Solidarity

The collection is mainly made up of issues of the publication ‘Solidarity’ and the pamphlets published centrally and by the various groups. Particularly for the National and North West Group the collection is slightly expanded with the addition of minutes and region specific circulars etc.

Papers arranged and described by Jo Robson, August 2006.

The papers were deposited in no particular order. The catalogue begins with the main ‘Solidarity’ publication followed by the pamphlets listed in numeric order. The national and regional material has been arranged according to the group which produced it. The national group has been catalogued before the regional groups which have then been listed in alphabetical order.

Open to view with an appointment, please email archive@phm.org.uk

Solidarity was founded in 1960 by a small group of expelled members of the Trotskyist Socialist Labour League. It was initially known as Socialism Reaffirmed. It was a Libertarian communist organisation which published a more or less regular journal the first five issues of which were called the Agitator. From the sixth issue the paper took the name Solidarity. Solidarity was close to council communism in its prescriptions and was known for its emphasis on workers' self-organisation and for its radical anti-Leninism. In addition to the paper a great many pamphlets were published. Solidarity were deeply influenced by the French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis (Paul Cardan). Solidarity rejected the economic determinism and elitism of much of the Marxist left and was committed to a view of socialism based on self-management, freedom and a radical transformation in all human relations. Without the intention to appoint itself as another political leadership Solidarity supported those who were in conflict with authoritarian structures. The group was never large, but its magazine and pamphlets were widely read, and group members played a major part in several crucial industrial disputes and many radical campaigns, from the Committee of 100 in the early-1960s peace movement to the Polish Solidarity Campaign of the early 1980s. At its height Solidarity had several autonomous regional/workbased groups some of whom also produced newsletters. Autonomous groups included Aberdeen, Dundee, Clydeside, Edinburgh, Hull, London North, London South, London West, North West, Oxford, Romford and Swansea. Also a national group was set up, ?Solidarity National Group?, with two aims: 1. To introduce the ideas of Solidarity?s National Group ? the umbrella organisation for both individuals and autonomous groups ? to a wider audience. 2. To permit individual members of Solidarity to express their ideas, communicate them to the rest of the group and receive feedback. The organisation not only met several times but also produced its own paper ?Solidarity: Paper of the Solidarity National Group.? Solidarity papers and pamphlets appeared more or less regularly until the early 1980s. By 1979 membership had split into three groups and in 1981 Solidarity decided to ballot the members on the dissolution of the movement. Solidarity the magazine continued to be published by the London group until 1992; other former Solidarity members were behind Wildcat in Manchester and Here and Now magazine in Glasgow. The intellectual leader of the group was Chris Pallis, whose pamphlets (written under the name Maurice Brinton) included Paris May 1968, The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control 1917-21 and 'The Irrational in Politics' (now collected in a book, Maurice Brinton, For Workers' Power). Other key Solidarity writers were Andy Anderson (author of Hungary 1956), Ken Weller (who wrote several pamphlets on industrial struggles and oversaw the group's Motor Bulletins on the car industry), Joe Jacobs (Out of the Ghetto), John Quail (The Slow-Burning Fuse), John King (The Political Economy of Marx, A History of Marxian Economics), Dave Lamb (Mutinies) and Liz Willis (Women in the Spanish Revolution).