red action (the british group)

[The Douche]

Does anybody know where I could get back issues of their paper or other documents about/from them? Would also be interested in texts from other groups (especially anarchist or leftcom) about them.

[Sasha]

A interesting picture can be formed by reading the book "no retreat" by dave hann and steve tilzey and the book "beating the fascists" by sean birchal back to back.
the former being written by Manchester ex-members who left after a bigfight and the latter by a london member who is still involved with the ICWA. I believe the iwca website also has some or all issues of the redaction online but im not sure.

[The Douche]

A interesting picture can be formed by reading the book "no retreat" by dave hann and steve tilzey and the book "beating the fascists" by sean birchal back to back.
the former being written by Manchester ex-members who left after a bigfight and the latter by a london member who is still involved with the ICWA. I believe the iwca website also has some or all issues of the redaction online but im not sure.

Thanks, I was trying to remember "no retreat", and for some reason "beating the fascists" is listed for like $60 on Amazon, so I'll have to try and find a stateside alternative.

[Sasha]

you can order it for twenty euro's plus shipping at the fort van sjakoo; http://www.sjakoo.nl/books/13684.htm

[newdayrising]

Whatever reservations I may have about anti-fascism on a theoretical and political level, No Retreat is a great read, I recommend it.

[Volcanicity]

Does anybody know where I could get back issues of their paper or other documents about/from them? Would also be interested in texts from other groups (especially anarchist or leftcom) about them.

The Anti-Fascist Archive has a few pamphlets,leaflets,newspaper articles that kind of stuff:

http://antifascistarchive.com/tag/red-action/

[The Douche]

Whatever reservations I may have about anti-fascism on a theoretical and political level, No Retreat is a great read, I recommend it.

I'm not real big on anti-fascist politics, I'm more interested in their actual political positions and their organization/interactions with the class.

[Ravachol]

I'm not real big on anti-fascist politics, I'm more interested in their actual political positions and their organization/interactions with the class.

I'd say their political positions started out as a particularly British version of 'workerism', trying to 'reconnect with the class' where they often defined class in a very 'cultural' way (ie. almost to the point of the boots, braces, bacon & football stereotype). They were very anti-leninist (and despised Trotskyism as much as Marxism-Leninism or Maoism, though I get the feeling that was mainly because they were all 'Eton students anyway' or something along those lines) and their political focus was very much on the 'real issues of the class' (as opposed to the political maneuvering of the left).

They also had typically British demographic politics in supporting the Irish national liberation struggle (through contacts with both the provisional IRA and the INLA) and actually having close ties to both organizations, with two Red Action members carrying out the Harrods bombing on behalf of the PIRA.

Besides anti-fascism they eventually degenerated into full-on 'parochial opportunism' as some have called it (many members went on to found the IWCA), only concerning themselves with housing campaigns in the neighborhoods and working on a platform of 'cops out, we'll police our own neighborhood!', agitating against 'unproductive lumpen scum and their knife crime', etc. etc. which if you ask me is the logical product of their earlier narrow workerism and their abandonment of 'the big issues' in favor of 'getting things done'. They were in many ways similar to Class War and their politics and attitude were quite close.

Their militantism, their refusal of the 'realpolitik' of the SWP from which many of their members had split and their anti-leninism as well as their attempts to create an organisation which didn't stop at the (radical) unionist or partyist model (organising along more or less informal or community lines and gathing many members from 'the terraces' so to speak) are all commandable aspects but in the end they couldn't transcend their limits (workerism, identity politics, etc.).

Here's a libcom thread on them: http://libcom.org/forums/theory/placing-red-action-iwca-theoretically-09092008

And here's two mainstream media articles on them: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/charge-of-the-new-red-brigade-1570278.html , www.markpiggott.com/portfolio/1988Blitzredaction.pdf