The new issue of Black Flag: Anarchist Review is now available:
We cover two women who played key parts in British anarchism, albeit in different eras. Charlotte M. Wilson played a key role in the earliest days of the British anarchist movement. She was a co-founder with Kropotkin of Freedom in 1886, which she edited and wrote for. While she eventually dropped out of the movement, her contribution warrants remembering. Marie-Lousie Berneri likewise played a key role in the movement, this time in the late 1930s and 1940s. The daughter of Camillo Berneri, she helped with Spain and the World (later Revolt!, then War Commentary before becoming Freedom in 1945) and the rebirth of anarchism as an organised movement in Britain. Her early death was a tragic loss, as can be seen from the writings we include.
This issue also includes articles by and on non-anarchist libertarian socialists, namely William Morris and G.D.H. Cole. Best known for his utopian novel News from Nowhere (1890), Morris worked with anarchists in the Socialist League when he advocated an anti-parliamentary communism close to anarchist communism. While he reduced anarchism as inherently individualistic, his vision of communism in News from Nowhere was libertarian as were his arguments for anti-parliamentarian activity. Cole, like many others, was influenced by Morris and News from Nowhere, and his interest to anarchists relates to his Guild Socialist phase, although he never totally lost his libertarian views when he was associated with the Labour Party. His Guild Socialism is very libertarian, with clear similarities to Proudhon’s mutualism.
This issue also includes a new translation of Kropotkin’s Anarchist Morality. The most easily available version of this classic pamphlet – in the 1927 collection Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets – is actually edited (it has 9 parts to the original’s 10) like most of its works (without the edits being indicated). That and the dated nature of the original translation made a new one sensible. Moreover, recent scientific research on the evolved nature of our ethical views also makes it worthwhile – sadly, most seem unaware that they are pursuing a path of analysis laid down by Kropotkin over 120 years ago.
We end with reviews, old and new, and then our usual “Parish Notes” on news from the movement.
Original translations which appear in Black Flag: Anarchist Review eventually appear on-line here:
https://anarchistfaq.org/translations/index.html
This year we aim to cover a range of people and subjects. These should hopefully include Emma Goldman, John Turner, Anselmo Lorenzo, Ethel Mannin, the 1894 Trial of the Thirty and the debate with Kropotkin over his support of the Allies in 1914. Plus reviews and news of the movement.
Contributions from libertarian socialists are welcome on these and other subjects! We are a small collective and always need help in writing, translating and gathering material, so please get in touch if you want to see Black Flag Anarchist Review continue.
This issue’s editorial and contents are:
Editorial
Welcome to the first issue of Black Flag in 2024!
We start with William Morris, with Brian Morris giving an excellent overview of his ideas. Friends with Kropotkin, he influenced the likes of Tom Mann and G.D.H. Cole with his distinctive libertarian communism. In the Socialist League, he rejected parliamentarianism and advocated anti-parliamentarian tactics (such as the general strike) similar to the anarchists in that group. While he moved – as least publicly – to a more orthodox social democratic position before his death, it is early anti-parliamentarian writings which secured his lasting influence and we reprint a selection of articles from the Socialist League’s paper, The Commonweal. These show there is more to Morris than News from Nowhere and wallpaper patterns.
We then move onto Charlotte M. Wilson who helped found Freedom with Kropotkin and became its first editor. As such, she played a key role in the creation of the British anarchist movement and should be far better remembered. Nicholas Walter helped resurrect her memory in a biographical article for The Raven which we reproduce as well as editing the collection Anarchist Essays (London: Freedom Press, 2000). As well as the articles from Freedom included in that book, we reprint other editorials and articles from that paper.
Next is G.D.H. Cole, one of the most influential figures of the short-lived Guild Socialist movement. It is with his writings that Guild Socialism came closed to anarchism, although its advocacy of workers’ control meant it was a libertarian form of socialism. While after the decline of Guild Socialism and the rise of Bolshevism after the First World War, Cole moved to a more Labourist position, this does not mean his earlier libertarian works lose their importance – particularly as it is clear that at heart he remained a Guild Socialist even if “trapped” in the Labour Party.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of Marie-Louise Berneri’s untimely death early death (due to complications in childbirth) was a terrible blow to the British and International anarchist movements. The daughter of leading Italian anarchist Camillo Berneri – see Black Flag Anarchist Review Volume 2 Number 2 (Summer 2022) – she was a key member of the British anarchist movement in her own right, taking a leading role in Spain and the World, War Commentary and then Freedom. We include a selection of her writings which show why she was so important.
Also included is a new translation of Peter Kropotkin’s pamphlet Anarchist Morality. This is complete, unlike the most easily accessible version in the collection Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets. Why having a full version of this important work available should be obvious.
We end with reviews, starting with one of yet another work on The Communist Manifesto which seeks to place it in both its historical context and relate it to subsequent activity, unlike the book in question. We then reprint critical reviews of Cole’s Guild Socialism Restated which focuses on its distribution by deed rather than need and E.P. Thompson’s 1950s biography of William Morris. We then present a more sympathetic review of a new collection of Cole’s writings. Finally, Ben Franks provides a critical review of two books seeking to challenge “old” anarchism.
If you want to contribute rather than moan at those who do, whether its writing new material or letting us know of on-line articles, reviews or translations, then contact us:
blackflagmag@yahoo.co.uk
Contents
Brian Morris, “The Revolutionary Socialism of William Morris”, Social Anarchism Issue 45 (Spring 2012)
- From The Commonweal
- William Morris, “Socialism and Politics (An Answer to ‘Another View’)”, The Commonweal, July 1885
- William Morris, “Misanthropy to the Rescue”, The Commonweal, 28 August 1886
- William Morris, “Facing the Worst of It”, The Commonweal, 19 February 1887
- William Morris, “The Policy of the Socialist League”, The Commonweal, 9 June 1888
- William Morris, “The Lesson of the Hour”, The Commonweal, 7 September 1889
- William Morris, “Anti-Parliamentary”, The Commonweal, 7 June 1890
- From Freedom and Liberty
- “William Morris on Communism”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, May 1893
- “Tucker Pleased”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, August 1893
- William Morris, “Why I am a Communist”, Liberty: A Journal of Anarchist-Communism, February 1894
- “Communism and Anarchism. An Anarchist’s Reply”, Liberty: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, March 1894
- William Morris, “As To Bribing Excellence”, Liberty: A Journal of Anarchist-Communism, May 1895
Nicolas Walter, “Charlotte M. Wilson, 1854-1944”, The Raven: Anarchist Quarterly No. 21
- “Freedom”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, October 1886
- “Education by Force”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, November 1886
- “Women’s Labour”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, July 1887
- “The Women of the Commune”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, April 1888
- “Work”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, July 1888
- “The Marriage Controversy”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, October 1888
- “The Revolt of the English Workers in the Nineteenth Century”, Freedom, April to September 1889
- “What Anarchist-Communism Means”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, August 1889
- “Democracy or Anarchism”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, February 1890
- “Anarchism and Homicidal Outrage”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, December 1893
Colin Ward, “People and Ideas: [G.D.H. Cole] Professor of Socialism”, Freedom: The Anarchist Weekly, 24 January 1959
- Self-Government in Industry (1917)
- Guild Socialism Restated (1920)
- “Guild Socialism”, Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1922
- “Building Houses without Profit”, Labor Age, January 1922
- “Final Word on the Building Guilds”, Labor Age, February 1922
- “My Idea of Democracy”, The American Socialist, April 1958
- Foreword, Branko Pribićević, The shop stewards’ movement and workers’ control, 1910-1922 (1959)
John Hewetson, “Marie-Louise Berneri: Her Contribution to Freedom Press”, The Raven: Anarchist Quarterly, No. 21 (January-March 1993)
- “In Soviet Russia”, Spain and the World, 8 January 1937
- “Francisco Ferrer”, Spain and the World, 19 February 1937
- “Two books on U.S.S.R.”, Spain and The World, 3 December 1938
- “A Constructive Policy”, War Commentary – For Anarchism, December 1940
- “State Control or Workers’ Control?”, War Commentary – For Anarchism, April 1941
- “The End of French C.G.T.”, War Commentary – For Anarchism, March 1941
- “Aid to Russia”, War Commentary – For Anarchism, August 1941
- “Stakhanovism and the British Workers”, War Commentary – For Anarchism, mid-March 1942
- “Lessons of the Spanish Revolution”, War Commentary – For Anarchism, mid-July 1943
- “Italy After 1918”, War Commentary – For Anarchism, September 1943
- “The Abolition of Property”, War Commentary – For Anarchism, mid-June 1944
- “The Spanish Social Revolution”, War Commentary – For Anarchism, mid-July 1944
- “Sexuality and Freedom”, NOW, No. 5, 1945
- “Does Britain Show the Way?”, Freedom: Anarchist Fortnightly, 10 January 1948
Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist Morality (1889)
Reviews
- Iain McKay, Praxis, Lacking: On The Communist Manifesto and its historical context
- “The Mistakes of the Guildsmen”, Workers’ Dreadnought, 1 April 1922
- N.O., Book Review: Comrade Morris, Freedom: The Anarchist Weekly, 7 January 1956
- Iain McKay, Towards A Libertarian Socialism
Parish Notes
Charlotte M. Wilson, “Women’s Labour in Factories”, Justice, 8 March 1884