anarchist communism

Anarchist Beginnings

Henry Glasse, “Anarchism in a Nutshell” (1918)

June 6, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
The State is a mutual assurance company comprising the ruling classes—landowners, capitalists, high officials, and clergy; government is the directorate or executive committee of this association, whose object is to secure to its members their domination over the mass of the people, and the exploitation of its necessities for their aggrandisement. Even supposing that the State could be reorganised according to the theories of Social Democracy (Parliamentary Socialism), the most that could result would be the substitution of majority rule for minority rule; the one is just as much tyranny as the other. For my part, with Byron, “I’d have […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Nestor Makhno, “The Anarchist Revolution”

September 8, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
1. ANARCHISM – a life of freedom and creative independence for humanity. Anarchism does not depend on theory or programs, which try to grasp man’s life in its entirety. It is a teaching, which is based on real life, which outgrows all artificial limitations, which cannot be constricted by any system. Anarchism’s outward form is a free, non-governed society, which offers freedom, equality and solidarity for its members. Its foundations are to be found in man’s sense of mutual responsibility, which has remained unchanged in all places and times. This sense of responsibility is capable of securing freedom and social […]
Anarchist Beginnings

London Anarchist Communist Alliance, “An Anarchist Manifesto” (1895)

August 30, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
FELLOW WORKERS, WE come before you as Anarchist Communists to explain our principles. We are aware that the minds of many of you have been poisoned by the lies which all parties have diligently spread about us. But surely the persecutions to which we have been and are subjected by the governing classes of all countries should open the eyes of those who love fair play. Thousands of our comrades are suffering in prison or are driven homeless from one country to the other. Free speech—almost the only part of British liberty that can be of any use to the […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Joseph Lane, “An Anti-Statist Communist Manifesto” (1887)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
“In vain you tell me that Artificial Government is good, but that I fall out only with its abuse. The thing – the thing itself is the abuse !” – Burke GENERAL PRINCIPLES Human society can only be organized upon the basis of one or the other of the two principles of authority or of liberty. From these two principles are derived two political systems, equally broad and far reaching, though diametrically opposite in their effects, that of the one being the happiness, and of the other the misery of mankind. Beyond these two there is no political system capable […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Johann Most, “Why I Am a Communist” (1892)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
One of the principal features of the development of modern industrial production is the ever-increasing organization of the laboring force and of the means of production. The result is that with less “hands” a continually growing amount of commodities is being produced. From this last is might be concluded that man should be thus enabled to satisfy all his intellectual and physical wants with a decreasing exertion of his physical powers. Yet, no such result is apparent. On the contrary, all progress in the direction of facilitating the process of production has the effect of reducing the number of laborers […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Max Nettlau, “Anarchism: Communist or Individualist? Both” (1914)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. N., “Anarchism: Communist or Individualist? Both,”  Freedom 28 no. 299 (March 1914): 20-21. W. J. R., “Anarchism: Communist or Individualist?,” Freedom 28 no. 300 (April 1914): 31. [reply] Egalite, “Anarchism: Communist or Individualist?,” Freedom 28 no. 300 (April 1914): 31. [reply] C. W., “Anarchism: Communist or Individualist?,” Freedom 28 no. 300 (April 1914): 31. [reply] G., “Anarchism: Communist or Individualist?,” Freedom 28 no. 300 (April 1914): 31. [reply] M. N., “Anarchism: Communist or Individualist?,” Freedom 28 no. 301 (May 1914): 39. [clarification] P. Ramus, “Anarchism: Communist or Individualist?,” Freedom 28 no. 301 (May 1914): 39. [reply] John Nicholson, […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Joseph Déjacque, “The Universal Circulus” (revised translation)(1858)

May 9, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
[This remarkable bit of libertarian philosophy by Joseph Déjacque poses all sorts of difficulties for the modern reader, not the least of which is it borrowings from, and reworkings of, the works of Charles Fourier and Pierre Leroux. And there are places where it ha been necessary to translate things rather literally, since terms are used suggestively, according to the established uses of none of the writers or schools that they were drawn from. There are also a couple of times when Déjacque’s enthusiasm clearly ran away with the syntax: where catalogs of conditionals come to abrupt stops, without ever […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Joseph Déjacque, on “Exchange” (1858)

December 30, 2011 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”][/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] EXCHANGE Joseph Déjacque (from Le Libertaire, No. 6, September 21, 1858) “Be then frankly an entire anarchist and not a quarter anarchist, an eighth anarchist, or one-sixteenth anarchist, as one is a one-fourth, one-eighth or one-sixteenth partner in trade. Go beyond the abolition of contract to the abolition not only of the sword and of capital, but also of property and of authority in all its forms. Then you will have arrived at the anarchist community; that is to say, the social state where each one is free to produce or […]