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The Reunification of “Pologne”

May 18, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

I needed a break from some other ongoing projects, and decided to take some time to transcribe more of the “Pologne” (Poland) manuscripts. The work turned out to be interesting enough—and the break from other tasks pleasant enough—that I have actually finished transcribing the bulk of the manuscript that would have made up the (announced, but never published) posthumous volume Géographie politique et nationalité (Political Geography and Nationality.) I have one long and not terribly legible footnote to work through, and then lots of miscellaneous manuscript pages to examine, but majority of the text—just under 60,000 words—is ready for proofreading, […]

Poland: Principles, 1.2

April 22, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[1.1] [ezcol_1half] §2.— L’histoire conçue comme une instruction judiciaire. Pour juger une pareille cause, il faut les principes. Par malheur, depuis tout de siècles qu’elle enregistre les faits et gestes des nations, l’histoire n’est point encore parvienne à déterminer des lois générales, lois qui ne sont autres évidemment que celles [4] de la formation et de l’évolution des états. En deux mots, la philosophie de l’histoire est encore dans l’enfance : tant le progrès de la raison générale est lent, tant en matière du politique et d’histoire, il faut de générations pour asseoir une expérience, recueillir une observation, se formuler un […]

Poland: Principles, 1.1

April 20, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_1half] Première partie. Les principes. — Chapitre premier. Histoire et nationalité. Question polonais.—L’histoire conçue comme une instruction judiciaire : nécessité pour écrire l’histoire et juger un nation de poser quelques principes.—Doctrine d’immanence : que l’organisme politique est le produit de la spontanéité sociale, et que là où cette dernière fait défaut, l’état devenant impuissant et impossible, la nationalité demeure nulle.—Épuisement de le spontanéité dans les nations : Juifs, Grecs, Romains et Italiens.—Divisions de l’histoire de Pologne : conclusion défavorable à la revendication des Polonais. §1.— Question polonaise. Les Polonais se plaignent qu’un crime a été commis contre leur nationalité vers la fin du 18e […]

Andrea Costa to “l’Egalité” of Paris (1878)

April 19, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Extracts from a letter by Andrea Costa to l’Egalité of Paris (1878): “As for doctrines, we can say that we have very few. We are anarchists, and that is all. We desire that each be given the possibility of communicating their needs and the means of of satisfying them. But, the expression of those needs being impossible without the prior destruction of the present order of things, our aim is action. We consider participation in politics, perpetuating in the masses the idea of and need for government, as a renunciation of the revolution. We do not mean to remain popular […]

From “l’Anarchia,” edited by Emilio Covelli (1877)

April 19, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

Extracts from l’Anarchia, edited by Emilio Covelli, 1877: “Humanity is divided into oppressors and oppressed. The first need a state to sanction their oppression, by restraining the liberty of others within certain limits. The others tend to rise up against every government and to freely associate among themselves. “So, on the one hand, the aristocratic or democratic politics and on the other, socialism, the true socialism, revolutionary anarchist socialism. “The oppressed have always attempted to free themselves and join their forces. They have not succeeded because they have always turned against one form of government, and not against authority itself… […]

Mikhail Bakunin, “The Reveille of the Peoples” (1870)

April 15, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

The Germans have just rendered an immense service to the French people. They have destroyed its army. The French army! That terrible instrument of imperial despotism, that unique reason for the existence of the Napoleons! As long as it existed, bristling with its fratricidal bayonets, there was no salvation for the French people. France could have a pronunciamento as in Spain, a military revolution, but never liberty. Paris, Lyon and so many other worker cities of France, know it well. Today that immense army, with its formidable organization, no longer exists. France can be free. It will be free, thanks […]

Mikhail Bakunin, from “Philosophical Considerations on the Divine Phantom, the Real World and Man” (1870)

April 6, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Here is a selection from the beginning of the “Appendix” to The Knouto-Germanic Empire and the Social Revolution, which Bakunin wrote in November-December, 1870.] Philosophical Considerations on the Divine Phantom, the Real World and Man 1. The System of the World This is not the place to enter into philosophical speculations about the nature of Being. However, as I find myself forced to use this word, nature, often, I believe I should say what I mean by it. I could say that nature is the sum of all really existing things. But that would give a completely dead idea of […]

Notes on the anarchist culture wars

March 30, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[This is actually a social media status that took on a sprawling life of its own. It is not exactly a response to Alexander Reid Ross’ essay “The Left Overs: How Fascists Court the Post-Left,” but rather some more general thoughts on the dynamics that might be in play in all of the similar culture-wars skirmishes that periodically break out in radical circles. I’m happy to grant the best of intentions to some critiques I find less than useful, largely because there really does seem to be one of those infamous “failures to communicate” that keeps this particular pot boiling. […]

Mikhail Bakunin, “Letter to Arnold Ruge” (May 1843)

February 28, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Translated from the French text published in La vie ouvrière, No. 112, May 20, 1914, ] B. to R. St. Peter’s Island, Lake Biel, May 1843. Our friend Marx has passed on your letter from Berlin. You seem disgruntled with Germany. You only see the family and the bourgeois, cooped up with all its thoughts and all its desires between four stakes, and you do not want to believe in the springtime that will make it emerge from its hole. Ah, dear friend! Do not lose faith! You especially, do not lose it! What! me, the Russian, the Barbarian, I […]

Letter to Albert Richard (February 7, 1870)

February 26, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

February 7, 1870 My friend and brother – Forgive me my long silence, and you will forgive me for it I am sure when you know the cause of it. – In response to the question that you ask me, you and Mme D. Z. [André Bastelica], I respond: Yes, the affairs of Mr A. S. [Russia] are very serious and they should become still more serious in the spring. The debacle in that house is imminent, and God alone knows what will result from it! Will it be a failed, fraudulent bankruptcy? Will it be a complete and open […]