Revolt Library : The Written Word to Help You Revolt!

The post-modern French philosopher who died on April 21 is of little interest to us as revolutionaries. We wish to recall his time as a revolutionary before the pressures of a career and the ebbing of post 1968 hopes turned him into a darling of the sociologists. Born in Versailles, educated at the Sorbonne, he spent 10 years as a philosophy teacher in secondary schools. A stay in French-occupied Algeria radicalized him, when he took sides against the French state and for Algerian “independence”. Returning to France in 1956, he joined the Socialisme ou Barbarie group, alongside Castoriadis (see his obituary in Organize! 48) and Lefort. He contributed many important articles to its magazine. He joined Lefort in breaking away from S ou B in 1963 to form Pouvoir Ouvrier (Workers Power) This had originally been the name of a paper set up by S ou B to appeal to shop-floor workers. Pouvoir Ouvrier retained many of the original ideas of S ou B, believing that a revolu... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Dearest white progressive/radical, Recent events in which reported progressives and radicals, purposely or ‘unintentionally,’ marginalized people of color, their lives, images, thoughts and struggles — after prompting a ‘what the fuck’ — remind me this seems so familiar. No, you won’t need to tune out the comments about ongoing racism that you always tune out, until a white person says the same thing. To you, white progressive or radical, here are some other thoughts to consider. Your society — and if you’re white, it is your society, regardless of your political pretensions to the contrary — and your way of life are built on a foundation of white supremacy. As a result, history glorifies whites; power is defined by whites; white chauvinism is such that white people assume the right to opine on things they know nothing about and make cultural assumptions about people of color that are misleading, r... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Project Declaration to the Polish People Polish brethren, You have often revolted in order to reclaim your freedom and your blessed homeland, provoked into such an unequal struggle by the worst of governments; that of Saint-Petersbourg. We, the Russian people, have always held the firm conviction that the independence of Poland and the liberty of her children is inseparable from our own Russian cause and the emancipation of our country. We loathe as much as you, no, more than you, this German imperialist bourgeoisie that kills Russia and Poland in delivering them to the Prussians and the Germans; we are indignant at the extremities and the hardships to which our miserable soldiers are subjected in Poland, being blinded in their intoxication and always under the command of these same Germans, their chiefs. We come to you to share your plight; to fight with you in the name of our and your saintly freedom, or die with you in trying. And if necessary, we w... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

In coordination with the anarchist media collective RadioFragmata, we present the following report from Greece about the ongoing efforts of the Greek government, along with business owners, police, and fascists, to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to intensify repression—and the efforts of anarchists, migrants, prisoners, rebel workers, and others to fight back and open up spaces of freedom. These updates are adapted from RadioFragmata’s monthly contribution to the “Bad News Report” podcast about the current situation in Greece. We hope to spread awareness about this situation and to bring more listeners to the podcast itself; we recommend the “Bad News” report and the Anarchist/Anti-Authoritarian Radio Network as a whole. April 2020 In Greece, the state has taken advantage of the coronavirus outbreak to experiment with various methods of martial law and social control. The police are running around the str... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

It sure looks that way. In recent months, the Republican administration of George W. Bush and the Republican Party in general have taken a series of heavy blows.The former majority leader of the US House of Representatives, Tom DeLay, has been indicted for violating the campaign financing laws of Texas by illegally diverting funds to ensure the victory of Republican candidates in that state. His fate seems settled by the guilty plea of sleazeball lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is cooperating with prosecutors. The Abramoff investigation has already implicated other Republicans (as well as Democrats), and may well ensnare more. Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Gordon “Scooter” Libby, has been indicted for obstruction of justice in the investigation of the “outing” of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, believed to have been part of a vendetta against her husband, former diplomat John Wilson. Wilson publicly challenged the administration’s jus... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey; born 1945) is an American anarchist author and poet, primarily known for his concept of temporary autonomous zones. He is a controversial figure in anarchist circles due to his pedophilia advocacy. (From : Wikipedia.org.)

(1870 - 1919) ~ German Social Anarchist, Pacifist, and Leader of the Bavarian Soviet Republic : He dies "In a prison courtyard an officer stepped up and struck him across the face, the signal for a savage massacre. Set upon by the troops, Landauer was beaten with trutcheons and rifle butts, kicked, stomped and trampled upon. 'Kill me, then!' he exclaimed, 'to think that you are human beings!" At that he was shot to death. (From : Anarchist Portraits, Arvich.)
• "True cooperative labor and true community can only exist where individuals are free, and free individuals can only exist where our needs are met by brotherly solidarity." (From : "Anarchism -- Socialism," by Gustav Landauer.)
• "Anarchism is the goal that we pursue: the absence of domination and of the state; the freedom of the individual. Socialism is the means by which we want to reach and secure this freedom: solidarity, sharing, and cooperative labor." (From : "Anarchism -- Socialism," by Gustav Landauer.)
• "Leaving allegories aside, what we need is the following: associations of humankind in affairs that concern the interests of humankind; associations of a particular people in affairs that concern the interests of a particular people; associations of particular social groups in affairs that concern particular social groups; associations of two people in affairs that concern the interests of two people; individualization in affairs that concern the interests of the individual." (From : "Anarchism -- Socialism," by Gustav Landauer.)

(1861 - 1946) ~ English Tolstoyan Translator, Academic, Influential
Constance Clara Garnett (née Black; 19 December 1861 – 17 December 1946) was an English translator of nineteenth-century Russian literature. She was the first English translator to render numerous volumes of Anton Chekhov's work into English and the first to translate almost all of Fyodor Dostoevsky's fiction into English. She also rendered works by Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Goncharov, Alexander Ostrovsky, and Alexander Herzen into English. Altogether, she translated 71 volumes of Russian literature, many of which are still in print today. Garnett was born in Brighton, England, the sixth of the eight children of the solicitor David Black (1817–1892), afterwards town clerk and coroner, and his wife, Clara Maria Patten (1825–1875), daughter of painter George Patten. Her brother was the mathematician Arthur Black, and her sister was the labor organizer and novelist Clementina Black. Her father became paralyzed in 1873, and two ye... (From : Wikipedia.org.)

The magazine Τα Παιδιά της Γαλαρίας (The Children of the Gallery) has been published irregularly in the last 20 years. The first issue was published in April 1990. As we wrote in the editorial of that first issue, we had already abandoned the artificial collectivities that our former anarchist ideology dictated, and aiming at speaking to our potential comrades everywhere in our name, or at least only in our pseudonym, we refused to follow an ideology separated from our everyday life or to create another one. This practically meant that we would not try to juxtapose an activist “users’ guide”, a model of an “ideal theory and organization” to be used by all kind of followers, but we would try to develop a consciousness of our own struggle showing to other proletarians, through the depiction of the ideas, the emotions, the practices and the perspectives... (From : LibCom.org.)

No one at all capable of an intense conscious inner life need ever hope to escape mental anguish and suffering. Sorrow and often despair over the so-called eternal fitness of things are the most persistent companions of our life. But they do not come upon us from the outside, through the evil deeds of particularly evil people. They are conditioned in our very being; indeed, they are interwoven through a thousand tender and coarse threads with our existence. It is absolutely necessary that we realize this fact, because people who never get away from the notion that their misfortune is due to the wickedness of their fellows never can outgrow the petty hatred and malice which constantly blames, condemns, and hounds others for something that is inevitable as part of themselves. Such people will not rise to the lofty heights of the true humanitarian to whom good and evil, moral and immoral, are but limited terms for the inner play of human emotions upon the human sea o... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Or, the Wrongs of WomanTHE PUBLIC are here presented with the last literary attempt of an author, whose fame has been uncommonly extensive, and whose talents have probably been most admired, by the persons by whom talents are estimated with the greatest accuracy and discrimination. There are few, to whom her writings could in any case have given pleasure, that would have wished that this fragment should have been suppressed, because it is a fragment. There is a sentiment, very dear to minds of taste and imagination, that finds a melancholy delight in contemplating these unfinished productions of genius, these sketches of what, if they had been filled up in a manner adequate to the writer’s conception, would perhaps have given a new impulse to the manners of a world. The purpose and structure of the following work, had long formed a favorite subject of meditation with its author, and she judged them capable of producing an important effect. The composition had been in progress for a period...

Many Socialists have joined in the outcry of certain Trade Unionists and Radicals against the employment of women in work which the women think suitable and the men do not. They have done so on the plea that the women's labor is simply used by capitalists to reduce men's wages. Their argument is perfectly correct as far as it goes, but it goes a very little way. Roughly speaking, it is probably true that the total of men's wages is decreased by something like the amount they would require to support the said women as their chattel-slaves. The women become the wage-slaves of the capitalist, and the workman is deprived of his dependent domestic serf. A man and woman both working often earn between them only about as much as the man alone could earn before the competition of women came into his labor market; or, putting it in another way, about as small a share of the fruit of their labor falls into the hands of the wage-workers as a class, if women are employed in productiv... (From : AnarchyArchives.)

With Strictures On Political And Moral SubjectsIn the present state of society, it appears necessary to go back to first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning is built; though, when entangled with various motives of action, they are formally contradicted, either by the words or conduct of men. In what does man's preeminence over the brute creation consist? The answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; in Reason. What acquirement exalts one being above another? Virtue; we spontaneously reply. For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes: whispers Experience. Consequently the perfection of our nature and capability of happiness, must be estimated by the deg...

Wednesday Morning. I only send this as an avant-coureur, without jack-boots, to tell you, that I am again on the wing, and hope to be with you a few hours after you receive it. I shall find you well, and composed, I am sure; or, more properly speaking, cheerful.—What is the reason that my spirits are not as manageable as yours? Yet, now I think of it, I will not allow that your temper is even, though I have promised myself, in order to obtain my own forgiveness, that I will not ruffle it for a long, long time—I am afraid to say never. Farewell for a moment!—Do not forget that I am driving towards you in person! My mind, unfettered, has flown to you long since, or rather has never left you. I am well, and have no apprehension that I shall find the journey too fatiguing, when I follow the lead of my heart.—With my face turned to H— my spirits will not sink—and my mind has always hitherto enabled my body to do whateve...