A note oncontemporary U.S.anarchism <•) BruceVandevort T o SPEAK in acceptable fashion about anarchism in U.S. life, one is still usually obliged to hearken back to the 19th and early 20th centuries, to the times of Lysander Spooner and Henry David Thoreau, the Haymarket Martyrs, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and the anarcho-syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.). The general impression remains that the anarchist current in the U.S. collapsed after World War I, a victim in immediate terms of savage government repression and, in the longer run, of the homogenization of American society and of its general acceptance of 'big government'. In other words, the various watchdogs of U.S. society (scholars, politicians and cops) have taken comforting view that anarchism, a product of the raw anger and despair of marginal and unassimilated groups, lost its force when these elements were taken in hand by a more benevolent state (the 'New Deal') and a more tolerant society. Even now, as evidence accumulates to the contrary, it requires some fortitude to argue against this hoary myth. For one thing, the desire to mystify U.S. anarchism out of existence is not confined to the American establishment. The activist or scholar who wishes to counter this current has up until recently received little more help from comrades on the U.S. Left. Put simply (and crudely), U.S. radical historiography today suffers from an excess of Marxist determinism and ouvriérisme. In undertaking the vital task of tracing the survival of resistance to the established order, U.S. Left-wing scholars have preferred to focus on the socialist/communist traditions in politics and labour, the only notable exception being (*) First published in C.I.R.A. Bulletin (Geneva - Spring 1976 - n• 31). 52
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