A typical Crass gig would be a big hall with banners everywhere, very dark, a lot of people milling around, drunk punks collapsed at the back, a few skinheads trying to cause trouble, a real atmosphere of tension, always on the lookout for trouble starting … Crass: There is No Authority But Yourself, 2006
Owe us a living? Of course they fucking do. ibid. song lyrics
We’ve done masses of projects, you know. Crass was the only project that ever became sort of renowned. It was a punk band. Very very political. Our major statement was there is no authority but yourself. ibid. Penny Rimbauld (drummer) to artistic community
The whole way of that living like that was consideration for other people first. (Anarchism & Punk) ibid. Steve Ignorant
Right now ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
I am an anti-Christ
I am an anarchist
Don’t know what I want
But I know how to get it
I want to destroy the passerby.
’Cause I want to be anarchy
No dogs body.
Anarchy for the UK
It’s coming sometime and maybe
I give a wrong time, stop a traffic line
Your future dream has sure been seen through.
’Cause I want to be anarchy
In the city … The Sex Pistols, Anarchy in the UK
Governments will never save the people. They exist to exploit and destroy the people. There is but one force that can save the people and that is the people themselves.’ (Anarchism & Government & People & Biography) An Anarchist’s Story: Ethel McDonald, 2006
Anarchism: a century ago a terrifying threat to world order. ibid.
I think it’s an unquenchable spirit. ibid. Noam Chomsky
For a few brief months in Catalonia 1936 history’s only anarchist experiment flourished. And it was a women from the far side of Europe who reported its rise and its final defeat to the world. ibid.
‘Spain is the place where the future of the world is being determined. It’s not just another local difficulty.’ ibid. Professor Mike Gonzalez
Radical thinkers like Ethel McDonald, now 27 years old and with 8 year’ anarchist activism behind her, quickly picked up on the importance of what was happening in Spain. ibid.
Spain was the arena for a showdown between Left and Right. ibid.
‘We supported the concept of loyalty, honesty: those are the basic values of anarchy.’ ibid. witness
For ten extraordinary months in 36 and 37 the region of Catalonia became the centre of one of the most radical revolutions in world history. ibid.
‘This is the kind of international that will united the human race.’ ibid. Ethel
While Ethel hid out in Catalonia trying to find a way home she was becoming famous in her native land. ibid.
The fate of volunteers trapped in Spain attracted international criticism. ibid.
‘I helped anarchist comrades in and out of prison.’ ibid. Ethel
Interviewer: The book [Anarchist Cookbook] as I read it advocates the violent overthrow of the American government.
William Powell: I was very fed up with the government. But it wasn’t a call to action. American Anarchist, opening scene, 2016
There is only one choice for a real man and that is revolution. ibid.
A period when we had lots of bombings. ibid. news review of book
The days of putting flowers in the barrels of rifles was rapidly coming to an end. ibid. Powell
I thought the government was out of control. ibid.
The portion of the book that was increasingly difficult to justify was the part on bomb-making and explosives. ibid.
‘IWW stood for Industrial Workers of the World. Work, Good Wages & Respect – that’s what they wanted for the workers.’ The Wobblies, woman, 1979
At the turn of the century America was changing rapidly from a basically rural society to an urban industrial one … One of the striking features of the period was the rapid growth of the enormous corporations which began to control the basic industries. ibid.
The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system. ibid. preamble
‘The IWW was the only thing that was accepting Negro or black workers.’ ibid. black worker
A year after the Lawrence Strike another strike broke out in Paterson New Jersey 1913 … They were defeated in their demands for an eight-hour day and higher wages. ibid.
‘You either had to stop living or become a rebel.’ ibid. woman
They would use the soapboxes as recruiting stations. ibid.
‘Rebellious slaves – that’s what we were.’ ibid. old boy
Does Democracy Have You By the Throat? Anarchy is the Anecdote. Breaking the Spell, poster, 1999
Free the Third World: Stop WTO. ibid. banner
People who were needing shoes were breaking windows and getting shoes, and that’s the way it should be. ibid. protester
We need to dismantle private property, and that begins by breaking the spell; and that’s what a smashed window does. ibid.
I had no idea they were that brutal. ibid. pepper-sprayed woman
This is people power in action. ibid. protester
We really felt that we were against the system; we really believed in ourselves. (House Music & Rave & Anarchism) Paul Oakenfold, cited The Agony and the Ecstasy, Sky Arts 2017
The whole rave scene was a massive rebellion against the authorities. D J Slipmatt, cited ibid.
August 20th 1967 11.15: A white Ford Cortina drives down Park Lane in London’s West End. In the car three men: young Spanish anarchists. They turn into Grosvenor Square, draw alongside the American Embassy [and open fire]. The Angry Brigade: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Britain’s First Urban Guerrilla Group, BBC 1973
A movement that introduced a new form of urban guerrilla activity. ibid.
Six explosions, six locations in three countries and all claimed by the 1st of May Group. ibid.
The Italians had a total of 145 explosions in 1969 alone. Britain had its Spanish influenced 1st of May Group, and in fact after a bomb attempt in 1969 at the Bank of Bilbao in Covent Garden two 1st of May men were caught with a communique in their pockets. But in Britain other forms of urban violence were growing. ibid.
In Britain these experiments in revolutionary lifestyle were slow to catch on. ibid.
The political idea behind Squatting and the Claimants’ Union was to make people on the fringes of society aware of their situation and to fight it. ibid.
And then followed the trial of the so-called Stoke Newington 8. The longest criminal trial in legal history and certainly one of the most controversial. ibid.
On the night of January 12th 1971 two bombs exploded outside the London home of Robert Carr. Carr was Edward Heath’s employment minister and the man responsible for the hated Industrial Relations bill which had passed into law earlier that day. Persons Unknown, Stuart Christie, 1980
114,267. The Angry Brigade itself first emerged in the summer of 1970 in the run-up to the election of the Conservative government of Edward Heath, and its activities continued for 18 months … Targets included the embassies of oppressive regimes, high profile police stations and army barracks, sweatshop boutiques and factories, as well as government buildings, the homes of cabinet ministers, the Attorney General and the commissioner of the Metropolitan police were also targeted. ibid.
In July 1936 General Francisco Franco led a revolt backed by the army, a revolt that soon blossomed into full-scale civil war. Foreign intervention in this confrontation seems to have begun right away. George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia **** foreword, audiobook 8.05.29
The nationalists’ international brigade of left-wing partisans made up of volunteers from many countries including England, France and the United States came to Spain to join the loyalist. ibid.
The red flags in Barcelona, the gaunt trains full of shabby soldiers creeping to the front, the grey war-striken towns further up the line, the muddy ice-cold trenches of the mountains: this was in late December 1936. ibid. ch1
It was the first time I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. ibid.