I’m sad to hear that Maurice Brinton died yesterday. There’s a couple of texts by him on uncarved.org – one about sexual repression and politics, and one on the parallels between Jonestown and trotskyite cults masquerading as political groups.

Brinton was one of the main people behind Solidarity – one of the best and most interesting “libertarian socialist” groups, mainly active in the 60s and 70s. They published a wealth of stuff which unpicked a load of the left’s assumptions on a whole heap of issues, as well as accounts of contemporary industrial struggles. Brinton’s stuff especially, was remarkable in its ability to be both informed and readable – sadly very rare in lefty publications…

His day job was neurosurgery, it seems! (He co-wrote the ABC of Brain Stem Death, which is surely a title as good as anything dreamt up by power electronics bands.)

AK Press recently published an anthology of his writings – For Workers’ Power, which I haven’t got hold of yet and apparently there is an extensive book documenting Solidarity’s life and times in preparation as well.