This short pamphlet was written and published as an addendum to an introductory workshop on Especifismo a contemporary theory of organized anarchism that we hosted during the Winter Moot 2024 of Earth First!. The text aims to identify the main issues with anarchism in the imperial core today with lack of strategy and the absorption of anarchism itself into subcultures. It introduces Especifismo as a theory of strategy for organised anarchists, and highlights its relevance in the current conditions of global crisis, while pointing out some open questions on approaches to build popular power along the way.
The aspiration for an anarchist federation in Australia is as old as the anarchist movement in Australia itself. Upon its formation in 1886, the Melbourne Anarchist Club announced its intention to “promote the formation of voluntary institutions similar to the Melbourne Anarchist Club throughout Victoria and the neighbouring colonies, and, with their consent, to eventually unite with them forming the Australasian Association of Anarchists.”1 David Andare, one of MAC’s founders, wrote enthusiastically of this prospect to the American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker, who received his correspondence with equal excitement. As early as 1888, however, divisions would appear within this young movement, with many moving away from the individualist anarchism espoused by Andare and Tucker in favour of the anarchist communism of Peter Kropotkin and Emma Goldman.2
This short pamphlet was put together by Simon Pirani in 1996/7 from a series of interviews with Ukrainian worker activist Oleg Dubrovskii. It’s of general interest in relation to the way that life for the workers changed when the old Soviet Union disintegrated, but also provides some useful background information to what’s happening in the Ukraine today.