Revolt Library : The Written Word to Help You Revolt!Welcome to RevoltLib! Here you will find an archive of materials from the past that once helped people to abolish the state, fight capitalism, end sexism, demolish imperialism, and eliminate all forms of social domination. Information is power -- arm yourself! This archive contains 15,612 texts, with 64,666,648 words or 404,279,283 characters. |
A collection of historic materials detailing Anarchism, Libertarianism, and Anti-Authoritarianism. By understanding more about the past, we can better apply the principles we discover today.
"'But,' it is usually asked, 'What will there be instead of Governments?' There will be nothing. Something that has long been useless, and therefore superfluous and bad, will be abolished. An organ that, being unnecessary, has become harmful, will be abolished." -- Leo Tolstoy
“We love athletics” —anarchist contestants for the 2010 Olympics We’re pleased to bring you breaking news from Vancouver, where united indigenous and anarchist resistance has disrupted the capitalist and nationalist triumphalism at the opening of the Olympic Games. Anti-Olympic Riots and Militant Actions Rock Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories The following report was collectively produced by several participants in this past weekend’s militant resistance to the 2010 Olympic games. This is not a full analysis of Olympic Resistance but rather an in-depth account of what just went down. For more background on why people are resisting these games, check no2010.com and olympicresistance.net. This was not “just another summit”—this was the culmination of several years of direct action by indigenous people, anarchists, anti-poverty activists, environmentalists, and others again... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
1. Scope and Purpose This position statement is intended to sketch some initial points of agreement concerning our understanding of ideas about privilege, oppression and intersectionality. These points are neither complete nor final, and it is our intention to expand on and develop these points as our collective understanding develops. 2. Points of Agreement 2. 1 There are numerous interacting systems of oppression that are experienced in a variety of ways by different actors in our society. These intertwined oppressive systems include (but are not limited to) sexism, racism, queerphobia, anti-trans bigotry and ableism. We think fighting against these forms of oppression is just as important to the creation of an anarchist society as fighting capitalism and the state. Only by working to eliminate oppressive power relations within the working classes will we be able to create a revolutionary movement capable of genui... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
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 education 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 directly. Kropotkin was then only three and a half years old, and the first half-distinct reminiscence of his life was to be of "a high, spacious bedroom, the corner room of our house, with a w... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Translator’s note Anarchy is a methodology and a means of individuation as well as an organizational strategy. Free association, autonomy — Emile Armand knew there was, between society and the individual, a veil of mystifying ideology that had to be torn. So many anarchists today fear interacting with the world outside their circles; but they forget how many natural anarchists there are in the world, people opposed to profit and power without labeling themselves anything at all. Reading Emile Armand today is like peering at the present through lenses of the past that clarify everything suddenly, in flashes, a past with the same alienations, the same struggles, the same hang-ups. The concern of some modern anarchists for concepts such as ‘race’, ‘class’ and ‘gender’, concepts with no material reality except as social constructs, ‘conventions and prejudices’ which torture and distort the vision a... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Wild Rose Collective of eastern Iowa joins others in declaring our solidarity with the striking canvass workers of Sisters’ Camelot in Minneapolis. As many of us have been workers in nonprofit organizations, we know well that wage labor under some other name than profit enterprise is wage labor nonetheless. Further, the socially positive mission and work of an organization does not exempt it from its need to also treat its workers with respect and provide decent wages and working conditions. We reject the attempts by Sisters’ Camelot managing collective, and others, to attack these workers’ efforts by firing a workplace organizer, reducing grievances and demands to petty personal grudges, declaring that said workers have “independent contractor” status, and citing the nonprofit status of the organization and collective nature of the management to discredit the demands of the canvass workers who have chosen to organize with the IWW. These are w... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
About the people and individuals of the past who have made up revolutions, whether they were active revolutionaries or brilliant theoreticians. If we know how they lived in the past, we might know what's possible to do today.
"...the fewer goods or possessions of this kind any people enjoy, the fewer quarrels are likely to arise among them, and the less necessity will there be for a settled police or regular authority to protect and defend them from foreign enemies, or from each other." -- David Hume
(1920 - 1996) ~ British Anarcho-Syndicalist and CNT-FAI Activist during the Spanish Civil War : A lifelong trade unionist he fought Mosley's blackshirts; actively supported the Spanish revolution's anarchist communes and militias and the German anti-Nazi resistance and was a key player in the second world war Cairo mutiny. (From : AInfos.ca Bio.)
• "Nobody is fit to rule anybody else. It is not alleged that Mankind is perfect, or that merely through his/her natural goodness (or lack of same) he/she should (or should not) be permitted to rule. Rule as such causes abuse." (From : "Anarchism: Arguments for and against," by Albert ....)
• "If Government is the maintenance of privilege and exploitation and inefficiency of distribution, then Anarchy is order." (From : "Anarchism: Arguments for and against," by Albert ....)
• "If we accept the principle of a socialized society, and abolish hereditary privilege and dominant classes, the State becomes unnecessary. If the State is retained, unnecessary Government becomes tyranny since the governing body has no other way to maintain its hold." (From : "Anarchism: Arguments for and against," by Albert ....)
I’m 26 years old and I live on ancestral Wiyot land in Humboldt County, CA. I write, I make art and games, and I try to make the world a better place. (From : annaronan.com.)
Felipe Correa is the Vincent and Eleanor Shea Professor and the chair of Architecture at UVA School of Architecture. He is an internationally renowned architect and urbanist. Working at the confluence of architecture, urbanism, and infrastructure, he has, through his design practice Somatic Collaborative, developed design projects with the public and private sector in multiple cities and regions across the globe. Designing across multiple scales and varied contexts, Correa is known for using architectural commissions, design competitions, and diverse forms of applied research to facilitate design’s role as a critical mediator between society and space. Prior to joining UVA, he was an Associate Professor and Director of the Master of Architecture in Urban Design program at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. Correa’s forthcoming book, Collective Living and the Architectural Imaginary (with Anthony Averbeck and Devin... (From : Arch.Virginia.edu.)
(1530 - 1563)
• "...the essential reason why men take orders willingly is that they are born serfs and are reared as such. From this cause there follows another result, namely that people easily become cowardly and submissive under tyrants."
• "For although the means of coming into power differ, still the method of ruling is practically the same; those who are elected act as if they were breaking in bullocks; those who are conquerors make the people their prey; those who are heirs plan to treat them as if they were their natural slaves."
• "It is true that in the beginning men submit under constraint and by force; but those who come after them obey without regret and perform willingly what their predecessors had done because they had to. This is why men born under the yoke and then nourished and reared in slavery are content, without further effort, to live in their native circumstance, unaware of any other state or right, and considering as quite natural the condition into which they were born."
A collection of historic materials detailing Feminism, Women's Lib, and the Women's Movement. By understanding more about the past, we can better apply the principles we discover today.
"May a new spirit awaken and infuse this enslaved girlhood to dare and feel an age-long resentment and may it give her courage to speak and act." -- Margaret Sanger
Mrs. Mason had a number of visitors one afternoon, who conversed in the usual thoughtless manner which people often fall into who do not consider before they speak; they talked of Caroline’s beauty, and she gave herself many affected airs to make it appear to the best advantage. But Mary, who had not a face to be proud of, was observing some peculiarities in the dress or manners of the guests; and one very respectable old lady, who had lost her teeth, afforded her more diversion than any of the rest. The children went to bed without being reproved, though Mrs. Mason, when she dismissed them, said gravely, I give you to-night a kiss of peace, an affectionate one you have not deserved. They therefore discovered by her behavior that they had done wrong, and waited for an explanation to regain her favor. She was never in a passion, but her quiet steady displeasure made them feel so little in their own eyes, they wished her to smile that they mi...
LETTER I Dublin, April 14, [1787.] Dear sir, I am still an invalid—and begin to believe that I ought never to expect to enjoy health. My mind preys on my body—and, when I endeavor to be useful, I grow too much interested for my own peace. Confined almost entirely to the society of children, I am anxiously solicitous for their future welfare, and mortified beyond measure, when counteracted in my endeavors to improve them.—I feel all a mother's fears for the swarm of little ones which surround me, and observe disorders, without having power to apply the proper remedies. How can I be reconciled to life, when it is always a painful warfare, and when I am deprived of all the pleasures I relish?—I allude to rational conversations, and domestic affections. Here, alone, a poor solitary individual in a strange land, tied to one spot, and subject to the caprice of another, can I be con... (From : Gutenberg.org.)
Feminism Is For Everybody by Bell Hooks, South End Press, 2000
bell hooks is one of the most prominent and well respected feminist academics and authors in the United States. She is often the subject of study by college students and academics, as well as a frequent guest on talk shows and other mass media. Her work in feminist theory has been groundbreaking, yet it is often limited to academic, literary, and other elite circles. Feminism Is For Everybody is hooks’ attempt to create a quick, simple primer on feminist history, theory, and politics to the masses who receive a misinformed, misunderstood, and maligned version of feminist movement. To that end, she has written an easy to read, concise book which documents her experiences as a feminist activist and academic. As an anarchist with some exposure to hooks’ writings, I have a great deal of respect for her. This was once again reinforced by the content of Feminism Is For Everybody. Whether hooks identifies herself as an anarchist or not, much of what I found in the boo... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
[Paris] Evening, Sept. 23, . I have been playing and laughing with the little girl so long, that I cannot take up my pen to address you without emotion. Pressing her to my bosom, she looked so like you (entre nous, your best looks, for I do not admire your commercial face) every nerve seemed to vibrate to the touch, and I began to think that there was something in the assertion of man and wife being one—for you seemed to pervade my whole frame, quickening the beat of my heart, and lending me the sympathetic tears you excited. Have I any thing more to say to you? No; not for the present—the rest is all flown away; and, indulging tenderness for you, I cannot now complain of some people here, who have ruffled my temper for two or three days past. [Paris, 1794] Morning. Yesterday B—— sent to me for my packet of letters. He called on me before; and I like him better than I did&mdas...
We boast of the age of advancement, of science, and progress. Is it not strange, then, that we still believe in fetish worship? True, our fetishes have different form and substance, yet in their power over the human mind they are still as disastrous as were those of old. Our modern fetish is universal suffrage. Those who have not yet achieved that goal fight bloody revolutions to obtain it, and those who have enjoyed its reign bring heavy sacrifice to the altar of this omnipotent deity. Woe to the heretic who dare question that divinity! Woman, even more than man, is a fetish worshiper, and though her idols may change, she is ever on her knees, ever holding up her hands, ever blind to the fact that her god has feet of clay. Thus woman has been the greatest supporter of all deities from time immemorial. Thus, too, she has had to pay the price that only gods can exact,--her freedom, her heart's blood, her very life. Nietzsche's memorable maxim, "When... (From : Anarchy Archives.)