Joint Manifesto of the Revolutionary Youth Federation and the Committees for Workers’ Control

1) An Anarchist is a person who is opposed to governmental Society.

2) Since governments exist to protect property the Anarchists have evolved the theory of Anarchist Communism, which is not based on Property, and holds that all wealth be held in common by the community through the local “communes” (councils) wherein each works according to ability, and takes according to need. There would be no state. The communes would be linked by a free federation, and harmony of interest; would be maintained by mutual aid and agreement.

3) This is a philosophy of the future and its realisation demands a transitional stage which, logically, must be also libertarian, anti-State- and federal: the only such system at present is Revolutionary Syndicalism, recognised by Anarchists as a means to an end.

4) Revolutionary Syndicalism (Anarcho-Syndicalism) is the system of .workers’ unity in economic organisation fighting for immediate reforms under capitalism with the object of workers’ control, following the abolition of the State after the Social General Strike or Revolution. Each branch of economic life would be run by the workers in that branch, operating through their Syndicalist Unions (Syndicates) without any State or political intervention – the mines to the miners, the factories to the factory-workers, etc. Social life would be run by the communes, which would consist of the local federation of all the syndicates. The national federation of all the syndicates would run international trade relations: the national federation of each syndicate would run their own national industry. The government of men would be replaced by the management of things.

5) The anarchist would, before the Revolution, prevent the domination of the syndicalist unions by parliamentarians and politicians and, after the Revolution, continue spreading the ideals of liberty so that the non-anarchist majority would dwindle to a minority and perhaps disappear, not through coercion (which would go with the State) but by moral persuasion as well as the practical results of collectivised life.

6) The immediate creation of a dual anarchist and syndicalist organisation is therefore obviously desirable, and we call upon the workers of Britain to form, unite in and develop an Anarcho-Syndicalist body of labour unions, an anarchist federation and a revolutionary youth movement, in order that the struggle for freedom and socialism may recommence in the birthplace of free socialism in no uncertain fashion.