land (c. 1930) after noarly fourteen years of constant warfare. He seemed to have borne a charmed life. Not 10% of Ms officers had survived bis campaigns. " The Spanish Arena anarchist fortnightly (night Book Club). • Vol. 36 Nos. 4 1-45 « NOVKMHKH 1!)75 TEN PENCE ON JULY 29th, 193G when interview-

inscription abo.-e Carabanehel prison June 30, 1933 there were 1,167 bom­ ed by the News Chronicle in Teluan entrance: w bardments by Franco rebels against Franco was asked,"'"How long, now I CAN AFFIRM WITHOUT FEAR OF civil opulations (an average of 1.5 that your coup has failed in its object­ ERROR, THAT ANYONE WHO HAS each day over two years). Madrid ives, is the massacre to go on?" VISITED THE PRISONS OF OTHER had been bombarded 151 times, Bar­ Franco replied, "There can be no COUNTRIES, AND COMPARED THEM celona 93, Valencia 79. The War in compromise, no truce. I shall go on WITH OURS, WILL NOT HAVE Spain (United Editorial). preparing my advance to Madrid. I FOUND INSTITUTIONS AS EQUIT­ shall advance. I shall taice the capit­ ABLE, CHRISTIAN OR HUMANE AS al. I shall save Spain from Marxism THOSE ESTABLISHED BY OUR "THE REPUBLIC has been proclaim­ at whatever cost." MOVEMENT. --F ra n cisco Franco. ed in Spain. It is the duty of all, at To the further question by the co r­ the present time, to co-operate with respondent, "This means that you "NOT ONE or two, but five or ten their discipline and allegiance so that will have to shoot half Spain?" Franco turns of the handle are necessary be­ peace may reign and the Nation be replied, "I repeat, at whatever cost. " fore the victim stops screaming or permitted to direct Itself through the wriggling. Not one or two minutes are natural judicial channels.11 necessary but ten or twenty.'1 The ex­ --Franco's order to the military acad­ Noel Monks of the Daily Express ecutioner snaps the collar shut and emy at Zaragoza (praised by Marshal visiting Guernica at daybreak on turns the handle. Two turns are sup­ Petain) on the proclamation of the April 27th, 1937 saw 600 bodies of posed to be enough. But it has rarely Spanish Republic 14.4.31. victims of the German-Italian-Franco been enough. MThe inexperience or bombing, "nurses, children, farmers, nerves of the executioner more often IN 1934 under the Republic, Franco old women, girls, old men, babies!'. than not turns the execution into a pro­ was recalled from exile in the Balear­ He expressed the belief that 1,000 civil­ longed and horrifying spectacle. ic Islands to put down 'left-wing ris­ ians had been killed. The insurgents --Sr. Daniel Suerio on the garotte, ings' in Madrid, Catalonia and have always disclaimed responsibility, quoted in the Daily M irror 25.9.75. Asturias. putting it down to 'Red arson'. Fleeing v refugees were machine-gunned. Con- inued on Page 2 FROM THE beginning of the war to "FRANCO RETURNED to ills native DEATH OF A WARRIOR CIPRIANO MERA, veteran of the Span­ Isaac Puente and Cipriano Mera. Under ish civil war, has died. He was a buil­ the direction of this committee, the ding worker, and a member of the Con- workers fought for several days against federaci6n Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) the civil police, reinforced by the Army and the Fedora cion Anarquista Iberica and backed up by tanks. The FAI pro- (FAI). claime d Communis mo jLil5ertario_. About sixty workers were killed, many Mera's name first "hit the headlines" wounded, and over 700 were jailed, in 1333. Following the elections in some while after, Cipriano Mera November, and the formation of a so- moved to Madrid. called "centre" coalition government under Lerroux, there was a consider­ w * able intensification of the class strug­ In June and July, 1936, Generals gle in many parts of Spain. In Madrid, Franco and Mola, supported by the the telephone workers - members of great landowners, the big bourgeoisie the CNT - went on strike. Spontane­ and, of course, the Church, were pre­ ous strikes broke out elsewhere, in­ paring their military uprising against cluding a general strike in Valencia. the Spanish Republic. Not a day went But the greatest struggle was in Sara­ by without someone being murdered. gossa (Zaragoza), which lasted for And in Valencia, on July 11, the Falan­ fifty-seven days. The employers gists seized the radio station, and an­ were, since the election of "their" gov­ nounced: "The Spanish Falange has ernment, determined to lower wages, seized tMs transmitter by force of while the landlords raised rents and arms. Tomorrow the same will hap­ evicted tenants. Many of the workers pen throughout Spain. " Huge demonst­ decided to send their wives and child­ rations aged nst Fascism were held. ren away to Barcelona by rail; but But it was in Madrid that conflict be­ the Gardia Civil fired on the train, came most acute. There, the smell and prevented it from leaving the sta­ of civil war was already in the air. tion. Since early February, Madrid had # On December 0, the CNT-FAI went on been affected by many strikes. The . the offensive. They organised a revo­ lutionary committee, which included Continued an Page _2 SPAIN In the Montana* all was quiet. DEATH Of A WARRIOR During the night of tho 19-20 July* capital had hitherto been the strong­ many churches wero sot alight. And in concessions. These appeared to the morning tho workers wont on the hold of the reformist-socialist Union satisfy the local leadership of the UGT* General de Trabajodreg (UGT), but the offensive. Enormous crowds assembled who ordered their members back to in the Plaza do Espana. At 10. 00 a. m. CNT had been making enormous head- work. The CNT, however, decided wa)', by its greater militancy* over the the workers1 militias* who had by then to continue the struggle. It now be­ got hold of two 75-mm field-guns* preceding months. The young* aggres­ came a trial of strength between a sive* anarcho-syndicalists of the CNT- shelled the Montsma barracks. After section of the workers (supported by five hours, the militiamen broke into FAI emerged as the "leaders of the other workers) and the State. The CNT vanguard'* 1 of the Madrid working-class; the building. Almost all the troops and denounced the UGT leadership as their officers were killed. and among them the building workers1 scabs and strike-breakers. The Fal­ representatives* David Antona, Ttfo- angists stepped up their attacks on While small detachments of workers doro Mora and* particularly* Cipriano workers ; and members of Mera's De­ Mera* were the most militant. were mopping up Fascist remnants in fence Committee retaliated by machine- the streets of Madrid* hastily-armed gunning the local Falangist headquart­ On June 1* the Madrid building work­ militias* with captured arms* requisi­ ers began an "indefinite" strike* which ers. The police then closed down the tioned cars and trucks and* commanded at that stage was jointly organised by building workers' union office* and ar­ by Moro* Antona and Cipriano Mera* the CNT and the UGT, The employers rested Antona and Mera. But the stri­ set off for Guadalajara which they soon resisted to the utmost. Nevertheless* kers* with a newly-elected Defence captured* and then Toleda which, after the workers fought back. As they and Committee* continued to fight the UGT a siege* they also captured. They then their families began to starve* they leaders* the police and the Falangists. marched on Cuenca, under the direct fforced the petit-bourgeois shopowners They would not give in. leadership of Mera* which they recap­ to supply them with food; they also i tured from the Army rebels. seized a number of large restaurants. Meanwhile* the CNT leaders* nation­ The petit-bourgeoisie took fright. But ally* were demanding of the govern­ The Revolution and the Civil War had the police were helpless against mass ment that it "arm the people" against begun in earnest. The Republican gov­ pickets. The Falangists began to try the inevitable Fascist and military up­ ernment, of course, had no army; but out their methods of counter-revolu­ rising. the workers had created, literally with­ tionary violence by attacking isolated in hours, a far more effective force: workers. The CNT and the building the militias. These were mainly orga­ workers' union* under Cipriano Mera* ON THE NIGHT of July 17-18, the nised by the anarchists and, to a lesser formed a Central Defence Committee* army began its rebellion. General degree* the left-socialists. And these which took over complete control of Franco left Las Palmas by aeroplane. militias soon formed columns. In Bar­ On the morning of July 18, the govern­ the strike* and organised detachments celona* the central committee organ­ of armed workers. These were* in ment was forced to admit that "part of ised the first column* 3*000 strong* fact* embryo militias. the army had revolted in Morocco'1. under Duri’utl. In Madrid* the "social­ *** The same day* troops in Malaga and ists 11 formed columns; but* as else­ Seville rebelled. The government where* the driving force were CNT- The government attempted to res­ still refused to arm the people, even FAI militants. Again, Cipriano Mera olve the strike, and made a few minor after being requested by the veteran came to the fore. Alongside the anar­ "socialist''* Largo Caballero. That chist column in Madrid was the Fifth evening* the CNT, followed by the Regiment* controlled by the UGT and Continued from Page 1 UGT, gave orders for a general strike. the "socialists" and* as time went by* Generals Franco and Mola soon achie­ FROM A letter from Franco to the the Communists. The anarchist col­ ved victories in Algeciras, Cadiz* umns were primarily a "people in Duke of Alba for transmission to Prime Cordova and Seville* where hundreds Minister Churchill, 18 October 1944: arms"; the Fifth Regiment, under of workers and their families were Enrique Lister* was a far more disci­ massacred by Franco’s forces. The plined force. "I find it quite natural that great differ­ rebel generals went oa to capture * ences have existed until now between Saragossa; and, soon after* General But early in October, the militias the attitude of Great Britain and the Mola took Oviedo* an anarchist strong­ Spanish attitude, Spain being neutral, were dissolved. But even two months hold. But in Barcelona and Madrid, previously* Durruti, Garcia Oliver and therefore freer from commitments the generals were not successful. and more dispassionate, but as the war and Mera had demanded a unified m ili­ Barcelona, another anarchist strong- tia organisation, though they still wan­ proceeds our identity of interests be­ bold, soon put down the revolt. comes clearer as do the preoccupations ted to preserve election of officers* with the future apparent in the speeches, and a single pay scale. The Commun­ By July 18 , the whole of the CNT- ists were demanding a "popular army". declarations, comments and journeys FAI in Madrid were on a "war footing". of the Prime Minister. " They got their way. Cipriano Mera The building workers had recaptured became a Brigade commander. - by force of arms - their headquart­ MEMO TO German Ambassador, ers. The next day, David Antona and A Madrid: Conditions for Spain's entry Cipriano Mera were released from into the war (8 August, 1940) : prison; and Antona, secretary of the IT MUST be admitted that quite a CNT national committee, immediately number of these "anarchist" comman­ (1) Fulfilment of a set of national ter­ went to the Ministry of the Interior ritorial demands, Gibraltar, French ders, now in the State-organised "pop­ and demanded that all workers and ular army", began to behave more like Morocco, part of Algeria . . . (Oran), militants be released from the jails* and further the enlargement of Rio Df traditional officers than like anarch­ otherwise the CNT and FAT would at­ ists. Unfortunately, Mera was among Oro and of the colonies in the Gulf of tack them and release the militants Guinea. them. He is reported as saying: themselves. The prisoners were re­ "From now on* an iron discipline... leased. A general strike began. will be offered freely.. . From today* FRANCO In a Letter to Mussolini Some left-wing socialists unearthed 15. August, 1940: I will deal only with captains and ser­ some arms , and distributed them to geants"! A8 one writer (Vernon Rich­ " . . . Spain in addition to the contribu­ the workers. The first barricades ards) has observed* the colonel's uni­ tion which she made to the establish­ went up. Rifle fire was exchanged form went to Mera's head. Neverthe­ ment of the New Order, through our with a few Fascists who had been less, it must be admitted that Cipriano years of hard struggle, offers another hiding in a convent. Organised by Mera became one of the Republican ^contribtitionj^ in preparing herself to Mera and others, the first workers’ Army's best divisional officers. He take her place in the struggle against militias were already patrolling the defended Madrid to the last. Indeed* the common enemies, " streets* though none of the soldiers he was the only man who was there at (edited by J .R .) had moved from the local barracks. the start - and the end. After Christmas, 1936, the Fascists varying degrees, accepted the situa­ in Madrid alone. By tho ond of March, attempted to cut the Madrid-Corunna tion. For some considerable time, there was no Republican Army. The road. They were faced, right from the Cipriano Mera had worked, and co­ Casado junta, which, in desperation, start, by a column led by the former operated, with Communist command­ hoped for ,fan honourable" pease with anarchist, Valentine Gonzalez (El ers. But, like many other non-Com- Franco, held its last meeting on March Campesino) and another led by Cipria- munists, after the fall of Catalonia 27. Casado left Madrid by plane. no Mera. The Fascist attacks conti­ early in 1939, he had had enough. Everyone who could get out left. And nued throughout January, 1937, and in hours before the arrival of the Fronco- the end reinforcements - Lister's bri­ On February 23, Colonel Casado, ists, Cipriano Mera also left. There gade and the XTVth International Brig­ commander of the Army of the Centre was nothing he could do. Republican ade - were brought up. Mera's divis­ in Madrid, together with the "social­ Spain was finished. ion ran out of ammunition. But the ist" Professor Besterio, and Cipriano Generals' offensive against Madrid was Mera, the then commander of the IVth W+ * halted. Early in March, Italian fas­ Army Group, came out against the cist troops arrived. On March 8, pro-Communist government of MuRA WAS, of course, criticised oy they attacked. 3ut their morale was Negrin. Casdao banned the publica­ so me of his anarchist colleagues for bad. They were held. Lister and tion of the Madrid Communist news­ throwing in his weight behind Casado. Mera counter-attacked; and for a paper, Mundo Obrero. The situa­ He was blamed for risking a "precipitous while the anti-Fascist forces, under tion in the field was now hopeless. act", or a faux pas. He, like Federica ' Lister, El Campesino and Mera ad­ Casado, speaking of the devastation Montsenyand Garcia Oliver, was also vanced. Mera's division dag in, and . and starvation, insisted that the war criticised for abandoning social revolu­ established themselves, along the must end. And Mera argued for "an tion for "collaboration" with the bourge­ Brihuega-Torija road. • honourable peace, based on justice ois State in order to defeat Fascism. and brotherhood", though he remain­ However, Mera managed to escape to Slowly, month after month 9 the ed at his post. A junta was formed, North Africa, where he spent the war Fascists captured more and more Re­ while the Negrin "government" was years. publican territory. The Republic be­ in Elda in total isolation, and protec- gan to crumble. But still Madrid • ted only by a tiny detachment of less For some while , Cipriano Mera conti­ held on. than 80 Communist officers and other nued to support the "collaborationist1' ranks. The Communists continued tendency of Garcia Oliver, Santillan and to make a show of resistance, but in Montseny; but by the mid-sixties he AS THE civil war dragged on, and fact abandoned their posts. By March more or less admitted tlxat he had, in the Republic lost more and more ter­ 3, Casado told Mera to take command some ways, erred. In an interview, ritory to Franco, so did Communist of the Central Army. .published by Presencia (November/ influence in the Republican government December 1966), he does not justify his and the army become more dominant. By March 6, most of the Communist role, as a disciplinarian and commander They, with the support of the right- .commanders, such a3 Lister, and the in the Republican "popular army". In wing "socialists" and the other conser­ Communist politicians, such as La Pasi- his old age, Cipriano Mera, once Rgain, vative elements on the Republican onaria, took flight. A few Communist became a “purist" anarchist. He accep­ side, had long destroyed the revolu­ army corps remained in the Madrid area; ted that communis mo llbertario was tionary gains of the workers and peas­ and on March 7, one of them, led by the only answer to Fascism and capital­ ants. And to their shame, a number Colonel Barcelo, was attacked by Mera. ism. of supposed anarchist leaders in bot'i A week of "civil war" within the Republi­ Peter E. Newell. the government and b e army had, in can camp resulted in the death of 2,000

I n d u s t r i a l h h P B | ■ f l P convenor at the Coventry Stoke plant, when he said in 1974 that he would rather be unemployed than work for IvIlNAu E ON 4 W HEEIS peanuts at Chryslers. But unem­ UNLESS THE Labour Government right for the big three and their em­ ployment will always be a part of the mounts a financial rescue operation ployees, but what about those men workers' lot while we have people's for Chrysler1 s, the American corpora­ and women who will get sacked? skills land abilities exploited for a tion will either pull out of car product­ profit. The 'right to work* only ion in Britain or retain a much smaller Obviously there are no easy answers means a continuation of exploitation labour force for assembling French to this question. People are Just not by a minority, while a majority are and Spanish models. This means that at the moment buying enough cars and subject to booms and recessions of 27,000 joos are affected directly and even then they were, the Chrysler our economic system. The ’right another 40,000 employed by component car did not, in the opinion of the pub­ to work' means being given a job, rath­ makers. lic, match up to other products. But er than seeking out what needs to be cars, even before the oil crisis, are done to satisfy our needs, instead of As we all know, the capitalist syst­ expensive, wasteful of raw materials, the artifldial ones of our present em operates to make a profit. Chrys­ take up too much space for the num­ system. ler themselves finally took o ver the ber of passengers they carry, pollute P. T. ailing Rootes company in 1967. Since the air we breathe and clog up our that time they have always been the towns and cities. In other words, THE "March to Spain" noted in our poor relation among the car corpora­ they are a menace. last issue was canned from making its tions. They, unlike Fords and Gener­ way to the Spanish border. Demonstra­ al Motors, also had difficulties in the liven before this menace on four tors were halted 16 miles from the United States and so they are unwilling wheels takes to the roads its manu­ border. to continue to lose money in this facture enslaves tnousands of peo­ country. ple performing repetitive, boring, - • • soul destroying tasks. Like so THE GERMAN Federal High Court The Government faces a dilemma many products of the capitalist syst­ at Bonn upheld a decision to continue that after Its financial intervention in em, cars are not made for their use­ the Baader-Meinhof trial in the ab­ Leyland, it might not be so keen to fulness, but for a profit. And the sence of the four defendants. The spend more public money even though car manufacturers and the oil corpor­ trial resumed at Stuttgart last Tues­ tills would save the majority of Chrys- ations are a very powerful group day. ler's workers their jobs. Meanwhile which can oring a lot of pressure on r t i i i i i t i i i i t r i i i v i i r i i r t r i t i i r i i r r the other big three must be rubbing governments to carry out policies STUART CHRISTIE was barred from their hands and seeking ways of how that suit their interests. entering West Germany on his way to they can win a part of the 9 per cent an anti-Franco rally at Offenbach. He of the British car market Chryslers I don't think many workers will was also ordered by the Dutch authori­ currently holds. This might be all share the views now of Bob Morris, ties t o leave the Netherlands- Bakunin himself wrote oightoon months before his death, thereby confirming what Ellseo Reclus had written to him : "You are right, the day of revolutions is past, we have enter- ‘ ed that of evolution. " And he explained Ids opinion by recal­ ling not only the terrible defeats suffered by European revo­ lutionaries in the course of nearly half a century of heroic struggles, but in face of the scientifically organised military . power of modern states, and the lack of revolutionary spirit, or desire for emancipation among the masses.

To be sure this latter consideration did not apply to the Spanish people, or at least to that large, dynamic section NOT ENOUGH which made history. But facts oblige us to recognise that the Kropotkinlan thesis, to some extent in opposition to the posthumous theses of Bakunin, jBlisee Reclus and even of IT IS IMPORTANT to bear in mind that the Spanish P ro u d h o n , has not been borne out by experience. For fascist libertarian revolution was set in motion as a consequence of totalitarianism, which in Italy after World War I was answer­ the Fr&ncoist attack which made it possible to put into action ing back at a long period of disturbances which did not end in revolutionary forces which without it were condemned to new revolution, made its historical appearance. And fascism is and sterile failures. And when we say 'Sterile failuresM we the "preventive counter-revolution" of those who are threat­ are referringto the attempts made Jn January 1932, January ened by subversion, even when it is incapable of changing the and December 1933 (revolutionary and insurrectional attempts social order. The people themselves end by preferring the organised and manned by the CNT-FAI) to which one must add suppression of political and civic liberty to permanent dis­ the Adhrian miners1 insurrection in October 1934 in which so­ order which, let us face it, is also an attack on freedom if cialist, UGT and CNT workers (in spite of the stupid opposi­ only of living a normal life. tion of the national Comity of the CNT) and even Communists took part. All these attempts were crushed by the more pow­ There is therefore the danger in pursuing these revolution­ erful forces of the State, supported by the non-revolutionary ary exercises, with an undending series of partial strikes, political parties which, for all that, were not fascist. continuous general strikes and insurrectional attempts, of harming the stability of society. This last point needs elaborating. The tactical concepts of anarchist-communism (and before it anarchist collectivism) This is probably what happened in Spain before the unleash­ implied, according to a tradition going back to the First Inter­ ing of the fascist attack. Certainly it is not a question of national, the attack by, and the victory of, the people. There­ condemning outbursts caused by hunger, impatience, despair, fore the armed struggles which took place under the Second anger a hundred times justified in those who saw their babies Spanish Republic corresponded to a doctrine of action theoret­ dying from lack of treatment, or who had ^ ent most of the ically established. This doctrine, which coincided with the year looking in vain for work, and having to send their child­ teachings of Kropotkin and taken up by iiis disciples including ren barefoot to school - - when a school was available. But the present writer, considered that local uprisings, the at­ those who set themselves up as leaders of the CNT and FAI tempts, even sporadic and so numerous before the French - the latter embodied a revolutionary passion rather than Revolution, constituted a training, a revolutionary exercise intellectual worth - needed a strategic vision which they in which the people learned to fight, and would end by winning lacked. Here too they were not equal to the situation. The the last hand, A little like Peter the Great's celebrated re­ greatness of the libertarian movement was Its almost exclus­ mark in face of the continued defeats inflicted on him by the ively proletarian character, but it was also its weakness. Swedes : "By going on fighting they will teach us how to beat And this weakness permitted the demagogues, and we had our them . fT share of them, to play a role for which they were not cut out.

Unfortunately there was no proletarian Poltava and what we * have just recalled provides an explanation that should be borne in mind. If we return to all the factors that intervened in this But even more responsible were the socialist and republic­ chapter of iiistory we are obliged to conclude that the defeat of an leaders who had neither the inspired initiative, the intelli­ the Spanish libertarian revolution was inevitable. For every gence nor the courage to undertake, with the proclamation of social revolution provokes the cohesion of the threatened for­ the Republic, daring social reforms which might have satis­ ces drawn together for exceptional reasons, and in spite of fied the hunger of some and tempered the impatience of others those which normally divide them, It is the lesson that we others. They have a great share of the responsibility be­ learn not only from the final defeat of the Spanish Revolution cause they were better educated and had great means for b;it of history when studied with a concern for the truth. action. What was the reason for their indifference? Un­ doubtedly power had made them fainthearted, had dulled their Apart from some contemporary exceptions which have any­ imagination as so often happens to the happy beneficiaries of way led to new form of oppression, generally speaking it is new political regimes. We are not saying this in a partisan the political revolutions that have triumphed, but the same spirit. About 1935 an enquiry had shown the the largest per­ men or the same parties who were fighting amongs themselves centage of enchufistas (people who hold more than one official for a change in the power structure became reconciled when employment) were to be found among the Socialists and the they were faced with a popular movement which threatened Left Catalanists. sociaj. reforms interested them much less their positions or their privileges. Thus in France, the than the enjoyment of newly acquired privileges. In such an revolution of February 1843 was simple : liberal bourgeois ensemble of conditions, the revolutionary act had to occur. and workers joined forced to overthrow the monarchy of Louis Philippe. But everything was changed four months later when On the other hand, one of the consequences of the continu­ the workers wanted to introduce socialism. Then the liberal ous social conflicts was to drive people of the Centre parties bourgeois allied themselves with the monarchists and Cavign- towards the Right and to swell the conservative, reactionary, ac, the republican general, struggled with all his might a- and fastest fox^ces. The figures at the February 193C electi­ gainst the insurgent workers. ons prove this, and here one can speak of the responsibility of the revolutionaries. But if the socialists and left republi­ Other social revolutions, or those which had a definite so­ cans had given land to the starving peasants and had under­ cial content, whether it was the Commune of Paris, or the taken daring social reforms which were clearly exceptional Peasant War in Germany in which Luther was allied to the no­ in a situation which was itself exceptional, the tumultuous bility in provoking them to the wholesale massacre of the social struggles wcwld not have been of such a grave nature serfs In revolt, or again the Hussite movement in Bohemia, and perhaps the fascist reaction would not have resulted. and all the peasant risings in the Middle Ages, are all a repe­ But they preferred to limit themselves to copying the consti­ tition of the same facts. One must go back to Egypt in 2200- tution of the Weimar Republic. 2000 B.C, to find a victorious social revolution, and even then, two centuries later - probably even before that.- a new from Gaston Leval’s "Epilogue” to Ills "L'Espagne dynasty had been enthroned and the castes re-establislie'd. Libertaire” (Collectives in the Spanish Revolution ers can exchange their experiences and thus NORTHERN IRELAND reinforce their autonomous ogranlsation In the fight ogainst capitalism", if this Is really the cose, surely it deserves at least a fair hearing 9 I ta»ce the Editors1 point about the and not the carping criticism In which Claude consistency of their line on Northern u m iis indulges. I have no knowledge of the Portu­ Ireland. However to say the prosecuti­ guese anarchist periodicals which he lists, but their political preferences. I do too and on of the fourteen is simply related to the June edition of The Match quotes one 'Hhe rights of open discussion” , as and it*8 not a sell-out to Catholicism. of these, A Voz Anarquista, as speaking with Harrow Libertarians put it, is just mis­ No doubt many are more interested in approval of the Yugoslav version of "workers' 'Irish unity' though if this is so they sing the point. control". owe it to their public to spell it out. It The British Withdrawal From North­ must however be clarified that there is The reports which I have seen clearly sug­ ern Ireland Campaign is not, by titular nothing morally superior aoout pacifism gest that there is a widespread movement for definition, a group simply demanding or direct action; nor about violence or workers' councils and factory occupations, "open discussion", the fact of which has terrorism either. What is important is and also some collectivisation of land in rural been happening for some time in all of not merely the methodology of political regions. To poke about after ideological pur­ the media, and anyway is not being de­ action. What is important is what you ity in this emerging movement would be point­ nied. This is not why the fourteen are are discussing, what supporting and how less. Some of the actions are clearly instiga­ being prosecuted. Both main political it related xo truth, to reason and ration­ ted by groups such as LUAR and the Revolu­ parties are heartily sick of the Northern ality, to unders tan ding and compassion, tionary Brigades (the latter supported in this Ireland business anyway. If anyone to love and to tenderness and living your country by International Socialism) ; others life to create a libertarian society with coraid make a useful suggestion. . • ? appear to be genuinely autonomous. Should your fellow creatures. The 3WFNI is mixing up and muddying this movement assume a coherent form then of two separate issues. course it w ill be subject to attempted take­ In a sense revolution is about the over? from political organisations, both methodology of action; but anarchist The one is something I consciously leninist and reformist, just as the CNT was. methodology must be concerned about support, attackiig the State by attempting As l understand it, the FAI was formed pre­ right action, right decision-taking and to destroy and disaffect its military arm. cisely to counteract this threat. If the situa­ right results* not merely somebody This is something that all anarchists tion arises in Portugal, does there exist the else's romantic dream of 'Nationalism and most pacifists (at least the non-viol­ basis of an anarchist organisation Ws ich w ill at any price', even if the public do not ent direct actlonists) would agree with. be able to deal with it .? This, surely, is want it. It is perhaps a hard lesson for Also as an ex-N&tional Serviceman I'd the crucial question, and not whether the the vociferous minority in any situation emphasise my acute detestation of the Organisational Platform is "leninist" or not. to realise that today is not necessarily military in all its aspects. your day. Fraternally, Peter Neville at 25/10/75. Carl Chatfield. The second is quite different and I think mars the fourteen16 case. The term 'British' in the BWNIC presuppos­ es Northern Ireland is part of a separate ARRESTING UNEMPLOYMENT ? country held against its will, bleeding; Freedom Press under the heel of the British jackboot Dear Friends, 84b Whitechapel High Street and crying for its release. The facts just do not bear this out. (in Angel Alley) London E1 It is a popular misconception put about COLLECTIVES IN THE SPANISH Most Ulstermen I have talked to feel mainly by the police that they wish to REVOLUTION themselves as British. Yes,they are see the crime rate reduced. Gaston Leval's record from close Irish too, but in the sens of Ulster being observation or the working and the like Scotland or Wales, requiring some But I have been reliably informed that attainments of the agrarian and the regional independence, but being an in­ upon entering the force a Constable has industrial collectives 1933-1933. tegral part of the United Kingdom. They to make a set number of arrests in ord­ 368pp. Cloth £4post 48p ($10,001 do not see themselves nor wish to be er to qualify after his probationary peri­ Paper £2 post 42p ($5. 00) • part of Eire and certainly not an Eire od. If he/she fails to make these ar­ dominated by the Roman Catholic Church, rests he/she is presumably kicked out LESSONS OF THE SPANISH though if this did not exist their views of the force. REVOLUTION, Vernon Richards. might be rather different. This surpri­ 240pp, Cloth £1.50 post 48p($L0j singly seems to be the view of both Although I do not know the number of Paper £0.75 post 42p) (.J2) Protestants and Catholics alike. arrests that he/she has to make, you ABOUT ANARCHISM, what anar­ will appreciate that even one would not chists believe, how anarchists Therefore, though many are heartily be in keeping with the above statement differ.. • Nicolas Walter. 32pp sick to death of the whole business this concerning crime figures. 15p (post 6p) 40c. does not mean that they want the British ABC OF ANARCHISM, Alexand­ army to leave. Readers will remember So the next time you are stopped by er Berkman. 86pp this was called in to keep the two sides aiyoung policeman do not complain if he 25p (postlip)75c. apart. It was also called in, it is true, arrests you, remember he is only sav­ ANARCHISM AND ANARCHO- to hold the IRA gunmen in check, but it ing his job. SYNDICALISM, Rudolf Rocker was that or a bloody civil war, which Yours in peace, 48pp. 2Op (post 9p) 5c ironically seems to have occurred any­ James PercivaL ANARCHY, Errico Malate3ta54pp way. 25p (post 9p) 75c 3AKUNIN fic NECHAEV, Paul In any case why should the 'British Avrich 32pp army' leave whilst Ulster is part of Bri­ PORTUGAL 20p (post 9p) 65c tain? Be reduced, yes, but why leave THE STATE, ITS HISTORIC altogether? In other words, yes we Dear Comrades, ROLE, Peter Kropotkin 56pp want to see It go, in the sense of wanting 20p (postl Ip) 65c it to cease to exist, to wither away, but The short article by Claude (25.10.75) NEITHER EAST NOR WEST, eel. surely the BWNIC mean 'return to bar­ seems to typify the negative attitude taken by writings 1939-13} of Marie-Louise racks'; has it not just as much 'right' FREEDOM towards Portugal. The French mag­ Berneri. I92pp to be In Ulster as in England, Scotland azine La Lanteme Noire (No. 3) contains 35p (post 16p) $1. or Wales ? A lower profile in other some interesting extracts from the (oumal MARIE LOUISE BERNERI, A words. Or do the BWNIC have some­ Combote, which is reported to have "evolved Tribute.(with photogs. ) cloth 51pp thing else In mind? towards a critique of leninist concepts of pol­ 3 Op (post 13p) $1 * itical action and of' the workers' movement", No doubt members of the BWNIC have i and to be "a medium through which the work­ Complete list sent on request. similarly helped by Penny Strango, It is the way the army treats soldiers Davo Brown roturned from Swedon after about which the prosocution is most de­ a few eeks because "it was not my idea fensive* as thoy flaw fit to call extra wit­ BWNIG Trial of what It would have been", and has nesses (l.e. people not called at commit­ since obtained a discharge on medical tal hearings) in the form of serving sold­ DID A "Sunday M irror” reporter help grounds. In cross-examination he ad­ iers concerned with recruits. Colbnel a deserter and encourage liim to go to mitted that the people concerned had Hearne is the officer in overall charge of Sweden? This was one of the main discussed with him the difficulties of the birand and Great Scotland Yard re­ questions which came up during the going to Sweden and that he had decided cruiting office in London* and he was ex­ fourth week of the trial of 24 supporters to g o , without Sweden "being cracked amined on the Notice Paper which all re­ of the British Withdrawal from North­ up as a wonderful place". Dick Oliff cruits are supposed to study before they ern Ireland Campaign charged with agreed he had "insisted and continued to take the Oath of Allegiance. He was ob­ conspiring to seduce soldiers from Insist that Sweden was where I wanted viously called becauso of the large num­ their duty or allegiance. Paul Donovan* to go "and he had decided that when he ber of soldier witnesses who had dis­ now night news editor and then a report­ first went AWOL* before meeting any of played* both during committal hearings er on the "Sunday M irror" gave evid­ the people who later helped him. In and at the Old Bailey* a degree of ignor­ ence that in June and July 1973, he had fact Oliff remained in Sweden (and was ance of their rights of discharge. CoL had several meetings with George interviewed there on the "Midweek" TV Hearne was cross-examined by one of Exelby, a lance corporal who was al­ programme broadcast last autumn) un­ the defendants, Michael Wescott* on the ready AWOL. After their first meet­ til March this year* when he suddenly Notice Paper* oarticularly on one of the ing, Exelby found Ms way to various returned just before the committal pro* conditions on which a discharge may be peace and alternative organisations, ceedings against the 14 and gave evid­ deferred* i.e . that a state of war exists. including Peace News* International ence there. He was court martialled Asked whether the situation in Ireland Times* the Peace Pledge Union, War in April, sentenced to six months and was regarded as a war* CoL Hearne re­ Resisters International, and BIT. One given a discharge. plied "N o". He was then asked "If a of the people he met was defendant soldier was given an order to do some­ Gwyn Williams : after Exelby had gone The last witness of the week was In - thing that ne believed to be wrong* and to Sweden* Gwyn Williams and a num­ spector Rex Haslett of the Special which he regarded to be an atrocity of ber of other people in the peace move­ Branch. He gave evidence of the vari­ some sort* has he a right in any circum ­ ment were interviewed by Donovan and ous raids in which he was involved, in­ stances to refuse to obey that order?" an article appeared in the "Sunday Mir­ cluding that on tiie London office of CoL Hearne replied* "In my experience* ror" which "revealed the secret route "PN". Cross-examined by Gwyn Wil­ if a soldier is given an order he carries of runaway soldiers". Exelby denied liams, he agreed that he was in overall . it out. " Michael Wescott then asked that he had been given anything other charge of the case out admitted that whether CoL Hearne remembered the than "moral assistance" by Donovan. even after a year on the case "I really becond World War and the Nuremberg However* the "Sunday Mirror" expen­ don't know anything about any of you". trials. "Were you aware of the preced­ se account* which was produced in evi­ He agreed with Rock Tansey, one of ent that came out of Nuremberg that a dence* showed that Donovan had "ent­ the defence counsel, that he would soldier is not excused from committing ertained" Exelby on several occasions. either be involved in or have knowledge an atrocity against the human race be­ of any interviews or arrests requested cause he has been ordered to do so by The evidence of Exelby and two other by the Director of Public Prosecutions, his commanding officer*" Judge Mc­ soldiers who had deserted to Sweden, Rock Tansey then referred him to the Kinnon intervened at this point to say, Dave Brown and Dick Oliff* was ad­ statement of intent issued by BWNIC "Volumes have been written upon this mitted to tiie trial after several nours at its inception in June 1973 and asked topic. We have all heard of My Lai and of legal argument. John Hyatt* one of whether any interviews had taken the unfortunate Americans who got into the 14* is charged under the Army Act . place with a number of people uho had trouble there. " "I would have thought with assisting Oliff knowing him to be signed it, including John Arden, May it was the unfortunate Vietnamese," re­ absent from the army* and Gwyn Wil­ Hobbs, Adrian Mitchell and spike plied Michael Wescott. liams is simiarly charged with regard Milligan, Mr. Haslett said to the to Exelby. These charges are the sub­ best of lus knowledge no such inter­ When Major Berret, in charge of the ject ox a separate trial* yet to be views had taken place. Six of the 14 Recruit selection Centre at button Cold­ heard, as are similar charges against have their names on the statement field, was cross-examined by defend­ Howard Clark and Penny Strange - and the prosecution is presenting this ant Ronnie Lee about a film which was not among the 14 - with regard to as evidence of the conspiracy with shown to recruits of the jobs that are Dave Brown. However, Justice Me. which all 14 are charged. on offer in the arm y, he was asked Klnnon ruled that the evidence of all whether this film showed soldiers do­ three soldiers was relevant to the At one point, when the judge was ing the "jobs" of riot control, house-to- conspiracy with which the 14 are complaining about the expense of the house searches and the taking of people charged, alvfloagh none of the 14 are trial* Michael Wescott, a defendant* and placing them in internment camps. charged with any offences relating to pointed out that* estimating the cost Major Berret was not prepared to com­ Brown, and Gwyn and John have of the trial as a quarter of a million ment* and the judge interrupted* yet pleaded guilty to the Army Act char­ pounds* "the last NATO exercise again* a line of cross-examination that ges. would have paid for the trial five had* for state purposes, become too times over*." political. Gunners Brown and OHff went AWOL about a year later, when they decided ttit a j o b ^ not to return to their unit in Colchest­ THE FIFTH WEEK(27-31 O ct.) saw the 1'5 er. Oliff said he "didn't want to go to end of the evidence which the prosecution Two seamen* one a merchant seaman N. Ireland again" I was getting is bringing against the defendants. The and the other a serving sailor in the cheesed off with the army and getting prosecutor* ably and sometimes positive­ mucked about". After contacting Re- ly enthusiastically assisted by the judge* Royal Navy, then gave evidence against . lease, they were put in touch with has outlined his case: that the BWNIC is Bill Hetherington, who is charged alone At Ease, a counselling service for an organisation primarily formed to sed­ under Section 1 of the Incitement to soldiers which advises on legal ways uce soldiers from their duty or allegiance, Disaffection Act with attempting to sed­ of leaving the army and other prob­ tn particular by means of two leaflets: uce the latter from his duty or allegi­ lems, and the National Council for "borne Information for Discontented Sold­ ance. The two men gave very mud­ dled and in some places contradictory Civil Liberties. At the NCCL they iers" and its predecessor* "Some Infor­ evidence about a conversation which met Howard Clark, co-editor of mation for British Soldiers1* as such* occurred between them. Bill Hether- "Peace News", who Brown alleges anyone found to be in association with it ington and a fourth man travelling on helped him in various ways. Dick (or rather, anyone the DPP decided to trains between Cardiff and Birmingham Oliff gave evidence that John Hyatt, •iclc on* as at leant 100 people obviously one night in April this year. Mr. also a co-editor of "PNn* helped him associated in some way with the Cam­ Balloch, the merchant seaman, said obtain a British visitor's passport and paign have been left alone) is therefore that Bill Hetherington had said things an air ticket to Stockholm. Some time guilty of a criminal conspiracy to attempt after this, Dave Brown said, he was such seduction. "that if you ever got a serviceman who was a bit fed up it might just be the ployees and to passers-by, the extent turning-point to put him on the wrong of Britain's involvement in the internat­ road". But, cross-examining. Bill ional arms trado. Hetherington recollected that the con­ versation, which was a friendly one Further information from Sandy lasing several hours, included discus­ Merritt, Co-ordinator, C.A.A.T,, sion about experience with the police, 5 Caledonian Road, Kings Cross, life in the navy (in which Bill did his London N .l. 9DX. ToL iOl-278 1978. National Service) and, finally, a dis­ cussion about whether or not this was a free country, in the course of which Bill talked about the trial of the 14, about which he had been addressing a IN BRIEF public meeting in Cardiff that evening. On being pressed to give further infor­ A MILAN magistrate ruled that Pino mation, he produced copies of "Peace Pinelli who was found dead in the court­ News" and the "South Wales Echo" with yard of a police station was not a victim stories on the case. The fourth man of suicide or murder, but probably of then asked to see the leaflet which was dizziness. Mo VS t central to the case, and Bill produced i i i i i 1 1 1 1 1 i i i i i i a 11 « i i i i i i |*| i | • • i j a photocpy, which was eventually • • • > passed to the sailor, who looked at it but significant mass vote and, on the Liberal PRESIDENT FORD at a dinner to and returned it. When he came Into pattern, put the fear of Christ up minority welcome Egypt’s Sadat forgot himself the witness box the sailor, James governments. A t this moment in time the N F so far as to forget that it was not has a 20-man ruling body but since 1974 when r* Woods, was very hostile to Bill and on 'Israel* he was now greeting as ai several occasions tried to avoid answer­ the po-faced John Tyndall failed to get re­ friend of peace and freedom (or what­ ing questions. Bill pointed out that the elected as Chairman of the Directorate he has ever it was) but 'Egypt'* He proposed k tried to change the rules - If I can’t play a toast to 'you and the people that you Ir questions were important for him, for he stood the chance of two years’ jail I'm taking my ball home - by reducing the represent, the great people of the on the strength of them, Mr. Woods Directorate to four members and the abolition Government of Israel - Egypt, excuse replied, "You don't deserve two years; of the two-thirds majority voting. It is meif you should have twelve. " He admitted curious that the 'Populists' within the NF now 111111111111 r 11111 1111 111 f i 11111111 r reluctantly that he had been AWOL offer 1933 as the awful warning of what Tyn­ PETER HAIN , leader of the Young from the navy and had joined up straight dall and his Spearhead group might do with Liberals, was charged by the police from school — "Why? It's a job. their 'leader* fixation so that within the NF with a bank robbery at Barclay's Bank, There’s nothing in civvy street." a grass roots Populist movement (a term coined Putney. The prosecution did not state by the Guardian) has now come into being. their case, an identity parade was held several of ttfe servicemen who have Tyndall at this moment is out but the plump two days after he had been charged. given evidence for the prosecution have • Martin Webster like a night cat is angrily He was remanded on bail but refused clearly shown that there is an effective walking the fence even to bounding Into sec­ legal aid. Young Liberals have fre­ economic conscription in operation, ret cabal meetings of the 'Popes' to, first, quently held demonstrations against that they are not adequately or consist­ accuse them of mutiny and secondly to get a Barclay's Bank for its s. African con­ ently informed of their rights, particu­ mental picture of the attendance* It is also nections. larly of discharge, and that there is curious that Webster states that it was a II I I I I I f I f I V I I I I I I I V I t I I I f I t I I I f I I f f , considerable discontent in the army. Gerry Gable, an alleged agent of the Zion­ THE ALDERSHOT police apologized The defence are planning to call more ist 62-Group and an alleged editor of the to Pat Arrow smith for h$r detention • servicemen who are likely to corrobor­ magazine Searchlight, who supplied the under the Terrorism Act. Other Acts ate this, but in the meantime it is sig­ Guardian with their information, and the will doubtless be used to curb Pat's nificant that there are so many discon­ 'Popes1 hint that the information came not a activities. tented soldiers who have been called thousand miles from John Tyndall's office. ill I I T 1 V I M t I I I II II I t III I I I I I I I II I I I by the prosecution. IT IS reported in Michael Tobin’s A ll this is the game of politics and as long "Hapotoc Newsletter" that three anar­ Defence evidence is likely to take as ’they* are impotent it is amusing, but what chists in Dublin, Ronan Stenson, several weeks, particularly as most of is now being debated within the NF is future Noel Murray and Marie Murray, have the 14 will be going into the witness policy in relation to our living. IF Webster been charged with murder of a police­ box. suppprt, both in the public gal­ wins, for Tyndall is at this moment in time man in a £ 7,000 bank raid. Hapotoc lery of Court 12 and outside the court, chalked up with the living dead, then the states that the accused were 15l "taken will be much appreciated. There will NF w ill carry on as part of the lunatic fringe to different police stations and Quest­ be a mass pickett on November 20 by of the extreme right and no more than an ex­ ioned* - beaten for over thirty hours trades unions and labour movement cuse for a pleasant Saturday's anti-fascist and forced to sign dictated ’confession1 groups, and others at various times. get together, but If the 'Popes' get their statements". The trial , for which no Please contact the Defend the 14+ claim for a broad-based party then we shall date has yet oeen set, will be heard in Campaign at 01-337 97 34 for details have genuine cause for concern. For the the Special Criminal Court - a panel weak sisters, the political neurotics and the of three judges with no jury. Michael racial fanatics w ill have found a mask of Tobin reports raids on families and respectability to expound their evil message friends of the accused (preceding the PLAYTIME of hate and fear; for as the National Front arrests) with the usual brutality. The ON OCT03ER Tlfh Britain's Finest lined the Populists say, and I say it against them, death penalty is still maintained in the King's Road outside London's Chelsea Town "Remember the lessons of 1933". Irish Free State - although rarely Hall to throw tomatoes, bags of flour and non­ Lumpenprol etarlat • used it could be in this case. Hapotoc constructive advice at the members of the right draws parallels between the situation wing National Front as the nation's supermen in Ireland and Spain, with which Ire­ sheepishly edged their way behind a massive THiU BLOODY TRAFFIC land has affinities and good relations. police guard to attend their well-publicised The accused, who have been active in secret meeting. The National Front then and THE CAMPAIGN Against Arms Trade, the Prisoners' Rights Organization are now have refused to give any account of that which works for an end to the product­ in the Curragh Detention Barracks, meeting but the cause and the complaint for ion and sale of arms and for the re­ The Curragh, Co. Kildare. Marie •its being called is a fundamental split within training of people employed in the arms Murray is in The Prison (Female the minority thinking echelon of the Front. industry, is to launch a daily picket at Section), Limerick, Co. Limerick. There are those who see the "Front" as an the Defence Sales Organisation, Soho Hapotoc suggests letters should be elite racial organisation and as such no more Square, beginning at noon on Monday, sent to the Premier, Liam Cosgrave, than a permanent political minority group, 3 November. The picket, which will Government Buildings, Leinster House, and those who seek political power by broad­ continue for a month, aims to point Dublin. ening the "Front's" base so that by making its out, to Defence Sales Organisation em- 111 v 111 ii i • v i»111 m i i-tsancho Panza. arse as flat as its head .they can win a small & • • WE WELCOME news, reviews, letters, SIDCUP & BEXLEY: W ill any anarchists cont­ articles. Latest date for receipt of copy for act 29 Halfway Street, Sidcyp, Kent. inclusion in next Review section is Monday Topy of "The Knapsack" by h e r- 10 November; News/Features/1etters/an- bert Read, an anthology. Good condition If nouncements Monday 17 November. possible. For Geoff Hazard, 13 Belsize Park CONTACT Gardens, London NW3. NEXT DESPATCHING date of FREEDOM is bills from Merseyside and elsewhere. Send Thursday 20 November. Come and help from PUBLICATIONS 2 pm onwards. You are welcome every your materials to us, about 100 copies, & we Thursday afternoon to early evening for in­ w ill circulate it. Material & subscription to DIRECT ACTION no. 9, paper of the Syndic­ formal get together and folding session. Little Bird, c/o News from Nowhere, 48 alist Workers Federation, 5p from c/o Grass Manchester St. Liverpool 1,(051-227 2514) Roots, 109 Oxford Road, Manchester M l 7DU Address all correspondence concerning the^ MEETINGS forthcoming book 'The Cuban Revolution, an PRISONERS CONFERfNCE Amnesty International. anarchist perspective" to Sam Dolgoff, 208 Women Against Torture. 3 November East Broadway, New York, N .Y . 10002. RONNIE LEE (184051) HM Prison, Du Cane 9.30 am- 6 pm. Conway Hall, Red Lion WAR RESISTORS' INTERNATIONAL needsTin- Rd., London W .12, serving sentence for act­ luare, London WC1. Creche available. ancial help. Donations to Ralph DiGia, WRI, ion against vivisection &c, at present also on on Sarvodaya “A Vision for 359 Lafayette St. New York, N .Y . 10002, trial as one of BWNIC 14. Postcards please. a Communitarian Society" Dec. 13th, or (GB) Kees Koop, c/o PPU, 6 Endsleigh St. DUBLIN ANARCHISTS Bob Cullen, Des 9.30 am- 6 pm at Conway Hall. Meetings London WC1 ODH. Triennial Report now av­ Keane, Columba Longmore. Address for let­ Friday 12 & Sunday 14th at Eastbourne ailable £ 1. ters and papers: M ilitary Detention Centre, House, Bullards Place, Bethnal Green, PORTO'GA'L. The Portuguese anarcho-syndic- Curragh Camp, Co. Kildare, Eire. London E2. Participants, Lanzo del Vcrstro, alist paper A BATALHA (sales 5000 copies STOKE NEWINGTON FIVE Welfare Com­ E.F. Schumacher &c. Tickets £ 1. Enqui- per fortnight) needs the support of all com­ mittee still needs funds for books &c. Box 252, ries to Sotish Kumar, Eastbourne House. rades outside Portugal. Send your donations 240 Camden High Street, London, NW1 • British Withdrawal from N . Ireland Cam- books, pamphlets &c to A BATALHA, Rua GIOVANNI MARINI Defence Committee: paign (BWNIC) says: No M ilitary solution Angelina Vidal 17-2-E°, LISBOA, Portugal Paolo Braschi, CP 4263, 2100 MILANO,Italy. 1 'Ti -i ■ 'i lil . i. *. w v in Ireland, Withdraw the Troops, End the RALF STEIN, awaiting trial, postcards to him Union. London Group meets 1st Tuesday in ANARCHIST FEDERATION CONFERENCE at JVA, 5 KOLN 30, Rachmanstr. 30. the month at 6 End sleigh St. WC1 w ill be held at WARWICK UNIVERSITY (nr. Women Against Fascism in Spain meet FrI— Coventry) on the weekend of 28/29/30 N O V­ days, 6 pm at 38 Earl ham St. W C2# anarch­ EMBER. Full details w ill be in current AF ist women would be welcome. B u lle tin . Anarchist forum, Speakers Comer, Hyde Park, alternate Sundays 1 pm. Speakers, GROUPS PRESS FUND listeners and hecklers welcome. ABERGAFENNI Contact 31 Monmouth Rood. October 16 - 29 Every Sat. & Sun. Centro Iberico/InternaF- BATH Anarchists & non-violent activists con­ CHELMSFORD: E.A. 65p; YORK: M X . 35p; ional Libertarian Centre, 83A Hoverstock tact BANANA, c/o Students Union, The Un- LONDON N6: D.B. £2.05; ACCRINGTON H ill, London NW3 (entrance in Steele's iversity, Claverton Down, Bath. ______G.M . 65p; FIFE: £.K. £3.70; WOLVER- . Rd, 2nd door) tube Belsize Park/Chalk Farm. BOLTON Anarchists. Contact 6 Stockley HAMPTON: J.L. 80p; J.K.W . lOp; From 7.30 discussion, refreshments etc. _____ Avenue, Hatewood, Bolton. BANGOR, N .I.: J.T. £ 10.00; BROMLEY: ' NEW YORK: Libertarian Book Club Thurs. Anyone interested in the Syndicalist Workers1 M .D. 70p; LIANARTH: M.P. 70p; WOLV­ 7.30 pm at Workmen's Circle Center, 369 Federation in Bolton area contact or write ERHAMPTON: J.L. 90p; J.K.W . lOp; LA 8th Avenue NYC (SW Comer 29 St.) SWF also at above address. JOLLA, Calif.: D.M. £4.75; DUBLIN: November 13; Anarchism in Contemporary CORBY anarchists write 7 Cresswell Walk, R.W.33p; HULL: D.P. £2; FIFE: C.K. 24p. Science Fiction, Irving Levitos Corby Northants NN17 2LL. TOTAL: £ 28.02 December 11: Anarchy and Authority, Every Sat. bookstall Corporation Street Previously acknowledged: £ 1169.13 Sharon Presley. 2-4 pm. Come and help. Free admission, coffee, tea, cookies. Lib­ COVENTRY. Peter Come, c/o Union of TOTAL to DATE £1197.15 ertarian Book Club, GPO 342, N .Y . 10001 Students, University of Warwick, Coventry. SATURDAY Nov. 3. Spaiiish solidarity DUNDEE. Brian Fleming, c/o Anarchist Committee, at, Student Polytechnic, Soc., Students Union, Univ, of Dundee. 102 Whitechapel High St. (Aldgate East DURHAM. Martin Spence, 17 Avenue St., High Shincliffe, Durham. subscribe tube). 4 - 7 pm Discussion on Spain. 7 pm - midnight. Benefit and Dance. EDINBURGH. Bob Gibson, 7 Union St. in - (SEND TO FREEDOM PRESS (Angel Alley! Admission GOp at door- half price burgh, (tel. 031 226 3073). ______84B Whitechapel High $t., London El 7QX ) students. GLASGOW now has a centre at 17 Bute Gar­ NORTH WEST WORKERS Alliance meet dens, Hillhead, Glasgow. ing. Joha 3yrue on Workers Control of O ne y e a r...... £4.30 ($10.00) HARROW write Chris Rosner, 20 Trescoe Gar- Industry. Thursday Nov. 13 at 8 p. m. S ix months...... £2.15 ($5.00) at The Bath Hotel, Union St. Oldham. dens, Royners Lone, Harrow HA2 9TB.______All trade unionists welcome. IRELAND. Libertarian- Communists contact Three months.. (7 issu e s)....Jtl. 16 ($2.50) Alan Mac Simoin, 4 Ard Lui Park, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, with view to form organisation. PEOPLE/ORGAN1SATIONS/WANTS &c. This rate is for U .K . subscriptions and for surface LEICESTER Anarchist Group. Contact Pete and mail subscriptions all over the world. 11-year old daughter of a Swedish comrade Jean M iller, 41 Norman Street, Leicester Airmail rates on request. has been learning English at school for 3 yrs. (tel. 549652). Father asks "Is there any friend with a LEICESTER Anarchist "Libertarian Circle" con- I enclose...... Please send child of approx, the same age as Anna who tinues to meet every Thursday at Black Flag FREEDOM for ...... to would like to have correspondence with Bookshop,>P / 1 Wilne ______Street. ______Anna ?" (Carlos Maynar, Stovargatan 83, OXFORD Anarchist group c/o Jude, 38 Hurst 12441 BANDHAGEN, Stockholm, Sweden). Street, O x fo rd . ______C O M M O N S : Wer re trying to get a comm­ PORTSMOUTH. Rob Atkinson, 21 Havelock une going & need ot least one other to form Rd., Southsea, Portsmouth, Hants, nucleus. Contact Roger McGrath and Steve SWANSEA" group new addressT" address...... Cook c/o 36A Newark St. London El 2AA 37 Glanmor Road, Uplands, Swansea, STAN (ex-8 St. Martinfs Close/ Camden) Libertarian POSTAL WORKERS - How can we Come to see you about the Commune but you spread the ideas of anarchism re organisation had moved. If still interested contact us as in the Post Office? Contact Dave Morris, soon as possible -Steve Cook. 36 Mitford Rood, London, N19. NEW ZEALAND, Steve Hey, 34 Buchanans klTTLE BlfcD, a monthly information package Published by Freedom Press Road, Christchurch, 4 (tel, 496 793). ______of collation of leaflets, documents and band- London E. 1. Printed by Vineyard Press, Colchester. 9

Anarchist SUPPLEMENT to Vol. 3

TIMES OF great political ferment have almost always en­ revolutionary spontaneity, in bringing women freedom. couraged women's movements. The turbulence of revolution and war in England that roused women into a flurry of petition Though individual anarchists had contributed much to the writing and demands for equal treatment; the 1800s in France women's cause, this was not seen by the strong anarchist when cigarette-smoking, red-belted women militants of the movement in Spain as a "priority concern" or even as a spec­ Commune demanded the abolition of marriage and of govern­ ific issue - a fact that became more evident as the revolution ment, took part in workshop schools and frightened the -ary tempo slowed down - but rather one that would somehow "wretched male sex" (wrote a Times correspondent) "with sort itself out automatically with victory. Meanwhile many sundry angry glances1'; the 1900s in England again, in Rus­ fighting women were still chaperoned! In the collectives sia, In China, in America, have all been well documented. women's conditions improved greatly but they were often On the other hand, and despite the wealth of literature on the paid lower rates than their menfolk. The patriarchal attit­ Spanish Revolution - from this country in particular - the udes that still survived in some anarchist literature (for ex­ role of Spanish women at the time has been neglected by fem­ ample in C. Berneri’s "La donna operaia", the "Working inists. (Sheila Rowbotham, for instance, in her valuable women", republished in VolonA, no. 4 July-August 1975 study of "Women, Resistance and Revolution" does not once with Molaschi's reply) ran too deep to match the general so­ mention Spain.) cial and political upheaval, notwithstanding significant im­

• provements. Puritanical tendencies imposed a certain con­ Solidarity's new pamphlet "Women in the Spanish Revolu­ formity in both work and sexual patterns - witness segrega­ tion"* is therefore very welcome - all the more so in that it tion of the sexes in a few collective dining-rooms or child­ is the fruit of extensive reading and of careful, balanced ren's homes. The women themselves at times showed an un­ assessment. Liz Willis secs not only the general necessity pleasant trait reminiscent of suffragette white-feather chauv­ of rescuing the history of women from obscurity, but of res­ inism ; nor could many spontaneously throw off the ingrained cuing it from "two contrasting strands of attention it receives conditioning of woman-as-object, or else they returned to it from time to time : the patronising line about women doing a later (though fondness for nice clothes does not, of course, grand job, being one hundred per cent behind tae men (where necessarily imply such conditioning!) else?); and the counter-tendency, which occasionally.comes over in women's liberation writings, to regard everything One of Liz Willis's main criticisms, and it is possibly over- done by women as good and beautiful by definition". Her own severe In the circumstances, is of the tendency among women view of Spanish libertarianism in this context is measured libertarians, as among men, to put anti-fascism first and and critical. foremost, thus neglecting the deterioration of anarchist posi­ tions before the quick and massive encroachment of a Com­ The first part of her essay covers the earlier stages of the munist party with Russian arms. This was one of the deepest Revolution, when women had their first taste of emancipation. dilemmas facing libertarians and one that certainly troubled It describes the full part played by women in the military in­ Orwell, who could see no alternative to the popular front, surrection of July 1936, their improved economic conditions even when this meant the ultimate sacrifice of one of its main in the collectives and elsewhere, the formation of groups like components. For women especially, it wculd have been hard "Mujeres Libres" (Free Women) which ran seven labour not to feci that "anything was better than fascism" - even the sections, and stressed the importance of education in throw­ "anything" that helped destroy social revolution - when the ing off the old sexist conditioning; the role of women on the alternative was a Falangist-backed Church of Rome with the front and in the defence of Madrid as organisers of mass most poisonous anti-woman ideological arsenal of all time demonstrations, ammunition supplies, home and neighbour­ (• •. who can look at Goya's "caprichos" and doubt it?) Cert­ hood committees, soup kitchens and first aid siations (the two ainly in this sense it would have been over-simplistic to re­ latter being run in the main by the more middle class women) gard fascism and authoritarian communism as equally repres­ and so on. Liz Willis notes the growingself-assurance of sive. women, often appearing on their own in public for the first time, and evidently excited at the prospects opened up by the Liz Willis concludes that an anarchist victory might not new radicalism, but she is careful to show the limitations of * have brought about sexual equality, at least in the short term. And although she points out that the "reluctance of libertari­ ans to envisage changes in sex roles and values should not be exaggerated", she aclmowledges the criticisms of Temma Kaplan, who raises such issues as the absence among the Spanish libertarians of a programme preventing exploitation of women in a revolutionary society. "The liberation of wo­ men had not been thought through in theoretical and practical terms". This owed much to the "wilful lack of clarity that bedevils libertarian movements and was to prove fatal in confrontation with the CP". It is surely this lack of a clear, sharply-defined plan for revolutionary war (notwithstanding libertarian practicality in other matters) that was more cru­ cial to the collapse of the social achievements of the anarch­ ists than the later, and only consequential, concentration on the "greater evil" of Francoism. Certainly it is one for an­ archists to bear well in mind,

N.B, For another recent booklet on women, this time the black woman in South Africa and her twofold struggle against the general oppression of women and against apartheid, see "For their triumphs and for their tears" by Hilda Bernstein, available' from International Defence and Aid Fund, price 50p

• * Juliane. Solidarity pamphlet no. 43, (lOp) 10 BRITISH ANARCHISM A REPLY TO A REPLY publication of Freedom being claimed as Year I of British An­ archism, E. P, Thompson claims it ns such and Woodcock Jolm Quail’s article, based on a talk he gave on nA History implies as much. There are innumerable bits of bad history of British Anarchism1’, appeared in FREEDOM 19 July, 1975 knocking about which I do not want to talk about but they also and N.W. ’s comments in the following issue. make this claim. So my claim for Liberty Is rightly made I think. (Incidentally I blush and admit the mistake over the publication of Liberty: it was due to tongueslip and bad I'm glad N.W. wrote down his comments on my Solidarity proofreading.) talk. So little gets discussed in the Anarchist movement - if that't not too dynamic a word for it - and even less reaches Liberty was introduced in all likelihood through contacts print. There are some important points raised by his com­ made at the Anarchist Conference in London in 1881. (Kltz, ments on my brief history of the British Anarchist movement, * Lane and I think four other English delegates were present.) points of more than historical or Anarchival significance. I As to the conference itself, the minutes reveal the English hope that my comments are of more use to people than a poke delegates with the exception of a rather mysterious chap in the eye with a burnt stick. called Hall to have taken no part in discussions. Contacts made there may have been important but there is no evidence RADICAL TRADITIONS AND ANARCHIST BEGINNINGS. to show that anarchist ideas were picked up by the English delegates there : neither Kitz nor Lane mention it in their FIRST I would like to comment on something which is imp­ memoirs. The same thing can be said of the defence cam­ lied in N.W. ’s comments and certainly provides the basis bf paign for Most (bar the bit about the memoirs). The latter an important difference between us. I refer particularly to for the greater part of his stay in London is probably best N.W. ’s comments on the origins of anarchism in Britain. considered a dissident Social Democrat. His paper, the Like Nettlau and others, N.W. seems to see anarchism as a Freiheit, did contain anarchist articles but described itself as set of principles outside history and would see nothing a Social Democrat organ for a surprisingly long time. By the strange in entitling a book "Anarchism from the Earliest end of his stay in England Most was an anarchist. Yet it Times Until 1840" or whatever. From my point of view, how­ should be remembered that his propaganda had been directed * ever, anarchism is a political movement and ideology of a towards Germany and that the defence campaign on his behalf particular historical epoch. In addition it is self-conscious, was an almost completely English affair. It was conducted self-defining, and more or less distinct. Thusjf would say within the Radical traditions of free speech and press and the that it makes little sense to talk of ’unconscious’ anarchism, • right of asylum for refugees from foreign oppression. The or the anarchism of Lao Tse, or the anarchism of the Nuer copies of the English Freiheit started during the defence cam­ except in the most carefully restricted use of the word. Even paign which I have seen describe themselves as 'socialistic’ here there is confusion and I would prefer to describe the anti­ and seem to contain little other than material of immediate authoritarian traits that one is pointing out simply as 'liberta­ relevance to the trial and defence campaign. The furthest I rian’ and have done. One does not have tills difficulty with will go is to accept that through this campaign the most nebu­ Marxism which is an area of discussion and dispute with a lous kind of socialist consciousness was introduced to the hazy boundary but which retains the sense of a collection of Radical Clubs. doctrines and movements. I would like to preserve some sort of similar boundary for anarchism. In pursuit of this, While we are on the question of influences, N.W. asks why while talking about anarchist history I would like to distinguish I mention the Germans specifically but not the French and between anarchist material, material of interest to anarch­ Russians. The answer is simply that the Germans were ists and material to do with the roots of anarchism : they are more numerous and seem to have been in closer contact with not the same thing. English Radical militants. The Russian exiles seem to have preferred Switzerland or France as a place of refuge. The There were certainly currents in the working class Radical French socialists were, despite occasional difficulties, able movement in Britain in the Nineteenth Century which are to work progressively more freely in France itself.In 1881/2 clearly libertarian in tendency. They are of interest. So there was probably a net outflow of the more active French too - and this is another example of N.W. 's - are the Diggers spirits back to France. The Germans had come into London of the Seventeenth Century. But why not go back further to, in a flood after the anti-Socialist Laws of 1878. They had not say, the Peasants Revolt of 1331 or the alleged utopias said to yet accepted their exile as final. It was on the initiative of have existed prior to the Norman Conquest. They are of int­ the Germans that the Rose Street Club was formed. And erest to anarchists, they may come in handy for arguments while it is true that there were contacts between all the exile but they are not examples of anarchism. If one is interested groups and the native population there is no doubt that in their in the anarchist movement in Britain then let us look at where contribution to the early socialist movement in the first few that movement that defined itself as anarchist came from. The years of the 1880 s the Germans stand out. They provided libertarian and socialist tendencies in the Radical movement founder members for both the Social Democratic Federation were important only in a general way and it was this general and the Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist importance that I indicated in my talk. For the history of League. Other groups of exiles were to become more influ­ British anarchism the most important fact is that individuals ential later. from this milieu played an important part in first the socialist and then the early anarchist groupings. It is the process of INDmOUALTSM AND ITS INDIVIDUALS development which I find more interesting than the starting point. There could be no anarchist movement in Britain until the importance of certain traditional concerns of British politics The Influences which made anarchists out of some Radicals hod been undermined for significant numbers of Left politi­ are open to different assessments. The reasons for my em­ cals, The most pervasive concern was continual pressure to phases are as follows. I emphasised Tucker’s Liberty be­ increase the scope of the franchise with the eventual inten­ cause it was a specifically anarchist influence and of some tion of electing a working class majority to Parliament. This importance most particularly in its translations of French was linked to an assumed identity of interest of capital and material and its letters from France which were anarchist labour (the ’productive classes') in opposition to the aristoc­ communist in tendency. It had some effect on Joseph Lane racy etc. (the 'unproductive classes’) which I mentioned in and Ambrose Barker, two men who were active in Radical my .talk. For anarchism to emerge in Britain first the con­ circles and who were later to become anarchists, and this as flict between capital and labour had to be understood and a so­ early as late 1831. Barker, at least, started a correspond­ ciety based on a democracy of producers envisaged. This is ence with Tucker which lasted until the latter's death. Lane a rudimentary formulation of socialism. Then the means and Barker-cannot have been the only ones so influenced. By whereby the producers’ democracy runs and the means of 1884/5 FTenry Seymour and others were in contact with Tucker, achieving it are discussed. When the options taken are con­ without doubt, and probably earlier. It is thus my opinion sistently libertarian the result is anarchism. that Liberty deserves the honour of being the first paper to introduce anarchism per se to the British Left.. As to the In this formulation it is possible to distinguish between an 11 individualism which represents its individual aspects - an in­ brains trust. There was a subtle but unmistakeable air of sistence on individual freedom, an insistence on not losing patronage. sight of the tree for the wood - and an individualismvhich clearly lies beyond it. Seymour, whom N.W. mentions, This is what lies at tho back of my attitudes to Kropotkin was a Proudhonian out of his time who wobbled between the in England and to Charlotte Wilson without exception, attit­ two. In his earlier days his commitment to revolutionary udes which N.W. finds disturbing. But let us consider our change gave his projected democracy of small individual pro­ differences. Kropotkin came to England after his release prietors co-operating one with another on a basis of equality from prison in 1886. On Kropotkin's trial and imprisonment a certain attractive quality. However, his later Anarchist* I mentioned Liberty rather than the Times and other straight pronouncements represent little more than a defence of the papers because of its circulation among the politicals and its ’right1 of those with property to preverve it against the (self- sympathetic and inside coverage. In terms of anarchist in­ evidently) lazy swine who had none. What had been a defence fluence it was the best example unless one could read French. of the individual property of the artisan had become the def­ And I have not heard of many people being converted to anar­ ence of property of any kind in the present. Auberon Herbert chism by the Times. • .(nasty crack). This was the context was throughout an ’anarchist1 of this latter variety and a mem­ in which I thought I’ d talked or news being brought to England ber of the Liberty and Property Defence League which in my of the trial. The leaflet mentioned by Nettlau I have not view represented the unearned income and small businessman seen and I thought I'd been through the Archive in Amster* brigade. I have nothing much to say for or against Albert dam with a nit-comb. Ah well, you can’t win them all* As (not Henry) Tarn who led the small group of ’Tarnation or do- far as Kropotkin's founding of Freedom goes in a letter quo­ nothing Anarchists’ as a correspondent of Freedom called ted by Woodcock Kropotkin states quite clearly that he has them in the late 1890s. N.W. is welcome to include them ' been summoned to England to start a paper. In letters of all in a catalogue of British anarchists but if he wants to in­ Charlotte Wilson at Amsterdam she says that they can’t , clude Auberon Herbert and the later Henry Seymour he is go­ start Freedom yet because Kropotkin is nursing his wife. ing to have great difficulty in differentiating his anarchism This seems to me straightforward enough. The group could from laissez faire capitalism. In any case with the except­ carry on without Kropotkin yet it seems to me that they ion of Henry Seymour none of them had any influence on the didn’t want to. And what Kropotkin had done was to join a movement which is worth pointing to in an hour long talk. group of people whom he would have no difficulty in domina­ ting. It was clearly open to him to become deeply involved In the case of the early Henry Seymour who published the in the Socialist League and it seems to me a grave mistake Anarchist in 1885, he clearly has his place and it is recog­ that he did not. Here was an organisation under the logic of nised in my book. There are two reasons why he didn't get • its own development moving in an anarchist direction with a mention in the talk. Firstly because it’s a bit difficult to * some of the most politically experienced libertarians of the gauge just how influential his paper was before it was eclip­ period in its ranks and instead of it Kropotkin chose a group sed by Freedom and his innocent involvement with a German of 'middle class faddists’ as David Nicoll was later to call police spyl Secondly, his short involvement with the group them. J. H. Mackay may have written up Charlotte Wilson that later produced Freedom is as significant as the publica­ but she deserves no more praise than is due to someone who tion of Freedom is significant. As will be realised I am not had the time, the money and the intelligence to run a paper disposed to mark up the significance of the appearance of as a sort of managing editor. Looking threwgh her letters Freedom too highly. My reasons for this follow after a few in Amsterdam it is astonishing how little her anarchism more pontifical remarks. seems to have changed her life. I’m sorry if I hurt N. W. ’s feelings but I do not think that Charlotte Wilson was a very THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MOVEMENT significant anarchist.

■ N.W. is wrong when he writes that I 'concentrate on an­ I am also sorry to say that I insist that Kropotkin’s Eng­ archism as it appeared in the labour movement’ and I'm lish was anything from not very good to appalling, according sorry if I give that impression. I am interested in anarch­ • to taste, and although obviously it got better as he stayed in ism insofar as it changes things and makes things happen : England his letters as late as 1897 reveal his English to that is to say, insofar as there is an anarchist movement. have been seriously defective. I suppose that the only way As a ’class struggle' anarchist, of course I'm interested in to settle this is bombs at five paces or a systematic look working class developments, however one defines the work­ ^through all the material in Amsterdam. ing class. Yet if one defines the working class as the class • • whose work is directed by others and whose production is at the disposal of others, even such a 'work oriented' definition i There is the question of propaganda by deed. I would have does not mean that only struggles in the work place have sig­ thought N.W. would have known me a bit better than that (in nificance. Opposition to the consequences of an exploiting the words of Bob Dylan ) in suggesting that I was under the society (e.g. pollution, inhuman town planning); opposition impression that it meant nothing but bombs. The theory of to the institutions which brainwash people to accept things propaganda by deed is quite clearly to act in such a way that it as they are (e.g. the school, the church, the media, the encourages the masses to revolt, the act being the propaganda family, etc., etc.); a readiness to examine new ideas in and so on. But when I said that bombing rhetoric and an in­ every area and to be prepared to take part in new and attrac­ creasing fascination with dynamite etc. in the ranks of the ex- tive movements without losing one's crap detector - - a l l Socialist League anarchists caused trouble with William [ Morris and led to the involvement of a number of people in this is of primary importance because it is inseparable from bomb conspiracies I meant just that. People got really hung the most basic forms of economic oppression and opposition up on bombs. From this distance it Is a bit difficult to see to it. So when I look at the history of British anarchism I hoVv compelling the example of Ravachol was at the time. But look further than the struggle in the work place. But I look when a hopeful workers' movement reaches the moment when for struggles, for developments, for happenings. And from this stems my preference for agitators. I do not think that it realises that it has achieved very little and that this little publishing a paper or writing in one gives one an automatic is being taken away from it then thoughts turn to revenge. right to a place in the history books, though it is nol neces­ And this began to happen from 1891 in England. When sary to do more than write sometimes to be an agitator. Ravachol bombed the houses of the prosecuting counsel and Sometimes - much more often, in fact - some level of organi­ I judge in a particularly vicious trial of some anarchist in sation is necessary. But the simple tests are the questions ; # France he was considered a hero. The reason wa6 that at were events influenced by the activities undertaken ? was least he was fighting back. We ought perhaps to be in the pos­ ition where such acts are a real temptation before we condemn this the intention?' them and their authors outright. As far as Freedom was concerned - they clearly stated in VoL 1 No. 1 - it was not the intention to be an agitational One final word. N.W, writes that I haven't really written organ. They intended, they said, to develop the theoretical an anarchist book if it's basically to do with working class aspects of anarchism and to comment on events of the day self-activity and that a concentration on the latter is as much from a distance. I haven't much patience with this for two the Jewish Chronicle style as only writing about anarchists reasons: 1) theory is a generalisation from social facts and without reference to context. I would say that this is not true. social practice and without constant attention and involvement Working class self-activity is the context. It is, historically • in social movements, theory becomes airy-fairy and irrele­ - speaking, an accurate barometer of the health of the anarchist vant — see for example New Left Review ; 2) the relation of movement. Further it is the means which the libertarian the reader lo the paper was rather like the audience at a tries to survive with and the authoritarian to squash or control 1 2 ------It is what changes worlds. And to widen the focus a little : cal epoch” ; it is the ideology of society without government, mass self activity preceded anarchism as I have defined it. It which cannot bo narrowly confined to the historical movement could well post-date anarchism too. There Is a sonse now in of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (To call which anarchism Is a Nineteenth Century ideology as much as it M8olf-consciou8, self-defining, and more or less distinct Marxism. Anarchism has provided an informing spirit of seems to me to vorgo on Hegelian mysticism.) The origins liberty and struggle in the Twentieth Century, It has provided of the anarchist movement are to bo found not only in the pol­ heroic examples of the possible. This is enough to hold my al itical practice from which it omorgod but also in the political allegiance for the present. But I have been long aware that in theory which helped it to emerge. The theory continued to providing the analysis of the nature of and opposition to the be important when the movement had appeared, and it re~ new corporatism out of my own experience and for my own mains important even if the movement has disintegrated and needs that I am operating in a post-Marxist, post-anarchist even if J.Q. has little patience with it. world. The anarchist sages have good things to say but their I find his attitude to anarchist theorists not disturbing but relevance is obscure to most people now. The libertarian in distorting; it is just silly to say that Kropotkin made ,ra the present world should perhaps beware of labelling himself grave mistake” in not joining the Socialist League or that --it is thought and action which change worlds, not labels. Charlotte Wilson was not a very significant British anarchist. John Quail. I still find his distinction between agitators and propagandists N. W. replies : John Quail's comments on my comments mystifying, and I am puzzled by his reference to hurt feelings on his lecture clarify some points of dif­ and nasty cracks. I am completely lost by his belief that ference between us and obscure others. I don't want to make rtthere is a sense now in which anarchism is a nineteenth- further detailed comments, but I do want to add a general century ideology” and that we are living in a ”post anarchist thought. world” . I think the main trouble is that he sees the connect­ ion of anarchism with socialism but not with liberalism, that Far from seeing anarchism t1as a set of principles outside he fails to see the importance not just of working-class self­ history11, I see it as a set of principles throughout history., activity but of all self-activity. Of course there is difficulty certainly much more than only a century old. I would indeed in differentiating anarchism from laissez-faire capitalism, see nothing strange in a book on anarchism from the earliest just as there is in differentiating it from libertarian commun­ times to the nineteenth century - - any more than on socialism, ism; neverthless it is different from the former as it is from pacifism, or humanism. It is absurd to think of anarchism the latter, and a history of an anarchist movement should be as ”a political movement and ideology of a particular histori­ based on a recognition of this fact.

judge refused the right of an individu­ r,rfH E LIBEL" CASE THAT al to leaflet outside the court; this is NEVER WAS” no doubt why he has been chosen to RIFF 'judge1 this case. They are after all FOLLOWING the publication in the defendants without any political be­ January 1975 issue of The Freethinker liefs (? ), they are ordinary citizens of an unfavourable review of the anti­ going about thd, r business : leaflet­ abortion book Babies for Burning , RAFF ting soldiers at bases, camps, sta­ solicitors for its authors, Michael SEEING BOOKSHOPS like Grass Roots tions, town centres. . .; they are Litchfield and Susan Kentish, wrote to in Manchester and Peace Centre in devoted to papers like New Society, The Freethinker de man ding an apol­ Birmingham makes you aware of what a Rolling Stone, Peace News, Private ogy, retraction, compensation and in­ good community, radical bookshop and Eye, Anarchy, Freedom, Bosses' demnification in respect of legal costs. centre should be like. Fourth Idea in . Enemy, etc.; they are just your aver­ The Freethinker replied that any claim Bradford, Mushroom in Nottingham, age hairy/not hairy poet, socialwork- their clients decided to pursue would News From Nowhere in Liverpool, j er, claimant, revolutionary jester be most strongly defended. and so on, also i If you want help in j and fool. Hence their articulate nat­ ure. Hence their refusal to plead; It is now over seven months since starting your own, in your own locality, legal advisers to The Freethinker in your own very personal way, visit hence the 23 gentlement and women of the hard-up legal profession. Meet last wrote to Mr. Litchfield’s and any,- or as many of these as you can - Mrs. Kentish18 solicitors, and as or the one already in your area - and i you in the Old Bailey Public Gallery, eh? ^ they have not replied it is assumed that they do not intend to pursue their FREEDOM, like most anarchist publi­ claim. However, the unfulfilled IF YOU happen to pass through my cations, needo sellers. It needs peo­ threat has cost The Freethinke r over hometown of Burton-on-Trent you will ple to do bookstalls. If you are on the £200, and its editor, William Me be inclined to think that it is the centre » dole or in University there is scope Is* Uroy says, ’’These legal expenses of the Chemical Industry. It is! For You only need to borrow a table if in un­ will not put us out of business, but a here is brewed a mockery; a libellous I iversity or college (you are the ’Liber­ bill of over £200 would be a serious fraud of what was once the best Beer tarian^ college group, Right!), stick it blow to many small journals with in the land. You will see tall alumini- , outside cafe or dining hall, walk round limited resources. The libel laws of um-framed and cased clie mica Users; j tables with papers held up so they are this country are unsatisfactory, and huge tankers which look like petrol or obviously for sale !! and show you it is intolerable that a person can ICI tankers - - but carry what the mean business. There is no 1 sales- threaten libel action which he appar­ 'Giant' brewers call their ”best” or point1 unless you organize one. It Is ently has no intention of pursuing, "tankard” or some other cat’s piss. I the pivot of widening the movement. but nevertheless puts other people to should add that in Burton, which has a It may seem not your style. Well, it a great deal of trouble and expense. ” beautiful collection of u/ispoilt old isn’t anyone’ s. But we all must share He hopes that, as The Freethinker pubs, there are Marstons and Ever- in this work. It is the basis of more has a limited circulation and no ad­ ard’s breweries which brew beer not a , ideas/more involve ment/more aware­ vertising revenue, people who value little unlike it used to be everywhere - ness/more understanding. Write, if truth and the right of free expression before the chemists got their hands on you will help, to Freedom Press in will respond generously to the appeal, this big business. (Answer? Brew Angel Alley, 84B Whitechapel High which Is sponsored by Lord Houghton, your own.) Street, London El 7QX or telephone Mrs. Renee short* MP and Mrs. * 01-247 9249. Maureen Colquhoun, MP. The book THERE ARE only a tiny number of Dennis Gould was quoted extensively by supporters political trials in this country. Judge Freedom 80p for ten copies (unsold of James White’s Abortion (Amend­ McKinnon said so. He should know. copies credited) ment) Bill, and Mr. White is repor­ He has been so long on the bench that Pamphlets & bookst. Remittance with ted to have acquired much of his not only !us arse but his head often order, one-third-discount on Freedom "information” from the book. goes to sleep. He said in this curr­ Pres:* publications , postage charged. ent trial that it is not political. This No discount on other people's publica­ Donations should be sent to The_ is no doubt why Amnesty International tions but we send ?o9t free. Freethinker, 693 Holloway Road, has an American attorney sitting in as Refund or credit In full for all returns London, N.19 (teL 01-272 1266). observer. This is no doubt why the in new condition. M. 13 * REVIEW BOOKS BOOKS REVIEWS

- HAN OF PRINCIPLE --ANOTHER WHO WAS NOT

i It is a condemnation Rudl notes, in a show of balance and fair play, ROBESPIERRE, George Rude (Coffins, £4.95). but he never gets to the base of all the criticism. For instance he brushes off Guerin's concept of a sans-culotte pre-proletorian vanguard CHARLES FOURIER, Pascal Bruckner (Seuii, coll. "Ecrivains de toujour*", 11.40F). as new but simply wrong. He quotes Talmon's conclusion on the "Incom­ patibility of the idea of an all-embracing and all-solving creed with liberty" but again doesn't deal with it as It certainly deserves, and he AS IF TO shake off his identity as the historian of rioting and revolu­ fgnore's Kropotkin's demonstration of the inbuilt self-destructive mecha­ tionary crowds, George Rud£ now turns an eye upon their governors — nism of political power. The latter, while realising the great signific­ an eye, one might add, glowing not with scorn but admiration. For ance of the Revolution for modem statism, falls into the positivist trap he Rudl has set out to present Moximilien Robespierre os the much- hos himself warned against and his conclusions ore bathed in a rosy glow maligned "first great champion of democracy and the people's rights". that must seem complacent today. It is only after Stalin and World War 11 that Talmon and Camus can write their own accounts, more philoso­ In Rudd's new book what Carlyle describes as "the small soul, trans­ phical, perhaps more generally compassionate, ond more severe. For if, parent, wholesome-looking as small ale" becomes the rich and potent like Its predecessors, the French Revolution is an incubator of progressive beer of popular democracy. Robespierre is seen as the most consistent ideas, it is above all the seedbed of modem nationalism, military con­ protector of legislative against executive power. Forced to modify his scription and total war, a more sophisticated feudality ond the "ethical position under successive waves of m ilitary and economic crisis and the • state" of revolutionary fascism. At the same time that it carries the horsh pressures of revolutionary Realpolitik, he rises to the peak of People to the still burning altar of Divine Right it gives rise to the first ¥ emergency government and the Committee of Public Safety, convinced explicit justification of State terrorism whose victims, impure and un­ that the progress of the Revolution towards a republic of smalj propriet­ i principled scoundrels and perpetrator* of the new crime, "Use-nation ", ors and artisans can be maintained only through physical elimination of are 70 per cent peasant* and labouring people. the egoistic rich and a massive drive to cure the people of their ignor­ ance and counter-revolutionary superstitions. But this, says Rude, is No doubt his youth spared Fourier, for whom the Revolution brought wholly consistent with Robespierre's view of legislative democracy and little but the pong of inflation and speculation. The Continental class no bad reflection on his integrity. He is an honest man and no '*bu- war had begun but the war against commerce had not and it was this that veur de sang". Yet even if he were this "would perhaps not in itself be mattered. For Fourier, that ‘‘bourgeois-decadent", that "pomocrutic a serious indictment of a revolutionary leader who was concerned for the bigot" (Proudhon said), the taste of strawberries or sweet drinking water safety of the state. . . " One cannot disagree after all I was worth more than "twenty centuries of political im becility". The point is made by Bruckner, who also underlines the difference between But it is uncomfortable and odd to find a historian of Rudd's stature destruction and subversion, and Fourier's preference for the latter. resorting so often to justification of his thesis through such superficial According to Fourier the established order is not to be bust up but de- methods as constant quotation from the written or spoken word, taken routed, diverted to a point approaching madness — though not quite. at an almost touching face value. That Robespierre is a man of virtue Laws, for instance, are not to be abolished but increased to such an and no vampire we are led to see in the magic new formula of Virtue extent that their very over-abundance necessarily entails their annul­ and Terror combined ("Virtue without which Terror is squalidly repres­ ment. . . Clearly, like Robespierre, Fourier lacked a sense of humour, sive, Terror without which Virtue is disarmed"), that he is a great pop­ hence a sense of proportion that was in Robespierre's case disastrous. ular democrat is ot least partly shown in his remark "Je suis peuple moi- But in Fourier's case, element of regimentation apart (and what child meme" as well os by his frugality l That he is a by no means careless would have stuck the Harmony sanitary squad for more than a week?) discriminator between friends ond enemies we see in his distinction be­ the sheer exuberance and often quite un-Utopion practicality of his tween "royalists and conspirators" on the one hand and "peaceful citi­ visions have something infinitely attractive about them and their criter­ zens" on the other and between "scoundrels and humanity". ion of pleasure is, after a ll, beautiful serious 1 To Bruckner the stress on pleasure is what separates Fourier from socialism, or indeed from any This use of language raises the issue of Jacobin formalism, that has kind of -ism aimed at political power, since pleasure is not compatible since hod a marvellous career in constitutions, bills of rights and codes with it, as Robespierre himself remarked. . . Supposing then that we of law. But Rude doesn't deal with it - perhaps because he is a believ­ begin to take Fourier a bit more seriously? A>st supposing, to quote er in such things - and despite the fact that Robespierre1* own col­ one reviewer of Charles Fourier, "this carefree, totally, systematically leagues were not united in their views on what exactly constitutes the 'irresponsible' approach to tW State is what we lack?"* q p Nation, what Humanity, what the People (...though for Robespierre they are surely little but a pale and puritanical reflection of his "single *5ee also, in English, The Utopian Vision of Charles Fourier, Selected w ill", good but not over-zealous patriots, not corrupted by blood, Texts, Design for Utopia (selected writings of CihorlesTouner) and wealth or poverty, consumers of bread but not sugar, coffee or the mid­ likewise Harmon ion Man*, all available from Freedom Bookshop. night o il, cautious and law-abiding, virtuous ond cruel to be, ultimate­ ly , kin d ).

One passes from the unsatisfactory to the preposterous. That Robes­ Emma Goldman on pierre is Lenin's model we can appreciate; that he is in tune with Winstanley must make the libertarian mind truly boggle l Yet, In support of the Seagreen's long power struggle in the revolutionary cause WOMEN’S he is indeed quoted and crazily out of contect. C' • .Kingly power is like a great spread tree, if you lop off the head or top bough and let the other branches and roots sprecd, it w ill grow again and recover fresh strength"). Th e almost elementary knowledge of Winstanley's work EMANCIPATION shows, of course, that for him, as for all social libertarians, what must be tom away are the social and economic roots of capitalist society . . . she can give suffrage or the ballot no new quality, nor (which, after a ll, non-capitalist Robespierre does not do, unless sending can she receive anything from it that will enhance her own Danton and the "spoilt child" Desmoulins to the guillotine is supposed quality. Her development, her freedom, her independence, to count), and that there is no possible point of comparison between the must come from and through herself. First, by asserting social revolutionaries of George H ill and their condemnation of all herself as a personality and not as a sex commodity. Second, power as "kingly power" and the bewigged, bepowdered jurist wKo, to by refusing the right to anyone over her body; by refusing borrow Saint-Just's own word, "iced" the Revolution with the icing of to bear children unless she wants them; by refusing to be a direct democracy. servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc. ; by making her life simpler, but deeper and richer. The most interesting part of Rude's book is his survey of the fluctuations That is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance of life in Robespierre's reputation over the last 200 years, from the bitter indict­ in all its complexities, by freeing herself from the fear of ment of Taine through varying degrees of liberal reservation and cautious public opinion and public condemnation. Only that, and not praise to socialist and Marxist eulogy to the evident distaste of the great the ballot, will set woman free, will make her a force anarchs (Proudhon, Bakunin, Malatesta, Kropotkin, all logically con­ hitherto unknown in the world, a force for real love, for peace, for harmony; a force of divine fire, of life-giving; demning the use of Terror and its inevitable corollary of dictatorship — though Kropotkin pays warm tribute to Marat). a creator of free men and women. 14 lution ; revolutionary principles (in­ cluding the right to revolt) were writ­ ten into the declaration of indopendencei THE GREAT It gainod its freedom from Britain (in fact the young colony had maintained its independence by self-reliance and decentralized townships before the physical revolution which merely AMERICAN DREAM changed the masters). A civil war was ONLY IN AMERICA could one have Only in America could a magazine necessary to establish the Northern in­ the attempted murder of a President called 'High Times' be published dustrial supremacy. (Slavery had little twice in 17 days. devoted to drug-taking (soft and hard). to do with it .)

Only in America could one have wom­ Only in America could tnere be pro­ A recent history of a people in whom en as the putative assassins. capitalist anarchism. the instinct for freedom, opposition to tyranny (for many of them were refug­ Only in America would the saviour of Only in America could there be an ees from authoritarianism) is not with­ the President from the errant marks- Institute for Plant (i.e. flowers, etc)) out idealism and its virtues. The Am­ wom&nship be an admitted homosexual C ommunication. erican people have a long and honour­ Vietnam veteran who claims that the able roll of revolutionaries,the Ameri­ media suppressed the fact of his homo­ Only in America could a kidnapper can government treated many of them sexuality. pretend to be a radical, ask for an abominably (as any government would) astronomical ransom and a plane and but we cannot dismiss as totally lost a Only in America would the security finish up by exchanging two hostages country which nurtured John Brown, services let a prior confession of an for ten cans of beer, communicating Henry D. Thoreau, Walt Whitman, intent to assassinate the President with a radio programme, and giving William Lloyd Garrison, Voltairine de pass by on the grounds that there were up quietly. Cleyre, Wendell Phillips, Benjamin too many prospective assassins stand­ Tucker - to name only the native-born. ing in line for consideration. When we call the roll of those who Only in America 7 • lobked for freedom in the U. S. - and Only in America could a gun be found it within themselves - the names, bought as a citizen's right to self- One takes the half-boasting phrase are legion: Berkman, Goldman, Most; defence from a right-wing dealer in from Harry Golden's patriotic cosy Sacco, Vanzetti, Spies. . . These defence of citizens' rights and*his schmalz about the wonders of American have left their mark on radical history. profits. life. But one knows full well that all # these (and many more other) excesses, The Great American dream of free­ Only in America would a President peculiarities and outrages of the Amer­ dom often turns to nightmare but respond to pressure from the gun ican way of life - and death - are the whilst there are those that dream we manufacturers1 lobby by not outlawing natural re suit of systems of government, may yet awake into the reality of guns by legislation. business and finance which will undoubt freedom. edly recur (like fashions) after a lapse Jack Robinson. Only in America could an imprisoned of time in the countries which follow murder-cult leader influence a disciple those same tracks. America is but a capitalist state write large; and the PUBLIC SPENDING from jail to attempt to slay a President . .. Continued from P. 15 on the grounds that he had not done suf* projection of individual wishes and fi.cj.ent for the cause of conservation. fears upon the giant screen of America Both in New York and here in Brit­ is but the production of the Great Ame­ ain very scant mention is made of the Only in America could one have a rican Dream. status symbols and the overloading kidnapped heiress 'converted1 to the with highly paid "parasites" of local 'symbiotic1 liberation views of her $ * 3 government in the Mcut public spending1 captors. • . debate. No mention is made of the ob­ For many years it has been a left- vious solution to the State's crisis -- .. .Only in America could her million­ wing fashion to hate all things Ameri­ the destruction of power and privilege aire parents claim that she was brain­ can. The evocative phrase fC.I,A.' which will inevitably follow from the washed and her capture on charges of generates as much adrenalin and saliva elimination of the Stace (both in its bank robbery etcetera was a liberation. these days as the magic phrase fKu central and local manifestations) and Klux Klan' did in the twenties and thir­ of the concept of private property. Only in America would a ja il-cell be ties. But one cannot judge a whole Homeless people need housing. Cert­ bugged in order to overhear the heir­ nation by its worst excesses. Due ain sections of society have more than ess confess to a friend that her sup­ partly to Hollywood the A me r Lean nati­ they need. The police and the courts posed brain-washing was a ploy to get on lives (and dies} by its images. The are there to ensure that they retain bail. celluloid image of the cowboy lias lived more than they need. Local councils, longer in screening time than he did in which continue to be administered ac­ Only in America would such a device his history. The screen World War It cording to the dicates of the powerful be admitted, allowed and publicised. ran for twenty years with every con­ will continue to administer services in quered people a maquisard and every the same manner as the capitalist and American a conquered hero. The spend their time evicting squatters stutter of Chicago's twenties' machine- whilst retaining a huge stock of empty HISTORY is there to teach us that ail guns reverberated round movie theat­ property. governments resemble one another and res for years after Capone died in are worth the same. The best are the Florida from V. D. The State is in serious trouble all the worst. More cynicism among some, world over. New York's bankruptcy will according to Chancellor Helmut more hypocrisy among others ! At These images of America have obs­ Schmidt have a " domino effect on the bottom, always the same proceedings, cured much of the reality, anc^ needing finances of Europe11. Here in Britain always the same intolerance \ Govern­ someone to hate, the authoritarian ment is liberal only in appearance, for left seized upon this rag-bag of the Denis Healey has asked the country to pay for the crisis by cuts in real wages, it has in reserve, under the dust of Great American Movie Nightmare and and cuts in public services. When the legislative arsenals, some nice little elevated it to folk-memories and hist­ poor man goes to the rich man and asks law... for use against troublesome op­ orical facts. position. for help, he is promptly told to ,rfuck If countries have a collective consci­ off". Our answer to the State which ousness America is a young, adoles­ com es to us asking that we help it out --Kropotkin, on trial at Lyons cent country with pimples and mistakes. of its crisis should be the same. 1883 (quoted by Paul Berman in This year it is celebrating its 200th Quotation from the anarchists) anniversary. It was founded in revo­ Nino Staifa. 15 PUBLIC SPENDING [b o o k s h o p WHENEVER WE arc told that "we" le), a national health service, protec­ arc heading towards bankruptcy as a tion of tenants1 rent levels and aid in ’’nation'1 (?) the cry goes out from the finding people some sort of housing ’’poor" ratepayers that the obvious accommodation. This never lias been' solution is to cut public spending. a charitable gesture on the part of the NOTES The cuts, furthermore, must take privileged. It is a means of control. place in local government where such Without this excuse for aid the power All the titles mentioned in these notes "luxuries’' as social services, hous­ and privilege structures of society are available from Freedom Bookshop, ing services and up until recently, would have collapsed long ago. 84B Whitechapel High Street, London education, are squandering people's El 7QX at the prices - plus postage - hard-earned rate contributions. Nevertheless, when the state finds itemised. For callers the bookshop is Only the "communist" (i. e. pro- itself in a financial crisis this "char­ open : Soviet) extremists suggest cuts in ity" must be cut to even more inade­ Tuesday-Friday 2 - 6 p. m. such "essentials" as "defence" (or quate levels. You boy, guilty of (Thursdays until 8.00 p. m .) do they mean "aggression"?). never having had the money to live in Saturdays 10 a. m. - 4 p. m, bourgeois luxury, must now pay for * Whilst we do not wish to make excu­ this obscene act of defiance by putting THIS WEEK I am going to concentrate ses for the obvious inefficiencies of up with even less "charity"! And on what H. N. Brailsford entitled, in local government, we must consider think yourself lucky! Meanwhile, his sadly out of print book, "Shelley, the hypocrisy of these "militant" rate­ don't you dare occupy that empty Godwin and their circle ". payers who forever worship the god of house over there or I’ll lock you up! power and prigilege, who has ordained Firstly a new biography of Mary them to be the chosen people, with the In New York the impossibility of Wollstonecraft by Eleanor Flexner prayer of "cut local authority spend­ retaining the same power and privilege- (£1.95 + 2ip) which emphasises her ing", One cry which is often heard that has always been there is manifest­ role as a pioneer of the Modern Wom­ from the poverty-stricken owner-occu- ing itself with much greater repercus­ en's Liberation movement; another pied hovels of suburbia Is , MOh to be sions than have so far been seen here. biography of her is by Claire Tomalin a corn oil tenant I" These evil and The city of New York is very near to and entitled The Life and Death of lazy "council tenants" receive huge being declared bankrupt. If the city is Mary Wollstonearaft (£4.75 + 42p) - subsidies apparently which are pro­ declared bankrupt, the city will go in­ possibly a more scholarly work, but th cured from the pockets of the oppressed, to receivership and come under the the scholarship is not permitted to ob­ god-fearing, hard-working, owner-occu­ control of a federal judge. The result scure the relevance of Wollstonecraft pier. will be that there will be no cash left to today, nor her historical and politi­ to pay municipal workers, and there cal significance. One fact which is conveniently ignored will be no welfare payments for the is tnat tie owner-occupier is subsidised poor. Why does not the Federal Gov­ Mary W oilstone craft's own classic by the public purse to a much greater ernment intervene to save New York work, A Vindication of the Rights of extent than the council tenant. The tax City - government which is, after all, Woman (£1.00 +16p) is also avail­ relief for owner-occupiers with a mort­ a mainstay of the hierarchical system? able, edited by Miriam Kramnick. gage is one obvious example of giving There are two reasons : they think (a) Her husband William Godwin is, of the biggest subsidies to those who can the effects are only really felt by the course, the author of among other afford the biggest mortgages (or any poor who can easily be controlled by the things, the Enquiry Concerning Politi­ mortgage at all). Secondly, the ser­ National Guard, and (b) President Ford cal Justice {£2.50 + 42p), which is vices which are provided such as gas, regards New York as a monument to not available complete, but this edition electricity and water, without which Democratic Party mismanagement and abridged by K. Code 11 Carter cont­ their precious piece of "independence", he is not too unhappy about keeping it ains most of the meat of his various the owner-occupied house, could not that way. Hence, the lives of poor arguments concerning the Powers of exist are always accounted for in the people are being used as pawns in the Man, the Principles of Society, the estimates for showing us how council election game. We've always said thi6, Principles of Government, the Opera­ tenants are subsidised. However, of course, but "nice" Gerald Ford is tion of Opinion, Of Legislative and the private builder does not have to very crudely demonstrating this in this Executive Power, Of Crime and Punish­ provide these services as they already case. ment, and lastly. Of Property. This exist, which explains how the indepen­ volume also contains short extracts dent owner-occupier manages to afford' In "newly-Communist" Turin it has from his books The Enquirer and to pay the cost of building the house. again become obvious that the old Chris­ Thou gilts on Man, together with the Thirdly, only the owner-occupier is tian Democrat administration had been Thoughts occasioned by the perusal of allowed to benefit from improvement squandering money. What was not Dr. Parr's Spltal sermon, preached grants for older property. This latter known was just in what manner the at Christ Church on April 15th, 1800. subsidy is chiefly responsible for the money was being squandered. The Tur­ "gentrification" of older working-class in city hall was an example of unbridled The Letters of William Godwin and areas, turning them into middle-class luxury. The furnishings and all the Mary Wollstonecraft to each other are ghettoes. There are, of course, an rest of the "pomp and circumstance" available in Godwin and Mary (£1.75 infinite number of ways in which the regalia was costing the city a fortune. + 24p), edited by Ralph M. Wardle. present social system is geared to­ Quite rightly the leisure rooms of the wards perpetrating and then protecting top knobs have been converted to offi­ Percy Bysshe Shelley was of course the private property owner. ces and "shocked" officials now find William and Mary's son-in-law, His • themselves working 10 to 12 hours a Address to the Irish People (£0.90 + Who has really paid for the accumu­ day. Furthermore, the expensive fur­ 9p) has an immediacy in the light of cur­ lation of wealth, property, power and niture is being handed out to the poor. rent events which is often uncanny. privilege in the past? Who is now re­ The cities of despair of the Christian Also available are his magnificent po^m. quired to pay for Uie current govern­ Democrats in parliament are being The Mask of Anarchy (£0.30 + 9p), ment's financial crisis (whilst at the heard all the way from Rome. "Nice" written while Shelley was in Italy in same time protecting pri/ate proper­ Gerald Ford is no doubt standing by 1819 on hearing of the Peterloo Mass­ ty)? It is the people who have to "do with his "liberationist" murderers to acre ; and his Necessity of Atheism (ab­ without" so that a certain section of stop tiie country becoming (God help ridged) (only . 01 p + 7p post) the writing society can Jive with more than they u^) Communist. As the comics say, of which, of course, occasioned his ex­ actually need. As a hypocritical ges­ "GASP !."!" pulsion from Oxford University. ture of charity, society has made av­ ailable unemployment benefits, coun­ Continued on Page 14 Continued on Page 16 c i l blocks (built as cheaply as possib­ 16 THROUGH THE AMARCHIST PRESS ------

FEDERATION NEWS SPAIN WORKERS'~ COMmSSlOUS In the interview he talks about the origins On a more positive note, we can an­ THE ONE THREAD linking all fw nounce the publication of the first issue anarchic papers in the last month or of the Comisiones Obreras (they were ori­ ginally started by dissident Falangists, fed of the Anarchist Federation Bulletin, so is, of course, denunciation of a first step along the way towards cre­ Franco’s execution of the five ETA and up with the impotence of the official unions, by radical Catholics, and by the Communist ating a new anarchist federation in this FRAP militants. The papers seem di­ country. This is not an easy task as vided over what epithet to apply to the" Party) and how they attracted workers who saw in them a possibility of real struggle the examples of other countries prove. moribund (by the time this comes out There are three federations in Italy, a one hopes, dead) dictator, but the against the employers, but of how they country with a far stronger anarchist choice seems to come down to Franco- have been bureaucratized by the Commun­ tradition than ours. There are dis­ the-executioner or Franco-la-Muerte. ist Party, who want to integrate them into putes in the Dutch federation which, It will be interesting to read his obitu­ the official uions, and thus legalize the aries in Frente Libertario, Espolr, power-structure they have set up, have surfaced in public discussions be­ tween the editors of De Vrije Socialist Le Combat Syndlcaliste, etc. They should make an interesting contrast OFFICIAL PROTESTS and De A s, another Dutch anarchist with what appears in the Telegraph. monthly. We have just received news Later in the interview, he gives his opin­ that the Norwegian Anarchist Federa­ SE LF^I^N^EMENT ion on the officially inspired protest about tion has $)plit into two parts, the FAFS the Spanish executions, in the Netherlands. (Federation of Anarchists/Libertarian Spain occupies a special place in the He is rather scornful that the Dutch people Socialists) and the RAF (Revolutionary anarchist movement because of what s hould have to be prodded by the govern­ Workers Union), and the situation in happened there in 1936-39, the nearest ment into protest, and very clearsighted -France is scarcely more united. we have yet come to an anarchist revo­ about the hypocrisy of Western govern­ lution* The practical application ments, which on the one hand condemn BLACK FLAG there of self-management, an idea that Franco's "fascist brutality" and on the Black Flag has a new administrative has come to the forefront of revolution­ other are in the process of constructing ary thought since the ferment of Paris special prisons for the mental torture of address : 10, Meitham Road, Lock- in May 1933, is arousing more inter­ inmates. He cites the cases of PinelU and wood, Huddersfield, Yorkshire. This is an address for mail only. Wildcat est in English-language circles all the Marini In Italy, the treatment of the seems to have ceased publication. time, as is witnessed by the publica­ R, A. F, in West Germany, British intern­ tion of Sam Dolgoff’s anthology, "The ment and occupation in N, Ireland, the D. L. M. Anarchist Collectives", of Vernon building of the Bijlmer bajes" (isolation Richards1 translation of Gaston LevaJs cells) in the Netherlands. "Collectives in the Spanish Revolution", and the translation in progress of SWISS R EPR ESSION BOOKSHOP NOTi^b. Frank Mintz's book on "Autogestion Continued from Page 15 dans la Revolution Espagnoi". He could have added the pre-trial deten­ tion conditions of accused people in Swit2> Among other titles in stock again are The English ’Solidarity1 group are erland. The 18th October 1975 issue of two pamphlets by Alexandra Kollentai; the people most concerned with the Umanita Nova, the weekly paper of the firstly, two works combined in one vol­ theory and practice of self-manage­ Italian Anarchist Federation, has a long ume - Sexual Relations and the Cla^s • ment, in this country. A couple of article entitled, "The testimony of the Strugj^le and Love and the new morality, months ago they issued a discussion revolutionary Petra Krause on prison bru­ translated and introduced by Alix Holt document on whether self-management tality in the land of 'social peace'". The (£ 0. 30 + 9p), and also Women Workers must necessarily be socialist/revolu- practice of holding people accused of viol­ Struggle for their Rights translated by tlonary, in view of the Ulster Workers1 ence against the State in prison for months Celia Britten and with an introduction strike in 1974, And their very latest and even years before trial, seems com­ and notes by sheila Rowbotham and pamphlet, "Women in the Spanish Rev­ mon to all the police forces of Europe suzie Fleming (£ 0. 30p + 9p). olution", by Liz Willis, casts doubt on (East and West), and Switzerland, the "a- whether self-management (in the light politicai" country, is no exception. In­ Lastly, two new titles, the long await­ of what happened in Spain during the deed, from reading Ms. Krause's des­ ed Vaipreda Papers (£ 6. 00 + 42p) - collectivization period) necessarily cription, the conditions in the cells at these are the Prison Diaries of Pietro furthers the cause of women's libera­ Zurich police station seem medieval, and Valpreda. It is as well to remember tion (for a longer review of the pam- bchlapfer, the superintendent of police that although Valpreda is at present pamphlet, see elsewhere in this sec­ there, has nothing to learn from Pinochet "free" after awaiting trial in prison for tion. Solidarity have also reprinted or Lopez Rega, over two years, he has still not been Maurice Brinton's "The Irrational in completely cleared of the charges made Politics", with a new introduction to Nowadays too, the police are scarcely against him by the Milan authorities and the 1975 edition). restricted by national frontiers. The may yet have to face a trial. (This book Swiss police having discovered aosolutely was reviewed in our previous issue.) The movement towards collectiviza­ no evidence against Elizabeth Van Dyck, tion in Spain did not, of course, arise an alleged member of the R. A. F ,, re­ A lighter touch -nay be permissable to from nothing. It was the product of leased her after a long detention, but in­ complete this week's notes - 95% is long years of propaganda and teaching stead of allowing her to leave the country, Cragj A Plain Man's guide to British by the CNT, the strongest ever anar- by her own route, "accompanied" her to Politics (£1.7 5 + 24p) is a humorous but cholsyndicaiist organization. The Basle, and put her on a train to Freiburg but not anserious look at the political latest (October) issue of De Vrlje So­ in West Germany, where she was arrest­ scene by Terry Arthur and illustrated cialist, the monthly paper of the ed by the German police. Now she is in by cartoonist Cummings ; perhaps 95% Dutch Anarchist Federation, contains the Ktfln-Ossendorf prison, in the isola­ is an underestimate, but this delightful an interview with the secretary of the tion wing from which Astrid PrBll had to compilation of quotations, misstate - Amsterdam section of the CNT, on be released because of physical and men­ ments, errors, contradictions and un­ the present situation in Spain, in view tal breakdown. The Swiss police, like intentional humour for the masochistic, of the recent executions, and the their French counterparts, have also of our "leaders", all tied together by trials and imprisonment of CNT and furnished information to the Spanish pol­ Arthur's pithy prose, is move than just other anarchist militants in the last ice, which has resulted in the arrest of a good laugh. few months. anti-Francoists in Spain. J. H.