The new issue of Black Flag: Anarchist Review is now available:
The main focus of this issue is Emma Goldman. While much, rightly, has been written about this stalwart of the movement for fifty years, it has all too often been focused on her life or her feminism. While this is understandable – her life was eventful (to say the least) and her feminism is important – this has led to a downplaying of her communist-anarchism. Here we seek to address this by means of a debunking of a deeply dishonest Leninist account of her life. This shows two things.
First, that Leninists have few qualms at distorting anarchism and why it is important to check the references they use in relation to their claims. As we show, the facts are usually at odds with the claims made. A genuinely revolutionary movement cannot be built on lies. Second, that Goldman’s politics were anarchist-communism and so rooted in class analysis and class struggle.
We include many rare writings by Goldman, most of which are reprinted for the first time since their publication. While the collection Red Emma Speaks is good, an anthology of her writings edited by an anarchist is well overdue. This would help place her in the mainstream of communist-anarchism she actually was in, something usually obscured by previous writings on her which concentrate more on her admittedly eventful life or her feminism.
However, we start with André Léo. An early French feminist, Internationalist and Communard, she has unfortunately been somewhat forgotten over the decades. This is undoubtedly because she sided with Bakunin against Marx and Engels, with the latter denouncing her in print. As such, she is harder to appropriate for Marxism even if she does – rightly – gets mentioned in Marxist accounts of women in the Commune (although her actual politics go unmentioned). Yet she was not a revolutionary anarchist and her relations with Bakunin were mixed (he broke with her before the Commune for her attempts to appeal across class divides). Rather, she was a mutualist who, rightly, mocked Proudhon’s sexism and consistently applied the ideas of associationism across all aspects of life, including the family. Along with many newly translated writings, we include her impressive speech at the League of Peace and Freedom on the Paris Commune.
Léo and Goldman share an analysis which, rightly, puts the struggle against patriarchy on an equal footing as class struggle. This is important for all too often the left at best pays lip-service to this idea while, in practice, sexism is tolerated and addressing it postponed to “after the revolution” (i.e., never). For example, an All-Russian Congress of Women Workers and Women Peasants was held in Moscow in November 1918 by the Communist Party (RCPb) and created what became known as “the women’s section” (Zhenotdel). However, its impact was limited:
“But in spite of Lenin’s claims to the contrary, inside the RCPb, the Zhenotdel was not an independent body. All instructions and plans for the Zhenotdel were discussed at joint meetings with the Organisational Department of the Central Committee, which was led by men. In addition, the Zhenotdel’s outreach activities came under the direction of the Central Committee’s Department of Agitation and Propaganda. The same situation existed in the regions, where women’s political work was guided by male party functionaries under the principles of ‘democratic centralism’. The majority of local communist leaders had strong patriarchal views and did not want to empower women by increasing their representation in the RCPb or allowing them to create autonomous structures within it. In this way, women’s aspirations to equal treatment were often blocked (but never eradicated) and they were forced to accept a subordinate role.” (Olga Shnyrova, “Women and Socialist Revolution, 1917–23”, Women Activists between War and Peace: Europe, 1918–1923 [London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017], Ingrid Sharp and Matthew Stibbe (eds.), 133)
In other words, issues like sexual freedom and equality cannot be left until “after the revolution” – if so, then they will never be addressed. Goldman and Léo were right to put this at the centre of their politics and apply it in the here and now, rejecting the (at best) lip-service of men within the movement to an equality which is denied in practice.
Then we move onto John Turner, a stalwart of the early British Anarchist movement for decades. A member of the Socialist League and then the Freedom Group, Turner was a regular contributor to Freedom as well as a leading activist and then official within the Shop Assistants’ Union which he helped found in 1891. As can be seen from the articles we republish in this issue, his writings for Freedom reflected his union activity (which, in turn, reflected the perspective of Freedom’s anarchist-communism) and he regularly toured Britain lecturing on anarchism as well as speaking at numerous meetings alongside the likes of Kropotkin. Later, he was the editor for Freedom’s syndicalist journal The Voice of Labour as well as a leading member of the Industrial Syndicalist Education League. He also toured America in 1896 and 1903, the second time saw him become the first victim of the 1903 Anarchist Exclusion Act which barred anyone with anarchist views entering the country.
Turner’s election to the office of general secretary of the Shop Assistants’ Union in 1912 saw him place union work before his anarchism. In short, his union activities showed both the positive and negative aspects of working within the unions for he turned from an activist to a bureaucrat. However, he declined the union attempt to nominate him for Parliament as he preferred not to waste his time in parliamentary debates. Given his decades of activism in the movement, Turner’s contribution should be better remembered, and we hope that this issue ensures that.
Then Constance Bantman discusses the “Trial of the Thirty” held in August 1894. This trial was the first use of the so-called “Wicked” laws passed to criminalise the anarchist movement in France, using a wave of bombings as an excuse. It was a classic example of over-reach, with the State seeking to lump together anarchists activists with criminals but the trial exposing this as the nonsense it was. There is little on this trial available in English (although it is usually mentioned in passing in histories of the movement). We hope that this article fills a gap in our knowledge of the period and be the foundation for further research and writing on it.
Then we have reviews of a new volume of Malatesta’s Collected Works and Proudhon’s War and Peace, followed by our usual “Parish Notes” on news from the movement and a discussion article suggesting anarchists vote which we hope will provoke replies (whether for or against). Before our usual news on the movement (“Parish Notes”), we include a debate piece on why anarchists should vote – we hope that will get a response or two!
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 Anselmo Lorenzo, Edward Carpenter, Ricardo Flores Magón and the debate with Kropotkin over his support of the Allies in 1914. Plus the usual 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
The second issue of Black Flag in 2024 starts with André Léo, a French feminist-socialist active in the 1860s and 1870s who has been somewhat forgotten in spite of her being a member of the First International and a Communard. Yet she was a leading French socialist who exposed and mocked the sexism of so many on the left at the time, championing workers, peasants and women against the oppression and exploitation they faced, recognising the need for a common struggle to achieve true liberation. Undoubtedly, Léo’s opposition to Marx within the International after the crushing of the Commune – and his public denunciation of her – ensured that Marxists made no attempt to claim her (although mentioned in their accounts of women in the Commune, her politics – like those of Louise Michel – go unmentioned). While associated with Bakunin, she was not a revolutionary anarchist but that does not stop her ideas being libertarian and of interest to revolutionary anarchists then and now.
We then move onto to John Turner, a British anarchist who played a major role both in the Freedom group and his trade union. He had the dubious privilege of being the first person arrested under the Anarchist Exclusion Act in 1903, which barred anyone from entering the country who held anarchist views. While he was a consistent advocate for anarchist involvement in the labour movement, he took it too far and became the head of his union, with his anarchism becoming correspondingly placed into the background. We can learn from both aspects of his political life.
Next is Emma Goldman, who needs no introduction. Yet while she is rightly remembered, her actual ideas are all too often ignored or, worse, misrepresented (e.g. by Leninists seeking to stop radicals today reading her devastating accounts of the Bolshevik regime). Most obviously, her feminism is praised but her class struggle politics go unmentioned or noted in passing. Yet, as a communist-anarchist, class struggle was at the heart of her ideas and life – she was a strike organiser and supporter as well as an advocate of syndicalism. Here we address this exclusion as well as presenting an extensive selection of her writings, many of which are reprinted here for the first time.
We also debunk a Leninist account of Goldman’s politics which is simply staggering in its dishonesty. It indicates well why Marxist accounts of anarchism simply cannot be taken at face value (even if they have references!). Yet this is one of a long series of such articles. For example, in 1912 the paper of the British Socialist Party published a short paragraph on how “syndicalism” rejected the class war and its “ideal” was “a combination and agreement” between bosses and workers in an industry “to prey upon society”. This nonsense rightly provoked a response:
“This is a remarkable example of the deliberate lying by which [Justice] ‘the organ of the Social Democracy’ seeks to discredit Syndicalism . . . the paragraph provides striking evidence of the serious moral degeneration into which certain leading exponents of the B.S.P. have fallen. The object of it is clear enough. It is to create, if possible, a prejudice in the minds of the members of the B.S.P. against Syndicalism, to arouse a hostility which shall prevent them inquiring into the matter fairly for themselves.” (“Open Letter to the Members of the British Socialist Party”, The Syndicalist, November 1912)
The same can be said of the account of Goldman’s ideas we debunk, a task which is always needed if time consuming.
Lastly, before reviews and our round-up of movement news, we have an account of the infamous 1894 “Trial of the Thirty”. A key event in French anarchist history, it was an attempt by the State to repress the movement by linking it to criminals and so legitimise the lois scélérates (“villainous laws”) that restricted the 1881 freedom of the press laws (the term being used to designate any harsh or unjust laws, which often broadly represses whole social movements). We end with reviews, our usual round up of movement news and a debate article suggesting anarchists vote.
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, André Léo: Internationalist and Communard
- “The Vauxhall Sessions on women’s work”, L’Opinion nationale, 18 July 1868
- “Manifesto – Women’s Rights”, L’Opinion nationale, 20 July 1868
- Communism and Property (1868)
- “V Right”, Woman and Morals: Freedom or Monarchy (1869)
- “All Women with All Men”, La Sociale, 12 April 1871
- “The Programme of the Commune”, La Sociale, 22 April 1871
- The Social War (1871)
Barry Pateman, John Turner, anarchist union leader
- “Anarchy versus Social Democracy”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, September 1889
- “An Anarchist View of the Legal Eight-Hour day”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, May, June, July, 1895
- “Let us Reason together”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, July 1895
- “The Struggle in England”, The Rebel (Boston), 20 September 1895
- “The Trade Union Congress”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, October 1895
- “Turner Interviewed”, The Firebrand, 24 May 1896
- “The Labour War”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, November 1897
- “We Never Forget”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, November 1900
- “John Turner and the U.S Government”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, June 1904
- “English Trade Unionism”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, November, December 1906
- “The Workers Must Manage for Themselves”, Mother Earth, August 1907
- “Revolutionary Unionism”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, June 1909
- “International Socialist Congress at Copenhagen”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, October 1910
- “The Trades Union Congress”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, November 1910
- “‘Justice’ and Calumny”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, June 1911
- “‘Justice’ and Emma Goldman”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, July 1911
- “‘Justice’ and Emma Goldman: A protest from America”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, August 1911
- “The Trades Union Congress”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, October 1911
- “John Turner on the declaration of principles”, The Syndicalist and Amalgamation News, December 1913
- “Peter Kropotkin”, Justice, 24 February 1921
- “A Forward”, Another War? (1923)
- “Foreword” [Kropotkin’s An Appeal to the Young] (1932)
Iain McKay, Emma Goldman, class warrior
- “The Condition of the Workers of America”, The Firebrand, 17 November 1895
- “Marriage”, The Firebrand, 18 July 1897
- “The Effect of War on the Workers”, Freedom: A Journal of Anarchist Communism, March-April 1900
- “The Propaganda and the Congress”, Free Society, April 1900
- “An Open Letter”, Free Society, 17 February 1901
- “To the strikers of Paterson”, Free Society, 20 July 1902
- A Beautiful Ideal: Anarchy and what it stands for (17 March 1908)
- “Francisco Ferrer”, Mother Earth, November 1909
- “A Rejoinder,” Mother Earth, December 1910
- “Anarchism and Socialism Defined”, Herald of Revolt, April 1911.
- Syndicalism: The Modern Menace to Capitalism (1913)
- “Our Moral Censors”, Mother Earth, November 1913
- “Self-defence for Labour”, Mother Earth, January 1914
- “Peace on Earth and Good Will Towards Men”, Mother Earth, January 1915
- “Emma Goldman’s Defence”, The Masses, June 1916
- “The Promoters of the War Mania”, Mother Earth, March 1917
- “The Holiday”, Mother Earth, June 1917
- “An Unpublished Letter”, Freedom (New York), October-November 1919
- “The Red Trade Union Congress and the Anarchist Prisoners”, Freedom, February 1922
- “Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin”, Freedom, March-April 1924
- “Losovsky Lets the Cat Out of the Bag”, Freedom, May 1924
- “The Persecutions in Russia”, Freedom, September 1924
- “What I saw in Russia” [Unknown] (1925)
- “Samuel Gompers”, Freedom, February 1925
- “Militarism and the Social Revolution”, Freedom, March-April 1925
- “Declined With Thanks”, Freedom, March-April 1925
- “Preface”, My Disillusionment in Russia (1925)
- “Women of the Russian Revolution”, Time and Tide (London), 8 May 1925
- Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, “Sacco and Vanzetti”, The Road to Freedom (New York), August 1929
- “Workers Should Seize Industries, Emma Goldman Tells Detroit”, Detroit Evening Times, 18 March 1934
- Communism – Bolshevist and Anarchist: A Comparison (1935)
- “Anarchists And Elections”, Vanguard: a libertarian communist journal, June-July 1936
- “The Place of Women in Society”, Mujeres Libres, Week 21 of the Revolution, December 1936
- “Emma Goldman Speaks of the Spanish Workers Struggle”, Spain and the World, 24 November 1937
- “The Staying Power of a Myth”, Spain and the World, 5 January 1938
- Letters to Mariano R. Vázquez
- 27 February 1939
- 13 March 1939
- Letter to Comrades and Friends (1939)
Constance Bantman, The ‘Trial of the Thirty’, the failed trial of anarchy
Reviews
- Wayne Price, Malatesta’s Anarchist Views of Elections and Democracy
- Bill Beech, Proudhon’s War and Peace
Zoe Lee, Debate: Why Anarchists Should Vote
Parish Notes
Libertarian League (USA), What We Stand For (1954)
Emma Goldman, “A New Declaration of Independence”, Mother Earth, July 1909