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.)
The Resurrection CHAPTER X. The indictment read as follows: "On the 17th of January, 18—, suddenly died in the Hotel Mauritania, merchant of the second guild, Therapont Emelianovich Smelkoff. "The local police physician certified that the cause of death of said Smelkoff was rupture of the heart, caused by excessive use of liquor. "The body of Smelkoff was interred. "On the 21st day of January, a townsman and comrade of Smelkoff, on returning from St. Petersburg, and hearing of the circumstances of his death, declared his suspicion that Smelkoff was poisoned with a view of robbing him of the money he carried about his person. "This suspicion was confirmed at the preliminary inquest, by which it was established: 1. That Smelkoff had drawn from the bank, some time before his death, three thousand eight hundred rubles; that, after a due and careful inventory of the money of the deceased, only three hundred and twelve ...
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 III IN PETROGRAD January 21, 1920. ---The bright winter sun shines upon the broad white bosom of the Neva. Stately buildings on either side of the river, with the Admiralty rearing its slender peak on high, foppishly graceful. Majestic edifices as far as the eye can reach, the Winter Palace towering in their midst in cold tranquility. The brass rider on the trembling steed is poised on the rough Finnish rock,* about to leap over the tall spire of the Petropavlovskaya guarding the city of his dream. Familiar sight of my youth passed in the Czar's capital. But gone are the gilded glory of the past, the royal splendor, the gay banquets of nobles, and the iron columns of the slavish mi...
CURSORY STRICTURES
ON THE
CHARGE
DELIVERED BY
LORD CHIEF JUSTICE EYRE
TO THE
GRAND JURY,
OCTOBER 2 , I794.
===========================================
FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE MORNING CHRONICLE
OCTOBER 21
===========================================
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR C. AND G. KEARSLWY, N0. 46, FLEET STREET.
______
1794.
______
CURSORY STRICTURES, &c.
A Special Commission was opened on the second day of October, for the trial of certain persons apprehended upon suspicion of High Treason, the greater part of whom were taken into custody in the month of May 1794. Upon this occasion a charge was delivered to the Grand Jury, by Sir James Eyr... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Last Message to the People of America
This pamphlet appears in Anarchy Archives courtesy of International Institute for Social History.
Deportation
Its Meaning and Menace:
Last Message to the People of America.
by
Alexander Berkman
and
Emma Goldman.
Ellis Island, New York, U.S.A., December, 1919.
INTRODUCTION.
WITH pencil and scraps of paper concealed behind the persons of friends who had come to say good-bye at the Ellis Island Deportation Station, Alexander Berkman hastily scribbled the last lines of this pamphlet.
I THINK it is the best introduction to this pamphlet to say that before its writing was finished the rulers of America began deporting men directly and... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
This manuscript is part of the International Institute for Social History's Alexander Berkman archive and appears in Anarchy Archives with ISSH's permission.
EARLY DAYS: Life at home and school in St. Petersburg. My bourgeois father and aristocratic mother. Jews and gentiles. I question my father about the Turkish prisoners of war begging alms in the streets.
OUR FAMILY SKELETON: Strange rumors about my mother and her brother Maxim. Echoes of the Polish rebellion of 1863. I hear of the dreaded Nihilists and revolution.
A TERRIFIED HOUSEHOLD: A bomb explodes as I recite my lesson in school. The assassination of Czar Alexander II. Secret groups in our class. Police search our house. Uncle Maxim is arrested for conspiring aga... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Errico Malatesta
The Biography of an Anarchist
A Condensed Sketch of Malatesta from the book written by
by Max Nettlau
Published by the Jewish Anarchist Federation New York City. 1924
Introduction
The short sketch of Malatesta's life is based on the exhaustive study of Max Nettlau, published in Italian translation by "Il Martello" in New York under the title Vita e Pensieri di Errico Malatesta, and in German translation issued at Berlin by the publishers of the "Syndicalist." Max Nettlau, the profound scholar of the Anarchist movement, biographer of Michael Bakunin and author of Bibliographie de l'Anarchie, lives in Vienna, and like so many intellectuals in Europe, in distressing economic conditi... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
XVII PETER NIKOLAEVICH SVENTIZKY’S views of the peasantry had now changed for the worse, and the peasants had an equally bad opinion of him. In the course of a single year they felled twenty-seven oaks in his forest, and burnt a barn which had not been insured. Peter Nikolaevich came to the conclusion that there was no getting on with the people around him. At that very time the landowner, Liventsov, was trying to find a manager for his estate, and the Marshal of the Nobility recommended Peter Nikolaevich as the ablest man in the district in the management of land. The estate owned by Liventsov was an extremely large one, but there was no revenue to be got out of it, as the peasants appropriated all its wealth to their own profit. Peter Nikolaevich undertook to bring everything into order; rented out his own land to somebody else; and settled with his ...
THE FORTRESS PRISON OF ST. PETERSBURG.
I Find, in the Contemporary Review for February last, a paper by Mr. Lansdell on 'A Russian Prison,' containing a description of the State prison at the St. Petersburg fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. This description being, in my opinion, too incomplete to convey a correct idea about the real conditions of prison life in the Russian fortress, and being intended, moreover, to cast a doubt upon other trustworthy information about such parts of the fortress as were not visited by Mr. Lansdell, I desire to give some supplementary information about the fortress which I know from my own experience. At the same time I would avail myself of this opportunity for answering, documents in hand, several qu... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
FREEDOM IS IT A CRIME?
The Strange Case of the Tree Anarchists Jailed at the Old Bailey, April 1945
Two Speeches by HERBERT READ
FORWARD by E. SILVERMAN
FREEDOM PRESS DEFENCE COMMITTEE
2d.
First Published by
The Freedom Press Defense
Committee,
17, St. George Street, London, W.1.
June, 1945
And printed by
Express Printers, London.
The Publishers have asked me to write a foreword to this pamphlet. As an individual who cares about freedom of speech and freedom of the press I accept with pleasure the opportunity to say a word to the public.
Three decent, useful and respectable citizens, who Mr. Justice Birkett said were of the highest character and who he was quite prepared to believe were actu... (From : Anarchy Archives.)