Anarchist Federation (Britain)

The Anarchist Federation (AF, AFed) is a federation of anarcho-communists in Great Britain. It is not a political party, but a direct action, agitational and propaganda organisation.

History

The British anarchist movement had been revitalized during the time of the miners' strike of 1984–1985, which had drawn many new people to anarchism and caused a number of anarchist organizations to spring up in the wake of Class War. In 1984, a number of former members of the Libertarian Communist Group established the Libertarian Communist Discussion Group (LCDG), drawing inspiration from texts such as the Platform by Nestor Makhno and the Manifesto of Libertarian Communism by Georges Fontenis. The LCDG then began to collaborate with the editor of Virus magazine and started publishing their own texts about anarcho-communism, changing their name again to the Anarchist Communist Discussion Group (ACDG). After the split of Syndicalist Fight (SyF) from the Direct Action Movement (DAM) in 1986, the ACDG merged together with SyF and established the Anarchist Communist Federation (ACF).

Throughout the late-1980s, the ACF drew together many people that were new to anarchism, which effectively made it into an entirely new organization, almost completely disconnected from its roots. At the beginning of the 1990s, they participated in the poll tax riots, calling for "the abolition of all hierarchy" and "the creation of a worldwide classless society". According to a 1991 report by the Economic League an anti-socialist blacklisting group, the ACF had quickly become "second only to Class War" in terms of its "militancy and commitment to violence". Although a small organization, much of the ACF's influence came from its "cordial relationships" with other libertarian socialist groups, cooperating particularly closely with the autonomous Marxists of Subversion.