Revolt Library : Revolutionary Materials from the Past

When the Short Course history of the Communist party was published in Pravda in 1938, it was accompanied by a decree which emphasized the role of the intelligentsia in the construction of Soviet society. The decree bitterly condemned the ‘Makhaevist’ belief that the intellectuals — party officials, factory and farm managers, army officers, technical specialists, scientists — were an alien breed of self-seeking men who had nothing in common with the worker at the bench or the peasant behind the plow. This hostile attitude towards the intelligentsia, declared the decree, was ‘savage, hooligan and dangerous to the Soviet State’. A number of Pravda readers, puzzled by the strange expression ‘Makhaevism’, wrote to the editors asking them to explain it. (Some readers, it seems, confused ‘Makhaevism’ with ‘Machism’, the philosophy of the Austrian physicist Ernst Mach, which Lenin had... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The first proceeding after the verification of credentials was the calling over the list of delegates, most of whom answered the roll in French, German, and English. The only incident worthy of mention during this tedious process was the applause with which the names of Peter Lavroff (Russia), Cipriani (Italy), and that of Dr. Adler the Austrian delegate (now sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, to be undergone upon his return), and the Danish delegation, were greeted. These last had been sent at the last moment, the Danish Social-Democrats having altered their previous intention not to participate in the Congress. Several fresh adhesions during the sittings brought up the total of delegates to 407. The English representation, consisting of 21 at the outset of the business, was increased to 24 by the arrival of J. and R. Turner and F. Charles subsequently. The proportions of the English delegation from the Socialist League were : Council of two delegates ; and branches ni... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

ANARCHISM BECOMES ISOLATED FROM THE WORKING-CLASS MOVEMENT It is now time to examine anarchism in action. Which brings us to the eve of the twentieth century. Libertarian ideas certainly played some part in the revolutions of the nineteenth century but not an independent one. Proudhon had taken a negative attitude to the 1848 Revolution even before its outbreak. He attacked it as a political revolution, a bourgeois booby trap, and, indeed, much of this was true. Moreover, according to Proudhon, it was inopportune and its use of barricades and street battles was outdated, for he himself dreamed of a quite different road to victory for his panacea: mutuelliste collectivism. As for the Paris Commune, while it is true that it spontaneously broke away from "traditional statist centralization," it was the product of a "compromise," as Henri Lefebvre has noted, a sort of "united front" between the Proudhonists and Bakuninites on the one hand and the Jacobins and Blanquists on the...

1. A Growing Obsession With Demands The New York Times quotes one occupier; ‘We absolutely need demands… power concedes nothing without a demand.’ The Occupy Seattle website has a number of policy polls for demands ranging from, ‘universal education’ to ‘end corporate personhood.’ Astonishingly, many of the NYC protesters see fit to work towards a set of ultimatums for the politicians in Washington to consider. With unparalleled political naivety, some think it best for their representatives in Congress to take final responsibility for ‘fixing’ capitalism. It seems many protesters cannot shake their attachment to existing power structures. 2. The American Dream and ‘Nice’ Capitalism Picture it now: The mind-numbing, six-hour general assembly of earnest campers wrangling over the pros and cons of reforming the banking system. Searching for a consensus to draw a plan... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

It is December 17, 2011. One year ago today, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in response to his mistreatment by the Tunisian police, setting off a chain reaction worldwide. Let no one forget that the wave of uprisings still sweeping the globe did not simply spring from the hard work of activists, however long some labored to pave the way. It did not begin with people setting out to better themselves or the world. It began with the ultimate gesture of despair and self-destruction. Bouazizi was not enacting a strategy. He was alone, as alone as a person can be. By drawing back the curtain from injustice so we could come together to fight it, he gave us a precious gift, but a costlier gift than we have any right to receive. The European Parliament awarded him the Sakharov Prize posthumously, but he died knowing only that he had acted on his humiliation and rage, to no end other than to express them. His death hangs in eternity as an irreparable tragedy. We might say the... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

(1957 - 2002)
John Moore (1957 – 27 October 2002) was a British anarchist author, teacher, and organizer. A member of the Anarchist Research Group in London in the 1980s, he was one of the main theorists of the pro-Situ anarchism of the 1990s (most commonly associated with Hakim Bey), and was attracted to anarcho-primitivism in particular; his best-known work is the essay "A Primitivist Primer." Despite the heavy influence of theorist Fredy Perlman, Moore later turned to theorists of language and subjectivity, such as Julia Kristeva, Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner. (From : Wikipedia.org.)

(1897 - 1937)
Camillo Berneri (also known as Camillo da Lodi; May 28, 1897, Lodi – May 5, 1937, Barcelona) was an Italian professor of philosophy, anarchist militant, propagandist and theorist. He was married to Giovanna Berneri, and was father of Marie-Louise Berneri and Giliana Berneri, all of whom were also anarchists. (From : Wikipedia.org.)

(1862 - 1925)
Georges Toussaint Léon Palante (20 November 1862 – 5 August 1925) was a French philosopher and sociologist. Palante advocated aristocratic individualist ideas similar to Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer. He was opposed to Émile Durkheim's holism, promoting methodological individualism instead. (From : Wikipedia.org.)

(1971 - )
Thomas Piketty (French: [tɔ.ma pi.kɛ.ti]; born 7 May 1971) is a French economist who is Professor of Economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics and Centennial Professor of Economics in the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics. Piketty's work focuses on public economics, in particular income and wealth inequality. He is the author of the best-selling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century , which emphasizes the themes of his work on wealth concentrations and distribution over the past 250 years. The book argues that the rate of capital return in developed countries is persistently greater than the rate of economic growth, and that this will cause wealth inequality to increase in the future. To address this problem Piketty proposes redistribution through a progressive global tax on wealth. In 2020, his book Capital and Ideology was published,... (From : Wikipedia.org.)

Feminism Is For Everybody by Bell Hooks, South End Press, 2000
bell hooks is one of the most prominent and well respected feminist academics and authors in the United States. She is often the subject of study by college students and academics, as well as a frequent guest on talk shows and other mass media. Her work in feminist theory has been groundbreaking, yet it is often limited to academic, literary, and other elite circles. Feminism Is For Everybody is hooks’ attempt to create a quick, simple primer on feminist history, theory, and politics to the masses who receive a misinformed, misunderstood, and maligned version of feminist movement. To that end, she has written an easy to read, concise book which documents her experiences as a feminist activist and academic. As an anarchist with some exposure to hooks’ writings, I have a great deal of respect for her. This was once again reinforced by the content of Feminism Is For Everybody. Whether hooks identifies herself as an anarchist or not, much of what I found in the boo... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

With Strictures On Political And Moral SubjectsAfter considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess, that either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization, which has hitherto taken place in the world, has been very partial. I have turned over various books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but what has been the result? a profound conviction, that the neglected education of my fellow creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove, that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers that are planted in too rich a soil, stre...

Sunday Night [Paris, 1793]. I have just received your letter, and feel as if I could not go to bed tranquilly without saying a few words in reply—merely to tell you, that my mind is serene and my heart affectionate. Ever since you last saw me inclined to faint, I have felt some gentle twitches, which make me begin to think, that I am nourishing a creature who will soon be sensible of my care.—This thought has not only produced an overflowing of tenderness to you, but made me very attentive to calm my mind and take exercise, lest I should destroy an object, in whom we are to have a mutual interest, you know. Yesterday—do not smile!—finding that I had hurt myself by lifting precipitately a large log of wood, I sat down in an agony, till I felt those said twitches again. Are you very busy? So you may reckon on its being finished soon, though not before you come home, unless you...

The severity of the long Swedish winter tends to render the people sluggish, for though this season has its peculiar pleasures, too much time is employed to guard against its inclemency. Still as warm clothing is absolutely necessary, the women spin and the men weave, and by these exertions get a fence to keep out the cold. I have rarely passed a knot of cottages without seeing cloth laid out to bleach, and when I entered, always found the women spinning or knitting. A mistaken tenderness, however, for their children, makes them even in summer load them with flannels, and having a sort of natural antipathy to cold water, the squalid appearance of the poor babes, not to speak of the noxious smell which flannel and rugs retain, seems a reply to a question I had often asked—Why I did not see more children in the villages I passed through? Indeed the children appear to be nipt in the bud, having neither the graces nor charms of their age. And this...

Sunday Morning. I wrote to you yesterday, my ——; but, finding that the colonel is still detained (for his passport was forgotten at the office yesterday) I am not willing to let so many days elapse without your hearing from me, after having talked of illness and apprehensions. I cannot boast of being quite recovered, yet I am (I must use my Yorkshire phrase; for, when my heart is warm, pop come the expressions of childhood into my head) so lightsome, that I think it will not go badly with me.—And nothing shall be wanting on my part, I assure you; for I am urged on, not only by an enlivened affection for you, but by a new-born tenderness that plays cheerly round my dilating heart. I was therefore, in defiance of cold and dirt, out in the air the greater part of yesterday; and, if I get over this evening without a return of the fever that has tormented me, I shall talk no more of illness. I have prom...