Ambush, by Herbert Read
Criterion Miscellany - No 16. Ambush, Herbert Read, Faber & Faber First Blood Snow falling all night: in the morning the world will be white. The earth will be covered with a nice new coat of paint, to hide the scars and pockmarks. For the earth is in a bad way-a battered old scarecrow, blackened, ragged, her fingers and toes all splintered. Oh such a mess! Sanctuary Wood: the god of this sacred place is Moloch, and he is a very fierce old god, and people say that to seek sanctuary in his arms is to say goodbye to your beloved's. His sanctuary a wood, a dark gloomy glade, full of caves and ditches. If you wait till daylight you will find that the trees have no branches, but are whiskered with splinters. Tatterdemalion trees, you might say; ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
From Meet Kropotkin. The Salvation Series No. 1. Bombay: The Libertarian Book House, n.d. KROPOTKIN - THE MASTER by HERBERT READ. PRINCE PETER ALEXEIVICH KROPOTKIN was born at Moscow on the 9th December, 1842 (o. s.). His father, Prince Alexei Petrovich Kropotkin, is described by Kropotkin as "a typical officer of the time of Nicholas I", but he seems to have been an easy-going parent, content to leave his son's educaton to his French tutor until it was time to send him off to a military academy. Kropotkin's mother was the youngest daughter of the commander of a Cossack army corps, General Sulima, and a woman of great refinement and sensibility, qualities which her son must have inherited, for she died before she had time to influence him d... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
(1888 - 1934) ~ Anarchist Leader of the Anti-Bolshevik, Anti-Capitalist Partisans of the Ukraine : Nestor Makhno was the leader of a libertarian peasant and worker army and insurrection in the Ukraine which successfully fought Ukrainian nationalists, the Whites, the Bolsheviks and the bourgeoisie and put anarchism into practice in the years following the Russian Revolution. (From : Intro to Struggle Against the State.)
• "Arrest all governors for as long as need be, tear up and burn their laws! Tear down the prisons, once you have annilihated the executioners and eradicated all State power!" (From : "The ABC of the Revolutionary Anarchist," by Nesto....)
• "Long live the fratenal and shared hopes of all Anarchist militants that they may see the realization of that grand undertaking -- the endeavor of our movement and of the social revolution for which we struggle!" (From : "On the History of the Spanish Revolution of 1931,....)
• "As an individual, man gets back to his authentic personality when he rejects false thinking about life and reduces it to ashes, thereby recovering his real rights. It is through this dual operation of rejection and affirmation that the individual becomes a revolutionary anarchist and a conscious communist." (From : "The ABC of the Revolutionary Anarchist," by Nesto....)
Bakunin to Nechayev on the role of secret revolutionary societies
Bakunin to Nechayev on the role of secret revolutionary societies June 2, 1870 This text is from Spunk press, the original source is the June 2, 1870 letter to Nechayev (published in pamphlet form under the title Bakunin on Violence by the Anarchist Switchboard, NYC--the original is in the Herzen archives). Nechayev was a young Russian revolutionary who had a close relationship with Bakunin for a while in Switzerland in the late 1860's. There is some speculation that they may have been lovers. In any case Nechayev was the author of the 'Catechism of the Revolutionary', an authoritarian manual for the formation of secret societies. Some have suggested Bakunin was also involved in drafting this but as the quotes below show he had quite differ... (From : flag.blackened.net.)
X. Is this the second battalion of the M regiment? asked Praskukhin, hastening up to the spot, and running against the soldiers who were carrying earth in sacks. Exactly so. Where is the commander? Mikhaloff, supposing that the inquiry was for the commander of the corps, crawled out of his pit, and, taking Praskukhin for the colonel, he stepped up to him with his hand at his visor. The general has given orders ... that you ... are to be so good as to go ... as quickly as possible ... and, in particular, as quietly as possible, to the rear ... not to the rear exactly, but to the reserve, said Praskukhin, glancing askance at the enemy's fires. On recognizing Praskukhin and discovering the state of things, Mikhaloff dropped his hand, gave his orders, and the battalion started into motion,[Pg 88] gathered up their guns, put on their cloaks, and set out.
Chapter 5. Last Act: The End of Independence It remains for us to discuss the last act of the tragedy the attack on Kronstadt, the heroic defense of the city, and its eventual fall. In Izvestia No. 5, for the 7th March, we find details of negotiations that had been set on foot concerning the sending of a delegation from Petrograd to Kronstadt to obtain information: The Provisional Revolutionary Committee, reports Izvestia, has received from Petrograd the following radiogram: Inform Petrograd by radio if we can send to Kronstadt from Petrograd some delegates of the Soviet, chosen from the nonparty members, and also some party members, to find out what is happening. The Provisional Revolutionary Committee replied immediately by radio: Radiogram to the Petrograd Soviet: Having received the radio message of the Petrogra...
CHAPTER XXII While these conversations were going on in the reception room and the princess room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for) and Anna Mikhylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was driving into the court of Count Bezkhovs house. As the wheels rolled softly over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikhylovna, having turned with words of comfort to her companion, realized that he was asleep in his corner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre followed Anna Mikhylovna out of the carriage, and only then began to think of the interview with his dying father which awaited him. He noticed that they had not come to the front entrance but to the back door. While he was getting down from the carriage steps two men, who looked like tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the shadow of the wall. Pausing for a momen...