From
the upcoming "No Gods, No Masters" edited by Daniel Guerin, to
be published by AK Press the summer of 1997
Anarchists Behind Bars (Summer 1921)
by Gaston Leval
Once I discovered that there were
so many of our comrades in prison, I arranged, together with the French
syndicalist delegates to make overtures to Dzerzhinsky, the People's Commissar
for the Interior, implicitly obedient to Lenin. Being wary of me, my fellow
delegates chose Joaquin Maurin to speak on behalf of the CNT delegation.
Maurin reported back on their first audience. At the sight of the list
of the prisoners whose release was being sought, Dzerzhinsky blanched,
then went red with fury, arguing that these men were counterrevolutionaries
in ca... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
From: G.P. Maximoff, Syndicalists in the Russian Revolution
The Author
GREGORI PETROVICH MAXIMOFF was born on November 10, 1893, in the Russian village of Mitushino, province of Smolensk. After studying for the priesthood, he realized this was not his vocation and went to St. Petersburg, where he graduated as an agronomist at the Agricultural Academy in 1915. He joined the revolutionary movement, while a student, was an active propagandist and, after the 1917 revolution, joined the Red Army. When the Bolsheviks used the Army for police work and for disarming the workers, he refused to obey orders and was sentenced to death. The solidarity of the steelworkers' union saved his life.
He edited the Anarcho-Syndicalist papers Golos ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
The text is from my copy of Alexander Berkman, The Bolshevik Myth, New York: Boni and Liveright, 1925. Page numbers are in the source code. CHAPTER XIII LENIN March 9.---Yesterday Lenin sent his auto for me, and I drove to the Kremlin. Times have changed, indeed: the old stronghold of the Romanovs is now the home of "Ilyitch,"* of Trotsky, Lunatcharsky, and other prominent Communists. The place is guarded as in the days of the Czar; armed soldiers at the gates, at every building and entrance, scrutinize those entering and carefully examine their "documents." Externally everything seems as before, yet I felt something different in the atmosphere, something symbolic of the great change that has taken place. I sensed a new spirit in the bearing and looks of the people, a new will and huge energy tumultuously seeking an outlet, yet ineffectively exhausting themselves in a ...
"The Constitutional Agitation in Russia." The Nineteenth Century, January, 1905.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL AGITATION IN RUSSIA
The greatest excitement has prevailed in Russia for the last few weeks since it became known that representatives of the Zemstvos of thirty-four provinces of the Empire were going to meet at St. Petersburg in order to discuss the necessary reforms in the general political organization of the country. The very fact that such an authorization had been granted was equivalent to an invitation to discuss a scheme of a Constitution; and so it was understood everywhere. When the Zemstvo delegates were leaving their respective provincial towns they were sent off by groups of enthusiastic friends, whose parting words we... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Francisco Ferrer
by Voltairine de Cleyre
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 as... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
CONTENTS. I. THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE HAS BEEN PROFESSED BY A MINORITY OF MEN FROM THE VERY FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY II. CRITICISMS OF THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE ON THE PART OF BELIEVERS AND OF UNBELIEVERS III. CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY BELIEVERS IV. CHRISTIANITY MISUNDERSTOOD BY MEN OF SCIENCE V. CONTRADICTION BETWEEN OUR LIFE AND OUR CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE VI. ATTITUDE OF MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY TO WAR VII. SIGNIFICANCE OF COMPULSORY SERVICE VIII. DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE MUST INEVITABLY BE ACCEPTED BY MEN OF THE PRESENT DAY IX. THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPTION OF LIFE WILL EMANCIPATE MEN FROM THE MISERIES OF OUR PAGAN LIFE X. EVIL CANNOT BE SUPRESSED BY THE PHYSICAL FORCE OF THE GOVERNMENT—TH...
CHAPTER V. “Yes: for ten years I lived the most revolting existence, while dreaming of the noblest love, and even in the name of that love. Yes, I want to tell you how I killed my wife, and for that I must tell you how I debauched myself. I killed her before I knew her. “I killed THE wife when I first tasted sensual joys without love, and then it was that I killed MY wife. Yes, sir: it is only after having suffered, after having tortured myself, that I have come to understand the root of things, that I have come to understand my crimes. Thus you will see where and how began the drama that has led me to misfortune. “It is necessary to go back to my sixteenth year, when I was still at school, and my elder brother a first-year student. I had not yet known women but, like all the unfortunate children of our society, I was already ...
From La Correspondance de Michel Bakounine, published and prefaced by Michel Dragmanov, 1896, Paris, France, pages 180-183.
Letter from Bakunin to Herzen and Ogareff1
August 17, 1863StockholmMy dear friends,
This is the third letter I am sending you from this place. Two months ago, I had the opportunity to send you the first directly, the second by your agent in Switzerland who, on your command, was supposed to come to Stockholm, but who was likely sidetracked by unexpected occurrences and contented himself with sending me a letter through Nordstrom. I immediately responded, with an extended letter attached, pleading with him to immediately send you the letter; I would be very angry if it was not sent to you. However, I can ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
(This article appears in Anarchy Archives courtesy of Robert Graham.)
Nationalism and the Road to Happiness for the Chinese
By Ba Jin
Chinese society is at the darkest stage now. Under such circumstances, young people become impotent and weak without the power to resist corruption. Even the brave ones can only keep quiet and submit to fate. When it is really unbearable, suicide is the only way out. China is paralyzed; where can we find happiness? Some conscious youth believe that the only way to improve China’s current situation is to promote “nationalism,” and identify “nationalism” as the only road to happiness for the Chinese. Voices of “nationalism” have spread all over the nation. I shud... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
THE PRESENT CRISIS IN RUSSIA.
BY PRINCE KROPOTKIN.
The North American Review, Vol. 172, No. 534 (May, 1901), pp. 711-723
The last students' disturbances in Russia were quite different from all the disturbances which have taken place in the Russian universities for the last forty years. They began, as all students' movements begin, with an insignificant incident, which concerned the students alone; but, owing to a series of circumstances quite peculiar to Russia, they took, all of a sudden, a political complexion ; and in this respect they acquired such a significance that they will now count in the history of the constitutional movement in Russia as an important milestone. Consequently it is impossible to speak of the last events wit... (From : Anarchy Archives.)