Pioneers of Anti-Parliamentarism

Author's Appeal
To Editors, Readers and Librarians It was the author‘s intention to collect his pamphlets and publish them in one volume. The war may make this impossible. But each pamphlet in The Word Library will be sent. round as suggested. So the appeal stands, applied to the entire series. Collection in one volume is postponed. This collection of essays will be sent to a number of papers in- all parts of the world for review. It will be sent specially to the press in Britain, America, the American Colonies, and the British Dominions. Editors are asked, as a favor, to send copies of their papers containing review notices to the author. The volume will be sent, also, to the chief public libraries in- Britain and the United States. It will be sent post free to any public library in the world on the receipt of an application from the librarian. Readers are reminded that the first editions of each of the pamphlets, revised and collected in this volume, can be... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

Chapter 21 : Herman Gorter
Abridged and adapted from an article written for “The Commune” by the Dutch Anti-Parliamentarian, II. Canne Meijer. Herman Gorter died at Brussels, on September 15, 1927. He had gone to Switzerland from his home in Holland to renew his health, but he felt that the end of his life was near, and so he broke off his stay in Switzerland and tried to return home. But he was obliged to break his journey at Brussels, and he died the same night in an hotel. His dying was as brave and true as his living. He had death before his eyes ten hours before he died. And he spent the time arranging about his unpublished writings and issuing strict instructions that nobody should speak at his grave. When the world war broke out, and the so-called “Socialist” movement put itself in every country under the command and at the disposal of the national bourgeoisie, Gorter did not fall. He impeached all the “theoreticians” who surrendered the... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

Chapter 20 : Domela Nieuwenhuis
His Life and Work (This essay is abridge from a study, written in French, by Andre Lorulot.) I think I see them again at the far end of that smoky room in the Rue de Brelange. One, young and petulant, fiery and vehement, the glint of the southern sun on his black hair. The other, the old man of the North, whose blue eyes and smiling face, framed in long white hair, indicate an immense goodness. There they were, both stigmatizing the war. Almereyda, angrily, Domela with the softest of ironies and the calmest of conviction. Methinks I again see these two founders of the International anti-militarist Association of Workers. Almereyda had renounced the pure ideas of his adolescence, because he knew not how to resist the attraction of gold, by which the bourgeoisie buy and corrupt so many consciences. He had abandoned——-if not entirely, at least in a great measure-—-the hard conflict against social iniquity, and like so... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

Chapter 19 : Biographical Note
L'Avenir International for June, 1919, contains an interesting note on Doinela Nieuwenhuis, from which we call the following: "The Anarchist movement properly so-called is rather strong in Holland thanks to the influence of the celebrated Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis. He is an old man of 72 years, with a white beard; an ex-Lutheran priest and the son of a theological professor. He became a Socialist early in life and is looked upon as the father of all Netherland Socialists.”... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

Chapter 18 : Militarism and the General Strike
Liebknecht--Nieuwenhuis Debate At the congress of Brussels, in 1891, Domela Nieuwenhuis, on behalf of the Dutch Socialist Party, proposed that the Socialists of all countries should answer the proposal for war by an appeal to the peoples to proclaim a general strike. KARL LIEBKNECHT, on behalf of the majority, opposed this proposal on the ground that this was Utopian and failed to reach the economic sources of the evil. He supported a proposal to conduct incessant propaganda against militarism and capitalism, with a view to developing the international organization of the proletariat, and throwing the responsibility of the world war upon the ruling class. There were proposals for provoking, in case of war, the strike and military insurrection. They were made by delegates whose countries did not bear the crushing weight of militarism borne by the nations having an absolute military regime. The project had been submitted to the... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

Chicago's Red Martyrs
“For the nineteenth century has produced these men -— men who bowed at no shrine, acknowledged no God, believed in no hereafter, and yet went as proudly and triumphantly to the gallows as ever did Christian martyr of old.” —Voltairine de Cleyre, November, 1895. “Let no attempt be made to avert the final tragedy of the 11th November, make no effort to avenge our deaths.” —Statement issued by condemned Anarchists a few days before execution. Hanged 11th November, 1887 ALBERT R. PARSONS.—-Born 24th June, 1848, at Montgomery, Alabama. Orphaned. Adopted by his brother, Major-General W. H. Parsons, of the Confederate Army, and educated at the latter‘s home, Tyler, Texas, 1853. Printer’s ... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

Without Prejudice: A Judge's Apology
(In telling the story of the Chicago martyrs, in a previous chapter, we mentioned the article contributed to the Century Magazine, New York, for April, 1893, by the. Hon. Joseph E. Gary, the judge who presided at the trial. Unfortunately for Gary's ravings in defense of “law and order," two months later, Governor Altgeld released the three victims of the trial who were imprisoned still. and declared that the eight Anarchists convicted were the victims of false condemnation, insufficient evidence, a packed and legally incompetent jury, and a partial judge. The following essay is an analysis of Gary's apology.) Gary opens his apology with a magnificent appeal oi’ dramatic mediocrity to conventional respectability. His very first s... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

Joseph Dietzgen's Stand
Joseph Dietzgen, famous for his association with Karl Marx and Ludwig Feuerbach, and his philosophical essays, was editing the Socialist Party organ, Der Socialist, at the time of the Chicago demonstrations, bomb throwing and arrests. Dietzgen was born in Blakenberg, near Cologne, on December 8, 1828. He died in Chicago in April, 1888, and was buried on the seventeenth of that month by the side of the murdered Anarchists. He emigrated to America in June, 1849, and worked there for two years as journeyman tanner, painter, and teacher, and traveled by tramping or on canal boats, from Wisconsin in the North to the Gulf of Mexico in the South, and from the Hudson in the East to the Mississippi in the West. He returned to Germany in 1851, but ag... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

From Kotoku Correspondence
We do not believe in treasuring every word that a man writes, even though he enjoy and merit the repute of being a thinker. Consequently we do not propose to publish, in full, the letters sent by our Japanese comrade to Albert Johnson, the veteran Anarchist of California. The following excerpts tell the simple story of Kotoku's scholarship and earnestness in the cause of truth, even whilst jailed and under the doom of his coming execution. Tokio, November 25, 1904: "I feel very happy to inform you that this picture (Peter Kropotkin) was reproduced from that which you sent me, and is published from Heimin Shimbun office, a Socialist weekly. I have been prosecuted on the charge of publishing a treasonable article and sentenced to five months'... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

Red May: Tragedy and Resurgence
"Chicago Swells the Surging Throng." From 1887, down to the year before the outbreak of the world war, it was the custom, in Anarchist circles, to commemorate, every 11th of November, the death of the Chicago Martyrs. That day was dedicated, after 1918, to the fraud and farce of capitalist armistice celebration, until the second world war ended such tributes to the dead of 1914-18. In proletarian circles the Russian revolution anniversary dwarfed the importance of the Chicago commemoration. The worth of that revolution was liquidated somewhat by the retreat to capitalism via the New Economic Policy. Events must pass into history, however, and decline as mere celebrations. This late has overtaken the memory of the Chicago Martyrs. We celebra... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)