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 And he spent the time arranging about his unpublished writings and issuing strict instructions that nobody should speak at his grave.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.)

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.)

Karl Liebknecht — Rosa Luxembourg, Liebknecht and Spartacus
Karl Liebknecht Rosa Luxembourg MARTYRED Berlin, January 15th, 1919 Section title: Liebknecht and Spartacus Liebknecht assumed the pen-name of "Spartacus for a pamphlet which he wrote in 1916. Subsequently Rosa Luxembourg, Clara Zetkin, and Franz Mehrin wrote under the same name. Their articles were not printed, but mimeographed. Boldly they attacked the Imperial German Government, the patriotic majority Socialists, and the semi-patriotic minority. Liebknecht proved himself more than worthy of the great name which he adopted as his own. He was truly the Spartacus of our century--a veritable giant, not of towering physique, but of splendid intellect and boundless daring. In order to gain a correct conception of the Spartacus of Berlin, let u... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

Liebknecht's Apology
Liebknecht defended his opposition to the war in two trenchant letters addressed to the President of the Royal Court-Martial at Berlin. The first one, dated May 3rd, 1916, declared that: "The present war is not a war for the protection of national integrity, nor for the freeing of oppressed people, nor for the welfare of the masses. "It signifies from the standpoint of the proletariat the most extreme concentration and extension of political oppression, of economic exploitation, of militaristic slaughtering of the working classes, body and soul, for the advantage of capitalism and despotism. Liebknecht's Apology "To all this the working classes of all countries can give only one answer: intensified struggle--international class struggle aga... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

This brochure is incomplete, despite its size. It ought to have included a review of Marx's life and writings, and a study of Proudhon. The latter forecasted the failure of universal suffrage, the liquidation of political and social democracy in reaction and empire, and the successful emergence of libertarian society. He preached the calm, unrelenting optimism of complete democracy and liberty which is so necessary to human endurance today. The essays on Marx and Proudhon are written and will be published in due course. "Bakunin is note a biography of the immortal Russian Revolutionist. It depicts his force and character. My life of Bakunin is finished also and will appear as funds and conditions permit. As an Anarchist, Bakunin is over-rat... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)

The Yellow Chicago
Denjiro Kotoku formerly occupied a responsible position on the editorial staff of the Japanese daily paper, the Korozu Cho-ho (Thousand Morning News) or Tokio. Becoming familiar with Socialist and Anarchist thought, he resigned his position and founded a monthly review, Tatsu Kwa (Iron and Fire). This paper was Anarchist-Communist in tone. It preached the Class War, and was accordingly suppressed. Kotoku had now called upon himself the hatred of the Governing Class. This despotism remembered that, during the Russo-Japanese war, Kotoku had fearlessly expressed anti-militarist convictions in the columns of the Korozu Cho. It saw those opinions assuming a more matured form, taking on more definite proportions in the revolutionary journal he ha... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)