Working Translations

E. Armand to Max Nettlau, July 20, 1935

Dear camarade,

I received La anarquía á través de los tiempos from Tierra y Libertad. I am sorry to find there such a short mention of l’en dehors and the individualist movement in France, a mention that responds neither to the exact character of my efforts nor to the difficulties I have faced since 1901. You have been more impartial in your works in German. […]

Working Translations

Benjamin R. Tucker, “Anarchism: Communist or Individualist?” (FR/EN)

Our era demands imperatively an economic solution. No movement of social transformation will gain immense proportions if it does not first satisfy that demand. That is why the “immense movement, truly anarchist in sentiment” that Max Nettlau proclaims as “absolutely indispensable well before the question of economic remedies arises” appears to me absolutely impossible. […]

Working Translations

Ernest Lesigne, “Socialist Letters” (1887)

I have already told you, my dear friend, that the socialization of the means of production is a dogma; that a dogma is proclaimed, taught, imposed; that it has its faithful, its apostles its sectarians, its priests, its martyrs, and its visionaries; but that it is not opened, justified, demonstrated.

The dogma is by nature mysterious and obscure, and you ask me to throw some light upon it, on the ground that I have taken as my motto, “Whatsoever is not clear is not true.” […]

Working Translations

Principal Tendencies of “l’Unique” (1956)

The sovereignty of the individual as fundamental principle every demand of the social order. – Denial of the utility of the intervention of the State or of the interference of any governmental institution in the relations or agreements between reasonable individuals. – Development of the critical spirit and of initiative in individual education. – Life as will and responsibility. – Violence (dominism, imposition, exploitation, etc.), brutality, use of physical force or of arms, etc. as source of the evils that overwhelm the individual. – Reciprocity as ethic of sociability. […]

E. Armand

Notes on “The Anarchist Individualist Initiation”

My dear Armand, your book is a book of ideas, which is why those who wish to reign by the sword or by the power of their fists do not value it. I, preserving the ideal of my younger years, I like its dawn-air, which breaks as if to illuminate the helpless vessels that the surf carries off… And, fleeing the ebb of human stupidity, endlessly multiplied, how many sailors lost on the granite rocks, how many tormented minds and hearts full of sorrow, will one day to “put in at the port,” if by you aid their “compass” once again finds the north! […]