A Wise Move: on Anarchist Organization

An extract of Lucy Parsons on A Wise Move: on Anarchist Organization

The recent congress of Anarchists, held at Amsterdam, Holand, seems to me to be a wise move and a step in the right direction.

The Anarchistic cause(there has been no movement in recent years) has lacked a plan of procedure or organization. To be sure, there have somehow, here and there, drifted together a few persons who, in a loose way, formed a sort of group, calling themselves Anarchists, but these groups were composed, for the most part, of young, inexperienced people, who had about as many conceptions of the real aims of Anarchism as there were members composing the group; consequently, the result has been as might reasonably have been expected. The anarchistic cause has lacked concentration of effort, and a vivifying force to lend energy and direction toward a common aim.

The result is that the realization of the anarchistic ideal, grand as it is, is not in the least encouraging when we take a retrospective view of the last twenty years. Really, what evidence have we of a genuine growth of Anarchism in the last twenty years.

I, personally, have always held to the idea of organization, together with an assumption of responsibility by the members, such as paying monthly dues and collecting funds for propaganda purposes. For holding these views, I have been called an ‘old-school’ Anarchist, etc.

... many crimes and unsocial acts are purely the result of official meddling to make people "good" by law. Anarchism, as taught in recent years, is too far away from the mental level of the masses; hence, they have not been attracted to us

The Demonstrator, 6 November 1907, in Lucy Parsons: Freedom, Equality and Solidarity, pages 130 and 131.