Anarchist Writers

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

https://www.blackflag.org.uk

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.

A discussion on Anarchist approaches to national liberation movements using the film Braveheart as its starting point. It appeared in the third issue of (the short-lived) Scottish Anarchist (1995). At the present time, independence via the ballot-box has run into a (predictable) dead-end and it can only be hoped that a move to anti-parliamentarian tactics develops (most obviously, general strikes)

My introduction to the 2022 PM Press edition of Peter Kropotkin’s Words of a Rebel. As well as the original 1885 book, it includes later prefaces (1904 Italian edition and the 1919 Russian edition) and Afterword to the 1919 Russian edition as well as supplementary material by Kropotkin on the labour movement from Le Révolté written as the same time. The Bibliographical Sketch has been updated to reflect new research on the first translations into English of its texts.

This is the introduction to the collection Our Masters are Helpless: The Essays of George Barrett which I created and edited whilst on strike a few years back. George Barrett was a British anarchist active during the 1910s (including in Glasgow) and whose writings I had always found to be excellent.

An article exploring Trotsky’s (limited) opposition to Stalinism and showing that it reflected Bolshevik orthodoxy in terms of advocating the dictatorship of the party and one-man management. Needless to say, almost all Trotskyist accounts fail to mention this. It first appeared in Black Flag Anarchist Review Vol. 3 No. 3 (Autumn 2023)

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;

This collection of essays by American Academic and Trotskyist Paul Le Blanc has little of interest for anarchists or, indeed, anyone who is not a Trotskyist. For the latter, this collection of essays which seek to highlight Marxist influences in American history may make them feel better about their adherence to an ideology which has little to offer the world.

This article originally appeared in Black Flag Anarchist Review Volume 3 Number 2 (Summer 2023). It discussed the politics of the Chicago Martyrs and shows its links with the ideas of revolutionary anarchism expounded by Bakunin and Kropotkin. It also debunks attempts to portray them as Marxists when, in reality, they were Marxists who moved to anarchism.

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

https://www.blackflag.org.uk

This issue marks the founding of the International Working People’s Association (IWPA) in Pittsburgh in 1883. As well as numerous articles by members of the IWPA, we debunk claims – by Marxists and others – that it was something other than anarchist. We also show the links between “the Chicago Idea” and the Federalist-International and the ideas championed by Bakunin and Kropotkin.