The Momentum movement came into existence in late 2015 as a way to bring together some of the hundreds of thousands of people who joined the Labour party in summer 2015 in order to vote for Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Party because they felt that this would be a step forward for the working class. The Momentum movement is trying to build on that spontaneous mass movement of people by fighting for changes within the Labour party so that it breaks with Neoliberalism (the political philosophy that says that government should make cuts to all public services and let big companies do whatever they want) and becomes a party that is dedicated to achieving progressive reforms for the benefit of working class people.
Anarchists are different from many of the others who have joined Momentum in that we do not believe that any government will really be a ‘friend’ of the working class. Instead, we believe that any positive change for working class people will only come about through struggling for our rights through trades unions and other social movements, using a diversity of tactics. Some people joining Momentum and the Labour party may believe that Jeremy Corbyn is a friend of working class people, but Anarchists see him as an enemy, just one that would be easier to deal with than Neoliberal enemies, and so we think it worth keeping him as leader of the Labour party and trying to get him elected as Prime Minister, for now.
Corbyn calls himself a Socialist, but a more accurate description would be that he is a ‘Social Democrat’. Social Democracy is a capitalist ideology that says the State should manage capitalism in order to be able to provide working class people with a ‘safety net’ (the Welfare State). Social democracy is the philosophy behind most ‘Left-wing’ political parties around the world. They want to reform capitalism, not abolish it, even though capitalism by its very nature is undemocratic – in any capitalist business the bosses are dictators. Social Democrats also falsely see the world as divided into Nation-States with an absolute right to control their borders and maintain their own military structures.
Revolutionary Socialists, on the other hand, believe that Social Democracy is not good enough. As long as there are capitalists, they will try to get power over the State and make it work in their interests, for example by taking away the rights of the working class in order to be able to exploit us more, and therefore make more money. Revolutionary Socialists want to see the State and Capitalism abolished by a working class revolution that will create a completely new system in which the economy is controlled democratically by everyone, instead of by a few politicians and capitalists. This would mean that there were no more class divisions because everyone would be working class, doing their fair share of the necessary work to keep society going. Revolutionary Socialists are also internationalists, rejecting Nation-States, Borders and Militarism.
Anarchists are one type of Revolutionary Socialist. We are the ones who insist on the most extreme form of democratic control of the economy – direct democracy. We believe that in every workplace all workers should decide together how much they will work, for how long and in what manner, and that in every community all the people should decide together which rules they are going to live by, which resources they need, and how everything is to be organised.
Anarchists believe that no individual should ever be forced to do something they don’t want to do, but that this does not mean there can be no organised way of running society. It means that anyone who is given any position of authority over people must be directly chosen by those people, and that those people must have the power to remove them from authority instantly if they ever break their promises. It also means that if any individual in a community or a group of workers doesn’t like the decision that everyone else has made, they should be free to leave and join a different community or workplace.
Not only do Anarchists think that the world should be run in this way in the future, we organise ourselves as much as possible in this way right now. Anarchist trades unions, such as the Industrial Workers of the World, or the Solidarity Federation, organise in this way, and so do many other Anarchist campaigning organisations such as No Borders, Earth First, the Anti-Fascist Network, the Anarcha-Feminist Network and many others.
The authors of this blog wish to create an Anarchist network within Momentum for the following reasons (and more!):
- To coordinate our activities generally within Momentum and build up relations of solidarity and comradeship between anarchists and like-minded people in the movement.
- To push for the maximum possible level of democracy within Momentum and the Labour party, and for policies consistent with materially empowering working class people to be able to govern ourselves without the need of the State.
- To argue within the movement against the ideologies of Social Democracy, Marxist-Leninism and the Cult of Personality around Jeremy Corbyn in favour of Anarchist ideas of constant struggle against the State through a diversity of tactics, whoever is in charge of it.
- To push for Momentum to actively mobilise working class people to unite together and struggle in our own interests by emphasising the need for direct action and international solidarity to make progress for the working class, rather than relying on politicians to do it for us.
Anyone agreeing with the general ideas outlined here and wishing to help in any way, including by writing for this blog, is warmly encouraged to contact us at anarchistmomentum@gmail.com
Anarchist Momentum 