This article examines the labour disturbances which occurred in Freetown, Sierra Leone (Figure 1), between 1938 and 1939. Contrary to the prevailing interpretation that the colonial state in Africa was faced with an alternative of either forcefully pushing the working class out of the city or moving towards some form of corporatism, this article argues that such an option was only feasible in situations where labour was relatively quiescent or where a casual labour problem existed. In Freetown, where a stable labour force existed, the choice was between accepting a militant labour movement over whom officials had little or no control, or creating a labour movement that would eschew militant protest and follow the path dictated from above. The existence of a militant organization committed to continous agitation and the use of strike weapons to force employers to acknowledge the presence of a working class were critical factors in shaping official response to labour disturbances in the British colonies.

This article sketches the background of the development of the “workerist myth” in the Soviet Union in the period 1924–1931. From 1924 onward workers were subjected to mounting pressure to increase productivity and tighten discipline, against the background of the great debate on how to transform the Soviet Union from an agrarian country into a country with a powerful industrial sector as rapidly as possible. Between 1928 and 1929 a vigorous antiworker campaign was launched in the Soviet Press, which in just a few months in the winter of 1929–1930 was transformed into a workerist campaign, glorifying the exemplary shock workers as “enthusiastic builders of socialism”. This myth was used on the domestic as well as on the external front, and meant the ascent to power of the Stalinist elite and the definitive breakthrough of a “national socialism”. It also marked the end of trade unionism as such.

This paper examines the relationship between science and anarchism in Kropotkin's theory of mutual aid and analyses it in the light of his concerns about the rise of social democracy and individualism. Tracing the development of the theory from the 1890s to Kropotkin's death in 1921, it affirms the centrality of mutual aid in his work but argues, contrary to existing readings, that the theory can be seen as an attempt to inspire the revival of the anarchist movement. It concludes that there is an unresolved tension in Kropotkin's work arising from the imbalance between the idea of a “natural anarchist tendency” and anarchist propaganda.