The ResurrectionFor three years afterwards Nekhludoff did not see Katiousha. But when, as staff-officer, he was on his way to his army post, he paid a short visit to his aunts, but an entirely different man. Three years ago he was an honest, self-denying youth, ready to devote himself to every good cause; now he was a corrupt and refined egotist, given over to personal enjoyment. Then, the world appeared to him as a mystery which he joyfully and enthusiastically tried to solve; now, everything in this world was plain and simple, and was determined by those conditions of life in which he found himself. Then, it was necessary and important to hold communion with nature and with those people who lived, thought and felt before him (philosophers, poets); now, human institutions were the only things necessary and important, and communion he held with his comrades. Woman, then, appeared to him a mysterious and charming creature; now, he looked on woman, on every woman, except nearest re...
Translated from the French by Robert Helms "L'Enfant" originally appeared in the Paris periodical La France on October 21, 1885. Motteau gave his testimony as follows: "There you have it, your honor. You've listened to all these people --my good neighbors and my good friends. They haven't cut me any slack, and that's fair enough. They felt uncomfortable as long as I was in Boulaie... (From : Mid-Atlantic Infoshop.)
February 24.---It was 3 A. M. In the Foreign Office correspondents were about and visitors come by appointment with Tchicherin. The People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs has turned night into day. I found Tchicherin at a desk in a large, cold office, an old shawl wrapped around his neck. Almost his first question was "how soon the revolution could be expected in the States." When I replied that the American workers were still too much under the influence of the reactionary leaders, he called me pessimistic. In a revolutionary time like the present, he thought, even the Federation of Labor must quickly change to a more radical attitude. He was very hopeful of revolutionary developments in England and America in the near future. We discussed the Industrial Workers of the World, Tchicherin saying that he believed I exaggerated their importance as the only revolutionary proletarian movement in America. He considered the Communist Party in that country of far gr...
From: International Publishers, International Pamphlets No. 12, sponsored by the John Reed Club, an organization of revolutionary writers and artists in New York. Third edition, 1934. On March 18, 1871, the revolutionary workers of Paris established the Commune. It was the first attempt at a proletarian dictatorship. Again and again the story has been told: how Napoleon III (the Little) attempted to bolster up the decaying regime of the Second Empire by declaring war on Prussia in July, 1871; how he met his debacle at Sedan and exposed Paris to the Prussian troops; how a bourgeois republic was proclaimed in September and a so-called Government of National Defense organized; how this Government betrayed the besieged city and how the Parisian... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
(Tune: "Andreas Refer.") O high rocks looking heavenward, O valleys green and fair, Sea-cliffs that seem to gird and guard Our Island --- once so dear! In vain your beauty now ye spread, For we are numbered with the dead: A robber band has seized the land, And we are exiles here. The moonlight glides along the shore And silvers all the sands, It gleams on halls and castles hoar Built by our father's hands. But from the scene its beauty fades, The light dies out along the glades: A robber band has seized the land, And we are exiles here. The plowman plows, the sower sow; The reaper reaps the ear, The woodman to the forest goes Before the day grows clear; But of our toil no fruit we see, The harvest's not for you and me: A robber band has sei... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
Clearly every detail of that day is engraved on my mind. It is the sixth of July, 1892. We are quietly sitting in the back of our little flat-Fedya and I-when suddenly the Girl enters. Her naturally quick, energetic step sounds more than usually resolute. As I turn to her, I am struck by the peculiar gleam in her eyes and the heightened color. "Have you read it?" she cries, waving the half-open newspaper. "What is it?" "Homestead. Strikers shot. Pinkertons have killed women and children." She speaks in a quick, jerky manner. Her words ring like the cry of a wounded animal, the melodious voice tinged with the harshness of bitterness-the bitterness of helpless agony. I take the paper from her hands. In growing excitement I read the vivid account of the tremendous struggle, the Homestead strike, or, more correctly, the lockout. The report details the conspiracy on the part of the Carnegie Company to crush the Amalgamated Associatio...
There are periods in the life of human society when revolution becomes an imperative necessity, when it proclaims itself as inevitable. New ideas germinate everywhere, seeking to force their way into the light, to find an application in life; everywhere they are opposed by the inertia of those whose interest it is to maintain the old order; they suffocate in the stifling atmosphere of prejudice and traditions. The accepted ideas of the constitution of the State, of the laws of social equilibrium, of the political and economic interrelations of citizens, can hold out no longer against the implacable criticism which is daily undermining them whenever occasion arises,--in drawing room as in cabaret, in the writings of philosophers as in daily ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
SPAIN Hunger reigns in Andalusia. At Quersado the workmen are literally starring. At Sevilla they are demonstrating for the same reason, and the civic guard has been sent to preserve order and starvation among them. At Pedroso the same condition. At Loja people parade the streets demanding bread or work. At Linares the work is suspended in ten mines. ROMANIA In Romania the peasants have revolted. They have marched through the country sacking and destroying barns and houses, attacking and punishing proprietors, agents, praefects, and fighting the troops. The militia, and even the regulars have shown an admirable disposition to fraternize with the people. The cause of the revolt, it is hardly necessary to say, is sheer misery. The condition o... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
The rulers of America threaten the world with two fresh outrages upon humanity. In America, as in some other unhappy lands, there are certain ambitious individuals who take upon themselves to pose as servants, representatives, and guardians of their fellows. And in America, as elsewhere, these officious persons serve, represent, and guard nothing and nobody except property and property monopolists. A hundred years ago they made a set of rules for this purpose, called the Constitution. Mr. Gladstone says it is the finest thing of the sort devised by man. In accordance with these rules the great mass of American citizens have submitted for one hundred years to have the fruits of their labor stolen from them by a handful of monopolists. But th... (From : AnarchyArchives.)
Part I. Kronstadt Chapter 1. Geographical Notes Kronstadt is a fortress, or rather, a fortified city, built two centuries ago on the Island of Kotlin, 30 kilometers west of St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) at the lower end of the Gulf of Finland. It defends the approaches from the Baltic Sea to the former capital, and is also the principal base of the Russian Baltic Fleet. The Gulf of Finland is frozen in winter, and communication between Kronstadt and Leningrad is carried on, for five months of the year (from November to April), over a snow road on top of the thick ice of the Gulf. Kotlin Island — a narrow, elongated piece of land with very irregular contours — is 12 kilometers long. Its greatest width is from 2 to 3 kilometers. Its coasts are inaccessible and well fortified. The eastern part of the island, which faces Leningrad, contains the city of Kronstadt, the port and the docks, and occupies about a third of the total area. T...
We have all been so drilled from our youth up in the prejudices of property and authority that even the workers, for whom property and authority have done so little, are not free from superstitious belief in their necessity. Especially we are all too much inclined to believe that mere confusion must follow on a popular revolt, unless some central or local authority be immediately set up to control social life and reorganize the people. During the Commune of 1871, the newly-elected Municipal Government was too deeply engaged by the enemy at the gates to make many attempts at social reconstruction. Was the city, in which so much of the old order had been overthrown, given up to disorder or to merely aimless individual effort 7 Did its social ... (From : AnarchyArchives.)