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Theories of Anarchist Development

December 30, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Posts in the EXTRICATIONS series: The question we’re wrestling with remains this: How do we understand the anarchist past and how does that understanding influence our action in the present? This question is ultimately inseparable from questions about how our present understanding of the anarchist project influences our engagement with the anarchist past, but one thing at a time. One important aspect of our coming-to-terms with the anarchist past has to be our general understanding of how anarchism has developed. An adequate theory of anarchist development should probably be able to: account for the historical facts (and particularly, now, for […]

P.-J. Proudhon, “Confessions of a Revolutionist” (Spirit of the Age, 1850)

December 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] These “translations” are often more like summaries, but they show that readers in the United States were at least getting some exposure to Proudhon’s work by 1850. [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] From the London Weekly Tribune. P. J. PROUDHON. Proudhon was born in 1809, of parents in humble circumstances, at Besançon, the birthplace, by the way of Fourier; and where Proudhon began life as a compositor in a printing-office. This printing-office he afterwards occupied on his own account; but some years since, he quited Besançon for an engagement in a mercantile house at Lyons. […]

Sébastien Faure, “The Revolutionary Song” (1927)

December 27, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1half] LA CHANSON REVOLUTIONNAIRE Que la Chanson révolutionnaire soit un moyen et un moyen puissant de propagande, c’est un fait qui ne saurait être sérieusement contesté. Toutes les époques, toutes les civilisations, tous les Peuples ont eu leurs Chansons, dans lesquelles ils ont exprimé les sentiments qui les animaient, les passions qui les tourmentaient, les desseins qu’ils formaient, les espoirs et les craintes qui les agitaient, les amours et les haines qu’ils nourrissaient. Tous les grands courants qui ont forgé, forgent et forgeront l’Histoire de l’Humanité, ont eu, ont et auront leurs chants, par lesquels ils s’affirment. Pas un Culte […]

Sebastien Faure, “The Revolt” (1886)

December 27, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1half] La Révolte Nous sommes les persécutés De tous les temps et de toutes les races Toujours nous fumes exploités Par les tyrans et les rapaces Mais nous ne voulons plus fléchir Sous le joug qui courba nos pères Car nous voulons nous affranchir De ceux qui causent nos misères Refrain : Église, Parlement, Capitalisme, État, Magistrature Patrons et Gouvernants, Libérons-nous de cette pourriture Pressant est notre appel, Donnons l’assaut au monde autoritaire Et d’un cœur fraternel Nous réaliserons l’idéal libertaire Ouvrier ou bien paysan Travailleur de la terre ou de l’usine Nous sommes dès nos jeunes ans Réduits aux labeurs […]

Louise Michel, “The Claque-Dents,” Ch. III

December 27, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Chapter II] [one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] III Old Hermann went straight on, hardly knowing where he would stop. His house had long since been passed when he began to notice fatigue. So, regardless of eyes fixed on him, the old man made himself at home on a heap of stones piled up by workers at a street corner. The veil hung in the old man’s hands. as he had entirely forgotten all that had happened. He wiped his brow with it, taking it for his handkerchief. Sylvestre followed constantly.—Old Hermann’s appearance gave him the shudders. But he was quite wrong, […]

V. Henri, “Why We Are Anarchists” (1901)

December 26, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1half] POURQUOI NOUS SOMMES ANARCHISTES Camarade, tu as un cerveau, un cœur, des poumons, des yeux, des membres; ces organes sont nécessaires à ton existence ; il y a donc pour toi nécessité de t’en servir : à chacun de tes organes est lié un besoin correspondant. Ce besoin peut varier suivant que ton tempérament est plus ou moins nerveux, plus ou moins sanguin, suivant que le climat est plus ou moins chaud et humide. Mais, quelles que soient ces conditions, puisque le besoin existe, tu finis par éprouver un désir; et si, alors, la possibilité matérielle, morale ou sociale […]

Charles Keller, “Their Poor Reasons”

December 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_half padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] LEURS PAUVRES RAISONS A Madame André Léo. Ce n’est pas sans bonnes raisons Qu’ils trottinent tous vers l’église, Chaque dimanche, comme oisons Que le Bon Pasteur mobilise! * * * Leurs raisons? — Interrogez-les. Ils n’en ont point, ou n’en ont guère : — Leurs ancêtres y sont allés; C’est la coutume séculaire. — Il faut de la religion, Disent les bonnes paysannes; La messe et la communion Ne sont pas faites pour les ânes. — Et pourquoi, grondent les anciens, Les gens qui travaillent la terre Vivraient-ils comme des païens ? Ils ont déjà tant de […]

Emile Digeon, “Proposal for the Indictment of Gambetta & the Ministers” (1881)

December 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] PROPOSAL FOR THE INDICTMENT OF GAMBETTA & THE MINISTERS Whereas it is clear, That Gambetta has, for several months, pursued in his paper, La République Française, a campaign to depreciate Tunisian values; That, as a result of that campaign, these values have been cornered at the lowest prices: by a politico-financial gang, evidently accomplices of the author of the depreciation; That the expedition against Tunisia has allowed the monopolists of Tunisian values to resell them with an illegitimate profit of more than fifty millions; That Gambetta has exerted a corrupting action to assemble a docile majority, in order to […]

Emile Digeon, “The Voice of One of the Hoodwinked” (1869)

December 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] THE VOICE OF ONE OF THE HOODWINKED (1869) THE “JANUARY 19” OF MR. EMILE OLLIVIER [1] BY WAY OF A FORWARD ______ I. Page 13. “In 1848, being hardly 22 years of age, I was named commissioner general in the departments of Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, by Mr. Ledru-Rollin, who had goodwill for me and friendship for my father…” Page 103. “June 19, 1857. — Voters, it is not necessary for me to expound my faith to you: My name and my past have taught them to you…” Page 11. “Thursday, January 10, 1867, at five o’clock in the evening, […]

Lucien Descaves, “A Friend of Varlin” (Nathalie Le Mel)

December 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Nathalie Le Mel [tag feed] A Friend of Varlin Last week there died, at the hospice of Ivry, at 95 years of age, an old revolutionary that I have known well and to whom I owe one of my greatest joys as a man of letters. One day when I was questioning Martelet, the former member of the Commune, about his colleague Varlin, the finest figure of a worker from those heroic times, Martelet said to me: “You have, practically next door, a woman who fought the good fight beside him in the last years of the Empire. She […]