimination and the destruction of the
environment,? Kuhn added.

After 1968, anarchism branched out. Generational cycles followed.

?Nineteen sixty-eight was a first turning point, then perhaps the 1980s, with the punk
movement, and the 1990s, with the insurrection of the Zapatistas in Mexico, the beginning
of the anti-globalisation movement and the arrival of the Internet,? said Marianne
Enckell, archivist at the International Centre for Research on Anarchism in Lausanne.

The 19th century vision of a great revolutionary reawakening, although not entirely gone,
has now given way to the idea of living life as autonomously as possible.

?It is less and less about change, and more and more an attempt to apply anarchist ideals
in daily life,? said Edy Zarro, one of the organisers of the Ticino anarchist publishing
house La Baronata, who was also at the Saint-Imier meeting.

The concept of self-management is key.

======
Everyday anarchism

The self-managing organisations that have sprung up in Italy, Spain and elsewhere in
recent decades have been able to experiment libertarian theories. Thanks to their
horizontal structure and flexibility, it was possible to integrate ideas from other social
movements.

Il Molino, a self-managing social centre that started in Ticino in 1996, was strongly
influenced by the Zapatista movement in Mexico.

?Comrades went to the Chiapas region, bringing back new ideas from which we extrapolated
theories and practices that are now helping us,? said Paolo Casellini, one of the centre?s
activists.

?It is interesting for anarchists and libertarians to adopt methods of horizontal,
self-managed consensus,? added Michele Bric?la, one of the editors of the Ticino anarchist
magazine Voce Libertaria.

?You don?t have to go far ? not as far as Mexico ? it?s enough to look at what?s going on
in Val di Susa, with the NoTav movement,? he added, which is opposing a high-speed rail
link under the Alps between France and Italy.

However, among anarachists themselves, not everyone is comfortable with cosying up with
other movements or ignoring authority rather than fighting it out in the open.

=====
Revolutionary practice

Most anarchists seem to have given up the claim to political power that was developed by
the movement?s theoreticians during the 20th century, preferring to network with other
social movements.

?Before, we would spout our theories, but now we are here to learn,? said Peter Schrembs,
an anarchist in Ticino for the past 40 years.

?In any case, anarchists are such a minority that if they aren?t willing to work with
others, they won?t achieve much,? said Michel N?mitz of the self-managing cultural centre
Espace Noir in St Imier, one of the international meeting?s organisers.

?And it won?t just be anarchists who will kick off the revolution, but also ordinary
people. We don?t want to do anything in the name of the people. We are not some kind of
revolutionary vanguard.?

Anarchism today seems to focus not so much on theory but on practical aspects, concrete
action inspired by libertarian methodology.

As Graeber has written, ?anarchism has tried to be an ethical discourse about
revolutionary practices.? This discourse is based on the assumption that freedom cannot be
achieved with authoritarian methods, and that social change begins with change in everyday
relationships.

Andrea Tognina, swissinfo.ch