User:Czar/drafts/Anarchist mutual aid organizations

Anarchist Black Cross
The Anarchist Black Cross offers aid to political prisoners.

In the early 20th century Russian Empire, dissidents including anarchists and socialists were jailed, exiled, or killed for their resistance to aristocracy. Sympathizers organized to provide these revolutionaries with material support. This Political Red Cross split when Social Democrats began filtering the group's support towards people with ideological alignment, thus creating the Anarchist Red Cross to help all social revolutionaries without regard to their political affiliation. By 1907, the Red Cross had expanded to Russia, Europe, and the United States, particularly as Russians fled persecution but from exile, continued to support imprisoned political dissidents. The Russian empire fell in 1917 and by releasing its political prisoners, obviated any need for the Red Cross, but as the Bolshevik communists rose and adopted the tsar's tactics, anarchists once again returned to prisoner aid. The group later changed its name from Red to Black Cross to not invoke the international humanitarian Red Cross.

Black Cross chapters in the early 20th century focused on helping anti-Fascist dissidents during the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and Spain under Franco. In the 1970s, the Black Cross turned away from international aid issues and towards local political issues. American chapters responded to increased government crackdown on radicals following the 1960s counterculture, in which activists were imprisoned during the Federal Bureau of Investigation's COINTELPRO program. Similar tactics were used in the 21st-century Green Scare. The American Anarchist Black Cross supported around 100 jailed dissidents by the early 2010s.

In 1967, a British iteration of the Anarchist Black Cross sprouted upon Stuart Christie's return from Spanish prison. The group combined with Black Flag, which itself consisted of members of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Committee active in the 1950s and 60s. The Anarchist Black Cross is associated with publications including Black Flag (which has been produced since around 1970), Bulletin of the Anarchist Black Cross, Mutual Aid, and Taking Liberties. Black Flag, in particular, is known for its advocacy for "class war anarchism". In conjunction, the Anarchist Black Cross considers itself less attached to liberalism than groups like the Freedom Press. The Anarchist Black Cross continued its activity through at least the late 1990s.

The Black Cross's aid efforts include fundraising and acts of solidarity. Fundraising includes events that educate and involve community collaboration, and the funds raised buy prisoners stamps, writing implements, among other basic needs. Solidarity efforts include campaigns, letter-writing nights, sharing literature, and advocacy for hunger strikes and clemency. These acts aim to reduce prisoner isolation and improve their living conditions.


 * https://www.salon.com/2017/09/07/antifa-and-leftists-organize-mutual-aid-and-rescue-networks-in-houston_partner/

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