The iron shuddered in the bosom of the mountain feeling footsteps on the peak.
“It is man treading about in search of me,” it said. And its molecules vibrated intensely in a mixed sensation of anguish and pleasure.
The footsteps resonated energetically, as if they were those of a fearless man who confronts nature to reclaim from it what human beings need.
“For what will they want me?” the worthy metal asked itself anxiously. And the entire mountain, whose skeleton it constitutes, quaked. “I shake just thinking that I might be converted into a tool of injustice: I who, because of my own naturalness, should only be the fuel of progress and liberty” it added.
There was a pause, du... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Machete
The machete is a long knife with a single edge, particularly intended for opening a way when you find yourself surrounded by a hostile environment that prevents you from going down your path, paralyzing all movement. The Machete isn’t elegant; it doesn’t have the discretion of the dagger or the precision of the scalpel. When it strikes, it doesn’t distinguish between the innocent flower and the noxious weed, and it destroys both without distinctions. Heavy and uncomfortable to carry, the Machete can prove indispensable in difficult situations, when there is no time to lose in scientific calculations, exploratory reconnaissance, diplomatic consultations. If need be, it can even be used as an offensive too... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Front to front are the two enemy defenses: the barricade of the people and the military trench. The barricade shows to the sun its enormous, irregular bulk, and appears to be proud of its deformity. The military trench flaunts its geometrically plotted lines, smirking at its hunchbacked rival. The people, mutinous, are behind the barricade; the soldiers are found behind the trench.
“A barricade is such a horrible thing,” exclaims the trench, adding, “horrible like the people who are behind it!”
From the barricade spring the virile notes of revolutionary hymns; in the trench, silence reigns.
“It is well known”, says the trench, “that only lost people are behind that monstrosity! ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Along the cheerful boulevard, pedestrians come and go, perfumed, elegant, insulting. The beggar is sticking to the wall, his insistent hand in front of him, a servile supplication trembling on his lips:
“Alms for the poor, for the love of God!”
Occasionally, a coin falls in the panhandler’s palm. He quickly stuffs it into his pocket as he lavishes degrading praise and gratitude upon his beneficiary. The thief passes by, but can not avoid the entreaties of the beggar, and he scowls contemptuously. The panhandler becomes indignant, and this indignation makes him red with anger. He growls with irritation:
“Why don’t you blush from embarrassment, scoundrel? You are looking face to face with an ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) ldquo;I will not sacrifice myself so that others may live,” said the peasant miner Pedro in a clear voice when his coworker Juan unfolded before his eyes an issue of the newspaper “Regeneration.” It was filled with details about the revolutionary movement of the Mexican proletariat. “I have a family,” he continued. “What an idiot I would be to expose my belly to the gunfire of federal soldiers.”
Juan received the observation of Pedro without surprise. Others had told him the same thing. Some even tried to punch him when he told then that there were places where the peasants had disposed of their masters, and had made themselves the owners of the plantations. Some days passed. Juan, after buyi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The Sower of Ideas’ Beautiful Seed
Federal Prison. Leavenworth, Kansas, 2 May, 1922.-Miss. Irene Benton.-Granada, Minnesota.
My dear comrade:
Isn’t it a shame not to answer your letter since the 10th of last month? But I am not free, my dear friend, to write more than three letters a week. You know this, and I hope you will excuse my apparent negligence.
Your letter, so perfectly well calculated, to diffuse some warmth to my afflicted soul, was effective in its generous mission, and especially in the last part, where you say that your dear mother speaks to you about me; it touched the most delicate fibers of my heart, and it moved me to tears, because I thought about my own mother, dead after so many ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) 1. Michel Petit “In Mexico” (Temps nouveaux 17:4 (May 27 1911):1
In the appeal calling for international revolutionary solidarity and reprinted in the last edition of Les Temps nouveaux, our comrades from Mexico ask for two things, with the broadest possible publicity accorded to current developments: “emancipated workers and funding.”
The first of those demands may come as a surprise, as it conflicts with the communications coming from southern Latin America, and Argentina in particular, cautioning European workers against the fallacious promises of all manner of agents promoting emigration in competition with the proletarians already having difficulties in defending themselves down there.
The s... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The aristocratic frock coat and the plebeian blouse were in the same trash heap.
“What an abomination! What humiliation!” said the frock coat, gazing obliquely at its neighbor. “I am next to a blouse...!”
A gust of wind blew one of the humble blouse’s arms atop the arrogant frock coat, as if it intended to reconcile those who were seated equally; to harmonize, by means of a fraternal embrace, the two garments that were situated equally, yet which are normally found so distant from each other in the social life of humans.
“Horror!”, shrieked the frock coat, “Your contact assassinates me, filthy rag! Truly, your audacity is outrageous. How dare you touch me? We are not equal... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The governor, the capitalist, and the priest rested that afternoon in the shadow of an ash tree which glowed vigorously in the canyon of the mountain range.
The capitalist, visibly agitated, mashed the pulp of a red booklet between his hands, and said between sigh and sigh:
“All has been lost: my fields, my cattle, my mills, my factories; everything is now controlled by the revolutionaries.”
The governor, trembling with rage, said:
“It has ended; now no one respects authority.”
And the priest elevated his eyes to the sky and said remorsefully:
“Wicked reason: she has murdered faith!”
The three pillars of society thought, thought, and thought.... The previou... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) ACT ONE
SCENE ONE
SCENE TWO
ACT TWO
UNIQUE SCENE
SCENE ONE
SCENE TWO
SCENE THREE
CHARACTERS
DON JULIÁN, rich landowner RAMÓN, peasant
DON BENITO, priest TERESA, Ramón's companion
JUAN, peasant JAILER
MARTA, Juan's companion MINISTER
MARCOS, peasant LÓPEZ, labor leader
ROSA, Marcos' companion
SEÑORITA SOFÍA MERINDIETA, professor at a teacher's college
OFFICIAL, ASSISTANT, SENTINEL, DELEGATE, first, second, third, fourth fifth PEASANT; soldiers, peasants of both sex (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Ricardo Flores Magon
Post Office Box 7
Leavenworth, Kansas
March 16, 1922
Miss Erma Barsky
New York, N.Y.
My dear comrade: Your postcard, and a letter from Dr. Weinberger received. Mr. Weinberger most kindly makes me know how my case, for lack of proper recommendations, cannot go to the President to be considered, according to word sent him by the Department of Justice. The recommendations, strange as it would seem to common mortals, are not my growing infirmity, nor the flagrant violation of the most rudimentary justice committed by the judge of my trial, nor my having dependents, nothing, in fine, that might appeal to the average human heart and conscience. The recommendations which the government officials deem of great i... (From: Anarchy Archives.) Post Office Box 7
Leavenworth, Kansas
May 9, 1921
Mr. Harry Weinberger
Counselor at Law
New York City
My Dear Mr. Weinberger: Your letter of the 25th of last April and a copy of Mr. Daugherty's letter to you received. You want me to furnish you with data regarding the sentence which ended on January 19, 1914; but in order for you to judge whether I have been the victim of a conspiracy bent on keeping in bondage the Mexican peon, or not, I am going to furnish you with an abstract of the persecution I have suffered ever since I took refuge in this country. I must, before going any further, beg your pardon for my keeping your attention from other business undoubtedly more important than mine.
After years, many years, of an u... (From: Anarchy Archives.) Mexicans:
The Organizing Junta Libcom translation: Organizing Council, as “Junta” in Spanish just means “Council” of the Mexican Liberal Party views with sympathy your efforts to put in practice the lofty ideals of political, economic and social emancipation, the triumph of which on earth will bring to an end the already sufficiently extensive quarrel between man and man, which has its origin in that inequality of fortune which springs from the principle of private property.
To abolish that principle means to annihilate all the political, economic, social, religious and moral institutions that form the environment within which are asphyxiated the free initiative and the free association of human beings ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The inhabitants of the state of Morelos, like those of Puebla, Michoacán, Durango, Jalisco, Yucatán and other states, in which vast areas have been invaded by proletarians who have immediately dedicated themselves to cultivating the lands, have shown the entire world, with their acts, that one doesn’t need a society of savants to solve the problem of hunger.
To arrive at this result they took possession of the earth and the instruments of production in Mexico. They didn’t need “leaders,” nor “friends of the working class,” nor “paternal decrees,” nor “wise laws” — they didn’t need any of this. Their actions did it all and continue doing it all. Mexi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) ldquo;What do we do now,” the workers ask themselves, not without a certain anxiety.
They have successfully taken the city in blood and fire. There does not remain a single capitalist in it, nor a priest, nor a representative of the government, except for those who hang from telephone posts or lay on the ground, showing their fat dead bodies to the sun. These bold workers understand that, if they allow a single one of these parasites to escape, they will soon return in the shadows leading a troop of mercenaries to stab them in the back.
“What do we do now,” and the anguished question is repeated by thousands and thousands of convulsing lips. These men, who do not fear shrapnel and who enthusiastically salute ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) ldquo;Onwards!” says a mysterious voice that appears, uprooting the innermost core our being. It spurs on all those who are weary, spiritually burdened; whose swollen feet have been bled dry by the long, hard road; we who intend to rest for a while... “Onwards, onwards!” the voice orders us.
And so we go, without taking a breath, our view fixed towards what lies beyond, where our eyes seem to discover the first brightness of a dawn unknown by the flock. Onwards!
But why do we go forwards by ourselves? Turning our heads, we feel our hearts breaking, to see that we can barely divine the flock behind us, far away, very far away, by the small clouds of dust their hooves raise. The flocks need shepherds, leaders; ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The prison and the temple chat secretly, like two cronies who are tied together more by the nooses of crime that those of friendship. From the citadel escapes the stench of rotting cattle. From the temple emerges a fume laden with dismay, saturated with swooning, like the mouth of a cave in whose darkness all the debilitated grovel and all the impotent wring their arms.
“I abhor the people,” says the citadel, yawning. “However, I bestow my consideration and respect to the worthy, distinguished people whose interests I shield. Each time the honorable guardian of order brings me a new guest, I shiver with emotion. My satisfaction climaxes when I feel more and more criminals stirring within my stone belly.”
... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) I serve two factions: The faction that oppresses and the faction that liberates. I do not have preferences. With the same fury, with the same crack, I fire the bullet that snatches life away from the soldier of liberty or the henchman of tyranny.
Workers made me, to kill workers. I am the rifle, the killer of freedom when I serve those on top; the weapon of emancipation when I serve those below.
Without me, there would not be men who say “I am more then you”, and, without me, there would not be slaves who cry “down with tyranny!”
The tyrant calls me “buttress of institutions.” The free man caresses me tenderly and calls me “instrument of redemption.” I am the same thing, a... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Among all of the absurdities that man reveres, this is one of the greatest and one of the most revered.
The right of property is ancient, as ancient as man’s stupidity and blindness; but just the antiquity of a right can not give it the “right” to survive. If it is an absurd right, it is necessary to abolish it without giving importance to its birth at the time when man covered his nakedness with the animal skins.
The right of property is an absurd right because it had its origins in crime, fraud, and abuse of power. In the beginning, the individual’s right of territorial property did not exist. Land was worked in common, forests provided firewood to the hearths of all, harvests were distributed among t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Compañeras:
Revolution approaches! With angered eyes, and flaming hair, her trembling hands knock anxiously on the doors of our nation. Let us welcome her with serenity, for although she carries death in her breast, she is the announcement of life, the herald of hope. She will destroy and create at the same time; she will raze and build. Her fists are the invincible fists of a people in rebellion. She does not offer roses or caresses; she offers an ax and a torch.
Interrupting the millennial feast of the content, sedition raises her head, and the prophecy of Balthasar has with time become a clenched fist hanging over the heads of the so-called ruling class. Revolution approaches! Her mission will ignite the flames in wh... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Juan is ecstatic. He has just seen a notice from Washington in a newspaper, saying that they have recognized Carranza as the head of the Executive Power of the Mexican Republic. He effusively embraces his wife Josefa; he kisses his young son, and yells out:
“Now, peace will be a reality! Misery will End! Long Live Carranza!”
Josefa stands there with her mouth open, looking attentively at her husband. She does not understand how merely raising a new President to Power could put an end to misery. She casts a glance around the room, a room in a dead-end alleyway in the Mexico City neighborhood of Tepozán, and sighs. Everything around her is miserable. The wicker chairs are breaking apart at the bottom. The plat... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Behind the window of a display case, the gold pen and the steel pen waited for someone to buy them. The gold pen rested indolently in a rich jewel case that increased its glamour; the steel pen confirmed its modesty at the base of a cardboard casket. Pedestrians, poor and rich, old and young, passed again and again by the display case, casting greedy glances towards the gold pen; nobody looked at the steel one. The sun crashed its rays upon the gold pen, which gleamed with sparkles like glowing embers in its chenille cushion; but it was unable to impress even a dim tone of beauty upon the dark proletarian pen. Regarding its poor brother with pity, the rich pen said:
“Poor mangy thing! Learn to be admired.”
Accustom... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The old revolutionary and the modern revolutionary met each other one afternoon marching in different directions. The sun glowed like an ember above the distant mountain range; the king of the day was sinking, it sunk down irrevocably. As if it were conscience of its defeat by the evening, it reddened with anger, and cast upon the earth and the sky its most handsome lights.
The two revolutionaries regarded each other face to face: the old one, ashen, disheveled, his unpolished visage like a rag tossed into a wash basket, crossed here and there by ugly scars, his bones insinuating the edges of his body underneath his shabby garb. The modern one, erect, filled with life, his face luminous with the presentiment of glory. He was clothed ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Juan and Pedro came to age at the precise age to start working to survive. They were sons of workers, who died not having the opportunity to acquire formal education to free them from the chains of salary. But Juan was spirited. He had read in newspapers how some men, born from humble beginnings, had come to be, with work and thrift, become financial kings, and dominate, with the power of money, not only in the market place, but in the world. He had read thousands of anecdotes of the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, the Rothchilds, the Carnegies, and all of those whom, according to La Prensa, and some school reading books, with the stupidities of our contemporary childhood, are abreast of world finances, not because of anything else,-oh, desp... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) To want bosses and at the same time to want to be free is to want the impossible. It is necessary to choose once and for all between two things: either to be free, completely free, refusing all authority, or to be enslaved perpetuating the power of man over man.
The boss or government is necessary only under a system of economic inequality. If I have more than Pedro, I naturally fear that Pedro will grab me by the neck and will take from me what he needs. In this case, I need a government or a supervisor to protect me against the possible attacks of Pedro; but if Pedro and I are economic equals; if we both have the same opportunity to profit from the riches of nature, such as land, water forests, mines, and everything else, just as t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) ldquo;Wicked machine!” exclaims the worker, sweating from fatigue and distress. “Wicked machine, that makes me endure your rapid movements as if I were also made of steel and was granted a motor! I detest you, vile contraption, because you do the work of ten, twenty, or thirty workers, robbing the bread from my mouth and condemning my wife and my children to starve.”
The machine groans to the impulses of its motor, as if it participates equally in the fatigue of its comrade of blood and muscle: man. The thousand parts of the machine move, move without ceasing. Some glide, others bounce; these ones gyrate, those ones swing; oozing black oil, hissing, trembling. It exhausts the vision of the flesh and bone slave who m... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
