Anarchism, anti-militarism, and the British Empire: the case of war commentary and the freedom defence committee.

Abstract

Anti-imperialism was central to the anarchist critique of the Second World War. Throughout the war, the anarchist publication War Commentary became a platform for challenging the British Empire and garnered the active involvement of key anti-imperialist thinkers such as Jomo Kenyatta and Chris Jones. George Padmore, another notable anti-imperialist in this period, was on the board of the Freedom Defence Committee (FDC)-established in 1945 to defend the arrested editors of War Commentary-an organization that would later become a springboard for anti-imperial solidarity. Through an analysis of the publication War Commentary and relations with the FDC, this article highlights the often-overlooked convergence of anti-imperialism and anarchism during and immediately after the Second World War. It begins with the domestic intellectual context, demonstrating how anti-imperialism was at the heart of the anarchist rejection of the war, and how this stance was influenced by anti-imperial actors from the colonies. Additionally, it reveals how these networks developed in the British Empire through a focus on the FDC's connections with Ghana. In doing so, this article will reveal how anarchist responses to the Second World War contributed to connections between anarchist groups in Britain and anti-imperialist groups in the colonies, while also highlighting the growing disillusionment of colonized activists with these alliances.