A-Infos (en) anarkismo.net, History, A history of North American anarchist group Love & Rage by Wayne Price - NEFAC

> Nine Years of the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation
A new wave of radicalization is spreading around the world. Federations of 
anarchists are being organized in the U.S and Canada, and in other countries. 
The ‘platformist’? current within international anarchism, with its emphasis on 
the need for anarchists to organize themselves, is having worldwide effects. In 
these conditions, it is not surprising that there should be an interest in the 
last major attempt to build an anarchist federation in North America: the Love 
and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (L&R). Founded in 1989, it lasted 
to 1998, almost ten years, with branches in Mexico (Amor y Rabia) and in 
English-speaking Canada.

A new wave of radicalization is spreading around the world. Federations of 
anarchists are being organized in the U.S and Canada, and in other countries. 
The ‘platformist’? current within international anarchism, with its emphasis on 
the need for anarchists to organize themselves, is having worldwide effects. In 
these conditions, it is not surprising that there should be an interest in the 
last major attempt to build an anarchist federation in North America: the Love 
and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (L&R). Founded in 1989, it lasted 
to 1998, almost ten years, with branches in Mexico (Amor y Rabia) and in 
English-speaking Canada.

It came out of a very amorphous anarchist movement, whose main continental 
organization had been almost yearly ‘gatherings’. In various cities around the 
U.S. and Canada, anarchists would get together, attend workshops, talk with 
each other, eat vegetarian food, play together, engage in ‘pagan rites’?, and 
then go home. Decisions were not made and lasting structures were not set up.

In this milieu, a minority began to call for the establishment of a continental 
anarchist newspaper. There were, of course, already a small number of anarchist 
periodicals, each expressing the views of the individual or small group which 
put it out. The idea was for a newspaper which reflected the views of a 
continental body of supporters, who existed to participate in putting it out 
and distributing it. The supporters of the newspaper project? soon realized 
that this implied some sort of organization.

People of various backgrounds and anarchist persuasions met to establish the 
Love and Rage Federation. A key role was played by a group from Minneapolis, 
Minnesota, calling itself the Revolutionary Anarchist Bowling League (RABL or 
‘rabble’?). Another group came from the former Revolutionary Socialist League 
(RSL). This was a group which had evolved from Trotskyism to anarchism. The RSL 
(of which I was a member) had never regarded the state-capitalist Soviet Union 
as a ‘degenerated workers’ State, as did orthodox Trotskyism. It had 
interpreted Marxist orthodoxy in the most libertarian manner possible, such as 
emphasizing Marx’s writings on the Paris Commune, or Lenin’s State and 
Revolution. When this became impossible to continue, it moved toward anarchism. 
The RSL officially dissolved at the time of the founding of Love and Rage; most 
ex-members leaving politics. Some of us became involved in the setting up of 
the L&R and its newspaper, which was also called ‘Love and Rage’

Love and Rage was distinguished from most of the anarchist movement in a few 
important ways. First, obviously, was the very idea that anarchists should form 
an organization, and, related to that, should put out a newspaper. These 
concepts were vigorously, not to say viciously, denounced by many in the 
anarchist movement. A relatively prominent anarcho-syndicalist came to the 
founding meeting only to denounce the very idea of founding an organization. 
The anarcho-primitivist Fifth Estate denounced L&R from the beginning. Many 
others agreed that it was wrong of anarchists to form organizations, or at 
least to form organizations beyond the local level. There was a widespread 
suspicion that the ex-members of the ex-RSL were really doing a Trotskyist 
‘entry’, worming their way into the anarchist movement in order to emerge with 
a new and larger Leninist party. Considering the course of events, this was 
quite ironic. However, the issue of organization was never quite settled.

There was a constant tension in the federation over how far to go in unifying 
and coordinating it. A large minority broke off because they really wanted a 
loose ‘network’, not a more coordinated federation. Over time, this continued 
to be an issue. Due to its decentralized heritage, people were chosen for 
positions on the basis of geography, not politics. The continental committee 
which made decisions between conferences was picked this way. So was the 
smaller body which coordinated between that committee’s meetings. Influential 
people were often left out of these bodies, in the hope that this would prevent 
the formation of a ‘leadership’, but instead (of course), the real leadership 
was kept informal and undemocratic.

Editorial decisions for the continental paper were not made by any politically 
responsible body, but by the production crew. This was composed of random 
people who volunteered and lived in the city where it was put out. At the same 
time, L&R was never a real federation, because it never had more than a few 
real local groups. Mostly it had about 200 members scattered throughout North 
America. There were a few significant collectives in a few cities, and many 
individuals who were willing to distribute the paper.

Besides being pro-organization, the other distinctive feature of the L&R was 
its left-wing focus. It was for the struggles of the oppressed. It supported 
national liberation struggles (although there was tension over attitudes 
towards the nationalist leadership of such struggles). It supported women’s 
liberation, queer liberation, struggles of prisoners, of poor people, of youth, 
and of African-Americans. This may seem obvious, but much of the anarchist 
movement denounced this as too ‘left’?. The left was seen as old-hat and out 
dated. This was the explicit conception of the primitivists. Even among 
anarchists who were consciously leftist, such as anarcho-syndicalists, many 
were for workers’ struggles but did not support national liberation wars or 
women’s struggles. Too many of these rejected non-working class struggles as 
irrelevant diversions.

Aside from that, there was little theoretical agreement among L&R members and 
little effort to develop a theoretical program. Their theory, or program, was 
something vaguely called, ‘revolutionary anarchism’. That is, we were 
anarchists who were “for� revolution. This distinguished us from pacifist 
anarchists and reformist anarchists, but otherwise was not too specific. L&R 
was against capitalism, but would not commit itself to ‘socialism’, which was 
associated with State ownership.

There were different views on other issues, such as African-American 
liberation. A minority was for the Race Traitor program: racism was the main 
issue in the U.S.; everything else was secondary; white anarchist should not 
raise their views in the African-American community. Other people had other 
views which also revolved around similar white-liberal guilt feelings. The 
problem was not so much this or that opinion on any particular topic but the 
lack of a serious attempt to study past theory and to develop it further. From 
the beginning there were people who regarded any attempt to root L&R in 
anarchist tradition was something ‘old’?. There were no required readings for 
all members nor regular study classes. Even by the end, there were people who 
insisted that theory was something which they would develop out of their 
experience. Theory is, ultimately, nothing but the codification of many 
people’s experience. But this approach meant constantly reinventing the wheel, 
and repeating previous generation’s errors. However, it is not surprising that 
U.S. anarchists should have followed the empiricism and crude pragmatism of 
U.S. political culture.

The organization had an empirical ‘laundry list’ of good causes it was for 
(such as women’s liberation, queer liberation, prison abolition, and so on). It 
tried to work out a better, more thorough and lengthy, program. For years, at 
the conferences, it discussed parts of an improved program. But this process 
was inconsistent. By the time L&R dissolved, the program was still unfinished. 
Ron Tabor, an ex-member of the old RSL, tried to do serious theoretical work. 
He sought to rethink the meaning of Marxism from an anarchist perspective. 
While his previous pamphlet, A Look at Leninism, was widely distributed, the 
organization stopped publishing his articles critiquing Marxism in the 
newspaper. People just weren’t interested enough, they said.

Nevertheless, good work was done. A small number of real collectives existed 
and were tied together throughout North America. A real effort was made to 
support a Mexican group in producing a Spanish paper and literature.

We organized important U.S. support for the Zapatista rebellion (although 
politically this never went beyond being radical cheerleaders, instead of 
discussing the possibilities of a Mexican revolution). A continental anarchist 
paper was produced for nine years, on a more-or-less monthly basis. Some 
activities were done on a federation-wide basis, including participating in 
several national U.S. demonstrations.

However from the beginning there had been certain undemocratic aspects of what 
many members meant by ‘revolutionary anarchism’. One was a widespread sympathy 
for Leninist-Stalinist movements of the 60s and 70s. Many members admired the 
Weatherpeople, the German Red Army Faction, the Black Liberation Army, and 
other groups who wanted to create revolutionary dictatorships over the mass of 
people. The very last L&R issue included a very favorable article about 
imprisoned members of the Weatherpeople, titled, Enemies of the State. It would 
have been better titled, Enemies of This State, Friends of a New State.

The other undemocratic weakness was the lack of interest in, or orientation to, 
the North American working class. At most there was a patronizing acceptance 
that some of us were interested in workers as workers. As an influential member 
told me, workers did not identify as workers. When a major student strike broke 
out in New York City public colleges, our members did excellent work in 
organizing and leading it (‘leading’ in a non-authoritarian way). But they 
sneered at the idea of orienting the student struggle toward the workers (who, 
at the time were also struggling against the city government over comparable 
issues).

Later, our Detroit members got involved in support work for the striking 
newspaper workers. Our people put out a flyer raising the general strike. L&R 
people in New York did not want to cover this in the continental paper. One 
member asked if the ‘general strike’ was a ‘Trotskyist idea’, so little did 
they know anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist history.

Ultimately, contempt for the workers, their organizations (unions), and their 
struggles, must be undemocratic. It leads to a view that a little group of 
young radicals, mostly college students and ex-students from the middle 
classes, can transform society by themselves - without going deep into the 
working class and the oppressed sections of society. This is consistent with an 
identification with radical Stalinism.

A final conflict broke out during the last two years of L&R. Chris Day, a 
founder and influential member (that is, a ‘leader’) had concluded that it was 
time to abandon anarchism. He told people informally that we had reached the 
limits of the anarchist milieu and it was time to move on. He wrote a paper on 
The Historical Failure of Anarchism, emphasizing the programmatic weaknesses of 
anarchism. He declared that no revolution could succeed without a centralized, 
regular army and a revolutionary state. A group formed around him, particularly 
of people who had never had to chose between anarchism and authoritarian 
Marxism. Although they suddenly discovered the value of the international 
working class, their new-found Marxism was not of any of the libertarian or 
humanistic varieties (autonomes, council communism, CLR James, Eric Fromm, Hal 
Draper, etc.). It was Maoism - one of the most Stalinist, authoritarian, versions.

A small number of us began to resist, at first by writing counter documents. We 
were mostly, but not entirely, former members of the RSL, and were mostly older 
than the average member. What was upsetting and confusing to us was that most 
L&R members did not react to the dispute. They stayed out of it. This 
nonreaction was helped by the neo-Maoists maneuver of rarely stating openly 
that they rejected anarchism. Instead the group talked around this. They made 
hints, and then denials, and then direct statements, and then withdraw the 
statements. If people wanted to ignore the issue, it was made easy for them. 
We, the group that said there was a crisis, were treated as troublemakers.

As we saw it, the issue was the rejection of anarchism for 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. We were accused of being dogmatic, not active enough, 
being troublemakers, wrong on any number of other issues, and so on. There is a 
myth in the present anarchists movement that L&R collapsed due to weakness over 
African-American liberation. This was never a major dispute inside the 
organization, although perhaps it should have been. It was raised at the last 
minute, the main supporter of Race Traitor politics blocing with the Maoist 
faction. But it was never the issue in the faction fight, that being anarchism 
versus Maoism.

Behind the fight and then collapse of Love and Rage was broader historical 
trends. About the same time that L&R dissolved, our Mexican section also came 
apart. The Quebecois network which had put out the anarchist Demanarchie also 
broke down. And the British group, the Class War Federation, also dissolved. 
While there were specific issues in each case, behind them all was the long 
lull in the broader movement. People were discouraged. In our case, anyway, 
people were looking for some alternative.

Marxism had been discredited by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the 
officially pro-market turn of the Chinese. But it still had the attraction of 
its history of revolutions and its vast amount of theoretical work, unlike 
anarchism. It was, and still is, a real pole of attraction for many. L&R had a 
brief meeting to formally dissolve the federation. The Maoist group, and those 
it had attracted, formed Fire By Night, for a short time. Soon they were to 
dissolve into the Leninist milieu. Our group has put out the anarchist journal, 
The Utopian ( http://www.utopianmag.com). Otherwise individuals have continued 
to engage in the anarchist movement in various ways. Within two to three years 
of L&R dissolution, there was a large upturn in the anarchist movement, but 
there was no continental anarchist federation to participate in it. Lessons of 
the Love and Rage Federation

When I think over my experiences in L&R (as well as earlier experiences), I 
reach the following three main conclusions:

(1) There is a need to balance activism with theory. An activists’ program 
needs to be based on a theory of the world, what causes oppression, what would 
liberation mean, what sectors of society can overturn oppression, and what can 
we do to help them to move toward liberation. Otherwise we are just actively 
jumping around. If anarchists are not to be outdone (once again) by the 
Marxists and other authoritarians, we have to know what we are doing. Not that 
every member of an anarchist federation has to fully agree with the same ideas, 
but there needs to be a core of members with a common approach. This does not 
mean that we can do nothing without a full-grown theory. Unlike the Marxists, 
we do not have a set of sacred books to learn from. But as we participate in 
struggles, anarchists should be simultaneously working on theory. There should 
be study groups, a common set of readings, and a lively theoretical journal.

(2) There needs to be an orientation to the working class. This is not only for 
theoretical but for strategic reasons. There is no other oppressed group which 
has the potential ability to shut down capitalist society - and to start it up 
again. Only workers - as workers - can do this. No other grouping is oppressed 
at the heart of the process of production or has the self-interest to create a 
classless society. This was the insight of anarcho-syndicalism.

Anarchists must continue to participate in and champion the struggles of women, 
queers, of oppressed races and nations. Their oppression is as real as that of 
workers. Their movements are as essential for liberation. But just as their 
issues must be raised in the class struggle, so the class struggle must be 
raised in them. This means participation in workplace concerns. We need to 
develop a serious and positive view of unions, and a set of tactics for dealing 
with them.

(3) There is a need for a democratic organization of revolutionary anarchists - 
if we are not (once again) to be outorganized by the Marxists. There can be no 
abstractly preordained structure for such a democratic organization, except 
that it be democratic. Much depends on the circumstances. The principle is that 
it should be as decentralized and directly democratic as possible but as 
centralized and coordinated as is minimally necessary. This is not a party, 
which is an organization for taking power (by election, or by control of a 
revolution). This is an instrument for participation in popular struggles and 
for encouraging the people to take over themselves. An anarchist organization 
is part of the process of popular self-organization, not its opposite. But, as 
is said in the Organizational Platform of Libertarian Communists, it needs some 
personnel chosen by the membership. They should be elected on the basis of 
their politics, not their personalities or their location! s. I believe it is 
essential for such a democratic, programmatic body to be elected to oversee 
publications, and other literature, as well as to do a certain minimal amount 
of coordination and reacting to emergencies.

All these points are controversial among anarchists. But I have seen, all too 
often, the victory of the authoritarians, statists, and Marxists, over the 
anarchists and libertarian socialists. We have a chance to change that awful 
history, if we are prepared for it.

First published in Northeastern Anarchist #3 Fall 2001

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