Albert Meltzer, anarchist, born London, January 7,1920;
died, Weston-Super-Mare, North Somerset, May 7, 1996.
Albert Meltzer was one of the most enduring and respected torchbearers of the international anarchist movement in the second half of the twentieth century. His sixty-year commitment to the vision and practice of anarchism survived both the collapse of the Revolution and Civil War in Spain and The Second World War; he helped fuel the libertarian impetus of the 1960s and 1970s and steer it through the reactionary challenges of the Thatcherite 1980s and post-Cold War 1990s.
Fortunately, before he died, Albert managed to finish his autobiography, I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels, a pungent, no-punches pulled, Schve... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
WRITING IN the preface to l’Espagne Libre, in 1946, the year of my birth, Albert Camus said of the Spanish struggle: “It is now nine years that men of my generation have had Spain within their hearts. Nine years that they have carried it with them like an evil wound. It was in Spain that men learned that one can be right and yet be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own recompense. It is this, doubtless, which explains why so many men, the world over, regard the Spanish drama as a personal tragedy”.
On 1 April 2009 seventy years will have passed since General Franco declared victory in his three-year crusade against the Spanish Republic. His victory was won with the ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The POUM: Trotsky and the POUM
The POUM was formed in 1935 by an amalgamation of the Communist Left, a Trotskyist organization led by Nin and Andrade, and the Bloque Obrero y Campesino (BOC — Workers’ and Peasants’ Bloc). In January 1936, the POUM’s decision to sign the Popular Front agreement promoted Trotsky to denounce the POUM in an article on 22 January entitled The Treason of the Workers′ Party for Marxist Unification (POUM). Trotsky’s anathema led to a cooling of relations between the POUM and the supporters of the Fourth (Trotskyist) International and severely damaged the credibility of Spanish Trotskyists.
Unable to understand Spanish and with his relationship with Nin broken off, Trotsky had... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The life of Lucio Urtubia Jiménez (1931–2020), an anarchist from Navarre in northern Spain, is the stuff of legend. As an activist in 1950s Paris he counted André Breton and Albert Camus among his friends, worked with the legendary anarchist urban guerrilla Francisco Sabate (El Quico) in attempting to bring down Franco’s fascist regime, and carried out numerous bank robberies to fund the struggle to free Spain. But it was in 1977, after having his earlier scheme to destabilize the US economy by forging US dollars rejected by Che Guevara, he put his most infamous plan into action, successfully forging and circulating 20 million dollars of Citibank travelers checks with the goal of funding urban guerrilla groups in E... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Antonio Martín Bellido, Madrid 1938-Paris August 17, 2014: son of a Madrid UGT (General Workers’ Union) militant exiled in France where he lived, in Strasbourg, from the age of two.
Having served his apprenticeship as an electrical engineer, he moved to Paris at the age of 19 where he joined the Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth (FIJL). In 1962 he visited London with other young Spanish and French anarchists to take part in the annual anti-nuclear Aldermaston march, during which many enduring friendships were forged.
That same year he joined the recently re-constituted MLE’s (Libertarian Movement in Exile) clandestine planning section known as ‘Defensa Interior’ (D.I.), whose remit was (a) ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Born 20 March 1924, died 6 February 6 2004
The milieu in which the anti-nuclear Scottish Committee of 100 flourished no longer exists, its activists having long since adopted other agendas. However, its brief flowering will always be associated with the dynamic figure of Walter Morrison, who seemingly at birth had signed up for life as a private extraordinaire in the Awkward Squad.
Morrison, who has died in his eightieth year, fought courageously against the wrongs in society, proudly wore the badges of nonviolence and libertarian socialism, and spoke his mind fearlessly no matter where he was or in whose company.
Angered by the Clydebank blitz in 1940, the 16-year-old Morrison lied about his age and joined the army. He... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
In 1943, the young Italian anarchist, Goliardo Fiaschi, falsified his birth certificate — to make himself seem older than his 13 years — and joined the wartime Italian partisans. Armed with a captured rifle almost as big as himself, he accompanied the women who regularly crossed the Apennines on foot to carry food from Parma, Reggio or Modena, some 150 miles away, back to the starving inhabitants of his Tuscan birthplace, Massa di Carrara. In 1944, he was adopted as a mascot by the Costrignano Brigade, and, in that role, entered Modena as standard-bearer on its liberation in April 1945.
Fiaschi, who has died aged 69, was one of the youngest of the generation of anti- fascist partisans who fought against Mussolini’s ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Russian Anarchists (1967) was followed by Kronstadt 1921 (1970) and in 1972, Russian Rebels: 1600–1800. He then moved into American anarchism with The Haymarket Tragedy (1984). This focused on the campaign for the eight-hour day in Chicago in 1886 during which seven policemen were killed by a bomb, and for which four innocent anarchists were executed — one cheated the gallows by killing himself, and another three served sentences until pardoned by the state governor. Sacco and Vanzetti: The Anarchist Background (1991) established that the two men, executed in 1927 in Massachusetts, were serious revolutionaries rather than “philosophical anarchists”.
Avrich was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a Jewish family o... (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.)
In Latin America
Stefano Delle Chiaie’s first known visit to Latin America was to Chili with Prince Valerio Borghese late in 1973 after the CIA-backed coup which ousted and killed President Salvador Allende. The buildup to the Chilean coup bore numerous similarities to the events which unsettled Italy from early 1969 onwards. The two fascists’ trip to Chili was ostensibly on behalf of a Madrid agency, Enesia, to establish friendly relations and encourage trade with the new regime, but in fact to discuss the setting up of an international hit squad to kill the enemies of the Junta and to neutralize all overseas opposition.
This proposal for a transnational terror network later to become known as “Operation Condor”... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The obsession of the CNT leadership with antifascist unity steadily widened the gap between them and the aspirations of the mass of the radical working-class membership. The interests they now defended were those of the bourgeoisie and the property-owning classes. On 23 October a ‘Pact of Unity’ was signed between the CNT, FAI, the UGT and the PSUC in Catalonia. Article Two of this agreement, relating to collectivization, stated that although the Council supported collectivization ‘of everything which may be essential in the interests of the war’, the council’s understanding was that “this collectivization would fail to produce the desired results unless overseen and orchestrated by a body genuinely repre... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Antonio Téllez Solà
Born January 18 1921 — Tarragona, Spain, died March 27 2005 — Perpignan, France.
The Herodotus of the anti-Franco maquis
Antonio Téllez Solà, who has died at his home in Perpignan aged 84, was one of the last survivors of the anarchist resistance which fought to overthrow the Franco dictatorship. He was also one of the first historians of the post civil war urban and rural guerrilla resistance to the fascist regime. In his actions and his writings, Tellez personified refusal to surrender to tyranny.
The son of a railway worker, he was born in Tarragona and was radicalized by the October 1934 insurrection in Asturias, which failed when the unions outside the min... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Robert Lynn has snuffed it. In the heart of Glasgow — the Calton — hundreds of people are genuinely mourning the loss of one of its best loved sons.
Born in the Calton in 1924 Robert went on to be educated at St. Mungo’s Academy. Leaving school at 14 years of age he took up an engineering apprenticeship in the shipyards. Already possessing an awareness of class consciousness he was swept up in the maelstrom of political activity which was occurring during the war years in the British shipyard and engineering industries. In 1943 the strike on Tyneside, which saw Jock Haston and Roy Tearso imprisoned, quickly spread to the Clyde where many shipyards were brought to a halt. Robert worked in Yarrows as an apprentice and... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
16: Legitimacy Crisis
By 1932 it was clear to all sections of the population that liberal democracy was not working the way it was supposed to. Dissatisfaction with government affected everyone, cutting across class and regional lines. The politicizing effect of the democratic surge that accompanied the Republic had led the people to make political demands on the State that could not be met. Disappointment was inevitable and confidence in the Republic began to wither.
The year 1932 was dominated by uninterrupted agrarian and industrial unrest. Strikes and violent confrontations were a daily occurrence. The specter of revolution haunted the agrarian, industrial and commercial bourgeoisie and the semi-feudal landed elite of Spain alike. O... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The point of a club is not who it lets in, but who it keeps out. The club is based on two ancient British ideas the segregation of classes, and the segregation of sexes: and they even remain insistent on keeping people out, long after they have stopped wanting to come in.
— Anthony Sampson, Anatomy of Britain
If secrecy is to be considered a factor in British politics and commerce then without doubt Freemasonry is one of its principal vehicles. Freemasonry is the largest semi-covert organization of the western bourgeoisie, with over six million members worldwide sharing a vision of a unified world order bound together through a series of interlocking Masonic alliances. Among the worlds most influential institutions m... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)