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 And he spent the time arranging about his unpublished writings and issuing strict instructions that nobody should speak at his grave.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

Malatesta
Enrico Malatesta, born in Capua, on December 4th, 1853, went to Naples to study pharmacology, and immediately came under the influence of Bakunin, in 1871. His interest for me consists in the fact that he was a direct link between Bakunin and the anti-parliamentary propaganda that I commenced in London in 1906. The story of my association with Malatesta was told in the Herald of Revolt for June, 1912, and need not be repeated here. I remember Malatesta listening to one of my meetings at the corner of Garnault Place, Clerkenwell, before I became an Anti-Parliamentarian. As I was going away with my platform, he stopped me and said : "You are a strange person to be English because you are destined to be an Anarchist." Although I was never pers... (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.)

Pending Execution
Lombroso inquired whether, according to the charlatan rules of his psuedo-physiognomy, the Chicago Anarchists were criminals. We prefer the testimony of Captain Black, who was their principal advocate, that they were men. On the morning that they were declared guilty by the packed jury in the packed court, Black saw the prisoners immediately upon their return to jail. He was im- pressed by their calm, fearless, and contented bearing. Adolph Fischer, who towered above his comrades, said to Black, with the utmost simplicity, and with a smile that lighted up his entire face, that he was not surprised at the verdict. and did not mind if the authorities hanged him on the morrow. He added. “I am ready to die for the cause of the people.&rdq... (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.)

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.)