Solidarity Federation

The Solidarity Federation (SolFed) is a federation of class struggle anarchists active in Britain. The organisation advocates a strategy of anarcho-syndicalism as a method of abolishing capitalism and the state. In 1994, it adopted its current name, having until then been the Direct Action Movement, formed in 1979.

Direct Action Movement

The DAM was formed in 1979, when anarchist syndicalists in Britain (including the Syndicalist Workers Federation which by that time had been reduced to one branch in Manchester) decided to break from the then Anarchist Federation (which is to be differentiated from the current Anarchist Federation, which grew from the Anarchist Communist Federation founded in 1986) in order to pursue a more definitely syndicalist, worker-centered strategy.

The DAM was very involved in the Miners' Strike and in a series of industrial disputes later in the 1980s. In the early 1990s, they successfully organised workers for a number of inner-city courier firms.

Solidarity Federation

In March 1994, DAM changed its name to the Solidarity Federation. SolFed publishes the quarterly magazine Direct Action and the industrial freesheet Catalyst. Several locals and networks also publish their own newsletters.

SolFed is the British section of the International Workers Association, the anarcho-syndicalist international. Alongside the Anarchist Federation and Class War, it is one of the more prominent explicitly anarchist organisations in the UK at the moment.

Resources

• Solidarity Federation website
• Article on the DAM from the Kate Sharpley Library