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Black Flag: Anarchist Review Autumn 2023 issue now out

The new issue of Black Flag: Anarchist Review is now available:

https://www.blackflag.org.uk

The focus of this issue is Trotsky’s limited opposition to developments in the USSR which resulted in the rise of Stalinism. This is usually dated to his 1923 “New Course” articles but most Trotskyist accounts of his opposition are inaccurate, ignoring his advocacy of party dictatorship and lack of concern over economic democracy. We rectify this by discussing his actual ideas rather than the wished for ones of his followers. Camillo Berneri’s comment remains true;

“To oppose the effects without going back to the causes, to the original sin of Bolshevism (bureaucratic dictatorship as a function of the dictatorship of the Party), is equivalent to arbitrarily simplifying the chain of causality which leads from the dictatorship of Lenin without any great breaks in continuity. Liberty within a party which denies the free play of competition amongst the progressive parties within the soviet system would today be a spectacular miracle.” (“The State and Classes”, The State – Or Revolution [London: Freedom Press, 2023], 86)

We also include articles on anarchism and utopia, including articles by Marie-Louise Berneri, Peter Kropotkin and William Morris on Edward Bellamy and his utopian novel, Looking Backwards. Very influential after it was published in 1888, indeed inspiring a political movement in America which sought to implement its vision of the good society, by Morris and Kropotkin engaging with it we get a better idea of the libertarian socialist alternative. While Morris’s dislike of it is well-known (it helped inspire his own utopian novel, News from Nowhere), Kropotkin’s more positive evaluation of Bellamy’s is less well-known. We also include Robert Graham’s account of libertarian utopias in the lead-up to the French Revolution, which shows that these works of fancy can influence political movements and social change.

This issue also includes a translation of Kropotkin’s 1893 lecture Justice and Morality. While given in English, it has not appeared in that language before. Kropotkin did revise it for publication in Russia during 1919 when he was working on the posthumously published Ethics and writing prefaces and postface to new Russian editions of Words of a Rebel and The Conquest of Bread. This lecture summarises Kropotkin’s ideas on the evolution of ethics, a subject which mainstream science is now belatedly investigating.

We have decided to postpone our planned articles on and by Guy Aldred until a later issue and instead have run articles to mark American anarchist Harry Kelly’s death. A stalwart of the American movement for decades (plus a member of the London Freedom Group for a number of years), his contribution to the movement should be better remembered. We also mark the anniversary of Maurice Brinton’s birth, someone whose legacy is far better known. While not an anarchist, his libertarian socialism was rightly very influential in the 1960s and 1970s and we reprint writings not included in the anthology For Workers’ Power (AK Press 2002/2020)

Our extensive Black Flag archive has also been updated with new links and tidied up somewhat.

Original translations which appear in Black Flag: Anarchist Review eventually appear on-line here:

https://anarchistfaq.org/translations/index.html

Next year we aim to cover a range of people and subjects. These should hopefully include William Morris, Charlotte Wilson, G.D.H.  Cole and Guild Socialism, Marie Louise Berneri, Emma Goldman, John Turner, Edward Carpenter, 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

This issue of Black Flag starts with Trotsky as this year marks the 100th anniversary of his “The New Course” which marked the beginning of his dissent with developments within the Soviet Union. We begin with a lengthy discussion of the limited nature of Trotsky’s dissent and how it was one which did not question the necessity of party dictatorship nor recognise that the Bolsheviks had created state-capitalism in Russia. We include contemporary articles by libertarian Marxist Paul Mattick and anarchists. Wayne Price then discusses Trotsky’s Transitional Program.

We mark the 70th anniversary of the death of Harry Kelly, a stalwart of the American anarchist movement (and, for a number of years, the British one). Yet while he worked closely with Emma Goldman on Mother Earth none of his articles appeared in Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth (2001/2012). We rectify that here.

We then turn to anarchism and utopia, specifically the ideas of utopian writer Edward Bellamy whose work, as is well known, inspired William Morris to write his utopian novel, News from Nowhere. We include Marie-Louise Berneri’s account of Bellamy’s ideas from her Journey Through Utopia, Morris’ review as well as Kropotkin’s articles on Bellamy. Robert Graham then discusses utopian writings from the lead up to the French Revolution which contrasted the hierarchical insanities of Europe with the freer societies in North America. These show that utopian fiction can popularise the critique of current society, show possible solutions to social issues and inspire societal change.

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth Chris Pallis, better known as Maurice Brinton. While not an anarchist (and retaining his former Marxist antipathy to anarchism), he was a libertarian socialist whose ideas remain important. Here we include reminiscences of Pallis by a member of Solidarity as well as articles not included in the essential anthology For Workers’ Power: The Selected Writings of Maurice Brinton (AK Press, 2004/2020).

We also include a translation (unfortunately, from the Spanish of a Russian edition) of an 1893 speech by Kropotkin on Justice and Morality which, while in English, has never been published in that language. Given a few years after he had published in The Nineteenth Century the first of the articles which would become Mutual Aid, it summarises key aspects of his evolutionary ethics and should be of interest to anarchists and scientists today. We end with two reviews, our usual news of the movement and the obituary of Karl Marx which appeared in Le Révolté. Our back page is graced with a letter from Kropotkin to a commemoration for the Paris Commune.

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

The Bureaucracy in Exile: Trotsky’s limited Anti-Stalinism – Iain McKay

  • Anton Ciliga, “A Talk with Lenin in Stalin’s Prison”, Politics, August 1946 [1936-37]
  • Anarchists on Trotskyism
    • Senex, “A Hollow Appeal”, Vanguard: a libertarian communist journal, April-May 1936
    • David Lawrence, “An Open Letter to Leon Trotsky”, Vanguard: a libertarian communist journal, February-March 1937
    • David Lawrence, “Regarding Trotsky – A Rebuttal”, Vanguard: a libertarian communist journal, June 1937
    • Senex, “The Trotsky School of Falsification”, Vanguard: a libertarian communist journal, November 1937
    • H., “Left Movements and the War: IV. The Fourth International”, War Commentary, December 1940
    • “U.S.S.R. – Anarchist Position”, War Commentary, July 1941
  • Paul Mattick on Trotsky
    • Paul Mattick, “The ‘Hero’ of Kronstadt Writes History”, One Big Union Monthly, November 1937
    • Paul Mattick, “Leon Trotsky”, Living Marxism, Fall 1940
    • Paul Mattick, “Bolshevism and Stalinism”, Politics, March-April 1947

An Anarchist View of Trotsky’s Transitional Program – Wayne Price

Harry Kelly (1871–1953)

  • Articles from Mother Earth
    • “A Socialist Editor”, Mother Earth, April 1907
    • “To Our Comrades”, Mother Earth, September 1907
    • “Anarchism: A Plea for the Impersonal”, Mother Earth, February 1908
    • “Socialists and Politics”, Mother Earth, August 1909
    • “First of May”, Mother Earth, May 1910
    • “A Syndicalist League”, Mother Earth, September 1912
  • Articles from Freedom and others
    • “The Labour War in America”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, June-July 1900
    • “The Francisco Ferrer Association and Syndicalism”, Freedom: a Journal of Anarchist Communism, August 1912
    • “The Miners’ War in Colorado”, Freedom: a Journal of Anarchist Communism, June 1914
    • “The Labour Movement in America, Freedom: a Journal of Anarchist Communism, October 1914
    • “National Guilds”, Freedom: a Journal of Constructive Anarchism (New York), August 1919
    • “From Anarchism to ‘Communism’ (State Socialism)”, The Road to Freedom, April 1925
    • “The Bolshevik Myth”, The Road to Freedom, May 1925
    • “American Letter”, Spain and the World, 8th September 1937

Chris Pallis, a memoir – K.M.

  • Review: Solidarity Forever? by J. Sullivan and T. Hillier, June 1969
  • ‘History and Revolution’ – On Historical Materialism (1972)
  • Letter, International Socialism (1st series), July-September 1972
  • “Solidarity, the Market and Marx”: A Reply (1973)
  • “Suicide for Socialism?”, Solidarity, March-April 1979

Journey Through Utopia: Edward Bellamy – Marie-Louise Berneri

  • William Morris, “Looking Backward”, Commonweal, 22 June 1889
  • Peter Kropotkin, “The Twentieth Century”, La Révolte, 30 November, 14, 21 and 28 December 1889
  • Peter Kropotkin, “Bellamy’s ‘Equality’“, The Independent, 2 December 1897
  • Peter Kropotkin, “Edward Bellamy”, Freedom, July 1898

Justice and Morality – Peter Kropotkin

Reviews:

  • I could be so good for you – Aubrey Dawney
  • The State – Or Revolution – Zoe L

Parish Notes

Karl Marx (Le Révolté, 31 March 1883)

Letter from Kropotkin (“Report of the Commune Celebration”, Freedom, April 1899)

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