Workers Solidarity Movement

Anarchists are gathering to discuss how we can better organise and fight for a free society.

This position paper outlines WSM membership and how we engage with spheres of people interested in the WSM.

Modified by WSM National Conference, July 2017

It is a confusing time to be on the revolutionary left as everything that was once certain turns to smoke.

Technology has overturned and remade what constitutes effective communication and the construction of networks.

Quite how to organise is no longer clear, while old reference points of 1917, 1936 or even 1968 no longer provide definitive models.

A conversation with Sydney anarchist Sid, co-founder of the Jura books Collective on the history of anarchism in the city and how he became involved in the various phases of the movement. He describes the early debates, conferences and initial projects of opening bookshops and radical spaces. He talks a lot about Jura books whose formation and ongoing maintenance he is centrally involved with.

The left is fond of military analogies so I want to open this piece with the observation that poor generals plan for the last war rather than the next one. Those militaries that planned for World War Two by perfecting the trench systems that dominated World War One had their powerful & expensive fortifications quickly overwhelmed in the opening weeks of the war through blitzkrieg. And in turn by 1943 Blizkrieg was defeated though defence in depth at Kursk.

To what extent do the revolutions and revolts of 2011 reflect a new world born from the shell of the old? Were these revolts of the internet generation -- networked individuals? Are people not only using new technology but becoming transformed by it? For anarchists, what lessons can we learn and to what extent must we transform our organisational methods and structures?

Because of the length of this review
its been made available as a 15 page
PDF file to download and read off line.

The work of the WSM is often limited by the resources available to us, both in terms of finance and labour. And although our members bring a wide range of knowledge and experience into the organisation for collective discussion there are also wide areas where we have much less knowledge and experience than we would want. The solution to this would be to have more members, and we are always seeking to get new people to join.

But we recognize that the time & financial commitments of WSM membership are not for everyone. And that some people who broadly agree with a lot of our work have significant differences with us in particular areas that would stop them joining. So we offer a Supporter Status for people who broadly like what we are doing but who for one reason or another can't commit to membership.

The document that gives the basic definition of the Workers Solidarity Movement and which lays down how we make decisions and how we operate. Last updated at Spring 2012 National Conference.

WSM administration document, last amended at June 2011 National Conference