Review: Dancin' in the Streets
Franklin Rosemont and Charles Radcliffe
ed.
Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 2004.
On the face of it, there doesn't seem to be much in common between
the Industrial Workers ' of the World's revolutionary unionism and
the surrealists' project of recovery of the unconscious, Yet, as
Franklin Rosemont, the co-editor of this collection notes, he and his
friends joined the IWW because it was the only group around which
wasn't boring.
Rosemont joined the Chicago IWW branch in 1962 at the age of 19,
shortly before he wrote his first letter to Andre Breton in Paris. As
the youngest member of the group, forty-something Carlos Cortez was
next youngest, Rosemont found himself saddled with the job of
producing the local newsletter. The Rebel Worker lasted for
seven issues running to a couple of hundred pages along with
pamphlets and other documents. During its existence, The Rebel Worker
also collaborated with a group of British revolutionaries who
produced their own journal Heatwave for two issues before
becoming the British section of the Situationist International.
If the popular image of the 1950s has been stifling conformity,
then that of the 1960s has been resistance. And while the issues that
the "old left" sought to address, such as class were still there,
many felt the economic focus was insufficient. The grouping which
produced The Rebel Worker grasped this and anticipated the
Situationist International's emphasis on "the revolution of everyday
life," when they argued for the need to be "revolutionary in
everything."
This criticism was directed not only at the broader left, but also
at the organization to which they belonged, the IWW. In the
comprehensive introductory essay to this collection, Rosemont
describes The Industrial Worker of this period as "an
embarrassing anachronism aimed at a readership of retirees."
By contrast, The Rebel Worker was aimed squarely at a hipper
audience. The first issue contained several articles on work and
struggle not out of place in an IWW periodical, but the second
featured Bob Potter from Solidarity (UK) on bureaucracy, The third
contained an article on children by A.S. Neill, as well as poems by
Benjamin Peret, Franklin Rosemont's analysis on mods and rockers, and
Penelope Rosemont's review of Andy Anderson's marvellous book on
Hungary 1956.
The only magazine similar to The Rebel Worker at this time
was Solidarity, which was produced in London; indeed, The
Rebel Worker group saw themselves as the US Solidarity group.
In 1966, Franklin and Penelope Rosemont took a trip to Europe and
visited a number of continental revolutionaries including Andre
Breton.
After Breton, they met Guy Debord of the Situationist
International and brought back hundreds of copies of SI material to
the US (for a long time the Solidarity Bookstore in Chicago was the
only place to get SI material in the U.S.)
Later on the same trip, the Rosemont's visited the UK, where there
was a mysterious falling out with the Solidarity group. While in the
UK, they published the sixth issue of The Rebel Worker in May
1966 with the assistance of Charles Radcliffe.
Two months later, Radcliffe was instrumental in publishing what
they considered to be the UK version of The Rebel Worker,
Heatwave. Like Rosemont, Radcliffe has also contributed a long
essay to the book explaining the background and history of the
Heatwave group and in particular its relationship to the SI, of which
it was briefly the British section. Radcliffe and Christopher Gray
joined the SI shortly before the publication of the second issue in
October 1966 and that was that. Radcliffe resigned from the SI the
following year and the British group was excluded later. Gray later
published the first book length collection of SI material in English,
Leaving the Twentieth Century. Gray was also involved with the King
Mob group and had the idea for creating a totally unpleasant pop
group; group, and may have influenced King Mob sympathizers Jamie
Reid and Malcolm McLaren with his idea of creating "a totally
unpleasant pop group." But that's another story.
The final issue of The Rebel Worker appeared in December
1966. After that, the group sustained itself with leaflets, but
according to Rosemont the group was starting to come apart. In August
1968, when Franklin and Penelope came to the Solidarity Bookshop for
their regular shift they found the locks had been changed. They were
later denied new keys.
Dancin' in the Streets presents a fascinating snap-shot of
a long gone period in radical history. Its shortcomings are those of
the Surrealist Movement and the IWW themselves. While rightly
pointing to the need to take a radical critique beyond simple point
of production issues, especially with the vast expansion of the reach
of the law of value over the twentieth century, both these movements
occasionally fall into a kind of volunterism which suggests that
people should simply liberate themselves, without an analysis of why
people don't.
But this shortcoming isn't a reason to avoid the book. Along with
the texts and introductions, the book contains poems and drawings,
and is a pretty funny read. About four years ago, I was staying with
the editor of the now defunct journal The Bad Days Will End,
and the subject of The Rebel Worker came up. Both of us had
heard scattered references to the surrealist IWW journal from
sixties, but neither knew where to obtain it. Charles H. Kerr has
provided a valuable service in filling this gap.
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