Hacker Cinema
Land and Freedom
1995 · Film · 109 min
Directed by Ken Loach
Summer 1936: young unemployed communist David Carr leaves Liverpool to join the fight against fascism in Spain. He joins an international group of Militia-men and women, the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista). After being wounded, he goes to Barcelona, where he joins another group of fighters.
2 positivefrom 2 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
2 comments on Hacker News
There's a few interesting examples in history. You can read about anarcho-syndicalist Spain and the 1936 revolution [0] or the peasant-led Communes (soviets) of Ukraine in 1917 [1], the two most successful anarchist revolutions so far (that actually managed to implement profound changes before being crushed).
More recent examples include the zapatista caracoles in so-called Mexico started with the 1994 uprising [2] and democratic confederalism in Kurdistan since the 2011 arab spring [3]. Although to be fair democratic confederalism is not exactly anarchist, and despite the younger generations of the kurdish revolutionary movement having strong inspiration in anarchism (eg. Murray Bookchin / Emma Goldman), there is still a strong central State in Kurdistan to this day (and being under constant attack from Turkey and ISIS does not help to dismantle it).
It's fair to ask if these two revolutions can be considered anarchist, as they're not labeled as such. However:
- zapatism abides by anarchist principles (such as the people's army EZLN having zero political power/influence, because all power is in the hands of the people) and claims to a movement from the bottom left (anarchist quadrant on the political compass) ; they also have a restorative justice system not based on punishment
- kurdish emancipation struggles have strong authoritarian (marxist-leninist) influence and history, but there's been a push since the 2000s by party leaders to decentralize power, and recommend anarchist readings to all people receiving political education
In both these examples, women are at the forefront of revolution and have various forms of non-mixed (no cis-men) organizing. Democratic confederalism also has non-mixed ethnic/religious assemblies to empower multiculturalism.
[0] Readings: Homage to Catalonia (George Orwell), Free Women of Spain (Martha Ackelsberg) ; Movies: Living the utopia (documentary with subtitles), Land and Freedom, Libertarias
[1] Readings: zines (i don't know books about the Makhnovtchina) ; Movies: The nine lives of Nestor Makhno
[2] Readings: zines (i don't know books about zapatism) ; Movies: Viva Mexico
[3] Readings: La commune du Rojava (not sure if translated), Make Rojava Green Again, Democratic confederalism (Abdullah Öcalan) ; Movies: Notes from a kurdish rebel
Homage to Catalonia is my favourite Orwell book. There is also a Ken Loach film called Land and Freedom that is similar to Orwell's story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_Freedom