Anarchism in Australia

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1 History
2 Groups
3 External Links

[edit] History

[edit] Precursors to Anarchism

Aborigines

Aboriginal Australians are seen by some as the earliest anarchists because of a more or less vague correlation of anarchism with decision-making by consensus.

The polity of the Aborigines, with its opposition between local or inward-looking and expansive or outward-looking concerns, its freedom from any institution of enforcement, and its consequent stress on self-reliance and mutual aid within a framework of generally recognised norms, was a kind of anarchy, in which it was open to active and enterprising men to obtain some degree of influence with age, but in which none were sovereign.

Indigenous Resistance

Sailor Resistance

Squatters

[edit] Anarchism Emerges (late 1800s)

The Melbourne Anarchist Club (MAC) became the first formal anarchist organization to form on May 1, 1886. The first meeting was attended by Chummy Fleming, Monty Miller, Jack Andrews, David Andrade and several others. By and large, activities by groups such as MAC disappeared during the depression.

After the Second World War immigrant anarchists formed their own foreign language groups and there were also English speaking groups around during the 40's and 50's.

In the 1950s the Sydney Anarchist Group (SAG) formed. The organization's membership comprised largely of migrants and struggled to take root in the Australian Left. They went through several periods of collapse and revival, but never completely dissolved. The SAG was also able to put out several publications over the years: - Anarchist Review (3 issues), Red and Black (over 9 issues), and The Anarchist (3 issues).

In the mid 60's an anarchist group developed in Brisbane. This group was responsible for the first radical anti-conscription and anti-war demonstrations in Brisbane. Later, its university wing helped in founding the Campaign Against Conscription and Students for a Democratic Australia. Also in 1966 a short lived libertarian group started at Monash University, and the group, TREASON at La Trobe University, both in direct contact with the Sydney and Brisbane groups.

In 1969 Sydney Libertarianism started to take an anarchist turn and both it and anarchism (dormant since 1968 and the Bill Dwyer LSD takeover) started to revive. Also, after the 1968 events in France and Czechoslovakia, the non-anarchist left began a movement towards Marxist syndicalism. While new anarchist groups appeared in Brisbane and Adelaide, various Trotskyist and SDS/SDA type groups started carrying red and black flags and talking of anarcho-marxism. The Communist Party of Australia (CPA) started talking of worker control. In 1970 a successful anarchist conference was held in Sydney.

[edit] Anarchism Grows (1970s)

During the early 70's such personalities as Germaine Greer, Wendy Bacon, and Richard Neville were publicizing anarchist ideas, especially in regard to state censorship. Such printing endeavors as Thor (which grew out of the university student paper Tharunka),'Oz magazine, and a newspaper edition of the Little Red School Book (distributed free to school kids), aroused confrontation over censorship.

Meanwhile, the SAG was publishing anarchist leaflets, pamphlets, and the occasional journal Red and Black. A number of members were active in the Draft Resistance movement in Sydney. To the point of seeking TV interviews and then evading the local constabulary. One instance in particular with two anarchist draft resisters, involved a high-speed car chase through inner Sydney streets. They seemingly were caught at a set of traffic lights near the entrance to Sydney University, as two burly police officers jumped into the back seat of the car. However, the comrade driving was able to drive the car up into the university, just at lunchtime when students were pouring forth from lectures. Several pairs of bolt cutters appeared in a matter of minutes and the comrades were able to escape through the crowd, leaving the police officers standing sheepishly with broken handcuffs in a crowd of hundreds of students.

Up in Brisbane during 1971 a split occurred in an organization known as the Revolutionary Socialist Party. The Self-Management Group Group (SMG) was formed in December 1971 in an attempt to maintain the continuity of libertarian socialist ideas. The Labor Action Group which initiated the split maintained its formation for a short period and then many of its personnel joined the different Leninist and Trotskyist organizations in existence in Brisbane. The SMG was to adopt a councilist approach similar to Solidarity in England.

In Melbourne a number of groups were still active - the TREASON group around La Trobe University, and the Collingwood Freestore. The Freestore was a shopfront in which people could give goods and take goods as they saw fit. It also offered services like medical, tenant, and legal advice. There was also living space behind the shop for enough people to cover the rent, as well as providing a crash pad for interstate and out of town anarchists.

In June 1973 a number of Melbourne women met and created AS IF - Anarcho Surrealist Insurrectionary Feminist. The Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) was started and the journal Acracia was put out, originally all in Spanish and then bilingual. The ABC group lasted for some years but dissolved in late 1975 after publishing some 40 issues of Acracia.

In Perth anarchists formed a loose federation, printed King Mob and ran a freestore. One of the people involved in Perth, Julian Ripley, was framed in 1972 of the planting of a bomb in the Department of Labour and National Service.

In November and December of 1972 an anarchist conference was held in Melbourne, and a libertarian conference in Sydney. Out of the Melbourne conference came the Federation of Australian Anarchists Bulletin (FAAB), which survived for two issues during 1973. The Sydney conference was organized by the Sydney Libertarians and was essentially a forum for the presentation of papers and discussion.

Australian anarchists, particularly activists in Sydney and Melbourne, were also active with social movements. They were especially active in the Victoria Street (Kings Gross) Residents Action Group (RAG) to stop high rise development destroying the community. They were also active in the Sydney Centre for Workers Control.

In January, 1975 the Sydney Anarchist Conference took place. Over 250 anarchists gathered in the city from all over the country. Over the 9 days attendees formed the Federation of Australian Anarchists (FAA) as well as forming intra-personal connections and providing a resurgence in activity for the country.

[edit] Carnival Anarchism (mid-1970s)

Anarchist activity during this period was characterized by spontaneous theatrics including random sessions of group graffitti sprees, Dairy Liberation Front acts in which activists stole the milk off the front porches of the rich to bring attention to the disparity of wealth in the area.

Most of the carnival anarchism that occurred centered around a 9 bedroom house in Sydney. When problems arised between tenants and the landlord the residents went on rent strike, painted their situation prominently on the front of their house and leafleted the neighborhood. In the end the police and landlord compromised with the tenants and anarchist activity continued in the house for a little over 18 months.

Apart from the spectacular activities of the mid 70s several radical bookstores and printing operations helped spread anarchist ideas in the area.

[edit] The F.A.A. Split (June 1976)

Growing tension between the carnival anarchists and more traditional anarchists finally erupted at the second FAA conference. Those more interested anarcho-syndicalism and working class issues walked out of the conference out of frustration by the wild and disruptive demeanor of those anarchists more drawn towards Situationist-like activity.

[edit] The IWW in Australia

Australia encountered the IWW tradition very early, with both Chicago and Detroit branches forming in Australia. In part this was due to the local De Leonist SLP following the industrial turn of the US SLP.

The Australian IWW developed in conditions of increasing industrial militancy after 1908. It first shot to prominence by opposing compulsory boyhood conscription in Australia. The early Australian IWW used a number of tactics from the US, including free speech fights.

The Australian IWW was most important, however, in terms of its industrial organising work. The IWW cooperated with many other unions, encouraging industrial unionism and militancy. In particular, the IWW's strategies had a large effect on the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union. The AMIEU established closed shops and workers councils and effectively regulated management behaviour towards the end of the 1910s.

The IWW was well known for opposing the First World War from 1914 onwards, and in many ways was at the front of the anti-conscription fight (this time opposed to manhood conscription). A series of controversial newspaper cartoons, most notably, "Workers follow your leaders", led to notoriety and the attention of Australian Federal intelligence agencies. When a five pound note forgery scandal was followed by a series of arsons and threatened arsons in Sydney, the IWW was declared an illegal organisation by the Commonwealth government and its leadership arrested in NSW.

The IWW continued illegally operating with the aim of freeing its class war prisoners and briefly fused with two other radical tendencies–from the old Socialist parties and Trades Halls–to form a larval communist party at the suggestion of the militant revolutionist and Council Communist Adela Pankhurst. The IWW however left the CPA shortly after its formation, taking with it the bulk of militant industrial worker members.

By the 1930s the IWW in Australia had declined significantly, and took part in unemployed workers movements which were led largely by the now Stalinised CPA. In 1939 the Australian IWW had four members, according to surveillance by government authorities, and these members were consistently opposed to the second world war.(See files in National Archives of Australia)

Today the IWW still exists in Australia, in larger numbers than the 1940s, but due to the nature of the Australian industrial relations system, it is unlikely to win union representation in any workplaces in the immediate future.

"Bump me into parliament" is perhaps the most notable Australian IWW song.