“The slightest concession, the smallest grace and compassion will bring us back to the past again, and leave our fetters untouched. Of two things we must choose one. Either we must justify ourselves and go on, or we must falter and beg for mercy when we have arrived half-way.”
In these terms, written in a mood of uncompromising Nihilism, Herzen condemned his later career. The condemnation applies to the world socialist movement. It is safe to say that the careerist labor leaders of European politics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries flourished in retreat. The organization of the Labor Movement has been a long story of calculated anti-socialist conspiracy and intrigue. Should a future generation ever pause to t... (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.)
The situation in Germany in the autumn of 1923 was favorable to the rise of a revolutionary proletariat. But the Communist Party conducted a relentless war against the Anti-Parliamentary K.A.P.D., which had been born in 1920, owing to the collapse, as an organization of struggle, of the K.P.D, favored by Moscow, and used the romance of the Russian Revolution as a shield for its own arrogant ineptitude. The German bourgeoise was able to extricate itself from an “ inextricable situation,” as Trotsky said, because the Communist Party did not realize that the position was “ inextricable,” and so failed to act. The revolutionary crisis was reached in October, and the Communist Party went on recruiting, and remained passiv... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The Peel Institute was a hotbed of political Liberalism of the Daily News variety. Membership of it converted me from Toryism to advanced Radicalism. This was early in 1904, when I was finding Huxley's lectures and essays of absorbing interest. His Romane’s address of 1893 on “Evolution and Ethics" were responsible for my development into a Socialist.
In this lecture, Huxley insisted that “the influence of the cosmic process on society is the greater, the more rudimentary its civilization." He spoke of social progress checking the cosmic process at every step, and substituting for it the ethical process. The influence of the latter was directed, not so much to the survival of the fittest, as the fitting of as many as po... (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.)
Lombroso inquired whether, according to the charlatan rules of his psuedo-physiognomy, the Chicago Anarchists were criminals. We prefer the testimony of Captain Black, who was their principal advocate, that they were men. On the morning that they were declared guilty by the packed jury in the packed court, Black saw the prisoners immediately upon their return to jail. He was im- pressed by their calm, fearless, and contented bearing.
Adolph Fischer, who towered above his comrades, said to Black, with the utmost simplicity, and with a smile that lighted up his entire face, that he was not surprised at the verdict. and did not mind if the authorities hanged him on the morrow. He added. “I am ready to die for the cause of the people.&... (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.)
Carlile now took over the absolute control of Sherwin’s publishing business, and dropped the title of Sherwin’s Register in favor of the Republican. In all, this journal ran into fourteen volumes, and was edited, for the most part, from Dorchester jail. We shall have occasion to refer to its contents in the course of the present biography. '
As we have seen, Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason, and Elihu Palmer's Principles of Nature, had already been condemned as blasphemous publications. This fact caused Carlile to feel it incumbent upon him to republish them in vindication of the absolute freedom of the Press. It is an evidence of Carlile’s disinterestedness that not only did he not agree with Paine’s theologica... (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.)
In the 1907 pamphlet, the piety theme is developed in detail. The women characters of the Bible are listed by name and comment made, that their several stories “are included in the hope of inculcating in the woman’s mind the propriety of her ‘modest’ (!) retirement to the privacy of domestic life, performing, in an exemplary manner, the duties of a domestic serf, studying his desires like a subject, whilst extolling him for his strength of mind, and power of acquiring knowledge and enforcing his will. To these disgusting precepts, We find even the boasted savior of Christendom made, by priestly tradition, to lend his aid."
This passage stands: but it would interfere with the re-written text of the 1914 edition to ... (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.)
