Month: July 2016

Contr'un

The Stirner Question

July 28, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 0px 0 0px”] Each of the earliest pioneers of the anarchist tradition asked, I think, a question or three that still very much pertain to the problems of 21st-century life. They’re not always easy to extract or to drag into the present, and they’re not always flattering to us when applied to the culture of anarchism that has developed since the late 19th century. Working from the roots of the tradition has been a valuable experience, both in terms of focusing my analysis on key concepts and in terms of gaining tools with which to understand why the […]
Bakunin Library

Collective protest of the dissident members of the 2nd Congress of Peace and Freedom

July 20, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[September 25, 1868] Considering that the majority of the delegates to the Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom have passionately and explicitly declared themselves against the economic and social equalization of classes and of individuals, and as no political program and action that does not aim at the realization of this principle could be accepted by the socialist democrats, by the conscientious and logical friends of peace and freedom, the undersigned believe it is their duty to separate from the League. Albert Richard J. Bedouch Hugo Byter Elisée Reclus Aristide Rey Victor Jaclard Keller Tucci Fanelli Friscia Bakounine […]
Bakunin Library

Speech on the 17th Anniversary of the Polish Revolution

July 19, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Speech delivered November 29, 1847 and published in La Réforme, December 14, 1847. Gentlemen, This is a very solemn moment for me. I am Russian, and I come into the midst of this large assembly, which has gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the Polish revolution, whose very presence here is a sort of challenge, a threat, like a curse thrown the face of all the oppressors of Poland; – I come here, gentlemen, animated by a profound love and unalterable respect for my homeland. I am not unaware of how unpopular Russia is in Europe. The Polish regard it, […]
Bakunin Library

Letter to Nikolai Bakunin, February 1, 1861

July 16, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Working on the Bakunin Library involves a lot of working back and forth through the writings, keeping important details fresh and seeing what new details seem fresh and important as things develop. As part of that process, I’m going to spend some time working through parts of Bakunin’s correspondence, starting with the years 1861-1868, preparing to work on the introduction for the first full volume of the edition. I’ll share rough translations of as many of those letters as time allows. The first fruits of that project is the last surviving letter from Bakunin during his exile in Siberia, written […]
biography

Lizzie M. Holmes, “Nina Van Zandt Spies to Marry” (1891)

July 15, 2016
Nina Van Zandt Spies to Marry an Italian Editor. HER SENSATIONAL PROXY UNION. The Romance of the Trial of the Chicago Anarchists Retold.—The Authentic Story of a Woman’s Unwavering Devotion. ON ENTERING a certain museum in Chicago the first objects that attract the eye of the visitor are two excellent oil paintings, under one of which are the words, “Handsome August Spies,” and beneath the other, “Beautiful Nina Van Zandt.” The crowds invariably pause to gaze upon the pictures as they have done for more than four years. Time has not lessened the interest taken in these two characters and […]
Utopian and Scientific

Charles Fourier, “Neology”

July 13, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
NEOLOGY. Has not a new Science the ability to use some new words and to create for itself, if necessary, a complete nomenclature? Would we refuse to the sciences the prerogative granted to the subordinate functions, which have their collection of technical terms chosen without method? I will use that license with moderation, and when I am forced to resort to neology, it will be with a care to avoid NEOLOGISMS and arbitrariness, and support the denominations already accepted in the fixed sciences. The same regularity will reign in the signs, the special numbers, the gamut  sand series, and the whole […]
Proudhon Library

Proudhon and the coup d’état of 1851

July 13, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
One of the things that ought to be clear from recent developments here is that sometimes the most interesting, and also the most unexpected, insights into Proudhon’s work come from double-checking those things that “everyone knows” about his work. It was, after all, in the context of tracking down how close he came to saying “anarchy is order” that I ran across the dubious translations in The General Idea of the Revolution, and that has led to a general scouring of his work for discussions of “anarchy” and “anarchism,” which keeps raising interesting points about the early uses of that […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Bibliography of Anarchy — II — First Works of Anarchist Literature in England

July 8, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
CHAPTER II First Works of Anarchist Literature in England. A Vindication of Natural Society: or, a view of the miseries and evils arising to mankind from every species of artificial society. By a late noble writer, namely St-John Viscount Bolingbroke (London, 1756, in-8°). Its true author was Edmund Burke. Other editions: in Fugitive pieces on various subjects by several authors, vol. 2 (London, 1761; Dublin 1762; London, 1765, 1771; London, 1780, XIV, 106 pp., 81); A Vindication of Natural Society… in a letter to Lord ***, by Edmund Burke, a new edition (Oxford, 1796, VIII, 62 pp. in-8°); The Inherent […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Bibliography of Anarchy — I — Precursors of Anarchy

July 8, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
CHAPTER I Precursors of Anarchy. The anarchist literature has no determined origin, not being the expression of a system invented and progressively elaborated, but the very of systems. It is born of the need to demolish arbitrary power in all its forms, the rules and duties imposed by prejudices or by force, and to give rise to the free development of humanity. Therefore every act that was accomplised and every word that was spoken in hatred of that constraint and in favor of that liberty are conscious or unconscious works of anarchy. Not having made detailed studies in the ancient […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Max Nettlau, “Bibliography of Anarchy” (1897)

July 8, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Related links: Max Nettlau: Main Page Bibliography of Anarchy BY MAX NETTLAU (1897) PREFACE. The work that we publish today could only be attempted by an erudite bibliophile, having in addition the devoted collaboration of numerous friends. The friends have presented themselves and this unselfish convergence of forces appears to us to be one proof among a thousand that the anarchists, just by “doing as they wish,” know however how to unite their individual wills in a collective will. No leader, no elected or self-imposed council has given the that his book should appear. The bibliographic essay composed by our […]