A Call to All Progressive People
This article was widely diffused in Italy in 1899, following the massacres and condemnations which happened the previous year. The aim was to spread the idea of the union of all anti-monarchy parties aimed to the insurrection against the monarchy, without renouncing principles of each individual party, and without commitment to what each will want to do after the fall of the monarchy. Here is a substantial part of it. Facing the brutality of certain situations every discussion must be interrupted: we need to act. When a man falls into the water and drowns, we cannot spend time discussing why he fell and how to avoid him falling again: it is urgent to get him out of the water and prevent his death. When a country is invaded by a savage horde...
• "Our task then is to make, and to help others make, the revolution by taking advantage of every opportunity and all available forces: advancing the revolution as much as possible in its constructive as well as destructive role, and always remaining opposed to the formation of any government, either ignoring it or combating it to the limits of our capacities."
• "The revolution is the creation of new living institutions, new groupings, new social relationships; it is the destruction of privileges and monopolies; it is the new spirit of justice, of brotherhood, of freedom which must renew the whole of social life, raise the moral level and the material conditions of the masses by calling on them to provide, through their direct and conscientious action, for their own futures. Revolution is the organization of all public services by those who work in them in their own interest as well as the public’s; Revolution is the destruction of all coercive ties; it is the autonomy of groups, of communes, of regions; Revolution is the free federation brought about by desire for brotherhood, by individual and collective interests, by the needs of production and defense..."
• "...our efforts must in the first instance be directed to making the revolution and in such a way that it is in the direction of anarchy. We have to provoke the revolution with all the means at our disposal and act in it as anarchists, by opposing the constitution of any authoritarian regime and putting into operation as much as we can of our program. Anarchists will have to take advantage of the increased freedom that we would have won. We will have to be morally and technically prepared to realize within the limits of our numbers, those forms of social life and cooperation which they consider best and most suitable for paving the way for the future."
Bakunin wrote this in response to the failed Polish uprising of 1867, encouraging Russians to support Poland against the Russian government. This article has been translated from the French, which in turn was a translation from Russian. To see the French original, go here. Friends and brothers, These lines, which your friend Nicholas Platonovitch Oragev just wrote regarding the Polish insurrection, have reached one devoted sincerely and unlimitedly to the great cause of our national bondage and the general emancipation of enslaved people. One must recognize that the partial, premature insurrection of the Polish people threatens to arrest the evolution of progress in all slave states, especially Russia. The state of one's spirit in these cou... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
(From our Paris correspondent). The great electoral agitation is over. The Government triumphs; Boulangism, conquered for the time being, foams at the mouth, and the worker who has just, according to his habit, again selected his masters. sees with anxiety the approach of winter, that season so hard for the world of the poor. A few days more will see the close of the Exhibition when Paris will be filled with its unemployed clerks and workmen. A critical moment will have arrived, Where will these men find work and bread? All these workless ones entering into deadly competition with one another will render it very probable that serious complications will arise. To prevent an insurrection of hunger the Government will be very I likely to comme... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
We are living on the eve of great events. Before the end of this century has come we shall see great revolutionary movements breaking up our social conditions in Europe and probably also in the United States of America. Social storms cannot be forecast with the same accuracy as those which cross the Atlantic on their way to our shores. But still, there are tokens permitting us to predict the approach of those great disturbances which periodically visit mankind to redress wrongs accumulated by past centuries, to freshen the atmosphere, to blow away monopolies and prejudices. There is a certain periodicity in these great uprisings of the oppressed. The end of each of the last five centuries has been marked by great movements which have helped... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
In all unsuccessful social upheavals there are two terrors: the Red--that is, the people, the mob; the White--that is, the reprisal. When a year ago to-day the lightning of the White Terror shot out of that netherest blackness of Social Depth, the Spanish Torture House, and laid in the ditch of Montjuich a human being who but a moment before had been the personification of manhood, in the flower of life, in the strength and pride of a balanced intellect, full of the purpose of a great and growing undertaking,-- that of the Modern Schools,--humanity at large received a blow in the face which it could not understand. Stunned, bewildered, shocked, it recoiled and stood gaping with astonishment. How to explain it ? The average individual--certa... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
This article appears in Anarchy Archives with the permission of the International Institute for Social History Speech by William D. Haywood at Meeting Held for the Benefit of the Buccafori Defense, at Progress Assembly Rooms, New York, March 16, 1911. Comrades and Fellow Workers: I am here to-night with a heavy heart. I can see in that Raymond Street jail our comrade and fellow-worker Buccafori in a cell, a miserable cell, perhaps 4 1/2 feet wide, 7 feet long, sleeping on an iron shelf, wrapped up in a dirty blanket, vermin-infested perhaps; surrounded by human wolves, those who are willing to tear him limb from limb, those who will not feel that their duty to the political state is entirely fulfilled until Buccafori's heart ceases to beat.... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
On the 5th of May last the celebration of the centenary of the French Revolution began by the commemoration of the opening of the States-General at Versailles, at the same date, in the memorable year of 1789. And Paris—that city which in January last so clearly manifested its dissatisfaction with Parliamentary rule—heartily joined in the festivities organized to celebrate a day when parliamentary institutions, crossing the Channel, went to take firm root on the Continent. Must we see in the enthusiasm of the Parisians one of those seeming contradictions which are so common in the complicated life of large human agglomerations? Or was it the irresistible attraction of a spring festival which induced the Parisians to rush in flock... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Main causes of Great Revolution -- Previous risings -- Union of middle classes and people necessary -- Importance of part played by people Two great currents prepared and made the Great French Revolution. One of them, the current of ideas, concerning the political reorganization of States, came from the middle classes; the other, the current of action, came from the people, both peasants. and workers in towns, who wanted to obtain immediate and definite improvements in their economic condition. And when these two currents met and joined in the endeavor to realize an aim. wllich for some time was common to both, when they had helped each other for a certain time, the result was the Revolution. The eighteenth-century philosophers had long been sapping the foundations of the law-and-order societies of that period, wherein political power, as well as an immense share of the wealth belonged to the aristocr...
Selected Letters of Bartolomeo Vanzetti from the Charlestown State Prison, 1921-24 July 22, 1921. Charlestown Prison MY DEAR MRS. GLENDOWER EVANS: I was just thinking what I would to do for past the long days jail: I was saying to myself: Do some work. But what? Write. A gentle motherly figure came to my mind and I rehear the voice: Why don't you write something now? It will be useful to you when you will be free. Just at that time I received your letter. Thanks to you from the bottom of my heart for your confidence in my innocence; I am so. I did not spittel a drop of blood, or steal a cent in all my life. A little knowledge of the past; a sorrowful experience of the life itself had gave to me some ideas very different from those of many o... (From : umkc.edu.)
“Be realistic, do the impossible” A Libertarian Marx? Marx’s famous address “The Civil War in France”, written in the name of the General Council of the International Working Mens Association two days after the crushing of the Paris Commune, is an inspiring text for Libertarians. Writing in the name of the International in which Bakunin had extensive influence, in it Marx revises some passages of the Communist Manifesto of 1848. In the Manifesto Marx and Engels had developed the notion of a proletarian evolution by stages. The first stage would be the conquest of political power, thanks to which the instruments of production, means of transport and credit system, would ‘by degrees’, be centralized i... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Written: August 1907; Source: Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff, 1971. James Guillaume, Bakunin’s friend and comrade-in-arms, edited the last five volumes of the six-volume French edition of his collected works. Guillaume’s biographical sketch of Bakunin, originally appeared in his introduction to Volume II of that edition. This sketch is a primary source not only on the life of Bakunin, but also on the most significant events in the socialist movement of that period. It incidentally contributes valuable background information for many of the other selections in the present volume. Guillaume, who did not limit himself to recording events but also took part in shaping them, had been inclined toward anarchis... (From : Marxists.org.)
MUNICIPALIZATION Community Ownership of the Economy1 by Murray Bookchin In my article, "Toward a Libertarian Municipalism2," I advanced the view that any counterculture to the prevailing culture must be developed together with counterinstitutions to the prevailing institutions -- a decentralized, confederal, popular power that will acquire the control over social and political life that is being claimed by the centralized, bureaucratic nation-state. Through much of the nineteenth century and nearly half of the twentieth, the classical center of this popular power was located by most radical ideologies in the factory, the arena for the conflict between wage labor and capital. The factory as the locus of the "power question" rested on the bel... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Most Irishmen, in and out of Ireland, seem unanimous in condemning the brutality of the British government toward the leaders of the unsuccessful revolt. There is no need to recite here the atrocious measures of repression practiced by England toward her subject races. The arrogant and irresponsible tyranny of the British government in this relation is a matter of history. The point of interest just now is, what did the Irish people, or at least the Sinn Feiners, expect England to do in the given circumstances? I am not interested in the weak-kneed editors of Irish-American papers who bemoan, with all due decorum, Great Britain's "lack of generosity" in dealing with the captured Sinn Feiners, or who hide their cowardice by arguments about t... (From : Spunk.org.)
We are often reproached for accepting as a label this word anarchy, which frightens many people so much. "Your ideas are excellent," we are told, "but you must admit that the name of your party is an unfortunate choice. Anarchy in common language is synonymous with disorder and chaos; the word brings to mind the idea of interests clashing, of individuals struggling, which cannot lead to the establishment of harmony." Let us begin by pointing out that a party devoted to action, a party representing a new tendency, seldom has the opportunity of choosing a name for itself. It was not the Beggars of Brabant who made up their name, which later came to be popular. But, beginning as a nickname -- and a well-chosen one -- it was taken up by the par... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Nettlau, Max . Panarchy, A Forgotten Idea of 1860. In Kurt Zube (Ed.), On the Topic No. 9. Germany: Mackay Gesellschaft PANARCHY. A Forgotten Idea of 1860 by Max Nettlau For a long time I have been fascinated by the thought how wonderful it would be if at last, in public opinion on the succession of political and social institutions, the fateful term "one after another" would be replaced through the very simple and self-evident "simultaneously." "Down with the State!" and "Only upon the ruins of the State. . ." express emotions and wishes of many but it seems that only the cool "Opt out of the State" (No. 2 of "The Socialist") can help them towards their realization. When a new scientific insight appears, then those convinced of it do simpl... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Herbert Read, . The Philosophy of Anarchism. London: Freedom Press. The Philosophy of Anarchism. By Herbert Read FREEDOM PRESS First published September 1940 by Freedom Press. 27, Red Lion Street. London, W.C.1, Second Impression, June 1941 Third Impression, December 1941 Fourth Impression, July 1942 Fifth Impression, February 1943 Sixth Impression, December 1944. Seventh Impression, November 1947. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain by Express Printers, London. Ts'ui Chii said to Lao Tzu, "You say there must be no government. But it there is no government, how are men's hearts to be improved?" "The last thing you should do," said Lao Tzu, "is to tamper with men's hearts. The heart of man is like a spring; if you press it down, it... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Essays in Literary Criticism
Essays in Literary Criticism Homo est quodammodo omnia. [Man is somehow everything.] —ST. THOMAS AQUINAS Faber and Gwyer -iii- First published in mcmxxvi by Faber and Gwyer Limited 24 Russell Square London. Made and printed in Great Britain by the Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham & Griggs (Printers) Limited Tooks Court Chancery Lane London -iv- CONTENTS THE ATTRIBUTES OF CRITICISM 1 THE NATURE OF METAPHYSICAL POETRY 31 PURE POETRY 59 THE FUTURE OF POETRY 67 PSYCHO-ANALYSIS AND CRITICISM 83 THE DISCIPLES OF DIDEROT 107 THE DEFINITION OF COMEDY 127 THE DIALOGUE 139 CHARLOTTE AND EMILY Brontë 159 TOBIAS SMOLLETT 187 THE MODERN NOVEL (CURSORY NOTES)... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Political Freedom without economic equality is a pretense, a fraud, a lie; and the workers want no lying. The workers necessarily strive after a fundamental transformation of society, the result of which must be the abolition of classes, equally in economic as in political respects: after a system of society in which all men will enter the world under special conditions, will be able to unfold and develop themselves, work and enjoy the good things of life. These are the demands of justice. But how can we from the abyss of ignorance, of misery and slavery, in which the workers on the land and in the cities are sunk, arrive at that paradise, the realization of justice and manhood? For this the workers have one means: the Association of Counci... (From : Marxists.org.)
The fundamental error of the reformists is that of dreaming of solidarity, a sincere collaboration, between masters and servants, between proprietors and workers which even if it might have existed here and there in periods of profound unconsciousness of the masses and of ingenuous faith in religion and rewards, is utterly impossible today. Those who envisage a society of well stuffed pigs which waddle contentedly under the ferule of a small number of swineherd; who do not take into account the need for freedom and the sentiment of human dignity; who really believe in a God that orders, for his abstruse ends, the poor to be submissive and the rich to be good and charitable — can also imagine and aspire to a technical organization of p... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
PART 1 That the Governments at present existing ought to be abolished, so that Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity should no longer be empty words but become living realities, and that all forms of government as yet tried have only been so many forms of oppression, and ought to be replaced by a new form of grouping, so far all who have a brain and temperament ever so little revolutionary unanimously agree. In truth one does not need to be much of an innovator in order to arrive at this conclusion; the vices of the governments of today, and the impossibility of reforming them, are too evident to be hidden from the eyes of any reasonable observer. And as regards overturning governments, it is well-known that at certain epochs that can be done w... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
There are periods in the life of human society when revolution becomes an imperative necessity, when it proclaims itself as inevitable. New ideas germinate everywhere, seeking to force their way into the light, to find an application in life; everywhere they are opposed by the inertia of those whose interest it is to maintain the old order; they suffocate in the stifling atmosphere of prejudice and traditions. The accepted ideas of the constitution of the State, of the laws of social equilibrium, of the political and economic interrelations of citizens, can hold out no longer against the implacable criticism which is daily undermining them whenever occasion arises,--in drawing room as in cabaret, in the writings of philosophers as in daily ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
BELGIUM The early days of summer have brought a renewed outbreak of passionate indignation among the Belgian miners against the miseries of the life to which they are condemned. Once again the coal basins are the scene of a strike, which bears the character of an insurrection. Bands of miners are marching through the country inciting their comrades to refuse to work, bridges are destroyed, and traitors' houses tumbled about their ears. Last year when the miners' insurrection was temporarily suppressed, when the more energetic strikers had been shot down, or condemned to long terms of imprisonment, and the order of starvation and despair restored, then certain theorists set with increased good-will about the organization of a labor party. Th... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
Summons, by Nestor Makhno
This poem by Nestor Makhno was written when he was 23 years old and had been in prison for two years for "illegal subversive association." Summons. Let us rise in revolt, brethren, and with us the people Beneath the black flag of Anarchy will revolt. We will surge boldly forward, under the fire of enemy bullets in the battle for faith in libertarian communism, Our just regime. We shall cast down all thrones and bring low the power of Capital. We will seize the gold and purple scepter And pay no more honor to anything. Through savage struggle We shall rid ourselves of the State and its laws. We have suffered long under the yoke Of chains, prisons and teeming gangs of executioners. The time has come to rise in rebellion and close ranks. Forwa... (From : LibCom.org.)
It is a general opinion that we, because we call ourselves revolutionists, expect Anarchism to come with one stroke - as the immediate result of an insurrection which violently attacks all that which exists and which replaces all with institutions that are really new. And to tell the truth this idea is not lacking among some comrades who also conceive the revolution in such a manner. This prejudice explains why so many honest opponents believe Anarchism a thing impossible; and it also explains why some comrades, disgusted with the present moral condition of the people and seeing that Anarchism cannot come about soon, waver between an extreme dogmatism which blinds them to the realities of life and an opportunism which practically makes them... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Chapter 3. Kronstadt as the Vanguard of the Revolution From February, 1917, for the whole duration of the Revolution, and nearly everywhere, the men of Kronstadt were in the thick of the struggle. They did not confine themselves to their local activity, energetic though it was. Full of revolutionary enthusiasm and combative ardor, well-endowed with strength and audacity, conscious of their role, they unfalteringly gave the revolution all that it asked of them — their fire and their faith, their awareness and their vigor. They became devoted militants, ready to sacrifice their lives, they became agitators and popular propagandists, distributors of revolutionary literature throughout the country, technicians of every kind, and, above all, incomparable fighters. In February, 1917, Kronstadt immediately rallied to the Revolution. Rising up and taking possession of their city, the sailors felt obliged to perform a painful but, in their opinion, necessary actio...
We have all been so drilled from our youth up in the prejudices of property and authority that even the workers, for whom property and authority have done so little, are not free from superstitious belief in their necessity. Especially we are all too much inclined to believe that mere confusion must follow on a popular revolt, unless some central or local authority be immediately set up to control social life and reorganize the people. During the Commune of 1871, the newly-elected Municipal Government was too deeply engaged by the enemy at the gates to make many attempts at social reconstruction. Was the city, in which so much of the old order had been overthrown, given up to disorder or to merely aimless individual effort 7 Did its social ... (From : AnarchyArchives.)