Class War is in no position to organise riots almost all its time and energy is put into producing and selling its newspaper

Class War is in no position to organise riots; almost all its time and energy is put into producing and selling its newspaper. Most of the Class War groups around the country consist of one or two people with a post-box address and a can of spray paint. While some people participating in riots may have become sympathetic to anarchist ideas after experiencing unemployment and heavy-handed policing, very few are members of any political organisation.The most active strand of British anarchism throughout the Eighties was that of pacifism and non-violence. Many anarchists, who are happy to glue shut the locks of butchers' shops and participate in animal rights campaigns, would never dream of taking part in a riot. Likewise, anarcho-individualists and anarcho-capitalists are generally contemptuous of demonstrations and acts of public disorder.Many of the younger and more committed class-struggle anarchists, who do view rioting as a viable political tactic, quickly leave the movement. They often find themselves unable to resist the lure of left-communist splinter groups. In attacking democracy as a bourgeois distraction, organisations such as the International Communist Current provide a much more coherent ideology than the anarchist movement.One of the attractions of anarchism is that it can be practised without a great deal of commitment.

Bohemian types may voice support for Class War, but they are unlikely to join a group which demands they stand on street corners selling political literature and attend boring meetings. Likewise, squatters may find the doctrine of anarcho-syndicalism appealing, without actually wanting to go into an industrial workplace to participate in rank and file activism.Class War began as a witty attack on both the left and anarcho-pacifism.Today it is a poor man's Socialist Workers Party, obsessed, like all revolutionary splinter groups, with selling the paper and building the party. In a mirror image of this process, Ian Bone has reverted to the type of anarchism that was once reviled in the pages of Class War. CND, pacifists and scruffy punks used to be the target of Bone's invective, now he is actively promoting their interests with the festival.ANARCHY IN THE EC Pdi, 35, an anarchist from Marseilles: 'In Britain anarchy is nothing more than a fashion. People in the Czech republic and in France are really angry about the police - here people just drink and say 'up yours' and think that's anarchy. This festival is not 10 days that shook the world, it is just a good trip.'Pdi sells records, books and 'maybe some drugs' on the black market because he doesn't believe in 'the system'.Maria, 18 from Madrid: 'The anarchist movement here is our reference point.Here, there is a tradition of people expressing themselves - the way they dress, how they live.'At home Maria is involved with a campaign against national service called Insubmission.Niels, 21 from Berlin: 'I am part of an anti-fascist gay and lesbian group from Berlin and came over to make contacts People here are very sympathetic They don't believe in heirarchy and the state. My point is not believing in patriarchy, though there are the same macho men here as in Germany.

I think anarchists here are less dogmatic than in Germany, but I don't really know - I've only been here two days. I don't think the police here are nicer, despite the fact they don't carry guns.Niels Boorman came to Britain especially for the festival For full details about the festival phone the 121 Centre on 071-274 6655.These are the main anarchist organisations in Britain.CLASS WAR FEDERATION, PO Box HH57, Leeds LS8 5XG.Aims: To increase the militancy of working class people's attempts to solve their own problems - through propaganda, active participation, and debate as equals.What they say about themselves: 'Violence is a necessary part of the class war - but as mass class violence, out in the open. Not elitist terrorist actions.' What they really do: Recruit people who can't take the rigorous discipline of the SWP.SOLIDARITY FEDERATION (until recently the Direct Action Movement), PO Box 384, Preston, Lancs PR1 5PQ.Aims: To promote workers' self-management and revolutionary unions as the way to overthrow capitalism and establish a libertarian communist society.What they say about themselves: 'Our aim is the creation of a free and classless society.'What they really do: Seek to recruit trade unionists, and according to sectarian myth, they become sexually aroused when watching Come Dancing.ANARCHIST COMMUNIST FEDERATION, 84b Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX.Aims: Put the class into class politics.What they say about themselves: 'We reject sectarianism and work for a united revolutionary anarchist movement.'What they really do: Fail to work co-operatively with any other anarchist group.GREEN ANARCHIST NETWORK, Box ZZ, 111 Magdalen Road, Oxford, OX4 1RQ.Aims: Autonomous self-sufficient villages, bringing regression of without technology, no industry, no pollution, no hunger, or no bombs.What they say about themselves: 'We must build a culture of resistance from festivals, gigs, fanzines, for a future alternative society.'What they really do: Circulate texts denouncing their founder and ideological architect Richard Hunt, who has caused them deep embarrassment by defending former National Front leader Patrick Harrington from accusations of fascism.LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCE, 1 Russell Chambers, The Piazza, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8AA.Aims: Life, liberty and property.What they say about themselves: 'The Libertarian Alliance exists to promote the broad range of libertarian, classical liberal and free market ideas.'What they really do: Provide bored right-wing students with a sense of getting involved in something dangerous, most obviously because they favour the decriminalisation of hard drugs.ANIMAL LIBERATION FRONT, no public address.Aims: End the exploitation of animals.What they say about themselves: 'A lot of people would like to get involved in the ALF but are afraid to do so. Thompson comments: 'A thin but intractable layer, as Wells found out in trying to leapfrog it.' So perish all the king's enemies - and many of his friends.These friends have a lot to say.

Risking Pseuds' Corner, as he often does, Thompson writes of their schooldays: 'Richard wrapped himself in his friend's company like a comforting blanket.' They came from the same 'patrician' class, which, we are told, makes all the difference.John Wells, whose background seems remarkably similar, describes him as respecting only a 'little tiny, rather respectable, gang of people who wear quite expensive suits and have their shoes made, who are like his father.It's a thin layer of society.' Ah, but Wells, though an old friend, is not a full-time worshipper, so his evidence is suspect. When she first appears, Thompson describes her dismissively as 'a reliable, thickset girl with strong features', though, judging by her photograph, she was ravishing Rushton did help, and he is enormously quoted. Though her ex-husband is admirably discreet about what went wrong with their marriage, others are not, and the impression given is that she was largely to blame for its collapse. His marriage ended bitterly and he now lives happily with Deborah Bosley.

He is a doting grandfather and, despite his elderly image, is still only 57.Mary Ingrams did not help with this book. He had three children, one of whom was seriously brain-damaged and died at the age of seven. By the time he graduated, he had been involved in three satirical magazines and made lasting friends of Paul Foot and Willie Rushton. Thereafter, he took over the editorship of Private Eye from Christopher Booker and carried the magazine through many storms and libel actions, bravely exposing the scurrilous activities of innumerable powerful crooks and seriously upsetting a number of innocents.When he left, he wrote a few slightish books, did quite a lot of radio and then founded The Oldie. Richard Ingrams is the second son of a clever, rich and cunning financier. He was miserable at prep school, slighty less so at Shrewsbury School and happy at Oxford.