AIMS AND PRINCIPLES OF THE DIRECT ACTION MOVEMENT


By Direct Action Movement

Published in 1983

Topics: IWA, UK, statements of principles

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1.  The Direct Action Movement is a working class organisation.

2.  Our aim is the creation of a free and classless society.

3.  We are fighting to abolish the state, capitalism, and wage slavery
    in all their forms and replace them by self-managed production for
    need, not profit.

4.  In order to bring about the new social order, the workers must take
    over the means of production and distribution. We are the sworn
    enemies of those who would take over on behalf of the workers.

5.  We believe that the only way for the working class to achieve this
    is for independent organisation in the workplace and community and
    federation with others in the same industry and locality,
    independent of, and opposed to, all political parties and trade
    union bureaucracies. All such workers’ organisations must be
    controlled by workers themselves and must unite rather than divide
    the workers’ movement. Any and all delegates and representatives of
    such workers’ organisations must be subject to immediate recall by
    the workers.

6.  We are opposed to all States and State institutions. The working
    class has no country. The class struggle is worldwide and recognises
    no artificial boundaries. The armies and police of all States do not
    exist to protect the workers of those States, they exist only as the
    repressive arm of the ruling class.

7.  We oppose racism, sexism, militarism, and all attitudes and
    institutions that stand in the way of equality and the right of all
    people everywhere to control their own lives and the environment.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

This statement of aims and principles was taken from DAM's 1983
pamphlet, Anarcho-Syndicalism: History and Action. DAM was formed in
1979, so it's likely that these existed in some form - if not the exact
form here - at that time, though we're unsure.