As usual, apologies for lack of blogging. As usual I have been somewhat busy. As well as the usual, namely working for a living and family live, I have various projects on the go. I did make a list of everything I was or wanted to work on, which came to over 20 items (and that is excluding sub-items).
As usual, apologies for lack of blogging. As usual I have been somewhat busy. As well as the usual, namely working for a living and family live, I have various projects on the go. I did make a list of everything I was or wanted to work on, which came to over 20 items (and that is excluding sub-items).
Most are reasonably long-term projects, two of which involve Kropotkin anthologies. One, for PM Press, is a comprehensive collection of Kropotkin’s pamphlets. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, the Dover collection (Anarchism: A Collection of Revolutionary Writings) does not have all his pamphlets nor, almost always, the full versions of what it does include (edits are not indicated). It would be nice to change that and have a more comprehensive and complete collection of his pamphlets. Another, pitched to AK Press, is for a new translation of Words of a Rebel (with supplementary articles from the time). This came from A Libertarian Reader, as I had included “Political Rights” from the Black Rose edition of Words of a Rebel. Concerned over potential copyright issues, I decided to re-translate it and came across some serious issues compared to the French original. A recalled Nicolas Walter’s review in The Raven when it came out, noting there were translation issues and my subsequent investigation has confirmed this. So, I feel a new translation would not go amiss, particularly if Kropotkin’s articles on the labour movement plus a few other articles from the same period are appended to it (most of which are included in Direct Struggle Against Capital). I have noted to the publishers that 2021 marks the 100th anniversary of Kropotkin’s death, so there may be a spike of interest in him then.
There are also a few Proudhon things I would like to see done. However, in the short term, I want to finish revising (improving!) an old article on the Paris Commune and complete my original, far too long, draft of my organisation chapter. I also need to work on the next instalments of Precursors of Syndicalism – the next being Kropotkin and, perhaps, Malatesta (Malatesta may have an instalment all to himself). I also have a couple of reviews to do. But first, to complete a translation of Kropotkin’s “Justice and Morality,” which I finally managed to track down in a Spanish translation. While a translation of a translation (from Russian into Spanish) is hardly ideal, it is better than nothing. As it stands, it does flesh out many of the ideas he raised in other works.
I am also working on a Brexit blog, but other stuff gets in the way (and it is hard to keep up-to-speed with the stupidity, incompetence and insanity of our political masters). Like the publication of my new book, Our Masters Are Helpless, a collection of works by George Barrett (I will note that the title is not of my choosing) and as advertised on the Freedom webpage.
So why Barrett, why these writings? Barrett is not that well known a writer these days, which is part of the reason why I decided to do it. He was very active in the movement in the 1910s and is an exemplar of all those anarchists who contribute so much and yet often, at best, get mentioned in passing in the histories. Yet without their agitating, speaking, writing, editing and so on, these academics and historians would have nothing to write about – there would be no movement (I discuss the issue of “Sages and Movements” elsewhere, but there is more to say on this subject). He was also instrumental in creating one of the many incarnations of the Glasgow Anarchists, so that was another reason. But, mostly, because his writings are good – indeed, I repeatedly quote from “The Anarchist Revolution” and “Objections to Anarchism” in An Anarchist FAQ.
Colin Ward shared my appreciation, having had his Objections to Anarchism recommended to him by members of a later incarnation of the Glasgow Anarchists (thirty-odd years later, in the 1940s):
“One of the first, and best, anarchist pamphlets I ever read was George Barret’s Objections to Anarchism […] Barrett was a propagandist who took his anarchism seriously, not just rhetorically, and discussed real issues realistically.” (Colin Ward “George Barrett’s answers,” The Raven: Anarchist Quarterly 12 (Oct-Dec 1990), 333, 335)
Kropotkin praised his contribution:
“Let me tell you, dear comrade, that you are bringing out a splendid paper. You are a journalist, and that is rare. I mean, of course, a ‘journalist’ in the good sense of the word, and what I always tried to be: that is, to have your own fundamental conception of the thing to be achieved.” (Quoted by Sid Parker, The First Person [London: Freedom Press, 1963], x)
I agree with both. I still remember reading a collection of his three pamphlets – “The Anarchist Revolution,” “Objections to Anarchism,” and “The Last War” – by Pirate Press entitled The Last War (Sheffield: Pirate Press, 1990) and being impressed. I still am, particularly with “The Anarchist Revolution.” So when I noticed that the Freedom Press Newspaper Archive had all the issues from the early 1910s, I thought it would be good to see what else was there by Barrett. I was happy to see quite a bit (although as he was also working on The Anarchist and then The Voice of Labour, we can be sure these are a mere fraction of his writings).
So the material was there, I just had to find the time. Luckily I was on strike last year for quite a bit, so as well as working on my substantial introduction to the PM Press edition of Voline’s The Unknown Revolution, I went through those issues of Freedom and gathered the texts. As well as his articles of anarchist propaganda, I decided to include his reports and letters to the paper as these gave a nice sense of what the movement was like then (and it chimes with my, and I am sure others, experiences much later). I also wrote biographical and bibliographical sketches, both very focused and concise (at least for me!). Various explanatory footnotes were added – as would be expected, some comments reflect well-known events of the time but which have faded from popular awareness. The contents are as follows:
Our Masters are Helpless
George Barrett: A Biographical Sketch by Iain McKay
The Last War
Articles for Freedom
• Some Quotations
• Industrial Organisation
• Godless Anarchy
• Night and Morning
• Anarchy and the Labour War
• The Education of the Rebel
• The Curse of Compromise
• An Appeal to Socialists
Reports and Letters for Freedom
• Propaganda Notes
• “Justice” and Emma Goldman
• G. Barrett’s Tour
• The Scottish Conference
• A Call to Action
• The Voice of Labour
• A New Venture
Appendix: International Anarchist Manifesto on the War
More details of Barrett’s life can be found here as well as in John Quail’s excellent 1978 book The Slow Burning Fuse: The Lost History of the British Anarchists (recently republished by PM Press). Below is an article about Barrett from the 3 May 1947 issue of Freedom on Barrett by Mat Kavanagh (a long standing member of the movement) which hopefully encourages you to buy the book – indeed, I quoted from this article in my introduction: “The collected essays of George Barrett would make a fitting memorial to his brilliant abilities.” Hopefully this book is that.
I should note that I decided to include "Anarchy and the Labour War" (Freedom, September 1911)
in A Libertarian Reader, along with the International Anarchist Manifesto on the War, of which he was one of the co-signers – with the likes of Goldman, Malatesta, and others.
Freedom have launched the book with the following blurb:
Highly active in the 1910s particularly, Barrett was a key organiser for the anarchist movement during the Great Unrest, which saw a significant syndicalist influence, and widely considered to be one of its best speakers and clearest writers. Edited by Anarchist FAQ lead author Iain McKay, Our Masters are Helpless puts together Barrett’s best pamphlets and articles, mostly written for Freedom Newspaper, highlighting his intelligent, accessible approach to anarchist theory and practice in the face of the mounting inevitability of war.
I will end by noting that I had long liked this answer by Barrett in Objections to Anarchism:
‘No. 17 If you abolish government, what will you put in its place?
‘This seems to an Anarchist very much as if a patient asked the doctor, “If you take away my illness, what will you give me in its place?” The Anarchist’s argument is that government fulfils no useful purpose. Most of what it does is mischievous, and the rest could be done better without its interference. It is the headquarters of the profit-makers, the rent-takers, and of all those who take from but who do not give to society. When this class is abolished by the people so organising themselves that they will run the factories and use the land for the benefit of their free communities, i.e., for their own benefit, then the Government must also be swept away, since its purpose will be gone. The only thing then that will be put in the place of government will be the free organisations of the workers. When Tyranny is abolished Liberty remains, just as when disease is eradicated health remains.’
I particularly liked the “only thing then that will be put in the place of government will be the free organisations of the workers.” This, I thought, summed up the basic libertarian position from Proudhon onwards, particularly of the revolutionary anarchism which developed in the First International and expressed by the likes of Albert and Lucy Parsons. I had wanted Kropotkin to say something along those lines and so I was overjoyed to see these words in the 1913 French edition of Modern Science and Anarchy (available from AK Press):
‘Developed in the course of history to establish and maintain the monopoly of land ownership in favour of one class—which, for that reason, became the ruling class par excellence—what means can the State provide to abolish this monopoly that the working class could not find in its own strength and groups? Then perfected during the course of the nineteenth century to ensure the monopoly of industrial property, trade, and banking to new enriched classes, to which the State was supplying “arms” cheaply by stripping the land from the village communes and crushing the cultivators by tax—what advantages could the State provide for abolishing these same privileges? Could its governmental machine, developed for the creation and upholding of these privileges, now be used to abolish them? Would not the new function require new organs? And these new organs would they not have to be created by the workers themselves, in their unions, their federations, completely outside the State?’ (Peter Kropotkin, Modern Science and Anarchy, 164)
This passage is not in the 1912 English-language edition, unfortunately, although there are enough passages elsewhere in Kropotkin’s works which allow you to draw the conclusion that this was indeed his position. Interestingly, one of the pieces from Le Libertaire on the 1936 factory occupations in France I translated for A Libertarian Reader ends with this paragraph:
‘Worker control is precisely one of those forms of direct action by which the working class affirms its capacity for future management.
‘It is that indispensable weapon which will allow the realisation of Proudhon’s expression so much decried by certain “realists” and according to which “THE WORKSHOP WILL REPLACE GOVERNMENT.”’ (N. Faucier, “From the collective contract to worker control,” Le Libertaire, 3 July 1936)
This was popular Proudhon quote amongst French syndicalists, it is a slight paraphrase of Proudhon’s “the workshop will banish government.” (“À Pierre Leroux,” La Voix du Peuple, 13 December 1849). In this article, Proudhon stresses that “the capitalist principle and the monarchist or governmental principle are one and the same principle; that the abolition of the exploitation of man by man and the abolition of the government of man by man are one and the same formula” and so “the labour question and the State question resolve each other and are, fundamentally, one and the same issue, that no distinction should be made between them.” He also takes umbrage at Leroux’s suggestion that he thought “that ownership of the instruments of labour must forever stay vested in the individual and remain unorganised,” replying he had “never penned nor uttered any such thing: and have argued the opposite a hundred times over.[…] I deny all kinds of proprietary domain. I deny it, precisely because I believe in an order wherein the instruments of labour will cease to be appropriated and instead become shared.” The “democratic organisation of credit” would result in “the spontaneous, popular formation of groups, workshops or workers’ associations” (Property is Theft!, 496-500)
Sadly, as with Proudhon (championed by Tucker), all too often a thinker’s ideas are associated with those who praise him rather than what they actually argued. As noted before, Kropotkin was a class warrior rather than the anarcho-Santa that those on the liberal-wing of the British movement all to often suggested (suffice to say, I don’t include Colin Ward in this as he was well aware of the class struggle and its role in anarchism – even if those who championed him downplayed it). Anyway, I’ve written extensively on Kropotkin’s actual politics elsewhere and so will leave it there.
But enough – please buy the new book, not only will you enjoy it you will be supporting an anarchist bookshop and publishing house.
So, not what I planned to blog about – but perhaps just as well, for otherwise no blogging at all for a while may have been the case. Suffice to say, though, it is not that I am not busy – the opposite, in fact, and so certain activities suffer. I still plan to revise the remaining appendices of An Anarchist FAQ, I still want to add texts from Property is Theft! to the webpage and blog on Proudhon (particularly given the multitude of misunderstandings and distortions out there, not of all which are deliberate). But these will be done when they are done.
Anyways, until I blog again… be seeing you!
Pioneers of Anarchism in Britain: George Barrett
Freedom, 3 May 1947
This brief sketch is a slight tribute to the memory of a young comrade who died at the early age of 33 after a long and hard struggle with consumption. It can safely be said that George Barrett was one of the clearest thinkers and one of the most brilliant speakers of his day. He had every asset a speaker needs; tall and of good appearance, a ready wit and an exceptionally good flow of cultured English. Either as a speaker or writer he went straight to the root of things, pushing all superfluous matters on one side. It was his grasp of scientific and economic truths that enabled him to see the necessity for revolutionary thought and action. He knew that nothing short of a complete revolutionary change in the basis of society would be of any social value. He would never compromise with his ideas, and his integrity was always apparent and above suspicion. One is tempted to look back and wonder what he would have written and said of some of his erstwhile active and good comrades: one, a Cabinet Minister now – Jim Griffiths; the other a reactionary jingo leader of the Miners’ Federation – Will Lawther!
The first stage of Barrett’s activities was in the Bristol Socialist Society. His straightforward revolutionary views and outspoken denunciation of the parliamentarians made it impossible for, him to remain a member of the society, however, and soon after he left he came out as an open anarchist. Shortly afterwards he came to London, and started to work at Waltham Abbey as a draughtsman. He at once joined the Waltamstow Anarchist Group, then a virile group of working men who did good work locally.
Barrett’s energy was tremendous. He spoke almost every night in the week, and would often cycle 20 miles each way to address a meeting, and that after a day’s work. After a propaganda visit to Glasgow he was keen on settling there, for he saw the latent possibilities of a strong movement. He succeeded in getting work in Glasgow, and with the financial assistance of George Davidson, he was able to start a weekly paper The Anarchist, of which 34 issues appeared. He threw himself heart and soul into the work, doing his editorial work after his day in the office. But he also addressed evening and dinner-hour meetings, and at one such meeting of strikers he led an attack on one of the wharves where blacklegs were working. The police arrested him, but later decided that it was better to leave the strikers alone and so dropped the charge. Nevertheless, the incident cost him his job, and because of it he changed his name from Ballard to Barrett, the name by which he is chiefly known.
Both before and during his editorship of The Anarchist he had most successful lecturing tours through England and Scotland, often touching towns where the message of revolt was heard for the first time. On these tours he formed groups which remained active until World War I scattered them, and now not even a trace of them seems to remain.
Some of the work done in those days by the Glasgow group is still secret history, but one incident to their credit should now be made public. When Jim Connolly’s paper The Harp, was suppressed, and, their machinery dismantled by the Dublin police, Barrett at once got into touch with Connolly, and the paper was printed at The Anarchist’s printery and successfully smuggled into Ireland. The police raided Freedom in London, and every other likely place, but never the right one. The Glasgow comrades acted in the traditions of Anarchism, that every invasion of human rights should be resisted.
The first number of The Anarchist came out on May Day, 1913. Barrett made his last speech at a demonstration at Edinburgh. At this meeting he caught a chill and consumption rapidly developed. After a terrific struggle he died at Torquay in January, 1917.
He lived to see much of his work undone by the war. Yet his ardor and his faith never faltered, even when he was badly smitten. In his magnificent pamphlet The Last War, he showed that the workers are fighting to settle their masters’ quarrels, and that the real war is fought to take over the mines, railways, factories, and fields. This pamphlet was condemned by the government—but not before 10,000 copies had been sold. Later on Freedom Press published two other pamphlets by him, The Anarchist Revolution and Objections to Anarchism. The collected essays of George Barrett would make a fitting memorial to his brilliant abilities.
Mat Kavanagh