• "...so long as men will be found who want to violate the liberties of others, it is incumbent on these others to defend themselves if they do not wish to be eternally beaten..."
• "...the mission of those who, like us, wish the end of all oppression and of all exploitation of man by man, is to awaken a consciousness of the antagonism of interests between dominators and dominated, between exploiters and workers, and to develop the class struggle inside each country, and the solidarity among all workers across the frontiers, as against any prejudice and any passion of either race or nationality."
• "..."France," or "Germany," and of other political and national agglomerations—results of historical struggles—as of homogenous ethnographic units, each having its proper interests, aspirations, and mission, in opposition to the interests, aspirations and a mission of rival units. This may be true relatively, so long as the oppressed, and chiefly the workers, have no self-consciousness, fail to recognize the injustice of their oppressors. There is, then, the dominating class only that counts; and this class, owing to its desire to conserve and to enlarge its power, even its prejudices and its own ideas, may find it convenient to excite racial ambitions and hatred, and send its nation, its flock, against "foreign" countries, with a view to releasing them from their present oppressors, and submitting them to its own political economical domination."
The Two Camps
You taunt us with disbelieving in God, We charge you with believing in him. We do not condemn you for this. We do not even indict you. We pity you. For the time of illusions is past. We cannot be deceived any longer. Whom do we find under God's banner ! Emperors, kings, the official and the officious world; our lords and our nobles; all the privileged persons of Europe whose names are recorded in the Almana de Gotha; the guinea, pigs of the industrial, commercial and banking world; the patented professors of our universities; the civil service servants; the low and high police officers; the gendarmes; the jailers; the headsmen or hangmen, not forgetting the priests, who are now the black police enslaving our souls to the State; the glorious... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
[These reviews of my work are] very far from the truth... [kee]pers and jailers are but human, and may occasionally be guilty of abuse of power. It is only an awakened public consciousness that can progressively and successfully cope with such abuses, whether they be perpetrated in congress, in our courts of justice, or in the penitentiaries. Second bourgeois paper: A book by a degenerate who did not find prison to his taste. An indecent book, that is both a glorification of assassination and an apology, even justification, of unmentionable crimes. Mr. Comstock had better look into this work. Third bourgeois paper: A peculiar work, very uneven both as to merit and worth. It contains much that is good and valuable, but still more of matter t... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
PETER KROPOTKIN's first political book, 'Paroles d'un Révolté' -- a collection of articles from 'LeRévolté', the paper he had founded In Geneva in 1879 -- was published in France in 1885, while he was serving a five-year prison sentence. It has been translated into nearly all the main languages of the world but, though most of its nineteen chapters have appeared in English at various times and in various places as articles or pamphlets or both, there has never been a complete translation. The first English language edition of the whole book will be published by the Libertarian Book Club of New York next year, In commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Kropotkin's death, under the title 'Words of a Rebel' (co... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
Summons, by Nestor Makhno
This poem by Nestor Makhno was written when he was 23 years old and had been in prison for two years for "illegal subversive association." Summons. Let us rise in revolt, brethren, and with us the people Beneath the black flag of Anarchy will revolt. We will surge boldly forward, under the fire of enemy bullets in the battle for faith in libertarian communism, Our just regime. We shall cast down all thrones and bring low the power of Capital. We will seize the gold and purple scepter And pay no more honor to anything. Through savage struggle We shall rid ourselves of the State and its laws. We have suffered long under the yoke Of chains, prisons and teeming gangs of executioners. The time has come to rise in rebellion and close ranks. Forwa... (From : LibCom.org.)
[The two Camps, which is here included, was translated by "Crastinus" from Bakunin's preface to his pamphlet refuting Mazini's theisic idealism. This work was published in the year 1871. At this time Italy witnessed the breaking-up of the workers' associations, guided by the patriotic spirit, and saw the spreading of the ideals of International Socialism, as well as the conflict between the capitalist and the working class conceptions of life. After nearly fifty years, the vibrating audacity of Bakunin's thought, their penetrating inwardness, their generosity are as alive as ever. ---ED.] You taunt us with disbelieving in God. We charge you with believing in him. We do not condemn you for this. We do not even indict you. We pity you. For th... (From : Anarchy Archives.)