Ebook: Socialism and Parliament

Web paper in engish (Интернет-издание на английском). — 'Anarchive' "Anarchy is Order!": Principles, Propositions & Discussions for Land and Freedom, 1923. — 37 p.

I must Create a System or be enslav'd by another Man's. I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create

– William Blake.During the 19th century, anarchism has develloped as a result of a social current which aims for freedom and happiness. A number of factors since World War I have made this movement, and its ideas, dissapear little by little under the dust of history.After the classical anarchism – of which the Spanish Revolution was one of the last representatives – a new kind of resistance was founded in the sixties which claimed to be based (at least partly) on this anarchism. However this resistance is often limited to a few (and even then partly misunderstood) slogans such as 'Anarchy is order', 'Property is theft'.Information about anarchism is often hard to come by, monopolised and intellectual; and therefore visibly disapearing. The anarchive or anarchist archive Anarchy is Order (in short A.O) is an attempt to make the 'principles, propositions and discussions' of this tradition available again for anyone it concerns. We believe that these texts are part of our own heritage. They don t belong to publishers, institutes or specialists.These texts thus have to be available for all anarchists an other people interested. That is one of the conditions to give anarchism a new impulse, to let the new anarchism outgrow the slogans. This is what makes this project relevant for us: we must find our roots to be able to renew ourselves. We have to learn from the mistakes of our socialist past. History has shown that a large number of the anarchist ideas remain standing, even during the most recent social-economic developments.Don't mourn, Organise!This is the full text of the first version of Aldred's Socialism & Parliament published by The Bakunin Press (London & Glasgow) in 1923. Aldred published revised and expanded versions of this pamphlet in 1926, 1934 and 1942.The advent of a Labour opposition in the House of Commons, the near possibility of that opposition becoming His Majesty's Government, have revived interest in the question of parliamentary action. Bitter plaints at the historic failure of Parliamentary methods are tempered with a faint hope that something may be achieved by parliamentarism. It is forgotten that reform activity means constant trotting round the fool's parade, continuous movement in a vicious circle. Something must be done for expectant mothers, for homeless couples wishing to housekeep, for rent-resisters, something to reform here or there, regardless of the fact that capitalism is a hydra-headed monster, that the reforms needed are as innumerable as the abuses begotten of the capitalist system, and such abuses increase with every modification of capitalist administration, the better to perpetuate the system. Under these circumstances it is necessary to restate the arguments against parliamentary activity, to explain and to prove that parliament was never intended to emancipate the working class from the evils of capitalism, that it never can and never will achieve this result.