SolFed

Unit 4: France 1870-1918 Early revolutionary unions

This Unit aims to:

  • Outline the social, economic and political conditions in late 19th France and how they contributed to the growth of anarcho- syndicalism
  • Look at the extent to which trade unionism in France was influenced by anarchism
  • Outline the rise of the Bourses du Travail and the formation of the Federation des Bourses du Travail (FBT) and examine the practice, theory and organisational structure of the early French unions
  • Give a brief history of the development, and politics of the CGT and examine the reasons for the changes in outlook
  • Look at the idea of ‘political neutrality’ and the problems it raised.

Terms and abbreviations

Unit 3: The First International

This Unit aims to:

  • Show how the First International developed
  • Examine the differences between the libertarian (anarchist) and authoritarian (Marxist) wings of the International
  • Discuss the development of a coherent anarchist political theory looking at the concepts of equality, freedom, society and organization
  • Analyse the split and eventual demise of the First International.

Terms and abbreviations

Unit 2: Britain: The Radical Period 1750-1840

This Unit aims to:

  • Offer an interpretation of working-class radicalism 1750-1840 from an anarcho-syndicalist perspective
  • Introduce, through case studies, the history of organisation and direct action in working-class movements
  • Look at the social, political and economic context of the formation of early general unions and wage campaigns
  • Suggest some of the reasons why mainstream historical accounts have failed to acknowledge working-class revolutionary aspirations

Terms and abbreviations

Diggers: A communistic movement that flourished during the English Revolution and Civil War. They advocated the abolition of private ownership of land and believed that political revolution must be based on social revolution.

Solidarity Federation at the London Anarchist Bookfair

The Solidarity Federation will be at the London Anarchist Bookfair again this year. It will be the first place you can get your hands on our new pamphlet 'Fighting for ourselves: anarcho-syndicalism and the class struggle'. Our other publications will also be available alongside books, posters and tshirts. 

This year the Solidarity Federation will be presenting the following talks:

Nobody Expects The Solidarity Federation! - Room 318, 11-12

Self-Education

No such thing as a decent quality free lunch? Probably not, but A History of Anarcho-syndicalism is both free and (we hope) decent quality. It has been produced by the SelfEd Collective, labour free and at minimal costs. If you have no Internet access and require printed materials, these will be supplied at cost.

Objectives

A History of Anarcho-syndicalism is designed to;

Topic:

SF recognises new locals & network

Last week, at SF's national delegate council two new locals were recognised, we are pleased to announce we now have locals in Croydon and Newcastle. Both locals provided encouraging reports and were founded by members of existing locals, South London and West Yorkshire respectively.

We hope to add more locals in the months and years ahead and have members across the country working on starting new locals, notably across the south coast in Portsmouth, Southampton, Bournemouth, and Hastings.

Our Scottish members based in Edinburgh and Glasgow will hopefully be launching locals at some point in the future and back down south we have members in Cambridge looking to start a local.