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anarchist fortnightly 30 September/78 V0139 N019 FR EDO SC CTS 20p
Mike, Groundswell Farm, Upper Stratton, WE WELCOME NEWS, REVIEWS, Swindon, Wilts. LETTERS, ARTICLES. Latest date FEDERATIONS for No. 20 Monday October 9. DUBLIN ANARCHIST GROUP writes: LONDON Anarchism has little or no tradition in NEXT DESPATCHING DATE is Anarchist Communist Assn, c/o’ I82 Upper St , Ireland. However, since the beginning Thursday October 12. Come and help lslington NJ. of this year groups have been formed in from 2pm onwards.- - Anarchy Collective, 37a Grosvenor Av. Belfast, Dundalk and Dublin. In Dublin Tel: 359-4794 before 7 pm. we have been active on a number of -'“-7-'-.-7$_'—_._.-1 Freedom Collective, 84b Whitechapel High St issues including H-BLOCK, the anti- (Angel Alley), El (tel: 247-9249) nuclear campaign and the defence of the Hackney Annchists. Con tact Dave on 249-7042 IRSP 4. Members are also active in 3 ____ _,.-"' Kingston Anarchists, I3 Den mark Road, King- their trade unions, the women's move- ABERYSTWYTH. Mike Sheehan, 2 South St. ston upon Thames (tel: 549-2564) ment and within the Trade Union Cam- Lon don Workers‘ Group, Box W. I82 Upper St. paign Against Repression (TUCAR). &'1mz!'1 . .. ______..._...__ We now hope to open a bookshop and BRISTOL City. 4 British Poad, Bristol N.l. (Tel: 249-7042) BS3 sew , Love v, Power, Box 779, Peace News (London centre before the end of the year. This BRISTOL Students. Libertarian Society, office: 5 Caledonian Road will cost us £1, 300. We have already raised £520 within the group but we .-F \'\ Students Union, Queen's Road, Bristol 8. West London Anarchists, 7 Pennard Road, Wl2 ‘ — 1 ' - need £510 by the end of November. We CANBRIDG E. Raphael Sall<7ie7, Gu..i1‘. KENT are asking the international anarchist ... ' ‘IA __---""'_""‘=~ ___ _. ...___ College, Cambridge Ramsgate: Peter Ford, 22 Royal Road movement for aid. If you or your organ- <;"\\ \\ Seven oaks: Jim Endesby, 70 Bradbourne Road isation can help us, please do so. I» I . ._,_____" Cardiff Anarchist Group: Write c/o lO8 . -...-Q I _. : I MlDLAl\lDS _ . ___.-- -_-..-.-....-.---_--..<---""' Bookshop, Salisbury Road, Cardiff. Please make all monies payable to: “7 _.-.-... --—--—-‘fi__,_.r if _.---,_.¢—'-"' Secretariat: c/o Andrew Huckersby, 49 West- Alan MacSimoin CORBY. Terry Phillips, 7 Cresswell Walk, leigh Av, Derby DE3 3BY, tel: 0332-3686 678 ...._..... - . ...-._ -...---—'I&i'--Iii!’ _ --_.---4..._. _"_ :;1"':fI“ Corb , Northants. 49a Leinster Road - _. - ~ -" '--""""'.. .. ' "".. .- ... .__ . pl-nlnva Groups in the Federation include Corby, Cov- Rathmines, Dublin 6, IRELAND. 'I==.'I=i’- “"" . . _ COVENTRY. John England, 48 Spencer Av, ~____c. .. 1' _____,_...5---.-3---“R“i I' ' i ;.-.-- _~.--" Earlsdon , Coventry‘ entry, Derby, Leamington/Vl/arwick, Nottingham, . _.... - _ 4'"- ______' _ , , ._,-.5‘""1-. - _ . ' . We also wish to receive news from ---..----U .. __ -..._. - ‘ 7 l --7 ' .-.. l,-1--I-\ Oxford, Sheffield (all separately listed), Birm- _ __ I ,_.-~ _ ___.-»-' --.,,_b______...... ‘I-___-__ "-1'---.--.._.,_.__7_-_7____ I ' ' ‘___’ (< DERBY (and environs) Anarchists/Libertarians. you and/or your organisation. Our group _ _ _ - - -—-- -i...-...._._..---r .. ___‘), _ ingham, Also: T“-"—-._ ___ _ "----___... _ M ---_---.-. . _ ._ -";.-Y’) I ‘ ...... _...... '7 All two of us welcome collaborators. Contact seeks information on the general situat- __- LEICESTER. Contact: Lyn Hurst, 4| Briarfield 4‘_|~_ _. A A.) “"'-X _,,- _ —IIQ.— Andrew Huckerby, 49 Westleigh Av, Derby Drive, Leicester, tel: 0533-2l250 (days) or ion in your country and about anarchist ——I M 7 DE3 3BY, tel: 368673 0533-414060 (nights). I activities. Yours for libertarian communism ESL ANGLIAN llibzrtarians, Martyn Everett, N ewly formed i ISTHISwnv ll Gibson Gardens, Saffron Walden, Essex Maeve de Paor , NORTH-EASTERN AN ARCHIST FEDERATION ? THEY KEEP §{ETER Anarchist Society, Univ. of _Exeter, Secretariat: Leeds Anarchists, Box IOI, On 26 September Ron Wood, correspond- 2. o,‘{',-...gm ; to BE PERFECTLY Devonshire House, Stacker Road, Exeter 30 Blenheim Terrace, Leeds 2. Publishes mthly ence secretary for the San Diego branch HASTINGS. Steve, LBTI mrlaick Terrace, bulletin . L aria" / F Fadinil-i(s"rAND of the Social Revolutionary Anarchist St Leonards-on-sea, Sussex Z SAILOR" t~ NORTH-WEST ANARCHIST FEDERATION Federation of North America is leaving * [NEVER I sgpuw HIGH BEE lFlA'M. ER ‘at lilie Dragonfly -on the US for London en route to E. Africa HA Been Market Day (Wednesday!) c/o Grass Roots, I09 Oxford Rd, Manchester Ml B51 A SHIP 5 Newsletter 8. quarterly meetings. Contacts in to take part in anthropological fieldwork. SURGE HUDDERSFIELD anarchist group: meetings every other areas. He would like to make an arrangement two weeks. For details phone 0484-38l56 (Poly- with one or more groups for a place to k 7 technicpspj-udents' union).p 7 _p p p MANCHESTER SOLIDARITY group has also stay for himself and his companera for 3:-Q‘: recently reformed and now holds regular monthly LEAMINGTON 8. Warwick, c/o 42 Bath 3 days in London and assistance in locat- meetings. Our members are involved in o num- ‘___ v4‘¢ '1 _’_- -‘i _-___,.|r"I"ii\ St. Leamington ‘Spa ing people and information in London. ‘I. H-1/;__h__~__ ‘_J__._._..- ber of local groups and activities which takes 1 , _ - § LEEDS, Box O Leeds Ot er Paper , 30 He especially needs to see people who . , ..______,_ up much of our time but we intend to arrange Blenheim Terrace, Leeds 2 have student or worker contacts in Cairo, some occasional ‘readers meetings‘ to discuss WLVERN 8. Worcester area. Jock Spence, Khartoum and-Nairobi. Replies c/o specific 'Solidarity' politics. For further infor- Birchwood Hall, Storridge, Malvern, Worcs. FREEDOM. . mation write to: SOLIDARITY (Manchester), WNCHESTER. See NW Federation c/o lO9 Oxford Rd, Manchester I3. NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE. Black Jake,
czo ll5 Westpate Road, Newcastle NEI 4AG SCOTTISH LIBERTARIAN FEDERATION NORWlCH narc ist Group, c o Mus room, Secretary; Nina Woodcock, l7 Cheviot Cres., 7 Sept_ember - 20 September inclusive l0 Heathcote St (tel: 582506) or I5 Scotholme Flintry, Dundee. LONDON N8: V.E.P. £4. ;W LVER- Av, H son Green (tel: 708302) Aberdeen: c/o A.P.P., I63 King Street HAMPTON: J. L. ‘£1.00; J.K.W. £0.10; OKF ORD - su ended duri vacation Glasgow: c/o Box G.P.P., I46 Holland Street. LONDON NW1: AUM. ‘El. 00; GLASGOW: PORTSMOUTH - change of address ending Glasgow G2 4NG W.B. £1.00; HULL: P.H. £2.80;~ALB- THE recent wave of prosecutions relating tq official secrets and the usual careful progress towards "democratic indepen- READING University anarchists, c7|o Students uousaous, USA:W'.R.D. £2.50. is a reflection not only of the determination of certain dence" could have been ensured, which was its stated Union, Univ. of Reading, Whiteknights, courageous individuals to ‘let the public know‘ what it is intention But Harold Wilson didn't want to do that, or Readin , Berks TOTAL: £112.40 Previously acknowledged £847. 35 the public's right to know -- and what potential enemies know didn't have the nerve, for fear of a backlash and relied SHEFFIELD Autonomous Anarchists. anyway - but also of increasing governmental sensitivity with instead on the long-term pressure of sanctions Write to Sheffield Libertarian Society, TOTAL TO DATE: £859. 75 regard to its own declared fields of knowledge And by We now know what an absolutely dishonest, despicable ana P. O. BOX 168, Sheffield S11 8%} LONDON. A narcha United Mystics meet every Thursday at 7. 45 at l3 James 'declared' we mean, or rather the government means, ineffective practice that has been - with the full knowledge The groups at the above address are: 'restricted'. of subsequent Conservative and Labour Governments It is Street, Covent Gardep, WC2 - Sheffield Autonomous Anarchists, Black ex-ma nee-rt‘.~:q- -'- If you accept the concept that the state has rights to l1°l3a11Y imP°55ib1e that Edward Heath. Ha1‘°1d W115“. Jim Cross Group, IWW, Syndicate of Initiat- Public Meetings organised by Libertar- official secrets for the sake of national security, then you Callaghan. Margaret Thatcher. David Steel, Enoch Powell ive" John Creaghe Memorial Society ian Communist Group at Hemingford LONDON WORKERS MEETING Monday October 2 - 8pm. STRIKES OR may in your mind justify the supression of information about and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, could have been ignorant of SWANSEA. Don Williams, 24 Derlwyn, Arms, corner of Hemingford Rd/Offord bomber bases, and military installations in general But the facts of, for example, oil reaching Rhodesia through Dunvant, Swansea Rd, N. l. OCCUPATIONS? Video film of last year's Greenwich Steel Factory occu- under no circumstances can you justify the deception of the South Africa The only $111‘lI1‘iB'll1S 1111108 19 that Afrlaall THAMES VALLEY Adele Dawson, Maymeade, ".5 September , 8. 00 pm. Libertarian public in matters of the implementation of declared and politicians have not made more use of the knowledge t_lle_y 6 Congress Rd, Maidenhead (tel: 062 2974) Communism.- pation followed by open discussion. public policy, p - L must have had to alert the British public But then -- ar WESTON-super-Mare. Martyn Redman, Flat ‘7. October 8. 00 pm. Public Sector At Earl Russell, Pancras Road, N.W. 1 ALL WORKERS WELCOME . ' When Ian Smith declared UDI in Rhodesia all those years they not in the government business themselves? 5, 23 Milton Rd, Weston-su er-Mare, Som. Alliance - an open forum. ago, it was perfectly clear that if the British Government The anarchist analysis remains true distrust pypr bod WILTSHIRE. Comrades in Swindon wish to Further details from LCG, c/o 27 P()&|__I SH;-b gy pagan,“ mes; had flown in troops to occupy Salisbury and neutralise any seeking power They are liars, cheats and murderers, they start an anarchist group (as well as existing Clerkenwell Close. possible opposition Smith's bluff could have been called white, black or khaki All rule by coercion and deceit Community Arts Gl'oUP) 6- Get in touch with PR1’;-4-re'I> B1 'MAQi¢ inn‘ A ’ 2 FREEDOM 3 couldn't be switched off and during the winter the temperature was kept permanently cold. Nothing could be hung on the wall There is something especially sickening about E18 presei t to relieve the universal whiteness - a ruling which often still moves for extradition. The only possible explana ‘on for the applies. The only sounds were the occasional footsteps or arrest, apart from basic vindictiveness, is that the German voices of the guards or one-channel prison radio. Of natural police want to add a bit of polish to the apparent propaganda human sounds there were none. y victory they won with their murder of Willy Peter Stoll in a Chinese restaurant the other week. Since coming to England The rigid conditions to which Astrid and later Ulrike and Astrid has tried to begin a new life and had indeed succeeded, Gudrun Ensslin were subjected in the silent wing of Ossendorf making new friends, helping unemployed youngsters through prison were admitted by the authorities in letters since made a training scheme on car mechanics, becoming involved in public. A letter written by the then director of Ossendorf, feminist activities. She has already been here for four years. Buecker, contained the words, "The prisoner Meinhof is also Yet despite this and all the above, the state still wants its accoustically isolated in her cell", and about Astrid, in a re- port dated 20 December 1972 on ea conversation he had ‘mad second pound of flesh) . . . As for the press, it has been filled with the expected sex-and-terror garbage and sadly, if one ~' with state prosecutor Schaefer, he referred to fear that the can judge from the quotes, some of her own acquaintances defence would use the prevailing prison conditions as justificat- have been conditioned by it. ("I am astounded", one reportedly 7" -I- ion for demanding her release. "There is cause to suppose, "
. - ‘- said, "that she is a suspected terrorist. She is the sort of \ - ‘ ‘T -'T‘ll',"I l '*-- he wrote, "that Proll's defence lawyer will, after the opening -"'.'\?'t'9- 2"‘! ' girl who would go out of her way to help people rather than 5.,‘,fi-'. , rte. ---. of the trial, claim that his client is unfit, to stand trial on the harm them!’ I) Thus does the media create, and lovingly ~ P»-i-‘ ‘ grounds that the prisoner has suffered damage to mental health n0»..,, nurse its own monstrous images. - ' "7' " from t_h§_rigorous solitary confine_i_p§pt_ (our emphasis). Such .,\"~i r:-1» I Astrid is now in Brixton prison along with our comrades. ‘I\¢...__ .,."_' indications have already been given by the defence. " -F An application for extradition was made at Bow Street court In the event Astrid, who did not come to trial until February last week and the deputy head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad, R 1974 (after those years in solitary confinement) was released Det- Chief Sup. W. Warnock made the application for remand. on bail by the Frankfurt court because of her serious medical According to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate the German condition. The decision was largely based on a report from authorities have till 16 October to present their case for extra- the medical expert Schmidt-Voigt, which referred to symptoms dition. Tomorrow (Tuesday) friends,armed with roses,will be *-an.‘ which have since become familiar with regard to other prison- hoping for a mass picket outside Bow Street court. ers held for long periods in solitary confinement and isolation $01.. As we go to press we don't yet know whether Astrid has ‘*1:-._, (general exhaustion, acute headaches, dizziness and black L been al-lowed association with Iris and Khloud, the Iraqui girl. in W outs, loss of concentration and ability to communicate with What wedo know, from Iris‘ experience, is that she will hard- others, difficulty in walking, and so on). In particular he re- ly find British prisons much better than German ones (I) There ferred to a condition of very low blood pressure which was is now,‘ indeed, an increasing parallel behween the way in 5 '\'-‘ liable to prevent the free flow of oxygen and could well lead to which the German authorities have tried to break down the : M‘?~-I1‘ fatal brain and heart injury were Astrid to remain in gaol. will of their political dissidents through isolation-torture, and For although she had submitted to treatment in prison her con- the way in which the British are treating, in particular, their dition had not improved but rather deteriorated further and women political prisoners. the judge himself had on these grounds to order her immediate return’ to prison after her initial appearance in court. Dr. We could go on, but space doesn't permit. Suffice it to add Schmidt-Voigt reiterated that "As long as Frau Proll is on re- that Astrid has good reason to believe she wouldn't survive mand, she will not be fit to stand trial. "Not even fie prosecut- were she extradited, as the German government is confident ion argued with this statement, and the court decided to release she will. But they must simply not be allowed to take such a h -.- thing for granted. In the words of the defence committee, r‘.- her on bail, observing that her condition "could not be remed- "In- "She has already paid more than the price for her alleged ied by continuing her detention in another prison and under crimes, through years of torture, severe illness and exile.‘ -~. if other Eison conditions. ' Q ~+-@;.;~_z,:af"- She wants to live, and tolive she has to stay here. " Her 7f;-'.¥’>i~'n‘-3 r ' As for the present situation in Germany, it's just not poss- struggle to do so is also ours. ‘I ‘\ql- . _. _ . L?’ ? ii“ ible to argue that things have improved since Astrid was shut up in Ossendorf and the experiments with sensory deprivation L Alhjd . ‘ . K -I Don‘-ations and letters of support to Astrid/ Anna can be sent ‘ * ' . .Pletured with. {mow :?\:~2:-;g.i' ' .. -F'“‘l'r§‘ at their height. (On the contrary, however serious a prisoner's health these days they stand no chance at all of release on to Astrid Proll Defence Committee, c/o her solicitors Harold bail). Some prison staff are believed to have themselves pri- Weston 8: Co. , 21./23 Westbourne Grove, London W2 4UA. Also: address of "Friends of Astrid Proll" - 2'? Clerkenwell . U e Qflro vately admitted that conditions in prisons like Stammheim '9 Close, London ECl ROAT. The aims of F.A.'P. include: ge whfifg are like those of a concentration camp. Apart from the fact THIS APRIL an article in ‘he Worked that eight RAF prisoners have died in gaol since 1974, condit- to fighther extradition; to fight for political asylum; to imp- rove the treatment she receives here in Brixton prison; ow . l. t ld have -Q" ions are if anything worse than ever. Political prisoners S held on remand, often for several years (like Astrid) before to expose the conditions of political prisoners in West German Anifeghtoaggedlvigfiislgolll/lichel under the European Convention prisons; to give her the ongoing support to survive and believe onptlhi Suppresgion of Terrorism, and noted that it was one of coming to trial, are placed in rigorous solitary confinement . in a future for herself. the most dangerous of the new legal Weapehfie31$ villlcilrglzlfic by the investigating judge as a matter of course. These solit- ruling class has been equipping itself. It no . 0 must and those who don't know much about the treatment of political ary confinement orders list the manner of confinement in connection between the strong self-confident, pmfir elative prisoners in Germany, and because, to pu_t it_m_ildly, the mass meticulous detail and are now more or less standard through "' 1'-0'14 '/If II highly racialist state of the British Empire an i r media are unlikely to tell you much about it, it is vital t1p’rem- the whole Republic. Convicted politicals are rarely integrated I I ’ ' I I , ' I ’ I 1 I ’ I . ‘(..\§ liberalism with regard to political refugees. None, of course, ember the following: _ , with the rest of the prison population and frequently remain I I ' 4 V ,,c \._\" \ ' 1 \ \'\ but the most rabid of the Tory right would look back uP°h that in solitary. (Sometimes they are described as being ‘integrat- ' 0 \ ‘Q 0 5 Q. Astrid was a founder member of the Red Army F:li11cti%l;11 _ 9 Q I I 0 ' 1 ' age as a golden one! This doesn't alter the fact that the more ed’ when in fact anyone who tries to form a relationship with . I , with Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader. (Her bro er ort \‘ \\‘ Q\ 'D_‘ British governments and their armies retreat frolm thpewitzlfi them is punished or removed elsewhere). The 2 June members - i wald, who had taken part in the attack on the Frankfurt depzir - / world to face growing cynicism about the Pohlflea SYS m t ment store earlier, dropped out of the g_To11P (H199 thetggcisegg hastily flown back to Germany from Bulgaria earlier this year ‘I hone, the prospect of economic collapse and (in the. view, a are virtually walled up in their cells in Berlin and Cologne. n was taken to form the RAF - never, incidenta Y. asth ‘goat? P least, of Federal German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt), very insist on calling it, - or some fictional predecessor, e _ The widely held view that silent wings, or sensory deprivation /ii _" (( AA( possible civil war, the more the ‘democratic’ wrapping epllte. techniques are no longer used is incorrect, since there is AAA . . - ' ' l‘ - er -Meinhof' group). She was first arrested in Hamburg in Q Ar’a the nastier the inner reality. it reveals. Even were it so inc in evidence to the contrary. At the time of writing the RAF pris- 1' May 1971 on a charge of attempted murder of two P°l1°§'f':‘"- 1'\oA ed, which it manifestly isn't, o_ne of the weakest states oft th oner Werner Hoppe is in a Hamburg hospital in an ‘alarming’ v..I'1'?‘_'_ Q""'.'.o For several months of a total of three years or; Temah O; to . - fl\“T""'. ‘T'\5 CK‘'0 f’ "COME LAD, " QS western Europe today is not golflg 11° Put "P a fight agalhs e state, after six years of solitary, confinement and isolation. ~.'\*"\" \'inAll solitary confinement she was held in the silpn wing , d _ 7.Tc‘T‘0.» thirst for revenge of a_ muoh 8l;1‘°h€e1‘ 0119- Th thl-'5 ease. quote the euphemism, 'women's P$Y°h1alII‘i° wing °f 0559“ 91" He isn't the only one. Most of those on remand are reported '» ' . ,_ \‘.7.‘-‘- ’ " STE P DOWN FOR by doctors "only partially fit to stand trial", which is what \-T\\.__,._.._¢- Federal Germany. Indeed, premier Callaghan has Jllstttlgllei prison, Cologne, As described in a letter from her lawyer T'60', -‘\.'00‘‘a.-_-.'\\ they say in public. Since nearly dying in October last year i _, THE SAKEL or to present to us, as a cause for congratulation, the fac t in Ulrich Preuss to the president of Nordrhein-Wplffiztliefza I31-élzilél ‘\~\'-...... -. '\ it is the fight against ‘terrorism’ which has brought abouBr.:l h Irmgard Moeller remains in solitary on the seventh floor of 0 C ' THE PARTY" cmsest possible eooperzglon, on all fronts, between the i s department, this was a one-storeY huilfflhg 9“ 9 g d prison complex with only six cells and its own coilrliygll‘ hme Stammheim prison; for whole weeks at a time she speaks to and German governmen . much smaller than the normal prison yardpé 'l:Ll)1il1‘li'ifi0 or-that no-,-one; even the food is now -pushed through a hole in the This hardly means that we should not DOth8I' to eppgee the Astrid Proll, then Ulrike Meinhof were he ere f . h_ S door; for exercise there's a covered way under the roof from extradition from this country of the political refugee aha cell in the wing was occupied. The cells and all the urnis ing which one can't even see the sky. Amnesty is sufficiently con- Puttick/ Astrid Proll! On the contrary, it means that our cerned to have embarked on a major project on the subject of were painted white; at night there was white neon lighting which |=\a.-man. Movs§._ opposition must be that much fiercer and more resolute. For isolation in German gaols (but very belatedly, as usual). |
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4 FREEDOM . FREEDOM 5
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They did not enforce it. They pretended they were enforcing it. Their policy ~ was a charade. It lasted twelve years. And it did not work. " IQEQUESTFROM Reasonable comment I'd have thought. It's by Hugo Young, S Political 1%4TAc//Dz/Bu Editor of the Sunday-Times. It's a pity concerned to act to suit himself (the that these~pun 1 can ke their Would all groups and bookshops at home and amoralistls position) but to serve "evil" insights just a small step further. abroad who have received orders from BRAT- By acting contrary to the notion of a And as a side note, do you realise ACH DUBH (c/o Andy and Veronica McGowan, moral "good" (the immoralist position). that the actual offence involved in pro- 83 Langside Terrace, PORT GLASGOW, Beck recommends "Tet Knother viding oil to Rhodesia is treason. The Scotland) and have not paid for the orders Effort Frenchmen" as of interest to They assure us that the nuclear economy maximum penalty is death. "Every please do so, anarchists. Indeed, but despite some will be safe. This must be a great senior Minister etc“ are no doubt The reason For this request is clue to the amount iconoclasm this is a very mild docu- consolation to the workers at Alder- extremely apprehensive. of letters which we have received asking For ment which amounts in the end to a I maston who now containquantitles of In Holland the British Embassy has the next two pamphlets that we intend publish- plea for a "few laws -- but good one"! been daubed with white paint, windows ing - "Armed Struggle in ltaly" and "Brigate Dgar comrades It also contains some downright auth‘ plutonium. And just to demonst:rate Please let me say, in reply to NW, A how well protected against human smashed and the front door boarded up Rosse". pritarian notions such as the proposal by protestors against “English police We had hoped to have the Forementioned pamph- that the working class or at least its mil- {that all women should submit to any error nuclear machinery is, a careless itants would be dim indeed if it didn't individual has accidentally dropped a terror" against squatters. Meanwhile let ready For August -i but due to the slow return man who desires them "if you past just the 14 arrested during the Huntley St. in payments, we have been unable to achieve understand sexual oppression and the laws". That de Sade also states that paint scraper into the torpedo launcher problems that accompany it. However, of the American nuclear submarine evictions have been remanded on bail this. "we should also allow them(women) to USS Swordfish. The cost of repairs is until December 4. So please if your account with us is outstanding, there is nothing special in this compre- fully satisfy their own" desires in a hension; the workers have merely acquir- estimated at £85, 000. The September 11 issue of Der §%egel= please settle it as soon as possible. like manner merely compounds the You will be glad to know that Defence ed it in defence of their own interests. despotism -- it does not do away with the German news magazine, as en BRATAC H DUB H For example, the workhouse existed As to whether or not revolution is a Minister and Vice-President Lieutenant banned from entering the country solution to sexual problems, I can only it. General Manuel Guitierrez has assured for the sole purpose of humiliating the say that if we look at every single kind of Sincerely, because of an article it carried on the working class. Sexual oppression, by us that there is no possibility of a conspiracy to murder case agaibst sexual oppression that a human being S. E . Parker military dictatorship in Spain. lVl'AR¥- k means of segregation, was one of its London, W. 2 Jeremy Thorpe. (Even subscribers most blatant methods. The abolition of undergoes between birth and death we Our very own Merlyn Rees has been in Britain were not sent their copies). We are glad to report that our comrade find that, however much the oppression complimentary about international the workhouse was a prominent end of The seven-page article includes an Mary Canipa, is now out of hospital labour agitation for over a century. eventually becomes internalised in that terrorism. He points out that it has interview with the crown witness and is back at home recuperating. She Wor khouse style sexual torture was person, it derives ultimately from and is brought increased exchange of inform- Andrew Newton and refers to a consid- is in good spirits, if a little frustrated perpetuated by one or more institutions. ation and has therefore helped "in defeated again some ten years ago with able number of people in the government at her restricted mobility. Mary will the battle at Kinghill and other hostels. Each of these institutions either depends strengthening our links with our EEC whom, it claims, were involved in be missing for several weeks yet. She on or actually belongs to the state. ('1 1}: This led directly to the squatters‘ move- partners“.- hushing up the Thorpe/scott affairs would like to thank all who have exp- ment, so perhaps its sexual content has That those whose privileges the state Meanwhile there's at least one years ago, and to previous murder ressed good wishes. been forgotten; but it was very much the protects and advances are themselves academic expert on the subject who attempts. issue at the time. __ sexually oppressed is very much to the has a more balanced view than Clutter- point: sexual inadequacies are as import- SI!/£05 Today, tens of thousands of children buck and the like. J. Bowyer Bell, are ‘in care’, denied family life by the ant in the possessors of privilege as they Dear FREEDOM in a new book, observes that laws to are in its victims. After the reporting of our racial authorities who could much more cheaply deal with terrorism damage society To do away with sexual misery one has trouble in Sweden during 1977 in FREE - return them to their parents or find fost- DOM, my coloured friends in London far more than the events themselves. er homes for them. Instead these child- to do away with the state. When the pow- He is particularly critical of the ceur Faun P; 5 er of the state, feudal, bourgeois or bol- during my visits are always telling me Most of the people who marched seemed What seemed to me to typify the lack of ren are held up as an example of the vul- how fortunate I am to be living in Sweden. British Prevention of Terrorism Act. nerability of the working class family. shevik, is weakened or destroyed, in His analysis seems fine, but he known anti-nuke activitists, there didn't realism of some of the organisation was war or revolt, sex negation crumbles; Perhaps from the living standards and seem to be much success at involving new that a number of people had spent part of This is simultaneoulsy an excellent aid to our larger loaf of bread point of view doesn't understand that states gain industrial discipline and a considerable when a state is strengthened or rebuilt greatly from the excuse to pass all- people. the previous week traini for a brief sym- sex negation is reinforced, reasserted. they may be right. However, our imm- bolic occupation of part 2% the "‘B" site on fetter on working class sexual bliss. It igrant situation is more or less the same embracing laws; Syles of ‘marches’ through the streets is particularly galling to a-class that has So far as I know, the only way to do away have changed over the years. There were the Saturday afternoon, and had simultan- as in any other country. Let's just-look Startling headline: "Police attack no future other than its children. I think with the state permanently is by revolut- ‘too much secrecy"'. But don't get the plodding pilgrimages of the anti-bomb eously reached a consensus that if chall- lOi'l. at some of the irritations of travel. I movement of the sixties, there was the enged by the police they would turn back. most industrial militants are aware of Best wishes, was travelling on a bus in a big town excited, they're referring to the this. right of professional organisations noisy anger of the traditional left marches Surpr-isingly enough, there were police Fraternally yours, and someone at the back shouted out to to insist on confidentiality in their over issues such as Vietnam, and now we there! This is not to criticise individuals Mark Hendy an Indian passenger, "You black skull, dealings with their clients. Interesting have_the singing and dancing of the latest who decide not to risk arrest but to plan . _ ARETHERE - why don't you go back where you came that police would then be able to look anti-nuke march. In each case the partic- for something in such a way as to virtuaiiy W , s Anvousnous from " There was no reaction from __ ' - t LL SOFAR? through defence lawyers papers. In ipants have got their satisfaction in differ- preclude it from happening seems the _ _ ___ i _,__,_fl;7 7 _| k _ ._ any of the almost 60 other passengers. the meantime, ex-Metropolitan Police ent ways - through, respectively, corpor- height of naivete. Earlier this year I made a quick visit to Majorca to visit fa friend. As I was commissioner Robert Mark has- ate expressions of self-righteousness, Of course, I finally left the weekend criticised the Official Secret§ Act. indignation, and now just plain fun. Unfor- feeling recharged and optimistic, in the travelling with a Danish travel agency He actually incites civil servants to tunately, each has a similar ability to be way one inevitably does after spending - I agreed to share a hotel room. The Swedish guest I was to share with ref- ignore it on issues where they feel completely alienating and non-communic- time with hundreds of others who share .that secrecy "was harmful to the ative; and the last suffers additionally be- used to use the room on racial grounds, one's concerns. But these instinctive Dear Editors, and the whole thing resulted in a fist public interest". cause it doesn't even exhibit a seriousness .-4I"""—-F-. good feelings are overshadowed on a more Benjamin Beck argues that both fight ending up in my leaving the hotel in Seven men and two women have been of purpose or message. rational level by the thought that in terms charged with hitting Mary Whitehouse The most upsetting thing was to see Stirner and de Sade are guilty of being protest. I did, however, have a very .- of the growth of an effective movement gs.»-' "boring and repetitive". All I can say with two strawberry pies when she people who hadn't been at Torness or ,.4II<‘_ polite letter from the travel agency tell- -—-. against the nuclear industry, the Heysham -__ -______to that is that I find Stirner‘s repetitions ‘*1-Q ‘I ing me they couldn't choose their guests. addressed a meeting in Brisbane. Capenhurst, people with experience and ‘I’ demo must be judged to be little short of / interesting and de Sade's ultimately "The beauty of the Bingham Report, ability to bring to the anti-nuke struggle, Lastly, some time ago I had the occ- a disaster. boring, especially when they run to ,1" as far as politics is concerned, is that who'd read how the movement was going A LBERT BEA LE 1 ii,’ __ _ 4;. asion to travel from Stockholm to Copen- over a thousand pages! hagen by the night train, only to find a it exposes with rigorous precision the and had come to join in for the first time As for de Sade's immoralism, weakness of our political process. at Heysham - only to discover that the . "/T Danish passenger refused to harethe That the church, the army, the bottle evidence is providedin the same de Call it incompetence'or call it lying, lessons we'd been trying to learn on pre- are resorts towards which society guides sleeping compartment with me, again ,/" Beauvoir essay that Beck quotes, e. g. on racial grounds. As no other accomm- call it deception or hypocrisy or vious occasions hadn't really been learnt those who are disappointed in their love “A boy is better than a girl. Consider at all. As one woman said, leaving.in dis- odation could be found for him, I wa posturing impotence, one or more of PLEASE NOTE lives, for the benefit of the ruling class, him from the viewpoint of evil which is gust as people could only dance in the H forced to travel all the way to Copen- these failings can be attached, on the NEW RATES is a common theme in even merely rad- almost always pleasure's real attraction, evidence of Bingham, to every senior shadow of Heysham “A", "I'd have been ical iiterature. The anti-proletarian nat- hagen with this monster. ‘I'm not sure Minister, except Dr David Owen, who better spending my time and money giving and "It is not the object of debauchery this is better than the English scene! One year £ 6.00 ($12.00) ure of these institutions has also been that-excites us, but rather the idea of ran this country between 1965 and out anti-nuclear leaflets on the street Six months 00 ( $6.00) I known, from hard experience, to every evil. " Such statements as these H. 1977. They had a policy for Rhodesia. where I live in London, instead of coming Five issues |-nth -'00Q. I\J5 ( $2.50) generation of rebel workers. clearly show that de Sade was_ not . Sweden Q here - for nothing . . . " A ll. ll 1-
0
,6 . Review Anarchist Review wseprembey/78V0139 019 ¢°'~"\'\'\l\>ek FROM P3-I2 If Christie is saying that Quail should have made more use of In 1927 they started_ Beacon Hill School, which had strong anecdotal evidence - the stories which are handed down from libertarian tendenc-'=~‘s - especially when Dora ran it herself generation to generation of militants - it must be said that during the late 1930s and early 1940s - and they both wrote such evidence generally proves very unreliable when it is about the subject. An even stronger libertarian experiment checked against contemporary material, and that if anything was that of Sum merhill= School, started by A. S. Neill at the Quail relies too much on memoirs written after a long inter- same time and still going half a century later. As Albert val and with a strong bias. -A- "' Meltzer has said, although Neill never called himself an an- archist, he contributed more to anarchist educational theory The second and third instalments of this review have ‘con- and practice in this country than anyone else, producing a centrated on criticism rather than praise, not from any host- stream of interviews, articles and books, and getting full ility to The Slow Burning Fuse but from the belief that it is a recognition from those who did call themselves anarchists. serious book which is worth Eking seriously. Fraternal dis- agreement between Quail and myself has already appeared in My final complaint is that Quail fails to integrate his open- _ FREEDOM (see his lecture on 19 July, my comment on 2 ing and closing material with the main body of his work. He August, and his reply and my further comment on 8 November says that he has evaded his publisher's request to say much 1975), and no doubt there will be more. But the point is that, .0 about anarchist. PhilosoPhY, because this would have been "ba1ls- as he says in his book, "there will never be a final version" achingly boring", but his brief remarks on the subject are of the history of British anarchism, and that, as will be said i?5§| only profound enough to be provocative, and it is merely per- by anyone who reads his book, at last it is possible to work verse to list as the only theoretical writings of contemporary out one's own version. Quail himself wouldn't want anyone to relevance "the works of Murray Bookchin, Paul Cardan and accept his version, but for some time to come everyone is the Situationists“. Some significant things have been written going to start with it, because every previous version has by British anarchists too - Alex Comfort, Tony Gibson, now been made obsolete. My own view is that his version is Colin Ward, Albert Meltzer, Vernon Richards. Incidentally, too strongly biased towards people who called themselves the chronology, bibliography and index are not very good, anarchists and who were involved in working class politics, though the notes are very useful. The real problem is that the and that much significant libertarian theory and practice John Quail: The Slow Burning Fuse. Paladin, £1.95 those actions involving people who have actually. called them- book is too short - it could easily have been twice as long. appears elsewhere; but this is not a final version either. selves anarchists, or else to describe all those actions which But at least the job has been done at last, and done very well. Let the debate - and the movement - continue! seem to be anarchist, whatever the people involved have called N.W. IN THE last issue of FREEDOM I discussed the defects of the themselves. The National Reformer began refuting the lie that Before ending this review, it is perhaps appropriate to first half of John Quail's new history of the British anarchist Bradlaugh had supported Irish Coercion in 1891, not 1882. ,,_* .,, ,_,,. ~'w mention that there have been virtually no other reviews of -1'-i\IIfL‘ W‘ "" V" movement. In this issue I shall deal with the second half. Quail doesn't name many members of the original Freedom The Slow Burning Fuse, partly because it is a paperback and To begin with, I have noticed a few more minor slips. The Group, but he does name some. Kropotkin said Nicoll should hecause it was puhiished in August (such trivial considerationS early nineteenth-century campaigner for press freedom (and be beaten in 1897, not 180 '7. Nicoll kept his Commonweal going do count). But one review ought almost to be reviewed - that atheism, republicanism, feminism, contraception) was Carlile, until 1907, not 1901, The libertarian cooperatives and commun- by Stuart Christie in Time Out (B -14 September). One of its not Carlyle. Joseph Lane was born in 1851, not 1850. Johann ities date from the 1890s, not the 1880s. The Scottish anarchist criticisms is: "Had the author consulted more people who Notes to ‘The Anarchists on the Socialisation of Most got sixteen months‘ hard labour in the Freiheit case, not who became a Communist MP was Gallacher, not Gallagher. took part in the events he describes . . he would certainly Agriculture‘, page 15 eighteen. The best-known libertarian colony is Whiteway, not The co-author of The Anarchist Prince was Avakumovic. have revised some of his judgements"; but it is unlikely that Whiteways. 1 Pedantry has its own pitfalls! many people who took part in the anarchist movement before This is perhaps an appropriate place to correct the various Getting on with The Slow Burning Fuse, there is in the midd- 1930 are still avai-lable for consultation. Christie then refers typing and printing mistakes in the first two instalments of this le of the book, between the accounts of the first and second to the case of Mary Mowbray, who died in 1894; but it is even Notes review (September 2 and 16). The two possible approaches to rise and fall of British anarchism, a chapter on some "Coop- more unlikely that anyone alive rembers her at all clearly. (I) Max Nettlau, "Anarchism: Communist or Individualist - the historiography of anarchism are either to describe only erative Colonies" of the 1890s which is so imperfect that it Both", FREEDOM (London). March 1914. should have been either rewritten or left out altogether. The (2) Rudolf Rocker, Pioneers of American Freedom, Los Ang- - problem seems to be that this is a side of anarchism which eles, 1949, pp. 1110-fl. Quail isn't much interested in and hasn't done much research
(3) Voltairine de Cleyre, Selected Works, New York, 1914, -- _ , \ .-. _ N 1 l ‘F l on. He therefore tends to rely on second-hand evidence, espec- pp. 113, 158. FREEDOM PAMPHLET.,_ ially on the very hostile book Confessions of an Anarchist (1906) FREEDOM PAMPH LET. (4) M. Bakunin, Oeuvres, 6 vols., Paris, 1895-1913, V, '75. by W. C. Hart, a renegade from the anarchist movement. He (5) I, 55. would have done much better to rely on, for example, a more (6) P. Kropotkin, The Conquest of Bread, London, 1972, THE recent and more impartial book, W.H. G. Armytage‘s Heavens pp. 104, 164; Fields Factories and Workshops London, 1913, l Below (1961), which contains short but good chapters on v PRICE ON E PEN NY- p. ‘Z3. See also A. Kochegarov lKarelinl, Zemel'naia prog- “Anarchist Colonies“ and "Tolstoyan Communities". ramma anarkhistov-kommunistov, London, 1912, based largely INTERNATIONAL . Quail‘s account of Clousden Hill near Newcastle isn't bad, on Kropotkin's theories. ‘~ thoughtoo brief. There is also a brief account of the Brother- ‘- - ' .1 hood Workshop in Leeds. There is no account of the similar (7) Lewis Mumford, The City in History, London, 1966, p. 585 " ANARCHIST CONGRESS‘ experiment at Norton Hall near Sheffield. The account of the 'Wa.rs and (8) See Manifest protestfi anarkhistov-kommunistov protiv 1 Purleigh colony is very bad. Quail says that "not much infor- bol‘shevistskogo pravitel'stva, New York, 1922. Held at the Pluuclus Hull, - l mation seems‘to be available about it", butthere is plenty if (9) See James Guillaume, “On Building the New Social Order, " you look for it. To begin with, it was not “between Croydon in Bakunin on Anarchy, ed. Sam Dolgoff, New York, 1972, 3 A M S T E R D A A/[_ - and Purley" in Surrey, but forty miles away at Purleigh in Capitalism. PP- 35§'Ill-- Essex. The confusion may have been caused because it was (10) See, for example, Dekaratsiia gruppy russkikh anarkhistov O N _ ' inspired by the Croydon Brotherhood Church, which was led Buenos Aires, 1930, p. I3. by John C. Kenworthy. Quail mentions Kenworthy in passing, -.-m1—4--H...I_._._...-..-.-_-J,__i______(11) Volin, The Unknown Revolution, 191'?-192', Detroit and ' AUGUST 26TH-I3ls'1', 1907.. and describes Purleigh briefly as "a mainly Tolstoyan Anar- BY PETER KROPOTK IN. Chicago, 1984, pp. 5'74-"'6. chist colony", but he misses the point, which is the signif- s ' . .11’ 1 l (12) N. Makhno, Russkaia revoliutsiia na Ukraine, Paris, 1929, JU - ' icance of the Tolstoyan movement at the turn of the century. ;_ ' (Rqn-:'nfe¢lf1'om "Freedom"; 1'72-76; P. Arshinov, History of the Makhno Movement, Detroit gt p‘ R I ,. U} 1<_u._, '1 Tolstoy had a considerable influence inBritain as in many
\_-T _ ll and Chicago, 1974, pp. 86-8”. .,_ other countries, on Christians and atheists and ethical human-
A: l‘ ists in between, on liberals and anarchists and socialists in I ' l: ” . PRICE ~ - - -' ONE PENNY. 1: (Reprinted ji-om Faunnon.) (13) Volin, loc. cit. between. Kenworthy was the leading British Tolstoyan (until ' (14) See Sam Dolgoff, The Anarchist Collectives, New York, | he became insane), -and he was also a frequent contributor to
I 1974; Gaston Leval, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution I the anarchist press. He was the most important person at :4 London, 19'?5" and Hugh ThomasA The Spanish Civil War. , rev. Purleigh, but he was joined there by two other leading apostles Lo-won Loxoox. edn., London’, 1977, pp. 553-65: of Tolstoy - his secretary and publisher Vladimir Chertkov, (15) Augustin Souchy, in Dolgoff, Anarchist Collectives, p. 13. FItl4lsDO‘\1 OFFICE 127 OSSU[Sl()I\ SIREEI NW -..-|-¢--; and his translator and biographer Aylmer Maude. Purleigh's Fnnnnou Passe, 127 Ossunsron Srassr, N.W. ‘D (16) Diego Abad de Santillan, After the Revolution, New York, -1 progress from its foundation in 1896 to its dissolution in 1900 ‘ 191.4. 1937, pp. 9"/-99. 1 907 g ; was recorded at the time in Kenworthy‘s paper, the New Order (17) Isaac Puente, in Dolgoff, Anarchist Collectives p. 31.. and it was remembered later in the second volume o ylmer I 1 (18) Dolgoff, Anarchist Collect——__ives,p_.156. t Reade's Life of Tolstoy (191.0) and in Percy Redfern's Journey to UndersEnding (I946). k . . _-‘- F 10 One of the reasons for Purleigh s failure was the secession anarchist movement in 1907 and his 'energetic adoption of1 synd- Quail is much happier with the revival of anarchism as a W The m°‘(eme"t ten Yea-1'5 before the war, Tat "H F1'e°d°m was of the founders of Whiteway near Stroud in 1898. The account icalist propaganda by word and deed. He describes the beginn- part of - and as a result of -the syndicalist movement during the centre it was a hollow one" and was "apart from" the 4 of Whiteway is also poor, mainly because it doesn't use the ing of his relationship with Rose Witcop (sister of Rudolf Rock- the decade before the First World War, and his two chapters "wider movement", and that only two people were involved in first-hand evidence of Nellie Shaw's Whiteway (1935). There er's companion Millie Witcop) in 1908, but not is end in 1926 - on this episode give an excellent account of syndicalism from producing it. The answers are that anarchism is rightly wary have been many other references to it - thus Malcolm Mugg- when he married her twvo years after they had separated, to the anarchist point of view. As it happens, between the com- of strong organisations, that Freedom never pretended to be eridge‘s family was connected with it through the Croydon save her from threatened deportation to Russia. He doesn't pletion and the publication of The Slow Burning Fuse appeared the organ of the movement, and that there were always more Brotherhood Movement, and he includes a ritual sneer at it in even mention their prosecution for contraceptive propaganda. Bob Holton's British Syndicalism 1900-1914 (19"'6l, the first than two members of the group. Quail relies on Aldred's later the first volume of his autobiographical Chronicles of Wasted He gives a good account of the Herald of Revolt and the Spur, book to give proper considerafion t5 British syndicalism in claim that the Freedom Group "as a group never functioned", Time - The Green Stick (1972). which they produced from 1910 to 1921, including the three years the international syndicalist movement and to anarchism in the when the fact is that he was excluded from it. Quail then exagg- British syndicalist movement. (The publisher of both Row- erates Keell‘s individual responsibility for rescuing Freedom Quail in general misses the significance of the libertarian Aldred spent in prison and detention as a conscientious objector. Quail says that "it is the opinion of the present author that the botham‘s and Holton's books was Pluto Press, a Marxist firm from the pro-war group round Kropotkin in 1914, when the fact cooperatives and colonies. He says that "objectively they rep- Herald of Revolt was a more vitally interesting paper than connected with the Socialist Workers‘ Party; honour where is that he worked from beginning to end with the people who resented a withdrawal from the fray", which is mechanistic Freedom". This may be true - rather as it is the opinion of honour is due). Quail fills in the story told by Holton, and had become the Freedom Group and who were also involved in nonsense. He says that the movement they belonged to "rep- many people that Black Flag is more vitally interesting than does so with enthusiasm and excitement. But there are some producing the syndicalist Voice of Labour. The problem here resents a self-protective shell againt a hostile world" and FREEDOM today - hut it is also true that it was very much a raps. is that Quail has relied on suhsequent memoirs rather than on should be studied "in the context of a demoralised movement", one -man paper and that it was kept going by money from the Holton makes the good point that the main areas of syndicalist contemporary documents. but at the time it seemed to represent a coming way of life rich eccentric Sir Walter Strickland. Quail mentions Aldred's agitation were also all "centres of immigrant (especially Jew- Quail then fails to give a proper account of the official re- and was seen in the context of a far from demoralised move- ish) anarchist activity". Quail makes occasional references to pression of the anti-war anarchist papers, groups and individ- ment - one which included not just anarchism or Tolstoyanism attempt to combine Marx and Bakunin, and his bold attacks on anarchist leaders such as Kropotkin and John Turner; but he the Jewish movement, and mentions Bill Fishman's book East uals. He doesn't mention the International Anarchist Manifesto but secularism and ethicism, the Fabian Society and the labour End Jewish Radicals (l9'T'5), but he doesn't integrate it wifi on the War which was published as a leaflet in Endon in Feb- Churches, the Clarion movement and the Independent Labour also mentions his support for the Bolshevik regime for several years, without considering whether this may have been part of the Eritish movement. Although the two movements were sep- ruary I915 and republished in the anarchist press all over the Party, cycling and hiking, rational clothes and free love, back the same phenomenon. (Quail makes a similar remark about arated by language and race, they grew very _close during this world. The initiative was taken by the Jewish anarchists in to the land and the simple life. In one sense, of course, anar- George Barrett's Anarchist of 1912 -1913 - "It is the opinion of period, and it should be noted that the foreign one was larger Britain who were closely involved in the international move- chism had declined, in that the organised movement had coll- the present author thht the paper produced was not whatthe than the native one. At the International Anarchist Congress ment, and the signatories included the most active opponents apsed; in another sense, however, anarchism had become acc- of the war in the British movement. (The last survivor, Lilian movement needed at that time“ - forgetting that a movement -II-u1r~--I_nu:--~rw-1—IuIqn-..-\q,,--.~.--n-- an-.. -“q-.- - --9.‘--P -,¢,-.-..--.-,..-- -.1 .- —| --- .-| -\_-_-.-..-..-.-,-- .-.--- ...- .--__.,-...‘. 1- .,.,,,. _ ....-- .._._,._ .,-11., -._..,...... _- . . ,,..,_,-.._.,. ..- 1...-. -.." ...,_~._,.,...-...... -.,.. .. ___ _ ..,...... ,-.,-, --qp W epted as an integral element of the British left (ten years earl- I ier than Quail realises) - and communitarianism had become gets the paper it deserves). 9 -< - - . _ ..._.. accepted as an integral element of British anarchism. (Quail Quail ends his account of Aldred with hi publication of the I single issue of the Red Commune and consequent imprisonment doesn't mention that the militant William MacQueen was involv- FREEDOM, PRESS; ed, editing a paper called the Free Commune from 1898 to for sedition in 192.1, commenting that "the Red Commune and 1899). ‘ """‘“""""""‘ the Spur never reappeared". But soon after his release from rnurraas. PUBLISHERS a aooxsettans. lf Q-K,,1, , 4-, ' -,4 prison Aldred became a leading figure in the Glasgow Anti- Here the figure of Edward Carpenter is crucial, and Quail 127, ossutsrou eraser, 8 ' . <"~- - fails to capture his elusive importance. So indeed does every- Parliamentary Communist Federation and began a new paper, w _ ' LONDON, u.w. the Commune. He left the APCF in 1933, but he continued to ‘I ‘Q‘, ;k Qt“ . zfllf T “l ’”‘““"“'“‘““ one who has tried to deal with the subject - even Sheila Row- botham in Socialism and the New Life (1977) - because Carpent- run his own organisation and to produce his own paper under a variety of names right up to his death thirty years later - er transcended all the conventional categories of social, polit- getting _more money from another rich eccentric, the Duke of ical and sexual theory and practice. But he should certainly Bedford, during the Second World War. He ended as a fellow- ._be given more attention in a history of British anarchism than traveller with Krushchov; and it is hard to resist the comment a few references to his work of raising money for imprisoned that it is all very well being vitally interesting, but the point of militants or of popularising sandals. He has recently been dfif“; “*8 ‘/ ‘$L"*~*"';~'*"‘=’-'1'.*<{%"**_”4i"/"”€"’/“"' I 3—lrv~v<»¢:/.26» anarchist propaganda is surely to spread anarchism, not to iv-'(!-'.-_-=*_$_- w-r °nw\e»f(,-)3/M studied in the context of socialist thought (he was connected support whatever variety of revolution is fashionable. with almost every organisation) or sexual emancipation (he was A Quail mentions Aldred's “colossa1 egoism", but it was even one of the bravest pioneers of gay liberation), but he also needs ‘Z ¢l-if/"<1-e~ 81. oam- Q a.¢'£( cl‘.-1*-<1 V "Aim" “ more colossal than he realises. No Traitor's Gaiti, which he i_-_ ‘ to be studied in the context of anarchism. Quail mentions his published in instalments from 1956 and left unfinished at his .._..¢.....z:.-;_,.¢,, World War I ever have with Kropotkin omission is a serious gap in The Slow Burning Fuse. struggle for women's suffrage had a similar effect. Rose Wit- Quail is anyway unhappy with the more personal aspects of cop is remarkable for writing a letter in the Voice of Labour in Amsterdam in August 1907, whereas my grandfather Karl Wolfe, died in 1974). He mentions thatFreedom Press was anarchism. I have already said that his account of the Bed- - when she was only sixteen, welcoming the movement Ecause Walter reported the existence of seven or eight groups in the raided several times (four, in fact, not three), that Aldred, borough trial in 1898, and of the Adult and the Legitimation it "shows us that women who so far have been so submissive "English movement proper" and the publication of a regular Keell, Lilian Wolfe and several others were imprisoned, and League, is too remote from the whole subject of the sexual to their masters, the men, are beginning to wake up at last-to paper with a circulation of l, 500 Rudolf Rocker reported the that the Voice of Labour was suppressed; but he doesn't make liberation movement. For example, he mentions Lillian Har- the fact that they are not inferior to these masters", but adding existence of eleven groups in "the Jewish movement in England" it clear ?whole anarchist movement was under man, the American anarchist, who was elected president of the that "no Parliament ever can or will do anything towards bett- and the publication of a regular with a circulation of 2, 500. constant and crippling pressure. Again, he doesn't bring the I./egitimation League when it was taken over by anarchists in ering the conditions of the working man or woman" (2 March ' Quail doesn't mention this congress at all, though a report Jewish movement into his account, though Rocker was interned 1897 and he adds that she had co-edited her father's paper 1907). was printed in Freedom and reprinted as a pamphlet. Karl in 1914 and deported to Germany in 1918, the Arbeter Fraint Lucifer. But he doesn't mention that Moses Harman was one of She was not the only one. Lily Gair Wilkinson wrote a pamph- Walter used to Ell a good story about being followed home by was also raided and suppressed, and dozens of comrades im- the most magnificent figures of American free thought and free let for the Socialist Labour Party called Revolutionary Social- a detective (one version appeared in the University Libertarian prisoned. He doesn‘t mention the Anti-Conscription League, love, a courageous champion of atheist anarchism for forty ism and the Women's Movement in 1910, but she wrote another in autumn 1958), but on a more serious leve it deserves attent- which was the anarchist counterpart of the pacifist No Cons- years and through four prison terms, and also one of the pion- called Women's Freedom for the Freedom Press in 1914. At ion as an indication of the British presence in the international cription Fellowship. eers in the campaign for contraception. Lillian Harman, like about that time, Eiiian W.oolf (as she then spelt her name) came anarchist movement at the beginning of the revival. One of its Margaret Sanger twenty years later, was a transatlantic apostle decisions was to re-establish the anarchist international which Quail also fails to take proper account of the lasting signif- - to the anarchist movement from her experience in the suffrage icance of the experience of the First World War. Anarchists had of sexual liberation, and only one of many anarchists who con- and syndicalist movements. This anarchist element in feminism the London and Chicago congresses had failed to maintain in tributed to this work. The last important obscenity trial for 1881, and it is ironic that a new congress was being arranged been opposing wars for several decades - he mentions several before" the First World War is discussed in Sheila Rowbotham‘s instances, though not the International Anti-Militarist Congress contraceptive literature in this country actually involved two Hidden from History (1973), "one of the very few books produced for the end of August 1914. anarchists, Guy Aldred and hiscompanion Rose Witcop (not The First World War, of course, brought a complete change which was associated with the International Anarchist Congress by the new women's liberation movement which takes seriously of 1907 - but the scale of the war and of the war -resistance Lilian Wolfe, as Alan Albon suggested in the last issue of FREE- the anarchist contribution to the history of feminism. It is a to the whole British left. The process has often been described DOM), who were prosecuted for circulating Margaret Sanger's from the point of view of socialism or pacifism, but there has between 1914 and 1918 brought a permanent pacifist element pity that Quail doesn't take equally seriously the feminist cont- into anarchism, which had not been achieved by the earlier Family Limitation in 1923. ribution to the history of anarchism - especially when one re- been no proper description of British anarchism during that This brings us to Guy Aldred, a maverick of the British left ‘period. Quail‘s account is much too brief and superficial, and influence of Tolstoy, and which has never disappeared since members how important women have been at all levels of the then. for more than half a century. Quail‘s treatment of him is very British movement. it also suffers from his persistent bias against Freedom. He uneven. He gives a good account of his sudden entry into the co|~J‘l"|NU6b on 15.11, has already insisted that there was no strong organisation in Another omission is a great pity. Quail doesn't mention . ll ii.
Review Review keep going. The problem here is again that he has relied on - subsequent memoirs rather than on contemporary documents. CD DJ Z LET’l‘ER T0 BRITISH Thus Keell didn't want to move to Whiteway - he had ah-eady done so. Nor did he try to stop the movement producing anoth- I . SOLDIERS. er paper - he simply asked those involved not to call it THE Freedom. ‘ I |-||s1's. o This letter to British soldiers, reprinted from S!ieldrake's Military Gazette (Aldershot), Quail also gives a poor account of the rival Freedom which of March l, 1912, is the suhjectjof the charge I-guinst Crowsley, Guy Bowman, the Buck in-ntlu-rs, and Tom Mann. Read iind judge for yourselves. Let the voice of the PEOPLI was finally started in 193 0, and which was associated with the be hesrdl Libertarian Association and the Union of Anarchists. It con- tinued not just until I933, but until 1936, when it merged with Men! Comrades! Brothers! Ac-'r 'ri||i MAN! Aer rill Bnorusa! Ac-r various Scottish papers and finally ceased publication to make You are in the Army. 'l‘llli Horus Bimini- So are Wi-'. You in the Army of De- Property can be replaced! Human life, way for S in and the World, which had begun with Keell's nlruction. We in the Industrial, or Army of never ! blessing i'n Decemfir l93l'». Quail rightly mentions that Albert Construction. The Idle Rich Class, who own and order you Wk work st mine, mill, forge, factory, or shout, own and order us about also. They Meltzer joined a living if latent movement in the mid-1930s; dock, producing and trnlispurtllig all the g mill, and their friends own the land and means of he might have mentioned that Vernon Richards did exactly the clothing, studs, etc., which make it possible for life of Britain. llll people to live. You I)ori"r. W1»: Do1v"r. same thing at exactly the same time. Meltzer's valuable You ARE Wonkiim Micifs Soiiu. \\'hcn Wit kick, they order You to MURDER if unreliable book The Anarchists in London 1935-1955 (I976), When W1: go on Strike to better Ouu lot, us. Wlllull is the lot also of Youu l*‘A'|'ll|-me, When You lriclr, You get court-msrtisled certainly shows that British anarchism was full of energy .....i_..u.. ilziilsh-d upon by your oilicers to even at the worst time, and no doubt more research on that _ Yuim fight is Uuu tight. Instead of lighting Ac:Aiiisi' each other, We should he fighting < period would unearth more evidence. DON’T DO IT l,- with each other. l Quail ends his account of the first half century of British Yoi: lnow how it hs.ppenl—slways has Out of Ouu loins, Ouii lives, OUR homes, happened. _ You came. anarchism without mentioning some of its little known but long \Ve stand out as long as we can. Then lIin't rliagruce Youn PAllItI~lI‘$, Youu Cl.A3l, lasting achievements. One example is libertarian education. one of our (and your) irrcspoiisihle Brothers, by hemg the willing tools any longer of the gundrd by the sight and thought of his and Mssirzii (Jules. Quail mentions Louise Michel's International School only as his lewd oi-cs’ n.is|-ry and liuiiger, coimnils is You, like Us, are of the Suva Chins, the place where the police spy Coulon worked, yet it was a ciime on property. IlIlilIPdl.H.tl-‘ly You are Win-tn We rise, You rise; when We fall, mdcrvd to Mu|.|n~:u Us, an You rlid at ¢*.\'i1|| lly ynill‘ lJl.lllPi.B, YB ltl80. significant experiment. He says that Francisco Ferrer "was ll llllll l\litcl:i_-lstown, nt Fu».tlicu~lone, at lllellu-st. }':llglll.l|fl with its fertile valleys and dolls, llon't You know that when You are out a Positivist rather than an Anarchist but had become widely lts mim»ml n-sources, its see harvests, is the of the colours, and become u “Uivy” nuain, l:eriI:i;;u of 1.5--s to us. identified with the Anarchists through his Modern School that You, like Us, may be on Strike, and You, like Us, be liable to he llluiiuiikku by other You no doubt joined the Army out of movement", but this is a reversal of his real position, which soldiers. poverty. was that of an anarchist posing as a mere rationalist. More- Bovs, Dos‘-r I‘o Ir! We work long hours for smell wages st lmrrl work, hecuuse of Oux poverty. And "Tiiou Siuii.'r Nor l{iu.," says the Book. | both Yuun poverty and Ouus arises from the over his schools had a wide influence far outside Spain. Doi~i'r Folios.-r Tiur! fact that Brit-sin with its resources belongs to Quail mentions that they were "libertarian in their methods It does not lay, “ unless you have I uniform only n. few people. These few, owning Britain, on." . own Ouu jobs. Owning Ouu. jobs, they own and trenchantly secular". So have been several of the prog- \ '_ Ouu very Llvitl. No! MURDER. IS MURIJER, whether“ ressive schools which have appeared in Britain, as in so many committed in the host of anger on one who Couirsdes, have We called in vainl Think l has wronged a. loved one, or by pipe clsyed things our. and refuse any longer to Mucous western countries, and some attention should have been given ‘Tommics with s iillc. Youu Kmussn. Help Us to win be ck to some of them. Bore, Dos’! l‘o l'r! liii-i'r.»\m for the Burrisii, and the WORLD for the Wouiczus For example, Bertrand Russell, who wrote a sympathetic I account of anarchism while he was involved in the anti-war Leonard _Motler, a deaf-mute who came to anarchism from movement - Roads to Freedom (1918) - and an unsympathetic the socialist movement as late as 1914, and who edited a little account of bolshevism afhir he had visited Russia - The ‘Prac- monthly paper called Satire, which was published by the Free- tice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920) - became inter dom Press from Decemher 1916 to April l9l8, when it too was education when he and Dora Russell had their own children. suppressed for its opposition to the war. Motler's real claim to fame is that he seems to have been responsible for the mun we -r first anarchist condemnation of the Bolshevik regime in Russia /' almost as soon as it was established: "The Russian Revolution ' | llllllllllllllll is running agley. These little things happen when the people permit new rulers to pose as their.-,,."saviours, instead of saving INTERNATIONAL I themselves by running' - the country on their' own- ii (December Il ANARCHIST MANIFESTOI 1917). Satire was not the centre of a movement, but it gave the anarchist message when comrades on the right were supp- ON THE WAR orting Kerensky and comrades on the left were supporting
Lenin, and those in the middle were keeping quiet. All honour Europe in a. blaze, twelve million men engaged in the TO DESCRIBE the anarchist position on the land question is no and habits of the people express themselves in a free choice in to Leonard.Motler. most frightful butchery that history has ever recorded; easy task. For the very nature of the libertarian attitude - its every community; and I am sure that distinct events would call millions of women and children in tears; the economic, intel- lectual, and moral life of seven great peoples brutally suspended, rejection of dogmatlsm and conformity, itssavoidance of system- out distinct adaptions . . . Liberty and experiment alone can Quail has omitted other figures from this period who should and the menace becoming every day more pregnant with new atic theory, and above all its stress on freedom of choice and determine the best forms of society. " (3). , p have been at least mentioned. One is William C. Owen, a l military complioatione—euch is, for seven months, the painful, l sgonising, and hateful spectacle presented by the civilised the primacy of individual judgement - creates the possibility of In spite of this undogmatic approach, the overwhelming maj- professional journalist who was active in the movement on both l world. a variety of viewpoints such as would be inconceivable in a ority of Russian anarchists followed the-ideas of Bakunin and sides of the Atlantic for forty years, playing an important part But a spectacle not unexpected—a.t least, by the Anarchists, closed authoritarian system. The essence of the anarchist mess- Kropotkin on the question of agriculture. What were these as English editor of the Mexican anarchist paper Regeneracién since for them there never has been nor is there any doubt--the terrible events of to-day strengthen this conviction—-that war is age is that peasants and workers must be free to determine ideas? To begin with, both Bakunin and Kropotkin called for from 1910 to l9li.‘», and writing in Freedom until his death i'n permanently fostered by the present social system. Armed their own way of life. As Proudhon and Bakunin insisted, soc- a free federation of communes organised, as Bakunin put it, 1929 (though he was never the editor, as Dave Poole claims conflict, restricted or widespread, colonial or European, is the natural consequence and the inevitable and fatal outcome of a ialism without freedom is the worst form of tyranny - indeed "from the bottom up" (4). Such a system, they believed, based in the notes to the Cienfuegos Press edition of Flores Magon's society that is founded on the exploitation of the workers, rests is no socialism at all. on local initiative and autonomy, would respond to the true Land and Liberty). Another is Victor B. Neuburg, another on the savage struggle of the classes, and compels Labour to submit to the domination of a minority of parasites who hold The anarchists called therefore for flexibility and tolerance needs and desires of the peasants themselves. The state, by professional journalist who was associated with the magician both political and economic power. in economic matters as in other areas of life. Their watch- contrast, with its powerful administrative and economic bur- Aleister Crowley before the First World War and worked with The war was inevitable. Wherever it originated, it had to come. It is not in vain that for half a century there has been s words were pluralism, heterogeneity and self-determination. eaucracy, imposes its authority from above, without direct Owen for Freedom after it (though he was never the editor feverish preparation of the most formidable armaments, and a Human kind, they argued, is too diverse to be squeezed into sanction of the local community. Regardless of its form, they either, as he lEEr claimed). - ceaseless increase in the budgets of death. It is not by con- stantly improving the weapons of war, and by concentrating any preconceived mould, whether political, economic or cult- believed, the state inevitably develops objectives of its own Quail has also omitted similar figures from an early period, the mind and the will of all upon the better organisation of the ural. Economic preferences, they insisted, will vary accord- and seeks to harness the energies of the society it rules to such as the two liberal journalists John Morrison Davidson military machine that people work for peace. Therefore, it is foolish and childish, after having multiplied ing to local customs, climate, natural resources, and individ- pursue purposes alien to it. p and H.W. Nevinson (each mentioned once in passing), whose the causes and occasions of conflict, to seek to fix the responsi- ual taste. Consequently no single solution can be universally Under Bakunin's system of decentralised and non-authoritar- strongly libertarian views often brought them close to anar- bility on this or that Government. No possible distinction can be drawn between offensive and defensive wars. In the present applicable, no one method can suit all peoples and conditions. ian collectlvism, each member of the local community was chism as well as anarchists. conflict, the Governments of Berlin and Vienna have sought to Anarchism, according to its foremost historian, Max Nettlau, obliged to perform manual work, for which s/he would be re- After the first World War the anarchist movement collapsed, justify themselves by documents not less authentic than those of tl'lB(i0VBl‘I1lI1BI1tB of Paris, London, and Petrograd. Each does its "always demands a choice of ways, a plurality of possibilities. " warded in proportion to "direct contribution of labour. " (5). A and so does The Slow Burning Fuse. Quail comments that very best to produce the most iiulisputable and the most decisive (l). As the German anarchist Rudolf Rocker put it, "the first Kropotkin, by contrast, regarded any system of rewards based Freedom "remained more or less disconnected from events", objective is to secure the personal and social freedom of men, on the individual's capacity to produce as just another form of hut since the events he describes involved militants suppress- no*matter upon which economic basis this is to be accomplish- ‘wage slavery. ‘ By drawing a distinction between superior and mg their prinliiples ‘Put of solidarity with the Russian Revolt?“ ed. " (2). In a similar vein, the American anarchist Voltairine inferior labour, and belwveen what is mine and what is yours, ion’ perhaps It was Nat as wen‘ He runs through the l92Os_m de Cleyre wrote that a whole variety of economic systems, ‘ a collectivlst economy such as Bakunin advocated rendered it- a couple of pages, ,and_ gives_ more,, space to Freedom, , when_ it * ranging. from individualism. . . . to communism_ . might be ,,advant- self incompatible with the ideals of pure anarchism. Collectiv- finauy ceased pubhcatmn 1“ 192‘ than when It was hglltmg to ageously tried in different localities. I woiild see the instincts A C s (°*""r~r'-)"* con i GON --
fit
14 i , Review ism, moreover, necessitated some authority within the peas- revolution from above over the forces of federalism andilocal ions. These views harked back to the Pqmlist idea of a chernyi ectives were not conceived in accordance with any single plan ants’ association to measure individual persormance and to rule to which the vast majority of the population aspired. For redel a general and equal distribution of all the land £5 or forced to conform to a particular model. "Economic variety, " supervise the distribution of goods and services accordingly. Stalin, indeed, autonomy and self-government were evil words, Eose who worked it. In this respect, they differed little from remarked a German anarchist at the scene, "is the true manif- For Kropotkin, therefore, the collectivist order, even in its evoking the spontaneous forces of the masses, which had to be the viewpoint of the Socialist Revolutionaries, or from that em- estation and indispensable pre -condition for a free society. libertarian form, contained the seeds of inequality and domin- harnessed to the needs of the regime. . bodied in the bolshevik land decree of November 1917, of which Regimentation, the imposition of a uniform economic system by ation. The anarchists, for their part, condemned forced collectiv- most anarchists approved. ~ and for the benefit of the state, works to the detriment of the Kroptokin considered his own theory of communist anarchism isation as a ‘new enserfment' of the peasantry. They denounced R Beyond this rather vague picture, few anarchists were will- people." (15). As a Spanish participant noted: "In each locality, the antithesis of the wage system in all its guises. No centre state -controlled farms whose members were compelled to del- ing to venture. Theyrrefused to draw up detailed blueprints of the degree of communism, collectivism and mutualism will of authority would compel any individual to work. Furthermore, iver a large proportion of the crop at low prices as exploitation the future order that would force the natural evolution of soc- depend upon the conditions prevailing. Why dictate rules? We for the principle of wages was substituted the principle of of the worst sort, indeed as outright theft and economic en- iety into any preconceived mould. They were content, rather, who make freedom our banner cannot deny it in the economy. needs. Each person would be the judge of their own require- slavement. Their own emphasis on decentralism versus cent- to rely on what Kropotkin called the ‘creative spirit’ which the Therefore there must be free experimentation, free show of -" ments, taking from the communal storehouse whatever they ralism, on freedom versus authority, set them against the mass of people would display once freed from the shackles of initiative and suggestions, as well as freedom of organisation." deemed necessary, no matter how much labour he contributed. whole centralised, hierarchical and bureaucratic structure of capitalism and government (l0). Furthermore, while rejecting 16). Kropotkin's benign optimism led him to assume that, once pol- the Stalinist regime. What they wanted was to restore the Rev- the leasing of land and the hiring of labour, they did not make ¢ itical and economic exploitation had been eliminated, all people olution to its original path, decentralist, spontaneous and egal- it clear how these were to be done away with in a free society, would work of their own free will, without any compulsion what- Accordingly, the Spanish collectives varied greatly in size itarian, whose central feature was the dispersal of authority omhow idleness, greed, and theft were to be prevented. As a - some having as many as 4000 members - as well as in struct- ever, and take no more than they required for a comfortable through the formation of autonomous communes and councils means of resisting anti-social behaviour they tended to rely existence. Members of the community would work from their ure and regulations. Some villages were fully collectivised, and the widespread emergence of workers‘ self-management merely on the power of moral suasion, of public opinion, of but most had a private element alongside the collective. In twenties to their forties, four or five hours of labour a day in town and country. Not that they called for a restoration of the pressure of the community. sufficing for a comfortable life. The division of labour would such cases, small proprietors were induced tojoin the_collect- the New Economic Policy, which they scorned as a cynical ive not by force but by example and persuasion. Free commun- yield to a variety of pleasant jobs. For happiness, Kropotkin manoeuvre to revive the bourgeois system, a reactionary com- Such were the theoretical foundations of anarchist land policy. believed, required a diversity of occupations, on the land and ism, as one anarchist leader put it, allowed room for individ- promise with capitalists, technical specialists, and rich peas- It remains to examine how well anarchist agricultural experi- uals who preferred "to remain independent or to form their in the workshop, which would be located together in a single ants. They would not rest until state and private capitalism ments worked in practice. The most prominent examples occ- own associations to meet their own needs, " provided, however, ‘integrated’ community. (6). alike had been reduced to rubble and superseded by a free fed- urred during the Russian Revolution of 1917 to 1921 and the that they did not employ hired labour. (1'?). In all cases, more- For Bakunin and Kropotkin, then, the Golden Age meant a eration of communes, by the sort of grass-roots organisations Spanish Revolution. of 1936 to 1939. Unfortunately, we know‘ over, profit and interest were excluded, as well as wages and return to an earlier simplicity that existed before the rise of suppressed by the bolsheviks during their consolidation of pow- very little about the former, apart from the experiments of the modern centralised state. They yearned to recapture‘ the rent. Furthermore, many of the collectives did away with the er (8). Nestor Makhno in Ukraine. Makhno, the celebrated guerrilla inequality of incomes by inaugurating distribution according to direct human relationships of the commune and handicrafts warrior, aimed to throw off domination of every type and to need. For such collectives Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread cooperative, the obschina and artel'. The society of the future encourage economic and social self-determination. "It is up served as their theoretical bible. "Here is the new gospel! " was to be patterned after the society of the past, a federation of to the workers and peasants, " said one of his proclamations in declaredan anarchist in one collectivised Aragon village. small communities free from compulsion and exploitation, 1919, "to organise themselves and reach mutual understandings "Here, in black and white, is written how to institute well-being whose members were joined by the ties of cooperative effort _ t . in all areas of their lives and in whatever manner they think for all" (18). Some abolished money, only to replace it with and mutual aid. In essence, this was an idealised version of right. " (ll). A vouchers, tokens or other media of exchange. Attempts to do the old village commune, purged of its patriarchal authoritiar- 35 Makhno's army expropriated estates of the local gentry and away with money altogether were not generally successful. ianism. In such a society, the toilers in the fields and work- distributed the land, livestock and implements from the wealth- shops would regain the dignity of being their own masters or ier peasants, leaving the owner two pairs of horses, one or mistresses and no longer treated as chattel or as a marketable ,h| 9-.-I...a , Q" - two cows (depending on the size of his family), a plough, a In addition to tilling the soil, many of the collectives expand-
commodity. . ,\.|. .":fI“.‘_Li-:;" ed their operations by starting small industrial enterprises ' -‘--'i'..$,, .,__.pf-:;*!¢'-.=.=:.._t_-_.‘._._, ,_,,._.. seeder, a mower and other basic equipment. Under Makhno's ‘- " - @ 1- :4-' '=.‘In Not that Bakunin and Kropotkin rejected scientific and tech- 3. , __', - 'i_‘:+ supervision, anarchistic communes - called ‘free’ communes such as flour mills, bakeries, carpentry shops and iron works. 3%‘ -554} {E ' nological progress. For all their romantic yearnings for a . '..' --.._.};-1-3‘ _,..‘§,‘:;- or q'workers' communes - were organised in Ekaterinoslav They built and repaired roads, installed wells, and processed simpler past, they welcomed new mechanical devices that province, each containing about a dozen households with 100 animal waste into fertiliser. Free services rendered by the would relieve people of tedious labour and allow time for cult- to 300 members. There were four such communes in the imm-- collectives included clinics, schools, libraries, cinemas, laun- ura-l and intellectual pursuits. Yet they wished to preserve the ediate vicinity of Gulyai-Polye, Makhno's home town and base deries and barber shops. Some also built parks, baths and advantages of machinery within the context of Na decentralised of operations, and a number of others were formed in the cultural centres with names like Villa Kropotkin and Villa Bak- society, free from the coercive and dehumanising features of surrounding districts. Each commune was provided with as unin. Most had communal dining halls, though members, as in $5’ --' Makhno's communes, were allowed to eat separately if they , both capitalism and state socialism. -.I "'-',_\_:,‘-,1' . ..r‘_~n..“_‘._' much land as its members were able to cultivate without hir- '-2.-.-,u-'--.-.- "7:".-AP-in-'-.‘-‘~\'-T?“-f".'~:-‘1r?;».-+,._ _ 1>--.. ' . 1'. What this implied was a system of regional self-sufficiency, em ~.v--em-., ing additional labour. The land, as well as tools and livestock, preferred. Questions of admission or expulsion from the coll- of which Kropotkin was an articulate advocate. He argued that was allotted by decision of a Regional Congress of Peasants, ectives were handled by a general assembly. Membership, the use of electric power, distributed among small units of Workers and Insurgents, and the management of the commune however, was voluntary, and individuals might secede if they production, would permit a reduction in the size of industrial was conducted by a generalmeeting of its members. The land so desired. Finally, to coordinate activities and to facilitate enterprises, so that the manufacture of goods could be shifted A was held in common, and kitchens and dining rooms were also the exchange of products, the different collectives were knitted to the countryside without the sacrifice of up-to-date technology communal. But any members who wanted to cook separately together by a network of committees and by regional congress- - a kind of libertarian a ogorod, -or an anarchist version of ‘W?, or to take food from the kitchen and eat it in their own quarters es and federations. Lenin's formula of 'soviets plus electrification‘ as the solution //j/ were allowed to do so. to rural stagnation. At the same time, Kropotkin believed, s.;:?>;~ Though only a few members actually considered themselves It must be recalled that,these experiments in free communes methods of intensive cultivation would increase the production anarchists, the peasants operated the communes on the basis of of food to the point where even the most populous countries (comunismo libertario) were taking place simultaneously with full equality ("from each according to his ability, to each acc- the emergence of authoritarian collectivism in the SovietUnion might feed their inhabitants without relying on imports from ording to his needs") and accepted Kropotkin's principle of abroad. In short, as Lewis Mumford has written, Kropotkin "presenting a dramatic study in contrasts. Small wonder that mutual aid as their fundamental tenet. It is interesting to note ' the Spanish collectives were attacked and liquidated by Comm- saw in advance of later proponents of the ‘garden city‘ - and, that the first such commune, near the village of Pokrovskoe one might add, the proponents of the ‘small is beautiful‘ theory unist as well as Francoist forces, both of which regarded them in Ekaterinoslav province, was named in honour of Rosa as a menace. The same fate had befallen Makhno's communes, of economics, from Ernst Schumacher to his California disciple Luxemberg, who, though not an anarchist, was regarded as a Jerry Brown - that the use of electricity, together with the l the victims of Red and White forces alike. A martyr in the struggle for freedom and equality. Here was an It is hard to measure the success of the Spanish collectives. techniques of market gardening, might lay the foundation for example of the undoctrinaire approach of ‘the anarchists to a decentralised society combiningthe advantages of urban and For, as in Ukraine in 1919 and 1920, they were conducted amid ' “ Toilers of the land. The Soil is yours!” social experimentation. (One awaits the establishment in the conditions of civil strife, economic dislocation and military r rural life while allowing full scope for the development of the Soviet Union of a "Kolkhoz Bakunin" or "Kropotkin"! - 12). individual personality (7). ‘ repression. In moral terms - which must be placed alongside Given the conditions in which he operated, Makhno's efforts production statistics as an important criterion of judgement - To the Marxists, committed as they are to a firm belief in In place of both the NE P and forced collectivisation the at economic reform were necessarily sporadic and restricted. the superiority of centralisation over decentralisation and to anarchists advocated the equalisation of land allotments to they commanded widespread and enthusiastic popular support, Forever on the move, he had little time to carry out his exper- in contrast with their Stalinist counterparts. The feeling of the indispensability of strong leadership as opposed to the free- eliminate disparities of wealth in the village, to be followed iments. The Makhnovshchina, in the words of contemporary wheeling spontaneity of the anarchists, such visions are utop- by the gradual and voluntary formation of self-governing exhileration experienced by the Spanish peasants resembled _ observers, was "a kingdom on wheels, " "a republic on peasant that of the Russian peasants in l9l7, who felt that they were at ian, unscientific, and removed both from the conditions of A communes. ‘They approved of a range of cooperative and indiv- cats. " As always, said his comrade Volin of Makhno's projects, modern society and from the laws of historical development. last gaining control of their own destinies. But in economic idual enterprises in the countryside. Provided that the wage "the instability of the situation prevented positive work. " (13). terms, too_, they were successful enough under adverse cir- t Whatever their points of contact, Marxism and anarchism em- system was abolished, they had no fear of a mixed agricultural The communes, needless to add, were dissolved by the bolsh- body two rival conceptions of the revolution and of the society system in which the land wascultivated by communes and cumstances to convince more than a few historians and con- eviks as soon as they gained control of the area. , temporary observers that they present a workable alternative that is to follow it, the one based on a disciplined political smallholders side by side (9). Turning to Spain, we find a much more extensive effort to party working towards the centralised direction of social life, All anarchists, however, agreed that there could be no rest- rather than a utopian dream. ‘ establish libertarian communes. According to reliable estim- PAUL AVRICH the other based on a libertarian belief in a loose association of oration of profit or interest, no hiring of labour or renting of ates, there were some 1700 rural collectives during the Civil autonomous organisations in which the means of production are land. Land tenure, whether by group or individual, was to be War period, embracing more than 3 million peasants and their controlled by the workers who use them. For Russia, the limited by use, and distribution of the land was to be vested in families (14). In anarchist strongholds like Aragon, no less I Stalinist kolkhoz and sovkhoz represented the victory of the the people and exercised through local grass-roots organisat- than three-quarters of the land was collectivised. These coll- A For Notes, see page l6.