Year: 2015

Bakunin Library

Chapter from an erotic tale, 1848

June 24, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
There are some interesting items tucked away in the works of Bakunin, but I’m not sure I have come across one as peculiar as this “Ebauche d’un conte érotique” (fragment of an erotic tale), from a work apparently written in October and November, 1848. Further commentary would probably add nothing at this stage… Chapter III We soon made ourselves acquainted. A charming intimacy was established between us…. They spoke to me of their pastimes, of their pleasures, of their love for their father… of his goodness, of the tender solicitude that he had for them. I admired the guilelessness, the […]
Bakunin Library

Dedication to Sofija Karlovna Mel’gunova, 1845

June 22, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
To be free and to liberate others, that is the secret of life. Women have this vocation just as much as men. I would even add, contrary to the generally accepted idea that only a subordinate position and activity, that they have this calling even more than men, for their life and their acts are neither abstract, nor simplistic; on the contrary, they constitute a living fullness that needs the free air to blossom in all its beauty, and because they understand and feel much more deeply than men the misfortune and the humiliation of their brothers. I have long […]
Bakunin Library

Bakunin to Proudhon, November 11, 1864

June 22, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
November 11, Paris My dear Proudhon – I have just arrived in Paris and I will remain here only a very few days. You friend, and now mine also, Felix Delhasse has given me your address at Passy. I would like to come there to see you. But knowing that you are ill, I did not want to risk the journey before being sure that you would be in a state to receive me. So please inform me or have me informed in a few words, if I should come or not. Address your response to me in a double […]
Bakunin Library

Bakunin — A fragment on life and spirit (1837)

June 21, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] No 1 My Notes September 4, 1837 Yes, life is sheer happiness; to live means to understand, to understand life; evil does not exist, all is good; only limitation is evil, the limitation of the spiritual vision. Everything that exists is the life of the spirit, everything is penetrated by the spirit, nothing exists apart from the spirit. The spirit is absolute knowledge, absolute liberty, absolute love, and especially absolute felicity. The natural man, like everything that is natural, is the finite and limited moment of that absolute life. He is […]
Contr'un

Libertarian socialist historiography

June 4, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
Recently, I’ve been looking at some very interesting work by René Berthier and Gaston Leval, some of it relating to the familiar question of just how anarchists have used the language of anarchy (anarchist, anarchist, etc.) Berthier (whose various works on Bakunin and Proudhon I have been finding very useful) has written a nice little essay on “L’usage du mot « anarchie » chez Bakounine” (The Use of the Word ‘Anarchy’ by Bakunin), which covers some of the same ground as my work on “Anarchy in All its Senses,” but in the works of Bakunin, rather than Proudhon. Leval was […]
Bakunin Library

Bakunin to Elisée Reclus, February 15, 1875

June 1, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
February 15, 1875 – Lugano My very dear friend, I thank you so much for your kind words. I have never doubted your friendship. That feeling has always been mutual and I judge yours by my own. Yes, you are right. For the moment, the revolution has gone back to bed, and we fall once again into a period of evolutions, one of subterranean, invisible and often even insensible revolutions. The evolution that takes place today is very dangerous, if not for humanity, at least for certain nations. – it is the last incarnation of a used-up class, enjoying its […]
Saint Ravachol

“Did Ravachol’s Head Utter a Word?” (August 17, 1892)

May 18, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
Did Ravachol’s Head Utter a Word? London Daily Telegraph Ever since the execution of Ravachol a lively controversy has been going on as to the real nature of the “last cry” which he uttered just as the knife of the guillotine was falling upon his neck. Whether he intended to shout “Vive la République!” or “la Révolution!” or “la Révolte!” will never be known, as he had only cried: “Vive la re———” when his head was severed from his body. Several persons who were close to the guillotine declare that they distinctly heard the final syllables “———publique” issue from the […]
poetry

Albert Millaud, “Ravachol” (March 30, 1892)

May 18, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] RAVACHOL Ravachol? Who knows Ravachol? Who knows how He is made? Is he a being? Is he a myth? Is he a man? Is he blond as honey, brown as a Spaniard? Is he small? average? stocky? short? tall? superb? Fat? lean? a bit of both? long-haired? bald? beardless? Alas! who will tell me how Ravachol is made? Ravachol? Where does he lie? Is he in France? in Asia? In Senegambia? or in Polynesia? Of what gulf, isle or cape does he tramp the soil? In what wood? on what mount ? in what virgin forest? […]
Saint Ravachol

Louise Michel, Today or Tomorrow (1892)

May 18, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
Today or Tomorrow. Louise Michel Everything is good that strikes or stings. So much the better if these bandits have finished their work. The scaffold has started the party, and the fire will beat its wings over the apotheosis. The blood of Ravachol splashes, from his false collar to his cuffs, the cold man of the Élysée. The Élysée! That’s the spot that draws the looks! From it the grand finale, the final bouquet will rise into the air, and the cross of Our Lady of the Slaughter will be the streetlamp. The sun has risen red in the prologue, […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Max Nettlau, undated fragment on socialist progress

May 17, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_2third] Ever since some 150 years ago demands for social justice from isolate affirmation of thinkers or rebels, became objects of the urge of greater numbers of people who in the most various ways called attention to them and proposed or attempted remedies, the question of social changes was tackled from all sides—that of partial or total, peaceful or revolutionary, authoritatively imposed or voluntarily accepted changes and propaganda, agitation, organizations, plans and schemes and sometimes real action present a most varied and picturesque ensemble with ever so many separate currents, interlaced, wrestling, amalgamating, bursting forth fresh again and so on. […]