One of the main reasons which caused a change in Bakunin’s father’s life was his marriage. Already over forty, he fell in love with a girl of eighteen, likewise of aristocratic birth, beautiful but poor. He married this young thing; and in order to quieten his conscience for this egoistic act, he endeavored for the rest of his life, not to raise her to his level but to reduce himself to her’s.
Bakunin’s mother came from the family Muraview. She was a niece of the hangman Muraview and of a hanged Muraview. She was a very common woman, vulgar and selfish. None of her children loved her. But they loved her father so much the more; for, during their childhood, he was always kind and affectionate towards them.
... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
I
The prophet of despair is ever with us ; and to him there is no silver lining to any cloud, no promise of sunshine after the storm, no people so fair and upright as to be able to act honorably unless force or fear are brought to bear upon them. To him the whole social horizon is shrouded in darkness, and not a ray of freedom’s sun is there to separate cloud from cloud. Humanity is inherently bad, and is for ever doomed to ‘be divided into dominated and dominators. Governments based on fraud and coercion, a representative system founded on legislative corruption, a poverty to offer the contrast to an equally immoral bestial luxury: these things are the ends of all being, the tombs of all aspirations, the alpha and omega of... (From: Marxists.org.)
When the Stalinists are accused of assassinating the German working class struggle they explain that on various occasions between 1925 and 1933 they proposed a United Front with the German Social -Democrats. Their assertions in this matter must be correlated to their charge against the Social Democrats in 1924 of being the enemy of the working-class and in 1928 of being the Social-Fascists.
The indictment of Social Democracy as a political principle or organization is correct. Social Democracy has ever been the enemy of working-class struggle and was so in the days when William Liebknecht organized the famous union of Marxians and Lassalleans, and Engels flirted with the alliance whilst Marx denounced the Anarchists and in most insta... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Although oppressed with an ever-widening antagonism to the entire Christian scheme of salvation, and a deepening sense of the absurdity of belief in an infallible Bible, I continued Christian missionary work down to February, 1903. On the 2nd of this month I withdrew from the Holloway Mission, and definitely rejected the Christian religion in a letter addressed to my former pastor, the Rev. S. Buss, LL.B.
I had now learned to look upon life more spiritually than I had known now to do as a Christian. God had become a living and affectionate father. He was no longer the fiend who-created and allowed to come to life a soul which he foreknew would be damned eternally. Had he been, he deserved of such a monster. Fear he might inspire in the m... (From: Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com.)
I.
From the rapidly growing spirit of unrest in the Labor Movement at home and abroad, and the bitter plaints to be heard in all countries at the historic failure of Parliamentary methods, it has been evident for some time past that the old principle of Trade Unionism would have to be consigned to the vortex of oblivion, together with the parliamentarism, constituting its political reflex, and the methods of alleged progressive procedure associated there- with, which have been relied on by various people to secure reforms as innumerable as the abuses begotten of the capitalist system. On the one hand, Irishmen, since the days of Parnell, have relied on the Home Rule proclivities of Members of the Westminster Playhouse for the accompli... (From: Marxists.org.)
Michel Bakunin was born in May, 1814, at Pryamuchina, situated between Moscow and Petrograd, two years after his friend, Alexander Herzen, first saw the light by the fires of Moscow. The future apostle of Nihilism was the son of a wealthy landed proprietor, who boasted a line of aristocratic ancestors. Economic conditions had decided that his natural destiny was the army. Consequently, at the age of fourteen, he entered the School of Artillery at St. Petersburg. Here he found, among a large minority of the students at least, an underground current of Liberalism which was only outwardly loyal and obedient to the behests of the Governmental despotism. Among themselves, these rebel students cherished the memories of the Decembrists of 182... (From: Anarchy Archives.)
Abridged and adapted from an article written for “The Commune” by the Dutch Anti-Parliamentarian, II. Canne Meijer.
Herman Gorter died at Brussels, on September 15, 1927. He had gone to Switzerland from his home in Holland to renew his health, but he felt that the end of his life was near, and so he broke off his stay in Switzerland and tried to return home. But he was obliged to break his journey at Brussels, and he died the same night in an hotel. His dying was as brave and true as his living. He had death before his eyes ten hours before he died. And he spent the time arranging about his unpublished writings and issuing strict instructions that nobody should speak at his grave.
When the world war broke out, and the so-c... (From: Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com & AnarchyArchives.)
“The State! Whatever the State saith is a lie; whatever it hath is a theft: all is counterfeit in it, the gnawing sanguinary, insatiate monster. It even bites with stolen teeth. Its very bowels are counterfeit." —— Friedrich Nietzsche
“Communism in material production, anarchy in the intellectual. —— that is the type of a Socialist mode of production, as it will develop from the rule of the proletariat——in other words, from the Social Revolution, through the logic of economic facts, whatever might be the wishes, intentions, and theories of the proletariat.” ——Karl Kautsky
I.
The argument that Socialism involves State tyranny of a type with which the worker is not una... (From: Marxists.org.)
In 1829 Carlile celebrated Taylor's release from prison by establishing Sunday morning adult school Bible discussions, thus anticipating the modern Quaker adult school movement in much the same way as his colleague anticipated the orthodox Christian Evidence Society. Three months later Carlile and Taylor entered upon an infidel and republican mission through the north of England. On their return to London they opened-up, on May 30th, 1830, the Rotunda—4the one-time famous music-hall in Blackfriars Road, or Great Surrey Street as it was called—-as a Freethought Coliseum. The Rotunda had been, in turn, a natural history museum, a literary "Surrey Institute,” a music-hall, a circus, and a home of panorama. Coleridge had deliv... (From: Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com.)
The Socialism of William Morris
Slightly revised from a shorthand report of as lecture delivered at the Seamore Picture House, Glasgow, October 25th, 1915.
My subject tonight is “The Socialism of William Morris.” In ‘dealing with this subject, I may say a few things that will come as a surprise to many orthodox Socialists who may be present, and to strangers who know nothing about Socialism or the movement. What I shall say will not be from the standpoint of wishing to shock people, but from that of educating them. If what I say seems a little strange or new, therefore, my hearers should remember that, from time to time, we come up against facts and ideals which are strange. The strange, however,... (From: Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com.)
This pamphlet was published at Shepherds Bush in 1914. It was revised from The Religion and Economics of Sex Oppression, which was printed and published by the Bakunin Press, at the Goswell Road address in 1907. The purpose of the original pamphlet was described on the title page as follows:-—
“Being a consideration of the principles of Socialism and Freethought in relation to Women, The Suffrage, Free Love, and Neo-Malthusian, together with an examination of scriptural precepts and injunctions, the teaching of the Christian Fathers, and of the Latter Day Saints upon the questions of polygamy and the position of woman.”
The Foreword mentions how the pamphlet owed its inception to a lecture delivered before the Sout... (From: Marxists.org & RevoltLib.com.)
AUTHOR’S NOTE (1919 Edition).
Trade Unionism and The Class War was published first in 1911. It met with a great deal of criticism and received one complimentary notice. This was from “Dangle” in the Clarion! It was reprinted in 1914 in the Herald of Revolt. The present edition is revised. The introductory section is expanded into a chapter. The third section of the original pamphlet — which would have been the fourth as the essay now stands-treating with the question of representation is omitted. This properly belongs to the companion essay, Representation and the State, and will be embodied in it when that pamphlet is revised. Many persons object to the reasoning of this essay because they consider its logic ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
