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 cahoots with the White general... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
The ResurrectionCHAPTER II. The history of the prisoner Maslova was a very common one. Maslova was the daughter of an unmarried menial who lived with her mother, a cowherd, on the estate of two spinsters. This unmarried woman gave birth to a child every year, and, as is the custom in the villages, baptized them; then neglected the troublesome newcomers, and they finally starved to death. Thus five children died. Every one of these was baptized, then it starved and finally died. The sixth child, begotten of a passing gypsy, was a girl, who would have shared the same fate, but it happened that one of the two old maidens entered the cow-shed to reprimand the milkmaids for carelessness in skimming the cream, and there saw the mother with the healthy and beautiful child. The old maiden chided them for the cream and for permitting the woman to lie in the cow-shed, and was on the point of departing, but noticing the child, was moved to pity, and afterwards...
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 II ON SOVIET SOIL January 20, 192O.---Late in the afternoon yesterday we touched the soil of Soviet Russia. Driven out from the United States like criminals, we were received at Belo-Ostrov with open arms. The revolutionary hymn, played by the military Red Band, greeted us as we crossed the frontier. The hurrahs of the red-capped soldiers, mixed with the cheers of the deportees, echoed through the woods, rolling into the distance like a challenge of joy and defiance. With bared head I stood in the presence of the visible symbols of the Revolution Triumphant. A feeling of solemnity, of awe overwhelmed me. Thus my pious old forefathers must have fe...
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 Eyre, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. It is one of the first pri... (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 obviously for the offense of striking against the industrial owners of America. &nbs... (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 against the Czar's Li... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
The Biography of an Anarchist
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 condition. May I express here the hope that he will ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
XXIII ONE day Maria Semenovna came home from the treasurer’s office, where she had received her pension. On her way she met a schoolmaster, a friend of hers. “Good day, Maria Semenovna! Have you received your money?” the schoolmaster asked, in a loud voice from the other side of the street. “I have,” answered Maria Semenovna. “But it was not much; just enough to fill the holes.” “Oh, there must be some tidy pickings out of such a lot of money,” said the schoolmaster, and passed on, after having said good-bye. “Good-bye,” said Maria Semenovna. While she was looking at her friend, she met a tall man face to face, who had very long arms and a stern look in his eyes. Coming to her house, she was very startled on again seeing the same man with the long arms, who had eviden...
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 questions addressed to me by Mr. Lansdell in t... (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 actuated by the highest motives, are in prison. Their ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)