There have been long standing political and theoretical debates about whether a particular political movement or leader is fascist. In the article before this one, as Bill Weinberg attests in the previous pages, it can come down to hairsplitting. Is …
“In view of the solutions that are asked of us, routine completely re-upholstered in velvet is dangerous. Routine hatches more distress and death than an imaginary utopia.” —Andre Breton
Just as in George Orwell’s 1984, “opponents of the working class” in China not only disappear physically, never to be heard from again, but also historically. A case in point are the two photographs printed here which demonstrate one of …
During the 1917 Russian revolution, anarchists urged workers to take control of their lives by turning the capitalists out and seizing control of the means of production, the better to reconstruct society along anarchistic lines.
NEW YORK (LNS)—A Colorado University Professor thinks he has discovered the real reason millions of Americans hate their job.
The following report appeared in the March-May 1992 Counter-Information, c/o 11 Forth St., Edinburgh, EH1, Scotland. Their four-page publication is free, but they welcome donations.
On May 17, military forces of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) captured Ramadi, Iraq, and with it another huge stock of US-supplied modern weaponry. Six thousand US-trained Iraqi soldiers fled the city without putting up much of …
FE Note: There continues to be a sometimes rancorous debate within the anarchist movement about how best to combat the system. What follows is meant to be critical but comradely. We in no way doubt the spirit of those we …
On (don’t spell it backwards) Anarchist Organization Read More »
a review of “An Injury to One” (2002). Written and directed by Travis Wilkerson
The struggle for political power within the United Auto Workers Union between the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the entrenched, conservative, white bureaucracy continued at the recent elections at Dodge local 3 of the Hamtramck Assembly Plant.
As striking university workers joined forces with Detroit’s labor community at the annual Labor Day Parade, WSU president David Adamany took the Board of Governors by surprise when he called an emergency meeting to give notice of his immediate resignation. …
The next project of Abigail Susik, author of Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work, investigates the radical connections between anarchism and surrealism through the little-known figure of Jonathan Leake and his work in the 1960s with the magazine, Resurgence. …
“A revolution is an exceptional event that will alter the history of societies, while changing humanity itself. It is a rupture in time and space, where humans live between two periods: the period of power and the period of revolution. …
Three ramshackle, trash-can heated huts on York Avenue between Second and Third stand as mute testimony to a strike against the General Electric Corporation which has gone on in Detroit and across the nation since October 26th of last year.
On March 19, 1979, several of us reached into the dustbin of history to resurrect the old Eat the Rich Gang and the Workers Revenge Group. The occasion was a Greenpeace anti-sealing demonstration in downtown Detroit that, as it turned …
“The question is always how to move from a social insurgency to an anarchistic society?” —Voline, The Unknown Revolution
Prison Food Greetings! Me, and some good comrades are being held prisoner in this pigsty called prison, and we came upon a copy of the April Fifth Estate. Needless to say, we are always trying to Fuck Authority, but there …
“Me, start a vanguard party to lead the working class to revolution? You must be kidding!”
While the plug has been pulled on the Detroit newspaper strike, the picket line persists. The Detroit newspaper strike, now in its twentieth month, has become the Detroit newspaper lock-out. In mid-February word came down from the union brass that …
National Jericho Movement: PO Box 2164, Chesterfield VA 23832. thejerichomovement.com New York City Anarchist Black Cross (NYC ABC): PO Box 110034, Brooklyn, New York 11211. nycabc.wordpress.com Bloomington Anarchist Black Cross: Focuses on solidarity with prison rebels, anarchist prisoners, and prisoners …
You can’t turn on the news these days without hearing about unemployment. The national unemployment rate hovers at about 8.3 percent, although experts agree that the number of people outof-work far exceeds that figure.
Response to: A Bicentennial moment: Haymarket Square Riot by Bob Nirkind, Fifth Estate #272, May, 1976, Vol. 11, No. 8, page 10
Although everyone except the most self-deluded realizes that the Soviet Union is a totalitarian police state, its rulers still feel the need to wrap their bureaucratic authority in formal legalisms. Under the direction of Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev, …
A green pickup truck with living space for ten or twelve if you squeeze together. Rain-soaked, faded picket signs barely readable: RECOGNIZE OUR UNION, WSU USES STUDENTS FOR CHEAP LABOR, WSU IS ANTI-LABOR.
a review of Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly by Peter Cole. PM Press, 2021
With the endorsement of the Polish Communist Party’s Politburo, on November 10, of a plan that would include the Solidarity union in a new coalition government, it appears that the seemingly endless period of crisis and confrontation in Poland will …
Chants of “Shave my teeth!” and “Blood! Guts! Terror!” were the theme of a militantly irresponsible demonstration called by the recently founded Violent-Illegal Party (V.I.P.) on December 12 at Wayne State University.
Send letters to fe – at – fifthestate – dot – org or Fifth Estate, POB 201016, Ferndale MI 48220 All formats accepted including typescript & handwritten; letters may be edited for length Want to write a letter about our …
A group of militant black workers have begun to organize at a Detroit auto plant and have thrown both the union and the company into a near panic. It is called the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) and is located …
a review of War of Dreams: A Field Guide to DIY Psy-Ops by Jason Rodgers. PM Press, 2024
Meet the New Boss When US occupation authorities pretended to return sovereignty to Iraq, they erected a pliable government of quisling-proxies. To cover up the devastating failure of the invasion, they created a mirage of Iraqi independence.
On Malcolm X Day, February 21, in Detroit, members of two rival leftist sects slugged it out for control of a microphone following an anti-war march organized as part of nationwide protests against the Gulf war.
The word huelga means strike, and it’s fast becoming a word in the American language as the strike that began in the grape fields surrounding Delano slowly radiates out across the country. But to those in the strike area, those …
The National Student Association’s Poor People’s Corporation Personnel Program is recruiting sales representatives to work in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, and managerial aides to work In cooperatives in Mississippi. Sales representatives will be Working in programs designed to …
“We do not want others, more or less of the right, center or left, to decide for us. We want to participate directly in the decisions which concern us, to control those who govern us, without regard to their political …
“A spectre is haunting Europe—the Spectre of Communism.” — from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx & Frederick Engels One hundred and eighteen years later Communism is again haunting the combined heads of the world bourgeoisie, but in a way …
“To be free you have to have bread to do free things. The more bread you got, the freer you become.” —Mike Quatro (Hippie band booking agent, explaining how he equates making money off “the movement”) Detroit News, Nov. 16, …
CHINA The Chinese people have a new hero, according to the Peking Peoples Daily. He is Teng Hsiang-erh, a Shantung province coal miner who is being hailed as a model worker. To earn the distinction, Teng did the following: refused …
The postal workers’ strike exploded like a time-bomb across the nation. Beginning in New York City, and spreading quickly through every major city in the country.
It is generally a waste of time to argue with individuals about their voting or not voting. Among tens of thousands, one vote either way makes no difference (even when it gets counted).