"You can't reform profit capitalism and inhumanity. Just kick it till it breaks.”
— Angry Brigade, communiqué.
Between 1970 and 1972 the Angry Brigade used guns and bombs in a series
of symbolic attacks against property. A series of communiqués
accompanied the actions, explaining the choice of targets and the Angry
Brigade philosophy: autonomous organization and attacks on property
alongside other forms of militant working class action. Targets included
the embassies of repressive regimes, police stations and army barracks,
boutiques and factories, government departments and the homes of
Cabinet ministers, the Attorney General and the Commissioner of the
Metropolitan Police. These attacks on the homes of senior political
figures increased the pressure for results and brought an avalanche of
police raids. From the start the police were faced with the difficulty
of getting to grips with a section of society they found totally alien.
And were they facing an organization—or an idea?
This
documentary, produced by Gordon Carr for the BBC (and first shown in
January 1973, shortly after the trial), covers the roots of the Angry
Brigade in the revolutionary ferment of the 1960s, and follows their
campaign and the police investigation to its culmination in the “Stoke
Newington 8” conspiracy trial at the Old Bailey—the longest criminal
trial in British legal history. Produced after extensive research—among
both the libertarian opposition and the police—it remains the essential
study of Britain's first urban guerilla group.
Extra: The Persons Unknown (1980, 22 minutes)
The so-called “Persons Unknown” case in which members of the Anarchist
Black Cross were tried (and later acquitted) at the Old Bailey on
charges of “conspiring with persons unknown, at places unknown, to cause
explosions and to overthrow society.” Featuring interviews and footage
of Stuart Christie, Nicholas Walter, Crass and many other UK anarchist
activists and propagandists of the time.
Below Video of Poison Girls: Persons Unknown is not on the DVD but was inspired by the case and has some great shots!
The Angry Brigade: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Britain's First Urban Guerilla Group
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