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Anarchist Beginnings

Rosa Slobodinsky and Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Individualist and the Communist” (1891)

November 12, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE INDIVIDUALIST AND THE COMMUNIST. A DIALOGUE. INDIVIDUALIST: “Our host is engaged and requests that I introduce myself to—I beg your pardon, sir, but have I not the pleasure of meeting the Communist speaker who addressed the meeting on Blank street last evening?” COMMUNIST: “Your face seems familiar to me, too.” INDV.: “Doubtless you may have seen me there, or at some kindred place. I am glad at the opportunity to talk with you as your speech proved you to be somewhat of a thinker. Perhaps—” COM.: “Ah, indeed, I recognize you now. You are the apostle of capitalistic Anarchism!” […]
The Sex Question

Emma Goldman, “Simion Koldofsky, the Friend” (1936)

November 2, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
I first met Simion Koldofsky in Moscow in 1920, during the so-called military communism. Life was cruelly hard and the struggle bitter… Russia, surrounded by four fronts,–blockaded by all the European powers–was not in the mood for sociability. In the face of hunger, epidemics and death, the life of everyone was grim and self-centered; no-one cared for the tragedy of the other. My old pal, Alexander Berkman, and I, had been in Russia only a short time. We naturally felt the tragedy of the Revolution that was being played in the day-by-day struggle. We missed close comradeship and the fellowship […]
The Sex Question

Emma Goldman, “Has My Life Been Worth While?” (1933)

November 2, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
HAS MY LIFE BEEN WORTH WHILE? Have I wasted my life? Measured by the ordinary standards of value, my life may be considered wasted. I have nothing in social prestige, wealth and power—that holy alliance commonly called success—to show for my struggle of forty-three years. But then, I had never aspired to those treasures. I am therefore spared the bitter disappointment of those who had considered them fixed and unchangeable for all time. Station, power, wealth—how inadequate they have proved! How useless and insecure! The mighty of yesterday now standing before the world as the most successful failures of our […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Voltairine de Cleyre, “A Correction” (1907)

October 31, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Owing to a perhaps natural misunderstanding, it was stated in the American report to the Amsterdam Congress that I am a worker in the cause of Anarchist Communism. The report should have said Anarchism, simply, as I am not now, and never have been at any time, a Communist. I was for several years an individualist, but becoming convinced that a number of the fundamental propositions of individualistic economy would result in the destruction of equal liberty, I relinquished those beliefs. In doing so, however, I did not accept the proposed economy of Communism, which in some respects would entail […]
anarchist synthesis

Voline, “On Synthesis” (1924)

October 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
  On Synthesis I. Legend maintains that Jesus Christ gave no response to the question of Pontius Pilate: “What is truth?” And it is very likely that in these tragic moments he hardly had the heart to concern himself with philosophical arguments. But even if he had had the time and the desire to engage in a controversy concerning the essence of truth, it would not have been easy for him to respond in a definitive manner. Many centuries have passed since then. Humanity has made more than one step toward knowledge of the world. The question of Pontius Pilate […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Benjamin Colin, “To France” (1852)

October 20, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ezcol_1half] TO FRANCE. You sleep, France, and you are in irons! You, the advance guard of progress and the future, how long will you tolerate the ignominious régime that oppresses you, and remain sunk in torpor? Does the blood of the victors of the Bastille and of the 10 August no longer flow in your veins? Are 1830 and 1848 dead dates in your history? Would you drink the cup of shame to the lees, without spewing it in the face of the eunuchs who present it to you? If this were the case, nearly all hope would be lost […]
Contr'un

Anarchism: Elements of a Synthesis

October 20, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
In a new series of posts, under the general title Anarchism: Elements of a Synthesis, I’ll be engaging in a sort of back-to-basics exploration of anarchy, anarchism and the practice of being an anarchist. I’ll be going back through a lot of material that has appeared here, in the sometimes unfathomable order dictated by my own research, and reintroducing whatever seems most useful. At the same time, I’ll be fleshing out the outlines of two monographs, Anarchism, Plain and Simple and A Good Word, that I have sketched out. I’ll also be opening one important line of new research, as I’ll be […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Sébastien Faure, “Anarchy” (1934) (excerpt)

October 18, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
From the Anarchist Encyclopedia, Vol. I ANARCHY n. (from the Greek: a privative and archè, command, power, authority) Preliminary observation. The object of this Anarchist Encyclopedia being to make known the full range of conceptions—political, economic, philosophical, moral, etc.—that arise from the anarchist idea or lead there, it is in the course of this work and in the very place that each of them must occupy within it, that the multiples theses contained in the exact and complete study of this subject will be explained. So it is only by drawing and joining together, methodically and with continuity, the various […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Fernand Planche, “To Be Anarchist” (1934)

September 28, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
To be anarchist is above all to be good; it is to think, to dream, to discuss without sectarianism.

It is to hate everything that causes suffering, tears, death.

It is to understand and explain things clearly, simply, without fear of the consequences, and also without hope of a profit.

It is to reject everything that is ugly, petty, inhuman, servile and submissive.

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