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Emma Goldman, “Police Education” (1907)

June 27, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

POLICE EDUCATION Our criticism of the police brutality at the arrests on October 30th seems to have done the “Safety” Department some good. True, the word Anarchism still affects them like the proverbial red rag, but they have at least learned to perform their “duty ” in a more or less decent manner. After dogging our steps for nine weeks, their “perseverance” and “tenacity” have at last been rewarded. Sunday, January the 6th, the police closed our meeting held under the auspices of the “Mother Earth” Club, and arrested the Chairman, John R. Coryell, Alexander Berkman and myself. The Criminal […]

Max Baginski, “Without Government” (1906)

June 27, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

WITHOUT GOVERNMENT By Max Baginski THE gist of the anarchistic idea is this, that there are qualities present in man, which permit the possibilities of social life, organization, and co-operative work without the application of force. Such qualities are solidarity, common action, and love of justice. To-day they are either crippled or made ineffective through the influence of compulsion; they can hardly be fully unfolded in a society in which groups, classes, and individuals are placed in hostile, irreconcilable opposition to one another. In human nature to-day such traits are fostered and developed which separate instead of combining, call forth […]

Crime and Subtitles — I

June 26, 2017

Not even this man lives by anarchist history and theory alone, however close a thing it may sometimes be. There are the necessary distractions, useful for resting certain parts of the apparatus and exercising others, like good beer, a bit of cooking and foreign television shows. The growing importance of the last of those to my routine has been something of a surprise, since I went a couple of decades without a television. But I’ve always had an interest in popular genre entertainment, making it the focus of my graduate work for a while in the 90s, and much of […]

Bilan de la politique impériale (1853)

June 11, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Ms. 2885: Copy by Georges Duchêne of an unpublished manuscript by Proudhon attacking the coup d’Etat of December 2 and the politics of Napoléon III. [Draft transcription] Bilan de la politique impériale. La Crise, la Banqueroute, la Famine. Voici tantôt deux ans que la France supporte avec une patience stoïque l’épreuve de l’impérialisme. Le silence de la presse, la prescription des partis, la police traquant, emprisonnant, déportant tout ce qui ose d’exprimer une opinion contraire à la politique officielle, ont permis aux sauveurs de décembre d’appliquer à loisir leur théories. On ne viendra plus dire : Si Napoléon était le maitre… […]

Max Nettlau, “Mutual Toleration versus Dictatorship” (1921)

June 8, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

MUTUAL TOLERATION VERSUS DICTATORSHIP. When a great man dies, the King and the Government of that country usually try to bask a little in his glory by exhibiting their participation in the general grief, and so on. Kropotkin did not escape from this fate, the amazing dessous of which are exposed by the letter published in Freedom for April. Such a temporary armistice is always followed by a recrudescence of persecutions, and the letter of April 1 (Moscow) addressed to Lenin and all the lending committees in Russia by the Anarchist-Syndicalist publishing, organising, and propagandist bodies of Russia (published in […]

Emma Goldman and Max Baginski, “Mother Earth” (1906)

June 8, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

MOTHER EARTH THERE was a time when men imagined the Earth as the center of the universe. The stars, large and small, they believed were created merely for their delectation. It was their vain conception that a supreme being, weary of solitude, had manufactured a giant toy and put them into possession of it. When, however, the human mind was illumined by the torch-light of science, it came to understand that the Earth was but one of a myriad of stars floating in infinite space, a mere speck of dust. Man issued from the womb of Mother Earth, but he […]

Emma Goldman, Letter to “Freedom” (November-December, 1924)

June 8, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

LETTER FROM EMMA GOLDMAN. Dear Comrades,—Ever since I have come to England I wanted to get in touch with you and tell you of my plans for activities in behalf of our ideas. But I have been very busy adjusting myself to the new conditions and meeting people who might be interested in the work 1 have in mind. I am glad to say that my efforts so far have met with greater success than I had expected. The dinner on November 12th brought out a huge gathering of men and women whose interest made me feel very hopeful for […]

Max Nettlau, “New Bakunin Documents” (1924)

June 7, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

NEW BAKUNIN DOCUMENTS. Materials for the Biography of M. Bakunin. From Documents in tho Archives of the late Third Department [of State Police] and the Ministry of the Navy. Edited and Annotated by Viatcheslav Polonski. T. I. Moscow, State Edition, 1923. xii, 439, 8vo. Two or three years ago much noise was made about the memorial written by Bakunin at the request of Tsar Nicholas I (1851). Before it was ever published, some persons—above all, an ex-Anarchist turned Communist, who had not even read its full text —proceeded to discredit and vilify Bakunin on the strength of this document, the […]

Robert Harding, “What is Anarchism and Why are we Anarchists?” (1923)

June 7, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

The Anarchist contention is that, though many of the evils existing in human society are grave and deplorable, those of them that result from the idea “ government “ and from the institution called by that name far outweigh in their disastrous effects on human happiness and prosperity all the others put together. Now, of course, this contention, like all contentions not open to fairly simple demonstration or verification, may be right or it may be wrong. But it is, at least, a clear, plain, unambiguous, and comprehensible contention. What, then, are the grounds on which it is bused? They […]

John Tamlyn, “Marx and Bakunin” (1920)

June 7, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

MARX AND BAKUNIN. [The following letter was sent to the Call, but the Editor declined to publish it, on the ground that it “might possibly lead to confusion in the minds of people who are little acquainted with the work either of Marx or Bakunin.”] Dear Comrade,—If Marx was the revolutionary force that Comrade Lenin and other comrades would have us believe, and if his writings are still revolutionary, there are a few points upon which many of us would like more information. Many of us have now reached the point when we are ready to take help from any […]