OOC: The AWU's in-game ideology is Anarcho-Warrenism. Anarcho-Warrenism is based off of Anarcho-Communism, specifically Makhnovism. Anything you want to know about Makhnovism can be found at http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/index.htm.
IC:
Our Beliefs and Purpose (OOC:Based on the real life Organizational Platform of the General Union of Anarchists)
Introduction
Solidarity, Comrades! The Anarchist Workers' Union welcomes you to its newspaper. For those who are not a member of the AWU and want to learn about our ideas in general, we are glad you take an interest in our movement. We are Anarcho-Warrenists, that is, we follow the political philosophies of Bernard Warren, author and former Lodamunese MP for the Democratic Socialist Party. Warren, who died only days ago(Solidarity to his family), published a book called "the Warren Manifesto" a few months before his death. In it, he expressed his anarchist beliefs against nationalism, statism, and capitalism. We hold true to these beliefs.
While Warren laid out his great beliefs in his book, he provided no organizational structure into which the anarchist movement should be organized. We also wish to simplify our goals for those who do not have the time to read the Manifesto.
General Beliefs
I. Class Struggle
Like most societies preceding it, the modern bourgeois capitalist isn't united. It is split into two distinct camps, differing largely in their social position and function: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The masses of the proletariat has for centuries been forced to bear the burdens of hard physical labor, the product of which does not go to them, but to the privileged bourgeoisie class of property and authority. The social enslavement and exploitation of the working masses form the basis upon which modern society stands and without which it could not exist. The social enslavement and exploitation of the working masses form the basis upon which modern society stands and without which it could not exist. This fact has given rise to a centuries-long class struggle sometimes assuming an open, tempestuous form, sometimes undetectable and slow, but always fundamentally directed towards transforming the existing society into a society that would satisfy the workers’ needs, requirements and conception of justice. In social terms, the whole of human history represents a continuous chain of struggles waged by the working masses in pursuit of their rights, freedom and a better life. At all times throughout the history of human societies, this class struggle has been the principal factor determining the form and structure of those societies. The socio-political system of any country is primarily the product of the class struggle. The structure of any society is an indication of what stage the class struggle has reached. The slightest change in the tide of the class struggle and the relative strengths of the antagonistic classes immediately produces changes in the fabric and structure of class society. This is the general, universal significance of the class struggle in the life of class societies.
II. Anarchism
The class struggle, born in violence out of the age-old desire of working people for freedom, gave rise among the oppressed to the idea of anarchism - the idea of the complete negation of the social system based on classes and the State, and of the replacement of this by a free, stateless society of self-governing workers.
Anarchism thus developed, not from the abstract reflections of some scientist or philosopher, but out of the direct struggle waged by the working people against capital, out of their needs and requirements, out of their psychology, their desire for freedom and equality, aspirations that become especially vivid in the most heroic stages of the working masses' life and struggle.
Anarchism's outstanding thinkers - Warren and others - did not invent the idea of anarchism, but, having discovered it among the masses, merely helped develop and propagate it through the power of their thought and knowledge.
Anarchism is not the product of individual creation, nor the object of individual experiments.
Likewise, anarchism is in no way the product of general humanitarian aspirations. There is no "single" humanity. Any attempt to make anarchism an attribute of the whole of humanity, as it presently stands, or to credit it with a generally humanitarian character, would be a historical and social falsehood that would inevitably result in justification of the current order and fresh exploitation.
Anarchism is broadly humanitarian only in the sense that the ideals of the working masses improve the lives of all people, and that the fate of humanity today or tomorrow is bound up with the fate of enslaved labor. Should the working masses prove victorious, the whole of humankind will be reborn. If they should fail, then violence, exploitation, slavery and oppression will prevail in the world as before.
The inception, unfolding and realization of anarchist ideals have their roots in the life and struggle of the working masses and are indissolubly bound up with the general fate of the latter.
Anarchism aims to turn today's bourgeois capitalist and faux socialist societies into a society that will guarantee working people the fruits of their labor, freedom, independence and social and political equality. This society is Anarcho-Warrenism. It is in Anarcho-Warrenism that there will be the fullest expression not only of social solidarity, but also the idea of free individuality, and these two notions will develop together closely, in perfect harmony.
Anarcho-Warrenism believes that the sole creator of all social assets is labor - physical and intellectual - and, as a result, that only labor has any entitlement to manage the whole of economic and public life. That is why Anarcho-Warrenism in no way justifies or countenances the existence of non-working classes.
If these classes survive and co-exist with Anarcho-Warrenism, the latter will recognize no responsibility towards them. Only when the non-working classes decide to become productive and wish to live within the social system of Anarchist Communism on the same footing as everyone else will they occupy a position in it, i.e. the position of free members of society equal to everyone else, enjoying the same rights of this society and having the same general responsibilities.
Anarcho-Warrenism seeks the eradication of all exploitation and violence, whether against the individual or against the working masses. To that end it creates an economic and social basis that fuses the country's economic and social life into a harmonious whole and guarantees every individual parity with everyone else and affords the maximum well-being to all. This basis is common ownership in the form of the socialization of all of the means and instruments of production (industry, transport, land, raw materials, etc.) and the construction of national economic agencies on the basis of equality and the self-management of the working classes.
Within the parameters of this self-managing workers' society, Anarcho-Warrenism lays down the principle of the equal worth and equal rights of every individual (not of "abstract" individuality, or "mystic individuality", or the concept of “individuality as an idea”).
It is from this principle of the equal worth and equal rights of every individual, and also the fact that the value of the labour supplied by each individual person cannot be measured or established, that the underlying economic, social and juridical principle of Anarcho-Warrenism follows: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".
III. The Negation of Representative Democracy
Representative Democracy is one of the forms of bourgeois capitalist society.
The basis of this democracy is the retention of the two antagonistic classes of contemporary society - labour and capital - and of their collaboration on the basis of capitalist private property. Parliament and national representative government are the expressions of this collaboration .
Formally, the capitalist democracy proclaims freedom of speech, of the press, of association, as well as universal equality before the law.
In reality, all these freedoms are of a very relative nature: they are tolerated as long as they do not contradict the interests of the ruling class, i.e. the bourgeoisie.
Capitalist democracy preserves intact the principle of capitalist private property. In so doing, it reserves the right of the bourgeoisie to control the entire economy of the country, as well as the press, education, science and art, which in practice makes the bourgeoisie the absolute master of the country. As it enjoys a monopoly in the realm of the country’s economic affairs, the bourgeoisie is free to establish its complete and unlimited authority in the political realm too. Indeed, parliament and representative government are, in democracies, merely executive organs of the bourgeoisie.
As a result, democracy is merely one variety of bourgeois dictatorship, its fictitious political freedoms and democratic guarantees are a smokescreen designed to conceal its true identity.
It is on these principles, and those not yet established, that the Anarchist Workers' Union is organized and run.
The Symbol of the AWU