For Workers' Power

“An eloquent testimony to Maurice Brinton’s life and works … The work he started and the vision he held are as valid now as they were 50 years ago. The struggle, as they say, continues, and there is much here that can inform that struggle.” –Richard Alexander, Kate Sharpley Library

“For Workers’ Power is a rousing collection of dozens of essays … All [Brinton’s] essays permeate with an intensely critical eye toward how everyday working people have and can liberate themselves from the oppression, drudgery, and weight of capitalism, while avoiding what Brinton saw as pseudo- or counterrevolutionary methods of many leftists. Brinton slays many of the Left’s sacred cows: he hits the left-liberal political parties for their reformism, big trade unions for their hierarchy and disconnect from rank-and-file, and the main socialist and Leninist-Marxists groups for their power-lust and vanguardism. He even gives the anarchists, with whom he has the strongest affinity, an occasional lashing for some of their adherent’s rashness and fantasy … Brinton’s writings have long-inspired left and radical movements, and hopefully with this printing will reach even wider audiences.” –Dana Williams, International Labor and Working-Class History

Maurice Brinton (1923-2005) lived most of his life in London. He was a founding member of the Solidarity group and wrote some of the twentieth century’s most important critiques of authoritarian socialism.

David Goodway worked for the School of Continuing Education, University of Leeds, from 1969 until 2005. He was then Helen Cam Visiting Fellow in History at Girton College, Cambridge until 2007. He has edited several works exploring anarchist politics, including For Anarchism: History, Theory, and Practice and Against Power and Death: The Anarchist Articles and Pamphlets of Alex Comfort. He is also the author of Anarchist Seeds beneath the Snow: Left-Libertarian Thought and British Writers from William Morris to Colin Ward.