Anarchism arrived in Australia within a few
years of anarchism developing as a distinct
tendency in the wake of the 1871 Paris Commune.
Although a minor school of thought and politics,
composed primarily of campaigners and intellectuals,
Australian anarchism has formed a significant
current throughout the history and literature
of the colonies and nation.
Anarchism's influence has been industrial
and cultural, though its influence has waned
from its high point in the early 20th century
where anarchist techniques and ideas deeply
influenced the official Australian union movement.
In the mid 20th century anarchism's influence
was primarily restricted to urban bohemian
cultural movements.
In the late 20th century and early 21st century
Australian anarchism has been an element in
Australia's social justice and protest movements.
== History ==
Anarchism has found both proponents and critics
during the short history of Australia.
International movements, émigrés or home-grown
anarchists have all contributed to radical
politics during the nation's formation
=== Beginnings ===
The Melbourne Anarchist Club was officially
founded on 1 May 1886 by David Andrade and
others breaking away from the Australasian
Secular Association of Joseph Symes, the journal
Honesty being the anarchist club's official
organ; and anarchism became a significant
minor current on the Australian left.
The current included a diversity of views
on economics, ranging from an individualism
influenced by Benjamin Tucker to the anarchist
communism of JA Andrews.
All regarded themselves as broadly "socialist"
however.
The Anarchists mixed with the seminal literary
figures Henry Lawson and Mary Gilmore and
the labour journalist and utopian socialist
William Lane.
The most dramatic event associated with this
early Australian anarchism was perhaps the
bombing of the "non-union" ship SS Aramac
on 27 July 1893 by Australian anarchist and
union organiser Larrie Petrie.
This incident occurred in the highly charged
atmosphere following the defeat of the 1890
Australian maritime dispute and the 1891 Australian
shearers' strike, an atmosphere which also
produced the Sydney-based direct action group
the "Active Service Brigade" Petrie was arrested
for attempted murder but charges were dropped
after a few months.
He later joined Lane's "New Australia" utopian
experiment in Paraguay.
A major challenge to the principles of these
early Australian anarchists was the virulent
anti-Chinese racism of the time, of which
racism William Lane himself was a leading
exponent.
On a political level the anarchists opposed
the anti-Chinese agitation.
"The Chinese, like ourselves, are the victims
of monopoly and exploitation" editorialised
Honesty "We had far better set to and make
our own position better instead of, like a
parcel of blind babies, trying to make theirs
worse."
The anarchists were sometimes more ambivalent
on the subject than this statement of principle
might suggest; anti-Chinese racism was entrenched
in the labour movement of which they were
a part, and challenged by few others.
=== World war ===
Monty Miller, a veteran of the Eureka uprising,
belonged to the Melbourne Anarchist Club.
He would later become a well-known militant
of the Australian branch of the Industrial
Workers of the World (IWW) and was arrested
and imprisoned in 1916.
His friend the social activist and literary
figure Willem Siebenhaar was among those who
campaigned for his release.After the First
World War Australian anarchism fell into decline.
The tradition was kept alive by, among others,
the prominent agitator and street speaker
Chummy Fleming who died in Melbourne in 1950
and by Italian Anarchists active in Melbourne's
Matteotti Club and the North Queensland canefields.
William Andrade (1863–1939), David Andrade's
brother and fellow anarchist, became a successful
bookseller in Sydney and Melbourne and while
he retired from active politics in about 1920
he continued to influence events by allowing
various radical groups to use his premises
throughout the 1920s and 1930s.
=== Post World War Two ===
After World War Two the Sydney Libertarians
developed a distinct brand of "pessimistic"
or "permanent protest" anarchism, deeply sceptical
of revolution and of any grand scheme of human
betterment, yet friendly to the revolutionary
unionism of the IWW.
Poet Harry Hooton associated with this group,
and his friend Germaine Greer belonged to
it in her youth.
By 1972 she was calling herself an "anarchist
communist" and was still identifying herself
as "basically" an anarchist in 1999.
The Sydney Libertarians were the political
tendency around which the "Sydney Push" social
milieu developed, a milieu which included
many anarchists.The Sydney Libertarians, along
with the remnant of the Australian IWW and
of Italian and Spanish migrant anarchism fed
into the Anarchist revival of the sixties
and seventies which Australia shared with
much of the developed world.
Another post-war influence that fed into modern
Australian anarchism was the arrival of anarchist
refugees from Bulgaria.The last years of Australian
involvement in the Vietnam war was an active
period for Australian anarchists, the high-profile
draft resister Michael Matteson in particular
became something of a folk hero.
The prolific anarchist poet Pi O began to
write.
The Brisbane Self-Management Group was formed
in 1971, heavily influenced by the councillist
writings of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group
and its offshoots.
The Anarchist Bookshop in Adelaide began publishing
the monthly Black Growth.
Anarchists active in inner-city Melbourne
played a major part in creating the Fitzroy
Legal Service (FLS) in 1972.In 1974 after
successfully campaigning against the 1971
South Africa rugby union tour of Australia
Anti-apartheid movement activist Peter McGregor
was one of several people who involved themselves
in resurrecting the Sydney Anarchist Group
to organise an Australian Anarchist conference
in Sydney in January 1975.
At the time anarchist theory was being intensely
debated.
A diverse Federation of Australian Anarchists
(FAA) was formed at a conference in Sydney
in 1975.
A walkout from the second conference in Melbourne
in 1976 led to the founding of the Libertarian
Socialist Federation (LSF), which in turn
led to the founding of Jura Books in 1977.
For many years (1982 to 2013) the anarcho-syndicalist
paper, Rebel Worker, was published from the
Jura Books premises.
It is now published elsewhere.
The end of the 1970s saw the development of
a Christian anarchist Catholic Worker tendency
in Brisbane, the most prominent person in
the group being Ciaron O'Reilly.
This tendency exploded into prominence in
1982 because of its part along with other
anarchists and assorted radicals in the Brisbane
free speech fights during the Queensland premiership
of Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
In Melbourne in 1977 the Libertarian Workers
for a Self-Managed Society (LW) were formed
on a theoretical platform similar to the Brisbane
Self-Management Group.
This Libertarian Workers group engaged very
actively in propaganda, which played a major
part on making possible the Australian Anarchist
Centenary Celebrations of 1986.
Apart from generally respectful publicity
the lasting consequences of the Celebrations
were the founding of the Anarchist Media Institute,
its most visible member being Joseph Toscano;
and the founding of an Australian section
of the International Workers Association (IWA)
called the Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation
(ASF).
A major part of the activity of the ASF was
its agitation among Melbourne's public transport
workers culminating in a significant influence
on the Melbourne Tram Dispute of 1990.
== See also ==
Angry Penguins
How to Make Trouble and Influence People
Mutiny Collective
== References ==
== External links ==
Bibliography of Anarchism & Syndicalism in
Australia & Aotearoa / New Zealand
Sydney Libertarians and Anarchism Index
Anarcho-Syndicalism in Melbourne and Sydney
anarchist bulletin
Melbourne Anarchist Club
Jura Books
Rebel Worker
Black Rose Anarchist Library and Bookshop
Mutiny Zine: A Paper of Anarchistic Ideas
and Action
Brisbane Solidarity Network
Black Swan Adelaide
