From my blog:

http://paulstott.typepad.com/i_intend_to_escape_and_co/2006/11/been_there_done.h...

Ian Bone's autobiography "Bash the Rich" is probably the most mainstream Anarchist book to be published in the UK since Stuart Christie's autobiography "Granny Made Me An Anarchist". That is not the reason why you should read it though - it should be read for its honesty, its humour and the manner in which the author places himself (and Class War) in a radical British political tradition that should be supported.

First things first - Tangent Books have done an excellent job in publishing what is an immaculately produced book. Whilst billed as Bone's autobiography, it in fact covers the period from childhood through to about 1986, abruptly stopping before one of the main industrial disputes of the modern era - Wapping. I'm assuming a follow up is planned! So what do you get for your £9.99?

Well first off is an interesting Anglo-Scottish childhood as a butler's son, and a first person insight into a class system that was once far more more formal and rigid than it is now. People under 30 may struggle to come to terms with just how divided Britain used to be, in a really stuffy way. Somewhere in my family archive there is a letter the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland wrote to my Uncle after he left the Marines in the late 1950s. It starts "Dear Wilcox......" - no first name, and certainly no Mister! Ian was brought up below stairs, whilst his parents struggled to combine subservience with their Labour party beliefs.

Jack Army
There are not many people for whom moving to Swansea it a liberating experience, but Bone skillfully describes student life in south Wales in the 1960s, after a hilarious first approach to the Anarchist movement via Freedom Press. Politically the scope of groups and struggles touched upon from the late 60s through to the 1970s is impressive. The casual reader can encounter the student "rebellion" of 1968, anti-apartheid campaigns, claimants unions, the Angry Brigade and most amusingly the sometimes violent, sometimes comical Welsh nationalist fringe, for whom Ian appears to have been a sort of honorary Welshman.

Most significant politically is arguably the two groups Ian helped launch that came to major prominence - Alarm in a Labour dominated, corrupt Swansea, and in the 1980s Class War. Whilst sticking to what could be termed standard class struggle anarchist principles and working firmly from the bottom up, Alarm in particular looked to reach out to Joe Public in a simple, non-academic way that anyone could identify with. Having first looked to install some backbone into the early 1980s Anarchist movement, Class War was to repeat this trick. Spectacularly.

If Thatcherism had not existed, Class War would have had to invent it. Whilst most of the left cried foul at the attacks of Thatcherism, the aim of Class War was always to fight back - both in print and in person. The attempts to "open up a second front" during the Miners Strike are the clearest example of this. How could the Metropolitan Police have kept the coalfields down and policied inner-city riots at the same time? Whilst the 1980s may not seem that long ago, Bone also shows us how quickly things change. CND, animal rights and feminism may barely rear their heads these days (especially in the anarchist movement) but all these currents had real influence - and to be honest needed to be overcome - by anyone looking to make politcal progress at that time.

In It To Win It
Class War's honesty in that era was its strongest foundation. Neil Kinnock, and much of the trades union movement (and more accurately its leaders) was no match for Margaret Thatcher, who fought the class war to win it. Those who bought Class War - and to an extent still do - who were not declared Anarchists, were often people who responded positively to the sight of the odd bucket of piss being hurled back in the direction of the ruling class. Many were life long Labourites. In the best section of the book Bone outlines just what Thatcherism wanted to do, and the effect that had on some traditional working class communities:

She didn't just want to smash the miners and displace the inner-city inhabitants. She wanted to destroy the idea there was any community of interest amongst ordinary people. My mum and dad's caring Alton social networks counted for nothing compared to the Thatcher-eulogised, hideous, braying yuppies in the city making themselves overnight fortunes in selling off our social assets. I might have stopped hating my country but I loathed its ruling class more than ever. But this time, common sense was on our side. Thatcher's "no such thing as society" was seen as bollocks by most people including mum and dad. We had some common ground again, we were no longer the loonies, the crazed Tahtcher was the 'mad cow'. There were millions of people like my mum and dad all over the country. Class War needed to reach them. We needed to emphasise the positive self-organisation that had come out of the miners strike whaich was in direct contradiction of Thatcher's 'we're all selfish bastards' analysis.

Summing Up
Gripes? Well Ian briefly repeates the silly urban myth that boxer Freddie Mills murdered several prostitutes in the early 1960s (there is actually far more evidence that Mills was not interested in women at all!) and the book suffers from some bad spelling mistakes and minor errors that could have been removed with tighter editing. To claim the Poll Tax riot occured in 1992 is a bit of a howler, especially for a man once confronted by a Brazilian film crew accusing him of organising it!

What effect will this book have? Well it has already given Ian the opportunity to raise the banner of class struggle anarchism in the media in his own style. It has also rejuvenated several other retired, or semi-retired class warriors. Ian also hardens attitudes.

Those who hate Class War (and unless you have been involved in the UK Anarchist movement, you will not understand how much certain anarchists despise Class War for not being stuck in their little ghetto) will hate Class War even more because of this book. Bone skillfully places CW in a British radical tradition that is certainly not strictly anarchist but that is optimistic, insurrectionist and based on principles of solidarity - from the Luddites to the Chartists, through to those who fought the Poll Tax, or the inner-city rioters struggling to pay the police back in kind for every person they killed. Ultimately you know who he means. I can almost hear the "leaders" of groups like the Anarchist Federation now - "The guy wanted to appeal to the Labour movement. He's not even a proper anarchist, he gives interviews to the TV for fucks sake" Those who think the world began in 1936 in Spain and ended in 1939 somewhere on the Iberian Penisula will also be disappointed by this book.

Oh well - you stay in your little pure ghetto if you want. Bash the Rich is a reminder that there is a much bigger world out there. And it still needs changing. ( )