(New) State Repression
August 30, 2006Just a quick heads up that some comrades in Portland have published a new edition of the classic Ken Lawrence pamphlet “The New State Repression.” Originally published around the time of the final demise of STO in 1985, Lawrence’s piece carefully dissects the various modes of repression aimed at social movements, especially revolutionary ones. Special emphasis is given to analyzing the strategic outlook held by state planners responsible for counter-insurgency efforts. The new edition of the pamphlet features an introduction by the always reliable Kristian Williams, author of the book Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America.
By most accounts, STO had very limited direct experience of the sophisticated state repression described in the pamphlet. Nonetheless, the group became more and more interested in the topic in the late seventies and early eighties, in part because of the intensive counter-insurgency tactics aimed at the New African and Puerto Rican revolutionary movements that STO acted in solidarity with.
It’s good to see yet another example of the living legacy of STO within the anarchist milieu. Hopefully anarchists can make good use of the analysis contained in “The New State Repression,” despite the fact that, twenty-plus years on, one could easily question whether the strategy of permanent repression Lawrence describes is still “new.” At the very least, it seems the approaches described in the pamphlet apply with some modifications to the current spate of government attacks on the anarchist-inspired wing of the radical environmental movement.
