Max Nettlau Archives - Page 3 of 8 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Max Nettlau, “Anarchism and the Unemployed” (1908)

May 21, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third][/one_third][two_third_last] ANARCHISM AND THE UNEMPLOYED. (To the Editor of Freedom.) Dear Comrade,—May I make a few remarks on Anarchism and the unemployed? A problem of suffering humanity ought not to be considered from an exclusive propaganda standpoint but at the same time none of our ideas ought to be relegated, even temporarily, to the background. We believe that our ideas will help us to find an adequate solution for all such problems, only our own different personal dispositions make us sometimes disagree on these proposed solutions, which, after all, experience alone can verify. Thus I fail to see that authoritarian […]

Max Nettlau, “Can a General Strike Be Successful?” (1909)

May 21, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third][/one_third][two_third_last] CAN A GENERAL STRIKE BE SUCCESSFUL? Anarchism should receive the greatest attention just now when the insufficiency of Syndicalism becomes more patent. So many things happen which ought to set our friends thinking. Too many things are taken for granted which require continuous fresh examination, e.g., the General Strike, in light of recent French experience. Will an effective strike of the kind be possible before immense masses are filled with indignation and enthusiasm to such a degree that they might, and would just as well straightaway make a revolution and not stop at a passive strike? I think that […]

Max Nettlau, “Woman’s Work for Human Freedom” (1908)

May 21, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third][/one_third][two_third_last] WOMAN’S WORK FOR HUMAN FREEDOM. Seen from a distance, the Suffragists’ movement evokes sympathies even among those who, as Anarchists, abhor their political aims. It is because we so seldom see people of all classes working together for a common purpose, leaving, the well-trodden paths of legality and conventionality, and to some extent, imposing sacrifices -upon themselves. All other movements—the women’s and the Anarchist movements excepted—are class movements, which, however ideal their beginnings may be, necessarily lead to class egoism of growing narrowness, and, as in the case of Social Democracy, do everything to perpetuate the class which they […]

Max Nettlau, “1907 and the Present Outlook” (1908)

May 20, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

No one can possibly guess the strength of latent revolutionary energy that will be brought to the surface by coming events. Will it be sufficient to lead to a clean sweeping away of the whole present system, or will by-and-by a greater separation of progressive from reactionary forces arise than exists already, and the next stage be that the progressive forces obtain full elbowroom at the said of the reactionary forces—just as Freethought is existing to-day side by side with the densest religious obtusity? Freethought would have preferred to demolish religion altogether, but had to be content with the success of attracting some of the best and obtaining neutrality from the rest—on its guard always against a treasonous enemy, of course. Will a similar state of things—exemption from the political State and economic independence on a co-operative basis—be the next stage of Anarchism also? Or will it remain in its present state of action by propaganda only? Or will it be able, by bridging over the gulf which still separates Syndicalist from revolutionary action, to establish a new basis—collective property—on which it could be practiced on a larger scale?

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Max Nettlau, “New Tactics For Trade Unionists” (1897)

May 20, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur

[one_third][/one_third][two_third_last] NEW TACTICS FOR TRADE UNIONISTS. In labor struggles at every juncture, the solidarity of labor and public opinion are appealed to, and prove valuable, or rather invaluable helps to the isolated action of smaller or larger groups of workers. Fortunately their strength and broadness and soundness of views are ever improving—yet this increase of solid co-operation with individual labor struggles seems very far from attaining its full height, for in that case labor would simply be invincible and the end of the capitalist system would be at hand. Hence the question of means to increase this solidarity must be […]

Commonweal Anarchist Group, “Why We Are Anarchists” (1894)

July 20, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

WHY WE ARE ANARCHISTS. REPRINTED FROM “THE COMMONWEAL.” 1894 PART I. It may be well to give some of the arguments for our belief in Anarchism as the coming form of our social and political institutions. We are confronted, it appears, on all sides by obstacles and difficulties. Here, the inveterate belief in law and authority, in religious superstitions and in the educational powers of compulsion and coercion; there, the various forms of political humbug, the representative system, the struggle for political power, expressed in the shape of self-advertizing electioneering political swindlers on one side and the ever befooled, hero-worshipping, […]

Max Nettlau, “More Heretical Views” (1911)

July 19, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

MORE HERETICAL VIEWS * To my mind, at least, the more modern Socialism and Syndicalism spread, the more our ideal of many years is left behind, and real Socialism seems more remote than ever. We all feel, I think, that if intensity of feeling and energy for action were in any way corresponding to numerical strength, we should not see, side by side with immense Socialist and Labour Parties, Capitalism more flourishing than ever, monarchism and militarism triumphant, parsons and priests unabashed and prospering. Socialism, degraded to “Labourism,” now forms part and parcel of a system which it once meant […]

Works by Max Nettlau

July 18, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

[Report on the Ravachol meetings] (1892) Untitled (IISH 1924: “Whilst our conviction of the rightness of our anarchist opinions…”)(1895) Contributions à la biographie de M. BAKOUNINE, La Société Nouvelle (Sept.1896) : 309. Bibliographie de l’anarchie (1897) [BIBLIOGRAPHY PROJECT] “Responsibility and Solidarity in the Labor Struggle” (1899) German Social Democracy and Edward Bernstein (London: Freedom Press, 1900) “Telepathy—Prophetic Visions” (manuscript, 1901) Some criticism of some current anarchist beliefs (1901) Essai d’une critique de quelques tendances actuelles du mouvement anarchiste (1902)(forthcoming) Fragment (IISH 1777) (1902) “Are there New Fields for Anarchist Activity?” (1907) “La Lutte contre l’Etat (1908) “Panarchy, a Forgotten Idea of […]

Max Nettlau, “Mutual Toleration versus Dictatorship” (1921)

June 8, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur

MUTUAL TOLERATION VERSUS DICTATORSHIP. When a great man dies, the King and the Government of that country usually try to bask a little in his glory by exhibiting their participation in the general grief, and so on. Kropotkin did not escape from this fate, the amazing dessous of which are exposed by the letter published in Freedom for April. Such a temporary armistice is always followed by a recrudescence of persecutions, and the letter of April 1 (Moscow) addressed to Lenin and all the lending committees in Russia by the Anarchist-Syndicalist publishing, organising, and propagandist bodies of Russia (published in […]

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 […]