BECOMING AN ANARCHIST

What you need to do first is read! You need to get a good understanding of what anarchism means to you, so you can begin to effectively act on your beliefs. Anarchism relies on the conviction of the anarchist, rather than on the efficacy of a party apparatus or on the catchiness of slogans.

To facilitate this process, you might want to get a group of like-minded people together to read and discuss the classic anarchist books. Some teens have created anarchist clubs at their schools as a way of getting fellow travelers of anarchism together.

E-mail is a very useful tool for anarchists, if they have it -- for example, I put together a flyer attacking Borders' firing of Miriam Fried, which I e-mailed to a comrade out west, per his request. He then produced the flyer on his own and leafletted in his area, while I leafletted in my own. Prior to e-mail, such a speedy direct action would be almost impossible. But watch out with file transfers -- computer viruses travel very readily via e-mail file transfers!

You should begin producing pamphlets and leaflets -- and distribute them in your community as a way of passing along the ideas. But be careful! Always try to produce well-edited pieces, as the quality of your leaflets will reflect on you -- a poorly-edited piece will thwart your efforts!

Once you've started doing that, then you may want to join one of the existing anarchist organizations to meet more anarchists and share ideas and gain experience.

Again, there is no formula for how to do things -- the important thing is to do something.

You'll encounter more experienced anarchists who'll offer good ideas -- but remember not to blindly follow anyone, anarchist or not -- use your own best judgment.

There are various anarchist organizations out there, each pursuing different paths toward creating social revolution. Here are a handful of prominent ones:

The IWW -- The Industrial Workers of the World. This venerable organization is a syndicalist union whose avowed purpose is the elimination of capitalism. Unlike trade unions, the IWW pursues a united labor approach -- hence the term "One Big Union" to describe the IWW. It sees all workers as having a common class interest -- putting their bosses out of work! As syndicalism is the economic equivalent of anarchism (hence the term "anarchosyndicalism" to describe radical syndicalism), it is in the best interests of the anarchist to join the Wobblies.

Food Not Bombs seeks to feed people directly in anarchistic style. If you have your own car, you can readily start your own FNB; if you don't have a car, you will likely have to seek an existing FNB out, instead. There is also a group, Homes Not Jails, which operates along the lines of FNB.

The Anarchist Black Cross works to help out anarchists around the world who are in trouble with the authorities.

The War Resisters League. While not explicitly anarchist, their opposition to militarism and emphasis on direct action and community organizing and empowerment is definitely in keeping with anarchist theory.

The Workers Solidarity Alliance (WSA) is yet another anarcho-syndicalist group you can join. They also have a California branch and a Michigan one.

Books for Prisoners. (Three links, here; one per word!) Anarchists alone consider the modern penal system to be inhumane and worthy of abolishing. Does that mean we don't think crimes should be punished? No. What it means is we think that the police, court, and prison systems are by no means the solution. In that spirit, anarchists show solidarity with prisoners who are jailed for property-related crimes (at least 90% of inmates), and send them reading materials (especially anarchist stuff!) Another such group that does this is E.G. Smith Distribution. Help them out, if you can!

Earth First! You've probably heard a lot of negative press about these folks; but that's because the corporate press doesn't like active, radical environmentalists! They are masters of direct action; if you find eco-anarchism more your thing, or if you want to learn first-rate direct action tactics, look to EF!

AK Press

Freedom Press

Monkeywrench Press Note that the goal of the anarchist is to develop resources within your respective community and foment social revolution -- not to simply be a functionary of a national or international organization. Use any of the above as springboards for direct action in your community -- as resources for your continued development as an anarchist.

Additionally, the anarchist is distinguished from the activist in that you are pursuing an overall strategy -- the creation of a libertarian society, instead of focusing on a single issue.

Once you gain the experience you need in organizing, you can go about creating your own collective in your community -- and that's the most important step of all; to be successful, the anarchist collective must attract, mobilize, and educate the workers in your community for there to ever be social revolution.

Remember that each member of your collective has different abilities and aptitudes -- they each have something to contribute to the collective.

Two things I believe are very important:

Learn at least one other language. Anarchists pride themselves on their internationalist outlook -- it is only fitting that they can speak one or two additional languages; this is hard work (particularly if you're older), but it offers an opportunity for learning, and, more importantly, allows anarchists to reach other ethnic communities. The language barrier remains a way people are divided. Anarchists owe it to themselves and the Idea to bridge that gap. Work together with some of your comrades to teach yourselves foreign languages.

Reach out to blue collar people. Another problem with the movement is the high intellectual/activist to prole ratio in most groups -- many existing anarchist groups are, sad to say, not representative of their communities. So, once you get your group together, make a deliberate and continued effort (on an individual basis, too) to contact blue collar people and get them interested and involved in the movement. This is the single most important issue anarchists today must face. Find out what blue collar people do in your area and mix with them, talk to them, get to know them, and what they are interested in, and what they dislike. Gradually, you can get them involved in anarchism. This is absolutely vital. Depending on the nature of the direct actions you carry out, you may want to limit your group to no more than 10 to 15 members -- if you find your group growing beyond that, you may want to vote to create an autonomous splinter group.

This serves to encourage decentralization and will make it harder for the authorities to smash your organization by: 1) increasing the number of groups they have to monitor, which makes their counter-revolutionary efforts less effective; 2) making it more likely that the members in your group are good comrades whom you trust, and not infiltrators.

It also decreases the chance of a hierarchical elite controlling the group and will allow the group's members to communicate better with one another -- when groups get too large, it becomes difficult to get everyone together, much less to get them to agree on courses of action!

Where anarchist groups are concerned, smaller is better -- the organization is a means to an end, not the end unto itself. We must be forever on our guard against the tendency for bureaucratic elites to form within organizations.

The key is for the disparate groups in your community to be in touch with each other, without following identical agendas. Good communication between groups is vital for coordinating direct actions.

One offshoot of the modern collective is the infoshop -- an anarchist collective whose purpose is to disseminate anarchist propaganda and serve as a community empowerment locus. Ideally the infoshop seeks to facilitate social revolution by educating the community's workers about anarchism. There is debate within the movement as to whether or not infoshops are actually effective in this regard.

My personal opinion is that community development must occur before an infoshop is created, rather than the other way around -- otherwise there's the risk that the infoshop will be marginalized and/or ignored by the community around it.

Ideally, an infoshop should be a natural step in the process of community empowerment, rather than something arbitrarily thrown into a community in the absence of demand for it. If people would rather be home watching TV than frequenting your infoshop, you're doing something wrong!

Another important thing to note is that your anarchist group needn't be solely a smoothly running propaganda machine -- you can also have fun! As a community resource, you can have all sorts of activities there -- anything that gets people together will do. The difference between this sort of activity and a social club is that it is always clear that this is an anarchist event, with all that entails -- if your group simply meets to hang out or have fun, in the absence of direct action, then you're off the track!

There is no one magic formula to apply with regard to your anarchist group, except that the true anarchist must be an active one -- active in fomenting social revolution through class struggle. Otherwise, you'll simply lapse into lifestylism, which ultimately strengthens capitalism by sapping strength from the movement.

The decentralization and informality of anarchist organizing is ultimately an asset, particularly with regard to the authorities -- in traditional (that is, vanguardist) radical organizations, police can simply lock up the leaders or bust up the organization to stop them; however, with anarchist organizing, there are no leaders -- everyone is doing their part. Moreover, the movement is decentralized, making it much harder for authorities to infiltrate and destroy it.

And the police will try to do that, particularly if you are successful in the community. Beware of agent provocateurs whose purpose is to thwart and destroy your efforts by exacerbating group rivalries and trying to get your group to undertake actions that will result in its destruction or which will allow the corporate media opportunities to slander the movement. Always be careful of whom you let into your collective, but do not let this very real security concern make you paranoid!

If you have the financial means, or if your collective has grown strong enough, you may consider forming a cooperative -- a worker-owned and -controlled company that provides some needed service in your community. Be sure to research this carefully, and make sure you have enough community support for it. But this can be a satisfying way to put your ideas into daily practice.

Anything worthwhile requires enormous effort to achieve. As the anarchist vision is the most worthwhile in its goals -- the libertarian society -- it follows that it will require a huge amount of work from a large number of people. Indeed, most of society will have to support anarchism for social revolution to be possible.

Anarchism offers the truest, most satisfying way to social justice; if enough of us work together in our respective communities, fighting social atomization and mobilizing and organizing the workers, anarchy will be realized in our lifetimes!