After World War II, the police archives were taken by the Americans and when these were opened to scholars they found that German anarchist resistance through the ages had been extremely large. There had been an extremely active and influential working class anarchist movement in a line from that under Bismarck to that under Hitler. It had been ignored by historians because workers in general, like women in particular, only exist for them in relation to power politics or intellectual currents (also, perhaps, because it entails some real research as distinct from looking up other people’s books). Here we can only give some pointers to research.
Much of the old anarcho-syndicalist movement, in the FAUD (later crushed by Hitler), ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Thomas Hamilton walked into a classroom at Dunblane, where he was well known, and shot the teacher and almost the entire class of five year olds. In the national mourning many questions were raised as to how this could have been prevented. As he had killed himself anyway, like Ferd West the serial murderer-rapist, there could hardly be any of the usual cries for the re-introduction of the death penalty. Though it was generally claimed that it is all the harder for parents who can’t understand why Hamilton acted the way he did, it was taken for granted politics must be kept out of it. Now that it is passed over as yesterday’s news, perhaps the time has come to make those politics known.
Political understanding has everythi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
With the civilized world in ruins, the masses, understandably, began to feel the need for Security. Gradually, it became clear that there were two forms of security that they could turn to. One, conservatism: the preservation of as much of the established order as possible. Alternatively, dictatorship, the security of the slave state.
The hectic postwar years showed quite clearly again that increasing numbers of people were deliberately turning against independent thinking, and turning to either the policy of “enjoy yourself while you can” (essentially complementary to conservatism) or that of “follow the leader” (essentially the policy of dictatorship).
We are faced to-day with the two systems, therefo... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Chronology
This chronology should not be considered exhaustive, nor definitive. It will, however, give the reader a rough outline of the development of revolutionary anarchist activism in Europe over the last fourteen years. Little mention has been made in this chronology of the activities of the Italian groups. As a result of fascist provocations in Italy it would be virtually impossible to prepare a reasonable chronology of groups such as The Red Brigade and The Partisan Action Group — GAP, as we have been able to do with the Angry Brigade, Red Army Fraction, the 1st of May Group and the Autonomous Combat Groups of the Iberian Liberation Movement.
1960
January
In the early hours of January 3/4th a battle took place between a... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
On the whole there has been little or no study of the Spanish labor movement. The success of the insurrection against Czarism so captivated the imagination of the world that attention, from the point of view of revolutionary socialism, has thereafter been riveted on Russia and what concerns its interests. The State “Socialism” that triumphed in that country is no doubt worth studying, if not experiencing: but from the standpoint of any sincere revolutionary — even one who might not consider himself a libertarian — it is surely more richly rewarding to look at the case of a labor movement that could sustain itself through generations of suppression; that could dispense with a bureaucracy; and that could maintain its c... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Fascism by 1934 was marching triumphantly. In Italy, Mussolini had long consolidated his power and was preparing to attack Abyssinia. Hitler, after one year of power, was tightening his hold on Germany and preparing the first of the many international adventures which were to lead to the pyre at his Berlin bunker. In England, Mosley had returned from a long visit to Germany and reorganized and re-trained his blackshirted British Union of Fascists.
At that time there seemed nothing to stop Oswald Mosley’s military marching columns and aggressive propaganda. The Labor Party advised, “Be constitutional. leave it to the police and don’t forget to vote Labor!” The Communist Party, as each big Fascist meeting was an... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Introduction by Albert Meltzer
Nikolai Bukharin was regarded by many as Lenin’s favorite, in spite of his many differences with the leader of the Bolsheviks, the Benjamin of the Party which seized power in (or more precisely, after) the Russian Revolution. He was the youngest of the leadership, a merry extrovert among the more grim-faced professional revolutionaries, and above all, was popular with the Party both in Russia and abroad.
After Lenin’s death, Bukharin was considered the most likely successor to the leadership; indeed, looking round the assortment of Party hacks and armed scholars, there was no one else to recommend themselves who had the necessary background and the talents to conquer. As against the v... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
In the last issue of War Commentary I endeavored to analyze briefly all these fake-revolutionary movements and to show that in reality all reformists were working towards, not reform and certainly not democracy, but towards dictatorship. “Reformism” is no longer synonymous with “democracy”: on the contrary, it is the reformist movements everywhere where they are permitted to exist which are endeavoring to shackle the workers to the governmental war machine, very often in order that the capitalist governments will not suppress them in order to do that job themselves.
Let us now consider the case for the genuine brand of social revolution. What the pre-requisites of a revolutionary movement today?
In the ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Anarchism is a revolutionary method of achieving a free nonviolent society, without class divisions or imposed authority. Whether this is a “utopian” achievement or not is irrelevant; the Anarchist, on any normal definition, is a person who, having this aim in mind, proceeds to get rid of authoritarian structures, and advances towards such a society by making people independent of the State and by intensifying the class struggle so that the means of economic exploitation will be weakened and destroyed.
Confusion
There should be no confusion between anarchism and liberalism however militant the latter might be (e.g. movements towards national liberation). The liberal seeks greeter freedom within the structure of society... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
THE ECONOMIC & POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF “L’AFFAIRE BONNOT”
Back in the days of the First International, Marxists, Anarchists and Blanquists had concerned themselves, among other problems, with the phenomenon in capitalist society of the “criminals of want.” It is a common mistake among contemporary bourgeois philosophers that they “idealized the proletariat;” least of all Marx, with his unsentimental approach, would have done such a thing. Some believe that they “idealized the criminal class.” It is with this minor (but important) belief that we are dealing here.
It was generally agreed that it was impossible to condemn crime or a criminal class in terms of the old mor... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
There may be an obvious answer as to why those who think Tolstoy the greatest mind of the century assume they know better than he did himself as to what he believed. In an introduction to a new selection of Tolstoy’s essays, David Stephens trashes Black Flag for saying he wasn’t an Anarchist (neither was he as supposed a Christian or a Pacifist). Stephens cites Woodcock to prove his case, wow, that’s us squashed. A few pages later we read Tolstoy never called himself an Anarchist, but how would he know what he was? (He never read Prof. Woodcock).
Stephens also admits Tolstoy attacked the Church — and was excommunicated — for his opposition to Christianity as generally understood. But how would the Church... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Reformism is not the same as advocating or getting reforms. There is a hell of a lot in this society needs reforming. Reformism is the belief that all efforts should be directed at the bit that needs reforming (with the economic system, society, the State or a political party) to which all efforts should be directed. Someone who thinks an old banger of a machine is fundamentally sound and only needs a bit of tinkering to make it perfect is called a bodger. Someone who decides there’s nothing wrong with a crap institution but a change of leadership, a reform of moral outlook, a few new laws, a ban here and a relaxation there, is called a reformist, though could equally well be called a bodger.
Certainly there is a lot about expl... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
When we declare our opposition to reformism, we do not mean that we oppose reforms, and obviously any crumb is better than no bread at all.
What we oppose is the devotion of the labor movement to the reformist principle, thus gradually taking over from the middle-class do-gooders, and even (as has happened above all in England) letting those people in turn take over the direction of the labor movement politically, on the grounds that they will thus manage to achieve a few parliamentary and other reforms here and there. The result of this action is that in the end we get some reforms, but no social change-over such as the labor movement was originally created for.
The new labor movement we hope as syndicalists to achieve is one... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)