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Showing posts with label Sean Matthews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sean Matthews. Show all posts
Sean Matthews ðŸ”–takes readers inside the pages of a work on Anarchist Communism: Past, Present and Future.


For too long anarchist communism has been marginalised to the footnotes of history and deliberately distorted by political opponents from the left and right. Now in its second print run published by Just Books in Belfast which many of you will be familiar with from the late 1970s onwards, the work seeks to rehabilitate the current of anarchist communism and to make it better known and understand; and to renovate and modernise.

From its origins in the emergence of the First International and the worker’s movement around 160 years ago, anarchist communism was a major current and mass movement in Russia, France, South America, Ukraine, China and Japan amongst other countries. As Brian Morris correctly asserted, anarchist communism has been the main current within the body of anarchism and this book aims to stress that and bring it out of the shadows.

This new work by Nick Heath is a welcome edition to English language literature on Anarchist Communism. Nick has a long career as both an activist and historian in and of class struggle anarchism does a fantastic job explaining the ideas that underpin anarchist communism as the only revolutionary praxis that aims to dismantle all forms of oppression and domination replacing it with a self-managed classless and stateless society.

The book presents an overview of the key debates within anarchism and the wider left regarding strategies for liberation, elections, aims and principles; while connecting influential anarchist thinkers and strategists such as Malatesta, Kropotkin etc to social revolutionary upheavals.

Unfortunately, the political landscape in Ireland has been overshadowed by the zero sum politics of nationalism and sectarian division, but despite this anarchism continues to fight on and offer a glimpse of a future beyond green and orange. The Irish anarchist history archive, and the A Wee Black Booke of Belfast Anarchism (1867-1973) (2) offer further information and research if interested in anarchism in Ireland.

Far from being a lost cause, anarchist communism is the only way out of the appaling situation that capitalism has brought us which continues its death march with continuous wars, famines, the increasing gap between rich and poor, the obscene spectacles of billionaires flaunting their wealth, the deepening problem of global warming and species extinction.

In the words of Nick Heath:

If the human race is to survive, it has to look towards a free society based on need and not profit, where production is geared towards essential needs and socially useful, where we live in peace with nature rather than war with it, where the expression and development of the individual is framed within the solidarity of all, where all the old hierarchies are destroyed, where State, Capital and Patriarchy are tumbled. A society of community and individual fulfilment, anarchist communism.

If you are interested in finding out more about anarchism this book is a must!

Available from PM Press or contact Just Books at justbooksbelfast@gmail.com

The book is currently going for a discount of 10 pound from Organise!

Nick Heath, 2022, The Idea: Anarchist Communism: past. present and future. Publisher @ Just Books. ISBN-13: ‎978-1739723712

⏩ Sean Matthews is an anarchist activist and writer.

The Idea

Sean Matthews  ✒ The Irish Republican Socialist Movement display of Soviet flags and support for Russian militarism covered in the media and the 'anti-fascist' facade they seek to propagate needs to be exposed and opposed.

Jumping into bed with Putin or any other tyrant should be an anathema to republican socialism as your enemy's enemy is usually not your friend. Unless of course, as a cynic might suggest, they and their offices are on the pay of Putin's cheque. 

The Euromaidan uprising in Ukraine in 2014 may have resulted in the neoconservative regime that it ended up with, but there is no one who is under any illusion that the non-acceptance of that regime came out of Russia's 'anti-fascist' sentiment or its 'need to protect Russian citizens'. After all, Putin's authoritarian regime in Russia has rewarded Nazis and fascists inside the country by imprisoning and killing anti-fascists (some of which I know), while the numerous interventions of Russian imperialism in areas of the former USSR needed no such justification.

It is the duty of those on the left and progressive circles to oppose both Russian militarism and NATO expansionism. The only losers from the war are the world working class, especially in Ukraine and Russia. They are the ones destined to be the cannon fodder of the states and the capitalists. 

This imperialist war is being waged for the sharing of spheres of influence, energy routes and the rearrangement of geopolitical power. This system gives birth to wars and is responsible for poverty, injustice, exploitation and oppression. It is therefore time to challenge it in an organised and dynamic way, organising its overthrow on an international scale.

⏩ Sean Matthews is an anarchist activist and writer.

Russia Has Rewarded Nazis And Fascists

Sean Matthews  ✒‘Before you mock children who believe in Santa Claus remember there are adults who still believe in Sinn Fein’- Meme.

The decision by Provisional Sinn Fein to drop its vague and ambiguous opposition to non-jury special criminal courts in the South should come as no surprise given that it has long abandoned any counter-insurgency strategy to becoming an active partner and gamekeeper of the status-quo. Indeed, it is only a logical conclusion from embracing the various armed wings of the British state.

As usual we are treated with the usual rhetoric of this Ard fheis decision being supported based on ‘special circumstances’. This comes from a long line of drivel and hog wash designed to keep the republican base in tune from ‘a new phase of struggle’, ‘new site of struggle’, ‘transition’, ‘opportunity’, ‘staging post’, ‘national reconciliation’ and ‘historical momentum’, the republican leadership, aided by the deliberate ambiguity of the peace process, was able to present a series of unprecedented departures from republican principles as great steps forward. So much for an ‘Ireland of equals’ if you happen to be a republican or otherwise dragged before the Special Criminal Court with no trial and condemned by various international human rights bodies across the world.

The gloves are off and Sinn Fein has finally nailed their colours to the forces of the Crown and Harp. There is no shame in defeat, of course; it can be an opportunity to take stock, learn lessons and search for a new form of politics that can address the continuing reality of imperialism and a brutal capitalist system that can never be uprooted by using the master’s tools.

As an anarchist, the transformation of the Provisional should be another wake up call that the state can never be utilised as an instrument of working-class emancipation and it will always be the gravedigger of any radical project. What about 'tactics' and using all means to advance objectives? you might reply. The question is where have we heard all this before?

As Mikhail Bakunin warned over a century ago:

This explains how and why men who were once the reddest democrats, the most vociferous radicals, once in power become the most moderate conservatives. Such turnabouts are usually, and mistakenly, regarded as a kind of treason. Their principle cause is the inevitable change of position and perspective. Power and position have gradually stifled their conscience and they have not the strength and honesty to swim against the current… They have become the strongest bulwark of capitalism.

⏩ Sean Matthews is an anarchist activist and writer.

Long Line Of Drivel And Hog Wash

Sean Matthews ✒ reviews a pamphlet which helps enhance understanding of imprisonment. 


The issue of prisoner neglect and abuse is never far from the public domain when it comes to Maghaberry prison and this new pamphlet provides a welcome step in highlighting prison struggles and life from the inside.

Coming on the back off the largest prison strike in the US in 2016 and 2018, involving tens of thousands of prisoners, that including work stoppages and hunger strikes, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Ireland Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee (IWOC) are trying to provide an organising voice for prisoners fighting for collective rights to education, health and employment.

This 23 page well designed pamphlet contains a variety of article and poems from prisoners ranging from healthcare, to disability awareness and the damaging affects of isolation and punishment. As the authors of the pamphlet point out:

Prisons are weapon of class warfare. Though there stated aim it to protect the public, the real aim of prisons is to maintain class privilege and inequalities … The IWOC was founded on the basis that harms prisons do to working class communities can only be combatted with the conscious participation of prisoners and solidarity with fellow workers on the outside.

While many of the contributors to The Pensive Quill are no strangers to the harsh reality of oppressive imprisonment, this pamphlet marks a new step in seeking to provide a voice for the voiceless and one I am sure the Maghberry prison censors will try to silence. Solidarity is Strength!

As one anonymous contributor wrote in their poem called Who am I:

‘What defines me is what I do, What defines me is what I’ve been through…’


⏩To find out more about the IWW and IWOC or to contribute to Bulldozer write to: Bulldozer, PO BOX 346, Derry City, BT48 4FZ, Ireland.

Bulldozer - The Only Vehicle For Prison Abolition

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