The new issue of Black Flag: Anarchist Review is now available:
The main focus is anarchism and war, using the example of Kropotkin’s support for the Allies in 1914 as its starting point. We indicate that in 1914 the anarchist movement rose to the challenge and remained overwhelming faithful to its Internationalist principles and show the flaws with Kropotkin’s position and why it failed to gather support in the movement.
The notion – suggested by Lenin and Trotsky – that Kropotkin represented anarchism in his support of the war and that anarchists, in general, supported him is false. In reality, “nothing of the kind happened; only about a hundred anarchists signed the various pronouncements in support of the war; the majority in all countries maintained the anti-militarist position as consistently as the Bolsheviks.” (George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, The Anarchist Prince: A Biographical Study of Peter Kropotkin [London: Boardman, 1950], 380)
We reprint articles from Freedom and Mother Earth although we do include new translations of two replies to The Manifesto of the Sixteen issued in French. We also reprint Kropotkin’s pamphlets entitled La Guerre separated by 30 years – 1882 and 1912 – to show how at odds his position in 1914 was to these well-known statements, although as we show it was not completely alien to his pre-1914 opinions.
Next is Anselmo Lorenzo (1841-1914), a founding member of the Spanish anarchist movement and active in it to his death. Very little of his writings are available in English and we reproduce three pieces by him. We then move onto Edward Carpenter (1844-1929), a British libertarian socialist who was a pioneer on many issues – not least gay liberation. We then mark the birth of Ricardo Flores Magón (1874-1922), the Mexican anarchist who played a key role in his country’s revolution.
We end with Wayne Price’s contribution to the debate started in the last issue on voting, a critique and a response on previous articles in Black Flag on the Ukraine war, Tomás Ibáñez’s account of the birth of the circled-A 60 years ago and a discussion of Ursula Le Guin’s classic SF book The Dispossessed to mark its 50th anniversary.
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 continue to cover a range of people and subjects. These should hopefully include the 1905 Russian Revolution and articles on and by the likes of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louisa Sarah Bevington, Alexander Berkman, Elisée Reclus and Luigi Fabbri, amongst others. Plus the usual reviews and news of the movement.
However, this work needs help otherwise at some stage it will end. 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 third issue of Black Flag in 2024!
We start with Kropotkin’s decision to support the Allies in World War I, a decision which shocked his comrades given his previous arguments (as shown by the two of Kropotkin’s pamphlets on war, separated by 30 years, which we reprint). We reprint a few articles by Kropotkin (including The Manifesto of the Sixteen) as well as anti-war articles representing the views of the majority of anarchists (we, of course, do not agree with Kropotkin and include them to place the replies to them in context). As these articles show, the pro-war advocates were very much expounding a non-anarchist position and were very much in the minority.
We follow this with works by Anselmo Lorenzo, a key figure in the early decades of Spanish anarchism. A “Bakuninist” in the First International, very little of his writings are available in English and we present three pieces here. Next is Edward Carpenter, an English libertarian socialist who was close to anarchism and who worked with anarchists. Openly gay, he advocated many causes which later – often much later – became mainstream (such as gay rights, sexual liberation, vegetarianism and animal rights). A true pioneer.
We then move onto Ricardo Flores Magón, the Mexican anarchist who played an important role in the Mexican revolution. One historian proclaims the Manifesto to the Workers of the World as “a Marxian program that adhered closely to the IWW’s own preamble.” (William M. Adler, The Man Who Never Died: The Life, Times, and Legacy of Joe Hill, American Labor Icon [New York: Bloomsbury, 2011], 169) While its call for expropriation undoubtedly matched the I.W.W.’s revolutionary unionist position, that its anarchist politics could be mistaken for Marxist shows a woeful ignorance of Flores Magón’s anarchist-communism – and the negative attitude of the Marxists of the period to such struggles. Hopefully the articles we reprint here will show his anarchist politics clearly.
Wayne Price continues the debate started in the last issue on whether anarchists should vote. This feels like a perennial subject in anarchist ranks but one which needs to be discussed, particularly in the light of changing circumstances. We also include articles on the Ukraine War, a critique of earlier articles in Black Flag and a reply by their author.
We end by marking two anniversaries before our usual round up of news of the movement (“Parish Notes”). These are the 60th anniversary of the circled-A and the 50th of Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. Anarchists, it is fair to say, take our symbols for granted but we should not – we should know why our flag is black, for example (see the appendix in Volume 1 of An Anarchist FAQ). So we are happy to reprint an account of the origins of the circled-A. As for The Dispossessed, it remains the best fictional account of an anarchist society albeit a flawed one – yet the struggle against these flaws in the novel also reflect anarchist theory, a point often overlooked in summaries of it.
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
Iain McKay, 1914: World War or Class War
- Peter Kropotkin, War (1882)
- Peter Kropotkin, Wars and Capitalism (1914)
- Nineteen-Fourteen
- “Blood and Iron”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, September 1914
- “The Reckoning”, Mother Earth, September 1914
- Peter Kropotkin, “A Letter on the Present War”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, October 1914
- H. Keell, “Have the Leopards Changed their Spots?”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, October 1914
- “If we must fight, let it be for the Social Revolution”, Mother Earth, October 1914
- Errico Malatesta, “Anarchists Have Forgotten Their Principles”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, November 1914
- Robert Selkirk, “Kropotkin’s Letter on the War”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, November 1914
- Alexander Berkman, “In Reply to Kropotkin”, Mother Earth, November, 1914
- Peter Kropotkin, “Anti-militarism: Was it Properly Understood?”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, November 1914
- Errico Malatesta, “Anti-Militarism: Was it Properly Understood?”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, December 1914
- Fred W. Dunn, “Kropotkin’s Letter to Professor Steffen”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, December 1914
- Peter Kropotkin, “Letter on Current Events”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, December 1914
- Nineteen-Fifteen
- T. Crick, “Is this the Last War?”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, January 1915
- “Observations and Comments”, Mother Earth, January 1915
- Witt Lawman, “Stand We Firm?”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, February 1915
- International Anarchist Manifesto on the War (March 1915)
- Errico Malatesta, “While the Carnage Lasts”, Volontà, 3 April 1915
- Alexander Schapiro, “Looking Forward”, Mother Earth, April 1915
- Errico Malatesta, “Italy Also!”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, June 1915
- Rudolf Rocker, “A Study in Fact”, Mother Earth, August 1915
- Recchioni, “Between Ourselves Where We Have Failed and How We Might Succeed”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, September 1915
- “Voices From Prison”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, December 1915
- Nineteen-Sixteen
- Peter Kropotkin, “The Manifesto of the Sixteen”, La Bataille, 14 March 1916
- Errico Malatesta, “Pro-Government Anarchists”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, April 1916
- International Anarchist Group of London, Anarchist Declaration (April 1916)
- Anarchist-Communist Study Group, About the Manifesto of the Sixteen: A Statement and Protest (May 1916)
- “The Sixteen – And the Rest”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, June 1916
- Alexandre Ghé, Open Letter to P. Kropotkin (1916)
- Nineteen-Seventeen
- Ricardo Flores Magón, “The War”, Regeneración (English Section) 21 April 1917
- “An Open Letter of Peter Kropotkin to the Western Workingmen”, The Railway Review, 29 June 1917
- “Kropotkin’s Farewell”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, July 1917
Death of Anselmo Lorenzo, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, January 1915
- The Conference in London, El Proletariado Militante : Memorias de un internacional (1901)
- The Labour Movement in Spain, Free Society: A Periodical of Anarchist Thought, Work, and Literature, 5 July 1903
- The Citizen and the Producer: The Objects of the Social Revolution, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, September 1913
- W., Edward Carpenter, Freedom, 27 February 1981
- “Important Letter from Edward Carpenter, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism”, December 1892
- “William Morris”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, December 1896
- “Long Live Syndicalism!”, The Syndicalist, May 1912
- V Non-Governmental Society, Towards Industrial Freedom (1917)
Brian Morris, Flores Magón and the Mexican Liberal Party
- “To Woman”, Regeneración, 24 September 1910
- “Cannon Fodder”, Regeneración, 15 October 1910
- “To the American People”, Regeneración (English Section), 25 February 1911
- “Class Struggle”, Regeneración, 4 March 1911
- “The Right of Property”, Regeneración, 18 March 1911
- “The Appeal of Mexico to American Labor”, Mother Earth, April 1911
- “Manifesto to the Workers of the World”, Regeneración (English Section), 8 April 1911
- Manifesto of 23 September 1911
- “The Political Socialists”, “Los socialistas politicos”, Regeneración, 2 March 1912
- “Without Bosses”, Regeneración, 21 March 1914
- “The Death of the Bourgeois System”, Regeneración, 2 October 1915
Debate: Wayne Price, “Should Anarchists Vote?” is the Wrong Question
Debate: on the Ukraine War
Bill Beech, War On Anarchism
Wayne Price, Should Anarchists Defend Ukraine? A Response to Bill Beech
Tomás Ibáñez, The circled A at 60
Iain McKay, The Dispossessed at 50
Parish Notices
“Anarchists and Office-Seeking”, Free Society: A Periodical of Anarchist, Thought, Work and Literature, 16 August 1903
“Manifesto of the Anarchist Federation on War”, War Commentary: For Anarchism, Mid-December 1943