big flame: doing things a different way

Big Flame was a revolutionary socialist feminist organisation active in Britain between 1970 and 1984. Sophie Walker and Joe Thorne examine the group’s legacy.

Why revisit the experience of Big Flame?

Earlier this year, we read Beyond the Fragments: a 1979 collection of essays by three women active in feminist and socialist groups in the 1970s. It is three decades since the authors argued for the left to reappraise how we organise in light of insights from the women’s movement. Whilst necessarily a product of their experiences in that particular historical moment, there is much in their critical consideration of political organisation which matters today.

london forum on big flame

This August The Commune in London has staged a series of meetings on communist organisation, and we have already looked at the examples of Kamunist Kranti in India and 1960s-70s Italian group Potere Operaio.

The final meeting in the series is on Big Flame, a  British libertarian Marxist group in the 1970s. The discussion will be led off by a worker active in Merseyside car factories at that time. All welcome – the meeting is from 7pm on Monday 30th August at the Lucas Arms, Grays Inn Road, near King’s Cross (note change from original venue).

london forum on big flame, monday 30th august

This August The Commune in London has staged a series of meetings on communist organisation, and we have already looked at the examples of Kamunist Kranti in India and 1960s-70s Italian group Potere Operaio.

The final meeting in the series is on Big Flame, a  British libertarian Marxist group in the 1970s. The discussion will be led off by a worker active in Merseyside car factories at that time. All welcome – the meeting is from 7pm on Monday 30th August at the Lucas Arms, Grays Inn Road, near King’s Cross.

organisation and class struggle: august london commune forums

August will see a series of London public meetings on different historical experiences of communist organisation and class struggle. The meetings are open to all, and are all on Monday evenings from 7pm at the Artillery Arms, 102 Bunhill Row, near Old Street.

We have chosen three historical examples of organisations which – in our political view – represent a highly developed experience and practice, mainly due to the high points of the movement at the time. We invite you to debate the past and present of Faridabad Majdoor Samachar/Kamunist Kranti in India (2nd August); the history of   Potere Operaio in Italy (late 1960s – early 1970s; 16th August) and Big Flame in the UK (1970s; 30th August).

We will try to debate these experiences both in terms of their historic background and their current relevance for our search for an organisational practice within the proletarian terrain. Both Potere Operaio and Big Flame transformed and finally dissolved themselves at general social breaking-points of crisis, namely the 1973 and 1979 convulsions of global capital. What does that mean given that we now pose the organisational question while looking into the open void of recession (or even a double dip recession)?

More details on first meeting below.

big flame (1970 – 1984)

The Commune has been described by some observers as promoting some similar political ideas to a ‘libertarian marxist’ group called Big Flame which existed between 1970 and 1984.  While we have no particular connection to the group, some of its material, recently made available online, makes for interesting reading.

The group, which probably counted around 160 members at its peak, was named after a television play directed by Ken Loach, about a fictional dockers’ strike and occupation on Merseyside.