Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation
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Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation was an anarchist network that was active in the United States in the 1990s.
The Love and Rage Network had its genesis in a November 1989 conference to launch a North American revolutionary anarchist newspaper. The "newspaper project" grew out of a series of North American Anarchist gatherings in 1986 (Chicago), 1987 (Minneapolis), 1988 (Toronto) and 1989 (San Francisco). The 1987 gathering featured a workshop where people discussed the idea of creating a national anarchist newspaper in the U.S. A loose Mayday Network was established after this gathering and the following year discussions of a North American Anarchist Newspaper led to the production of two one-shot newspaper, 'Rage' and 'Writing on the Wall' that were precursors of 'Love and Rage/Amor y Rabia.'
The main initiative, however, came from the Minneapolis-based Revolutionary Anarchist Bowling League(RABL). The formerly Trotskyist Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) (who disbanded immediately before a fraction of their members participated in founding the new project, and gave them their 501(c)3, the Aspect Foundation) was also one of the main forces behind this. The initial supporters included anarchist collectives from Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta, Toronto and Knoxville. They began publishing their bi-lingual newspaper - Love and Rage/Amor y Rabia -- in January 1990. Some anarchists were wary of the network and their federation, wondering if they were truly anarchist, some anarchists even wondered if the RSL was a Trotskyist group performing some kind of entryist tactic. Subsequent developments revealed the former RSL members to be among the most orthodox anarchists in the organization.
In its various incarnations (as newspaper, network and federation) Love and Rage had a strong activist orientation and its members participated in a variety of struggles around different issues. The first major action supported by Love and Rage was the 1990 Earth Day Wall Street Action, a day of direct action targeting the ecological consequences of capitalism. Love and Rage called the first national black bloc in the United States as a breakaway from the main body of a January 1991 March on Washington DC against the first Persian Gulf War which attacked the headquarters of the International Monetary Fund.
From the beginning, Love and Rage showed little regard for anarchism and adopted positions heavily influenced by several varieties of Marxism, most notably support for national liberation struggles and embracing a white skin privilege analysis of racism in the U.S. Love and Rage also echoed Lenin in arguing for the need for disciplined forms of revolutionary organization. These positions led many critics to accuse the organization of harboring Leninist tendencies. Critics also pointed out that much of this leftism was forced on the group by Chris Day, one of the founders of the group.
In 1991 the groups putting out the newspaper formed the Love and Rage Network. That same year an anarchist gathering in Cuernavaca, Mexico led to the creation of the first Amor y Rabia group in Mexico City. In 1993 the Mexico City group, with the support of others in Mexico, began publishing their own newspaper, Amor y Rabia. The U.S. based newspaper became mono-lingual at this point and the Mexican paper was distributed to Spanish readers in the U.S..
In 1993, the core New York, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Mexico City groups and others expressed the desire for a tighter federal structure, which caused some other groups to leave and new people to join. This is when the Love and Rage Network was renamed the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation. At this time Love and Rage members were very active in doing anti-Klan and anti-Nazi work and in building up Anti-Racist Action (ARA). Others were active in defending abortion clinics and prisoner solidarity activism.
By 1996 major divisions began to appear in the organization. Some of the most active members were moving away from anarchism. Another trend made up mainly of older former members of the RSL who argued for an anarchist politics focused on the working class, in opposition to two other factions, both which focused on race: one which wanted to make "white skin privilege" the central concern; the other of which focused more broadly on a Third World Marxist program which included an endorsement of nationalism by non-white racial groups, combined with a focus on gender and sexuality. There was also a regional division in the organization, related to differing priorities in the locals based in New York City and Minneapolis. Many members were caught between the two organized trends, or found the debate to be irrelevant to organizing work, and began to leave the organization. The Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation formally dissolved in 1998. The Third World Marxist faction formed the Fire by Night Organizing Committee, a non-anarchist cadre group which had chapters in San Francisco and New York; after a brief existence, some members entered a Third World Marxist fusion group called the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. A second group formed Bring the Ruckus!, which can be described as a neo-Leninist or generic leftist organization. Other Love and Rage members went on to participate in other anarchist groups and projects.
