1920s Archives - The Libertarian Labyrinth

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 […]

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 […]

Sebastien Faure, “A word to my dear friends in the AFA” (1928)

January 5, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

This is the second of two previously untranslated sections of “The Anarchist Synthesis.” [ezcol_1half] Un mot à mes chers amis de l’Association des fédéralistes anarchistes (l’AFA) Mes chers amis, Je vous connais presque tous personnellement et je sais quel est votre état d’esprit. J’ai le sentiment que tous vous approuverez l’initiative que je prends et qu’aurait pu prendre tout comme moi n’importe lequel d’entre vous, s’il y eût songé. Vous estimerez donc que, d’une part, il convient de répandre à profusion cette idée de la « Synthèse anarchiste » servant de base à un regroupement entièrement nouveau des forces anarchistes […]

Sébastien Faure, “An appeal to all the comrades residing in France” (1928)

January 4, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

This is the first of two previously untranslated sections of “The Anarchist Synthesis.” [ezcol_1half] Appel à tous les compagnons quel que soit leur pays d’origine résidant en France: Le débat sur la synthèse anarchiste, comme base d’une organisation anarchiste entièrement nouvelle en France est et reste ouvert. Il n’est pas question de l’étouffer. Pour qu’il soit fécond, il est indispensable qu’il se poursuive dans une atmosphère de franchise, de loyauté et de camaraderie. Sinon, loin de cicatriser la plaie, il ne ferait que l’envenimer. Mais je sais qu’il existe un nombre considérable de camarades qui, las de nos querelles intestines […]

Max Nettlau, A Travesty of Bakunin (1929)

May 11, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur

A TRAVESTY OF BAKUNIN* By. M. NETTLAU [Freedom Bulletin, 7 (May, 1929): 2.] Bakunin’s fair name, like everybody else’s, is dear to all of us, and it has been cleared by most careful research from all the Marxian and other aspersions shoveled upon it in fanatical party strife. It has now become his lot to be defined from another side, by the book of an Italian author, Riccardo Bacchelli, which has been translated into English. I have not seen this book, but from what I have heard from various sides it purports to deal with events, partially private, in Bakunin’s […]

M. Jourdain, “Mikhail Bakunin” (1920)

February 2, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

MIKHAIL BAKUNIN. BY M. JOURDAIN. “It is only by tracing things to their origin,” writes Paine in his Essay on Agrarian Justice, “that we can gain rightful ideas of them,” and the deepest foundations of the Russian Revolution owe much to the violence and perfervid genius of Bakunin, a name less frequently in the mouths of men than that of his adversary, Karl Marx. Marx, who recognized in himself a pioneer, comes within well-known categories, and his doctrines can be clearly tabulated, but Bakunin is more elusive. He was not, in any respect, leader of a party, nor founder of […]

Guy A. Aldred, “Michel Bakunin: Communist” (1920)

January 17, 2013 Shawn P. Wilbur

MICHEL BAKUNIN: COMMUNIST GUY ALDRED 1920 FOREWORD. “A spectre,” wrote Karl Marx in 1847, “is haunting Europe, the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of Old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.” But the exorcism has failed. In vain does the holy alliance reconstitute itself in order to perform its chosen task. The spectre of 1847 is a mere sprite no longer. It has emerged from the darkness in which it was wont formerly to play the part of a miserable shadow. It has become an embodied spirit, a power incarnate; and to-day it boldly […]