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 And he spent the time arranging about his unpublished writings and issuing strict instructions that nobody should speak at his grave.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

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.)

In Working-Class Memory
For Labor can but honor those who witness with their lives and the manner of their dying, to the power of Labor's struggle. "The greatest men of a nation are those whom it puts to death." - Ernest Renan Martyred, Tokio, January 24, 1911. The following comrades were arrested in the fall of 1910, on the bogus charge of plotting against the Imperial family. Tried and sentenced by Special Secret Court, December, 1910. Government issued statements against accused but forbade all statements to be published on their behalf. Denjiro Kotoku. Journalist and Essayist. Age, 41. Seinosuke Oishi. Doctor of Medicine. Studied in America. Age, 45. Qudo Uchiyama. Buddhist Priest. Age, 32. Tadao Niimura. Small landowner. Age, 25. Uichita Matsus. Landowner... (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.)

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.)

Bakunin
Bakunin's literary legacy is small. The man had no literary ambitions. he was too much of a social revolutionist, too genuine, to wish to stoop to literature. to play at depicting wrong where one should at at destroying wrongs; to substitute words for action, art for life: this was no work for a full-grown laborer in the cause of bread and freedom. With Bakunin, writing was but a tool not an achievement. Words were the means to accomplishment itself. His purpose was other than that of writing. He wrote as he studied and observed - in order to answer questions of the day. He wrote under the pressure of some crisis in social struggle. And all his writings originated in the same realistic, direct, useful, unpremeditated way. To this fact they ... (From : Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)