Endings and Beginnings - Alle Macht den Räten!

And so, we come to the final blog post of the year and, as custom dictates, take a moment to reflect on what has slipped into the past and what lies before us. I was interested to look back at a blog I posted at the end of last year (see 'here') where I spoke about 2011 being imbued with the spirit of change and optimism via the events of  the Arab Spring, the Occcupy movement, Los Indignados in Spain, and the Europe wide anti-austerity protests. At that time, I was still heavily involved in the public sector unions' attempt to co-ordinate a concerted riposte to the government's attack on workers' terms and conditions. Unfortunately, as outlined in this excellent, detailed piece by Steven John's on libcom.org, we - meaning the ordinary union members - were soon to find ourselves being led into a dead-end by the union 'leaders'. Plus ça change, and all that.

So, in terms of generating a spirit of change amongst the mass of the population, 2012 has felt like a bit of a damp squib to some extent - and 2011 can be written off as just another false dawn. And yet, and yet...

Here in Scotland in 2012 there was something happening which seemed to offer the genuine possibility of a chance for radical change, in this country at least. I'm referring to the Radical Independence Campaign, which I've covered previously on these pages 'here'. Right now, some of the things we promised would happen at the conference in November are already being planned, not least of which was a commitment to a mass blockade of Faslane nuclear submarine base. I can promise Streetlamp readers that this will definitely happen next year over the 3 days of 13th to 15th of April. The event will be called Scrap Trident and as the date approaches we will keep you up to date with ways that you can participate.

Despite this positive attempt to unite left radicals in this country, there remains within libertarian socialist circles a lingering suspicion of the Radical Independence Campaign and where it may lead. This is understandable, I am not going to deny that history shows that the more authoritarian elements of the radical left have manipulated and betrayed anarchists in the past. And yet, and yet...

Recently I was alerted via another article on the wonderful libcom.org site (please do check it out) to the release of a new book by PM Press called All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution of 1918-1919. Edited and translated by Gabriel Kuhn, and drawing on newly uncovered material uncovered through meticulous archival historical research, this new documentary collection gathers eyewitness accounts and revolutionary voices from Germany’s 1918–1919 worker-soldier-council revolution. Unlike most of the histories of this period, which are written from a strongly communist perspective and focus almost exclusively on the role of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg,and the Communist Spartakusbund (Spartacus League), this book shows that there were other equally important radical left and anti-military traditions involved. In particular, Kuhn presents documents from Gustav Landauer and Erich Mühsam, the famous Munich anarchists who took part in the struggle for a councils´ republic in Bavaria. He also exhibits documentary evidence from Bremen, Brunswick, Wilhelmshaven and Kiel. All of these German cities were taken over by workers´ uprisings or sailors and soldiers in mutiny. Kuhn's sources demonstrate that the German Revolution was not orchestrated by a Marxist political vanguard, but by a spontaneous eruption of the whole population. Many very different groups were involved,  from centrist social democrats to trade unions, syndicalists and radical anarchists. Many ordinary workers only got radicalised during the events themselves.

One of the most interesting groups involved, formed during WWI, were the Revolutionary Stewards, a group of rank and file unionists independent from the official unions. Starting out by striking for better wages in the war industry, they ended up being one of the most radical advocates of a councils´ republic in Germany. Kuhn shows that when the Revolution unfolded in November 1918 this group was far more influential then Liebknecht and the Spartacists, because unlike them it had a wide network of supporters in the factories and workshops. In organizing three mass strikes between 1916 and 1918, the Revolutionary Stewards were decisive in bringing about the Revolution.

OK, history shows that the centrist social democrats’collaboration with reactionary counter-revolutionary and military forces paved the way to the Weimar Republic, and from there to Nazi Germany, but one can not but help wonder if, had the anarchist influence been more central, coherent and convincing, and tied closely to the mass, independent union movement, could the revolutionaries have created a less bureaucratic and centralist socialist model?

Is there anything that can we learn from these events that is pertinent to our position here in Scotland today? The anarchists, notably Landauer and Mühsam, were strong champions of federalism and formulated a strong critique of what they saw as the centralist tendencies of the Spartacists. That they were involved and embedded in the revolution from the start meant that they were able to do so. Had they more support within the ranks of the Revolutionary Stewards movement might they have been more effective?

All Power to the Councils! raises other questions too that all movements who promote radical change must face. For example; What are the actual demands, needs, and interests of the people? How do we best secure democratic and social progress? How do we facilitate a true transition of power? How do we establish political and economic institutions that really alter the forms of government and production?  How do we prevent powerful political forces, on the left and the right, from using the situation for their own ends? How do we go from being a mass protest movement to organising the mass effort of building a new society?

How do we turn a radical moment into longlasting radicalism?

Another question for some might be - can the libertarian left work effectively with the wider left? Perhaps it can, it is worth remembering that, despite the tensions between the different radical traditions in the German revolution, the various factions continued to defend each other in the face of social democratic and counter-revolutionary attacks. Landauer, for example, gave the Munich eulogy to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg after they were murdered in January 1919. Mühsam called Luxemburg “the flame of the revolution” in an obituary published in his journal Kain. It is worth noting that, at the outset of the revolution, all of the radical factions were also united in their commitment to a council system and in their opposition to bourgeois parliamentarism.

Reading this book, I found myself wondering where they went wrong, how they organised together originally to form this co-ordinated vision and how they might have organised subsequently to protect that vision. During the revolutionary period, all of the radicals shared a single rallying cry - Alle Macht den Räten! (All Power to the Councils). How could they have protected that ideal - how could we?

These are interesting questions to ponder as we look forward into 2013.If you want to read All Power to the Councils! you can order it from PM Press. While you are on their site please take some time to check out their stimulating collection of fiction and nonfiction books, pamphlets, t-shirts, visual and audio materials. Alternatively, for those financially embarrassed, you can download a free pdf copy 'here'.

As usual, I'd like to end the blog, and the year, with a song that, I hope, demonstrates something of the reflective mood I'm in - facing more questions than answers. The song, fittingly for this time of year, is called 'Hogmanay' and was written several years ago by the current writer, so let me offer profound apologies for the shameless self-publicity. I do hope you'll forgive my self-indulgence and, hopefully, enjoy it in the spirit in which it is offered.




Griff
xx

The World That Summer

You get to a certain point in life when you wonder if "those glory days" will ever happen again.
I don't just mean days when everything goes right, or which leave you feeling good; but one of those days you used to experience in your youth where you felt your whole life changed as a result. Last year I got married, Griff and Ray were my Best Men, and it was a truly memorable day, and one I felt, or even knew, could never be repeated. But a fortnight ago we all had another "glory day" completely out of the blue....the day we went to Portencross.
It almost never happened.
I had been asked to work that Saturday, at the last minute, but because I had worked the previous five in a row, I made a strong case for getting the day off. So, Ray and I found ourselves up at Griff's and we were deciding what to do on the Saturday afternoon; go hillwalking, go up the West End of Glasgow, go canoeing. Then we hit upon the idea of going to Portencross.
Now, anybody who has known us since before we started this Blog will know that we started off as an Indie/Folk/Pop band called ~Sighrens~, and one of the best compositions Griff had come up with during that time was a song called 'Portencross'. To Ray and I it had just been another song which attempted to capture the headiness of being young in the Summertime, but to Griff it had been a lot more; a tribute and eulogy to one of his favourite places. He had always meant to take us there one day, if only to show us why the place meant so much to him and why it had inspired one of ~Sighrens~ best songs.


Portencross, roughly, lies between Ardrossan and Largs in the area of West Kilbride and is right on the coast, looking on to the Isle of Arran and the Holy Isle, the Cumbraes and Bute. As we arrived, the sun was already beating down beautifully, and the sea gleamed like an azure mirror. We walked to Portencross Castle, which has just recently been restored (see feature below). Inside the castle the sun beamed through the windows, casting rainbow patterns on the walls and floors. As we wandered the rooms, stairs and roof we could virtually taste the history, and as we looked down upon the harbour we could envisage the sea battles against the Spanish and the Vikings that previous generations had fought.

Walking along the harbourside, where young boys were fishing for mackerel, we admired the cottages that dotted along the sea front. We were especially smitten by one simply called Shore Cottage which had a rough, rustic, utterly bohemian look; and also one built right on the very precipice of the rock. We all spoke of how we would love to stay here, imagining wakening every day to the sounds of the sea and the harbour.
We walked along past the fields of wheat that moved like animated poetry, the heat of the mid-day sun now burning away any notion of this being the wettest, coldest Summer on record. At the far end of the coastline lies the Hunterston Nuclear Power Station; a thing of ugliness and horror in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Where the vents of the power plant emerge in the sea, the water bubbled and glowed like some mad Corryvreckan. Behind the power plant lay the walkway up to the cliffs and, missing our usual Saturday hillwalk, we decided to venture up onto the peaks, allowing ourselves a view of the coast and the sea which even Griff had never seen in all his visits here.
Walking up through the woods to the cliffs was like walking through some medieval fantasia, as the sun fittered through the branches into squirrel bestrewn glades. It was about this time that I remarked that days like this would probably make us live longer.
As we reached the cliffs' highest point we all sat on the edge to admire the show that nature had put on for us. Ray produced a bottle of Isla Negra (the black isle) wine from his rucksack and we poured ourselves three glasses. The sun reflecting on the calm water gave the sea a flinty, steely complexion that looked unlike anything we had ever seen; yachts and fishing boats dotted the surface.The funny thing about not being near the sea, or even seeing the sea all that often, means that when you do sit on the coastline looking over a vast expanse of water, you do get that feeling that you are on the very edge of the world.
And as we sat there, allowing the wine to loosen us up a bit, and as we looked across the calm, sun-streaked water to Arran, we began discussing the movie 'Man Of Aran' (set on the Inishmore Islands of Ireland) which had recently been re-scored by the band British Sea Power, who are big favourites among the ~Streetlamp~ fraternity....
Robert Flaherty's 1934 (pseudo)documentary is a work of art and a compelling study of Man's necessity to survive, not against the very forces of nature, but in tandem with them. The film shows the male islanders struggle in the flimsiest of boats, out on the crushing surf trying to gather both fish and seaweed, which is necessary for the growing of potatoes as there is no soil on the islands. The annual migration of basking sharks brings a one-off yearly opportunity to cultivate both meat, and fish oil which they use to fuel the lamps.

The film's power lies in it's depiction of man against the sea. The shots demonstrating the pure force of the sea are quite extraordinary, and it seems only fitting that a band named British Sea Power should be scoring these scenes. Masters of atmosphere, British Sea Power conjure up whole storms of music; scorching guitar runs match the camera work, slamming atonal keyboard blasts are impeccably timed to the crashing waves, while the drums and cymbals capture nature at it's most ferocious. The band's sense of theatrics combined with complete understanding of the images meld to create that old chestnut; sonic cathedrals of sound.

Music and image in perfect symbiosis. The fabulously named Colman 'Tiger' King out in his boat at the mercy of the crushing waves, whilst Earth Mother Maggie Dirrane watches on in both terror and necessity as her husband risks his life for food and oil. The music knows when to dip and allow moments of solemnity as the boat disappears from the shot, the horizon of the waves growing ever larger, and then suddenly the boat reappears, the men are drenched, Maggie's face showing a temporary relief, the music swells and you realise that not just all human life is here, but ALL life is here! Nature and humanity captured in one beat....


And as we sat discussing 'Man Of Aran' while gazing at our own Isle of Arran, surrounded by the calm, metallic sheen of Portencross's own sun-glazed sea, we all felt.....alive!
As we headed back down the cliff to the main drag, Griff and Ray were jabbering like schoolchildren about how this was their favourite ever ~Streetlamp~ experience. I put on a show of mild stoicism, pretending somehow that I was indifferent to the whole thing, whilst all the time knowing inside that something had changed. As the shadows stretched and the sun cast it's 'golden hour' shine over the castle and the surrounding streets, we could hear a band set up their equipment while the locals began to gather in the centre of the town. There was to be a music festival to raise money for the restoration of the castle. We would have stayed, and indeed probably should have stayed, but we had to head back.
The next day, I texted Griff to tell him that as a result of our visit to Portencross, I now felt somewhat changed, somehow cleansed spiritually (even if I don't really like using that word). He said he agreed and hoped that Ray and I now knew how he felt about Portencross and why he had taken to compose the song of that name. And now, when I feel the strain and the grind-to-five of work getting me down, I can close my eyes and find myself back there again.
But it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.
But we'll always have Portencross!
Here's looking at you kids!

~Gordon~

Ray adds:

Portencross is a sort of hidden oasis it seems, most of the people I have spoken to about our 'hillwalk' in this area have never heard of it.

Neither had I, really, until it was brought to my attention when Sighrens wrote the song about it.

What a magical place! A place where everything I enjoy about the outdoors was in full view at a hidden away hinterland; historical castles, faraway islands, deep blue water, and a beautiful viewpoint from a 'nice wee hill'.

Even the scientific chit-chat that we so often fall into is well served here , with the rather 'out of place' Hunterston nuclear power-station to the North East.

Definitely in my all-time top three hillwalks we have done.

You can download the famous instrumental piece 'Flowers Of Portencross' here
of which Griff comments: The song is written about the flower 'geranium sanguineum' which grows by the sea in Portencross. The tune is supposed to mirror the moods of the sea around Portencross castle.