The ResurrectionArriving at the court-house, Nekhludoff met the usher in the corridor and asked him where the prisoners already sentenced were kept, and from whom permission could be obtained to see them. The usher told him that the prisoners were kept in various places, and that before final judgment the public prosecutor was the only person from whom permission to see them could be obtained. "The prosecutor has not arrived yet; when he does I will let you know, and will escort you myself to him after the session. And now, please to walk into the court. The session is commencing." Nekhludoff thanked the usher, who seemed to him particularly pitiful to-day, and went into the jury-room. As Nekhludoff was approaching the jury-room his fellow jurors were coming out, repairing to the court-room. The merchant was as cheerful, had lunched as well as yesterday, and greeted Nekhludoff like an old friend. The loud laughter and familiarity of Peter Gerasimovitch did not give...
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.)
Revolution breaks the social forms grown too narrow for man. It bursts the molds which constrict him the more solidified they become, and the more Life ever striving forward leaves them. In this dynamic process the Russian Revolution has gone further than any previous revolution. The abolition of the established --- politically and economically, socially and ethically --- the attempt to replace it with something different, is the reflex of man's changed needs, of the awakened consciousness of the people. Back of revolution are the millions of living humans who embody its inner spirit, who feel, think, and have their being in it. To them revolution is not a mere change of externals: it implies the complete dislocation of life, the shattering of dominant traditions, the annulment of accepted standards. The habitual, measured step of existence is interrupted, accustomed criteria become inoperative, former precedents are void. Existence is forced into uncharted channels; every...
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.)
I The days ring with noisy clamor. There is constant going and coming. The clatter of levers, the slamming of iron doors, continually reverberates through the corridors. The dull thud of a footfall in the cell above hammers on my head with maddening regularity. In my ears is the yelling and shouting of coarse voices. "Cell num-ber ee-e-lev-ven! To court! Right a-way!" A prisoner hurriedly passes my door. His step is nervous, in his look expectant fear. "Hurry, there! To court!" "Good luck, Jimmie." The man flushes and averts his face, as he passes a group of visitors clustered about an overseer. "Who is that, Officer?" One of the ladies advances, lorgnette in hand, and stares boldly at the prisoner. Suddenly she shrinks back. A man is being led past by the guards. His face is bleeding from a deep gash, his head swathed in bandages. The officers thrust him violently into a cell. He falls heavily against the bed...
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.)
Foreword Independently of the reactions towards the right [which took place in Russia after the October Revolution of 1917] there also occurred, during and after the same period, a series of movements in the opposite direction. These were revolutionary movements, which fought the Bolshevik power in the name of true liberty and of the principles of the Social Revolution which that power had scoffed at and trampled underfoot. Indeed, even within the ranks of the government and of the Communist Party itself, movements of opposition and revolt were provoked by the stifling statism and centralism, the terrifying tendency towards bureaucracy, the flagrant social impotence and the shameless violence of the Bolsheviks. It was thus that, in the summer of 1918, the Left Social-Revolutionaries, who until then had participated in the government, left it, broke with the Bolsheviks, and declared against them. They soon succumbed under the blows of repression.
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.)