Wayne Foster

Abstract: In March 1939, Republican soldiers who had been training as aviation pilots were stranded in the USSR along with the sailors of several vessels from the Spanish merchant navy. They were prevented from leaving and in 1941 were arrested and sent to Novosibirsk Transit Prison. Also detained were several civilians who had been working with children evacuated from the Civil War.

Libcom.org is a constantly expanding online resource that seeks to promote working class self-organisation through publishing news, theoretical texts and historical articles. Site traffic has risen from 25-35,000 visits per month in 2005 to 110-170,000 now and there are now 2,600 active users.

Wayne Foster explores the silences of social democracy.

Ever been on an internet forum when someone’s posted an article about plans to shut the local hospital, or the German workers-council movement, and someone else has replied, ‘so you’re basically defending paedophilia? Well you haven’t explicitly condemned it ;-)’ ?

Username furrowed his brow, he knew the nightmare of civilisation hadn't left them. It would never leave him, he knew that, it was embedded in his mind. This landscape, this earth, this mother, she still bore the scars. But already she was so frighteningly beautiful that to gaze upon her, upon utopia, brought tears to his eyes.

I suppose it's been influences right through my life. I mean I think I learned to mistrust and challenge authority from a young age so it's hard to say exactly when I became 'an anarchist'.

Unfortunately it's very close to reality, with some of the workshop descriptions lifted word for word out of programmes for recent activist events. We include it here for reference:

Beyond the Future
A carnival of resistance and revolution
January 8th 2005, Venue to be confirmed