Spirit of Revolt Archives of dissent, Glasgow, Scotland, elsewhere
Spirit of Revolt volunteers collect Anarchist and libertarian socialist materials. We organise Spirit of Revolt Archives of dissent, Glasgow, Scotland, elsewhere, since 2011. We exist to spread the ideas of Anarchism and libertarian socialism and hope that our 42 collections of dissent will also lead to further agitation and action in changing the system and changing the future. We have a larger network which supports us.
Material selected for retention in the archive provides one or more of the following: evidence of Anarchist campaign, movement, organisation, or individual’s activities; information pertinent to the Anarchist movement, e.g., expositions of Anarchist ideology, political positions, rationale behind activities; an insight into membership and associates of Anarchist organisations; evidence of the impact of Anarchism culturally and politically.
Material from political parties or trade unions (except IWW) is NOT collected, according to archival policy.
This is Radical history and it really matters. It is a record of events intentionally marginalised by the state and also other groups on the left. Anarchist contributions are minimised, demonised, criminalised, and many have paid with their lives to… not be written out. It is said that with a knowledge of radical history you are armed with a weapon. The powerful promote their version of events protecting their vested interests and the ordinary people have another experience of events. If we understand how the past was forged, we arm ourselves to mobilise and to change the future.
We want the widest access for our collections. So we house the hard copy in the Mitchell Archives, Glasgow for free public access and we have a larger website which the scanned Collections are hosted on for international access. The site also contains interpretation of Collections such as Read of the Month portal and Special Collections which includes public exhibitions such as, Radical Presses Clydeside;100 Years of Autonomous Protest Literature, 2012 and Rent Strikes, 2015 a reflection on the international and historical mechanism of non-payment of rent.
We organise public free exhibitions with duty volunteers to get debate going. We hold social nights of music, poetry and performance and run fundraiser events. We ran workshops and produced educational materials. We collaborate a lot with wider anarchist activity.
Our evidence is in our Archives, it’s the story of desperate radical battles in our struggle for a better life. By viewing things first hand we can appreciate the highest price that many pay for these necessary struggles. We can also see first hand the clarity, cleverness, sheer guts, sacrifice, and humour in the battles of resistance from ordinary people in the past and that we, ….the many….. have the power to change the world.