Liu Shipei – On Equal Human Ability

Liu Shipei (Shen Shu) was a Chinese classical scholar who, with his wife, He Zhen, established the Society for the Study of Socialism in Tokyo in 1907. The Society published a journal called Natural Justice which promoted an agrarian kind of anarchism. He Zhen, an anarchist feminist, was the more radical of the two, familiar with European debates regarding socialism and women’s suffrage movements. She argued, much as Emma Goldman did, that the vote would not bring women genuine freedom. Excerpts from He Zhen’s essay, “Problems of Women’s Liberation,” originally published in Natural Justice in September and October 1907, are included in Chapter 20, “Chinese Anarchism,” in Volume One of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. The following excerpts are taken from Liu Shipei’s contemporaneous essay, “On Equal Human Ability,” also published in Natural Justice. Unlike the Chinese anarchists who published the New Era journal in Paris, which adopted a modernist stance, and who sought to distance themselves from classical Chinese thought, Liu Shipei regarded the mythical Daoist sage, Lao Zi (or Lao Tzu, circa 400 BCE), as the father of Chinese anarchism, and drew inspiration from the third century BCE utopian, Xu Xing, in developing his ideas regarding an egalitarian, agrarian anarchist society. Liu was also influenced by Leo Tolstoy’s peasant focused pacifist anarchism, and was one of the first Chinese anarchists to emphasize the important role of the peasantry. Reading “On Equal Human Ability,” one can detect the influence of Charles Fourier as well (Volume One, Selection 7). As with Fourier’s similar plans for utopian colonies, Liu’s utopian vision is so detailed that it sets forth too narrow and restrictive a path to equality and freedom. The translation is by Guannan Li.

Humankind is named after its upright stance on the earth. Round head, square toes, different races; these are features common to all. The Buddhist Sutra tells us that the human body possesses four “Bigs”. Modern scientists know that the human body is composed of raw materials, and since we are all human beings, our bodies contain the same material. Materialists can demonstrate that every human body is the same. According to psychologists, every human being has a heart. Although the heart does not interact directly with the material world, when the body senses something, the heart, too, perceives it. So feelings originate from sensation, and intentions come after perception. Therefore, everyone identified as a human being is the same. This is why idealists can demonstrate that humankind shares the same feeling. The Buddha says that the dharma has no location. Living beings are not alien to the dharma, and the dharma is not alien to living beings. The Buddha also says that all living things are alike in their regulation. The philosopher Mencius also points out: “Things belonging to the same species are all similar. Humankind is no exception. The saint and I belong to the same species.” Wang Shouren has the same idea. The modern western scholar Rousseau originated the theory of human rights to argue for the same idea. Thus, equality of humankind was widely advocated by previous philosophers.

Since the creation of the world, all kinds of differences have come into being because of intellectual and physical distinctions. The powerful coerce the weak; majorities humiliate minorities; the wise cheat the stupid; and the brave terrify the timid, so the noble always rule the humble; the wealthy control the poor, and native people overpower foreigners. There is distinction between the dominant and the dominated; there is difference between a noble person and an average person. Generally speaking, people belonging to the former category are idle; people belonging to the latter category labour hard. The idle are happy; the labourers in pain. Doubtless, it is class politics that determines this. When we reflect on our society, there are control systems, distribution systems, and supply and demand systems. In society, in terms of occupations, there are scholars, peasants, artisans, and merchants; in terms of class, there are kings, ministers, soldiers, and masses. This is not just the case in despotic countries or under the patriarchal clan system. Don’t so-called republican polities and military societies also follow this unequal system?

Alas! From past to present, humankind has never experienced the joy of equality. The reason people are unequal is because they are not independent. It is because of dependence that the enslavement of people is possible. Because of dependence, they lose their right to freedom. As they lose freedom, they also lose the right to equality. Humankind has been imprisoned for a long time, which is contrary to the principle of equality. People who enslave others must depend on the willingness of the ruled. If they are reluctant to be ruled, you will lose what you depend on. Then you lose your subsistence. People enslaved by others must depend on their willingness to rule. If they don’t need your service any more, you will definitely lose your job. Then you cannot afford your subsistence. Therefore, dependent people are the most dangerous ones among human beings.

Aiming to sweep away power and wipe out the government, so-called communists regard land and capital as collectively-owned property. In communist society, everybody can work. Although all are equal in having access to jobs, even the same job can vary in hardship. There must be someone who measures workers’ abilities and assigns the corresponding job. This is another kind of government, and another kind of intervention. If there are superintendents, smart people will make use of the pretext to decline heavy jobs, and cunning people will make use of the pretext to avoid hard work. Furthermore, if it is because of inequality of hardship that envy occurs, how can conflicts be stopped immediately? If you let people choose their job according to their temperament, won’t every person approach happiness and avoid hardship, or choose easiness and restrain oneself from difficulties? If everybody behaves like this, who is to assume hard and difficult jobs? Furthermore, how do people’s demands and lust get satisfied since materials are always short? Even though someone would reluctantly accept the hard job, it is always against his/her will. In this sense, this would not work for very long. Even though it may work for a while, people who share the morality of the same species would end up with this inequality of hardship. So the result would be that the right is equal, but not the commitment. Therefore, equal commitment is determined by everybody’s independence. What’s independence then? Independence means that no one relies on others, or is enslaved by them.

This is the so-called “equal men” discourse. Equal men are equipped with multifold skills concurrently. To realize the promise of this discourse, we must destroy existing society and eliminate national boundaries. The area where the population reaches over one thousand should be cantoned as a county. Every county then sets up a rest home for senior citizens and children. After children are born, no matter male or female, every baby is sent to the rest home. Those who are over fifty also go to the rest home. Their responsibility is to feed the children. Children who reach six should be educated by the seniors. Education will last for five years. From ten to twelve, children will receive practical training. During these ten years, children will study the sciences half the day, and for the other half learn to manufacture appliances which are the necessities of life. Both will be taught by the senior people. The necessities of life will meet people’s basic needs, namely clothing, food, and housing. The maximum of education time for one person is ten years. People over 20 will go to work for society. People are supposed to change their jobs at different ages. After reaching fifty, people will enter the rest home again. These are the basic ideas of the equal man discourse…

Maximum of farming time for one person is 16 years. Machines must be used in farming to save labour. Within these 16 years, the amount of rice produced by one person could feed approximately 4 to 5 persons.

Depending on the area, people could choose two or three jobs to do, including planting cotton, vegetables, and trees, and other minor works, such as feeding livestock, fishing, and hunting which are conducted during the time off from farming.

In the farming season, people should stop working on other jobs (like road construction) and just focus on farming. When farming is done, people just need to work for another two hours on other jobs. The remaining time is just for rest.

People must use machines in production. Every county should prepare all the machines. Every worker no matter which job he is doing should cooperate with each other efficiently.

Everybody should produce ironware and pottery, the necessities of people’s livelihood. Besides these, one can choose another one or two things to produce according to one’s temperament.

If goods are transported in the vicinity, the maximum working time is two hours per day. Only after five years can people get exemption from that. If transportation is to a distant place that cannot be reached within one day, or a whole day is spent traveling (with no time to rest), the service period should decrease. The maximum could be one or two years.

In the spare time after work, one should engage in study according to one’s temperament. After reaching 46, one devoting oneself to medicine should take charge of curing people. One devoting oneself to engineering should take a position as a mechanic or road construction engineer. One who has not received so much education could be an electric bus assistant or a barber. The maximum working time per day is two hours. If one always travels to a distant place, and there is little rest for the whole day, the maximum service time could be reduced from 5 to 2 years.

Cripples over 20 are exempted from all the work above. The blind will take charge of music. The dumb and the deaf will take charge of typesetting and publishing books. The lame take charge of editing and collating. The maximum of their working time is also two hours per day. They have the same rights as others.

Generally speaking, people do more difficult jobs at their younger ages, then easier ones during their old age.

All manufactured appliances are placed in the public market and are collectively owned by all people. Houses are built in the same dimensions. Everyone owns one. There should be certain places for reading and dining. These are the places where people gather together.

If we carry out this plan, hardship would be equal. And there is no need to worry about the lack of any material. Within society, everyone is equal; outside society, everyone is independent. Everyone is simultaneously a worker, peasant, and scholar. Everyone has the same right and bears equal commitment. Isn’t this the world where the great public way is manifested? Besides this, the plan has other advantages.

First, it accords with human nature. Humankind has one common nature: fondness of the new and boredom of the old. From morning to night just focusing on one job, people will definitely get tired of it. However, if they could switch to another job occasionally, they will not. Reading just one book, they will get tired of it. However, if they switch to another book, they will not. Why? People always get tired of the old and are fond of the new. It is for this reason that people always keep in motion. Now one person has multifold skills concurrently. His job correspondingly changes with age. This accords with human nature. This is the first advantage.

Secondly, it accords with humanity. Beneath heaven everybody is equal. People have the same ears and eyes, and thus share the same feelings. As Mencius remarks, “I have everything within myself”. Nowadays the necessities of life are produced by others. Others know but I don’t; others practice but I don’t. The sage once noted, “It is a shame of a scholar if he doesn’t know one thing.” In light of this saying, how can I stand this endless shame? Only by carrying out this plan, can I be equipped with multifold skills. Then I will be able to handle things as others do. Isn’t this the humanistic way? This is the second advantage.

Thirdly, this accords with evolutionary principles. The skills barbarians possess are very simple. With evolution, they gradually gain more complicated skills. Because of their simple skills, their enterprises are also simple. Only after they gradually gain more complicated skills, do their enterprises get complicated. It’s like ancient merchants who do not need to study classics; or ancient scholars who do not need to study martial arts. Modern merchants in the civilized countries certainly know sciences; scholars certainly provide military service to the government; peasants also need to receive education. Isn’t it proof of the evolutionary process from simple to complicated? This plan which makes people switch their jobs from the simple to the complicated accords with the evolutionary principle. Ancient knowledge is categorized into different disciplines. In contrast, modern people before their adulthood all study the common sciences. Since everybody is able to master the common sciences, everyone is also able to assume the common job. Since everybody is able to assume the common job, everyone can gradually be equipped with more knowledge and gain more abilities. This is the third advantage.

Fourthly, this plan can eliminate conflict in the world. The emergence of conflict is due to selfishness and envy. Pursuit of one’s own interests directly leads to their proliferation. This certainly induces others’ envy. Envy originates from unevenness; unevenness results from different jobs. This leads to world-wide conflict. In sum, the misfortune of conflict results from inequalities of hardship. When poor people envy your happiness, they have to seek their interests. When they hate your happiness, envy arises. The disaster of bloody revolution originates therein. If hardship is equal for everybody, there will be no difference, and nobody will mind it. The sense of inequality will not rise and conflict will not occur. Humankind can maintain peace forever. This is the fourth advantage.

I believe that these four advantages of “equal man” discourse are sufficient to govern all under heaven. However, skeptics may still raise three questions about this plan. First, that nobody is able to manage all the jobs. Second, that it will increase hardship. Third, that it will hinder study.

Let me dispute them one by one. Like the French Emperor Napoleon, who wanted to eliminate the word “inability” from the dictionary, there are several Chinese philosophers who criticized those who had abilities but did not work. Zai Shi in the Zhouli (Rituals of Zhou Dynasty) once said, “If you did not raise livestock, there would be no livestock for sacrifice. If you did not cultivate, there would be no rice for sacrifice. If you did not plant trees, there would be no wood for the coffin. If you did not raise silkworms, there would be no silk. If you did not weave, there would be no mourning garments of hemp.” Isn’t this proof that one should equip oneself with multifold skills? In this sense, “inability” is always the excuse. This excuse justifies the production of clothing, food and housing by others. You just sit there and enjoy the products. This directly results in your dependence on others. Moreover, if others do what you think you are “unable” to do, it is no longer a question of inability. If you think practical jobs could only get done by humble people, when you do it, is this because of your responsibility? Or is this because you are forced by the situation? From all the reasons above, it does make sense that nobody be able to manage all the jobs. However, the fact is that hierarchy has already been included in this argument. This is the argument only for a class society. It is not proper today.

Secondly, some may argue that the “equal man” plan will increase hardship. This argument is actually not true. Nowadays workers work everyday from 8 AM to 10 PM. They are very busy the whole year and have little rest. However, according to the “equal man” plan, the total farming period will be just 16 years, the farming season per year will be no more than several months, and the maximum work per day will be two hours. From this comparison, isn’t it clear which is harder and which is easier? Furthermore, the feeling of hardship always depends on that of happiness. One can feel so-called bitterness only in isolation. If bitterness is felt collectively, the boundary between bitterness and happiness is already obscure. How could you say you still feel pain? Moreover, since fondness of exercise and work is human nature, plenitude of work accords with it. How could you say you get more hardship since work is your human nature? Thus, this argument for more hardship is also wrong.

Thirdly, in terms of hindering study, scholars in ancient times not only studied but also cultivated. They mastered one classic each three years. Yi Yun also cultivated by himself; Fu Yue also constructed buildings. Both of them finally became assistant to the king. Isn’t this proof that physical work is not a hindrance for learning? Moreover, in our ideal society, common study comes before adulthood. After that, there are no more than several months of farming per year, and no more than two hours of work per day. Besides these, all the time left is reserved for study. Thus the argument for hindrance of learning is also wrong. Moreover, once this plan is carried out, the tendency of mutual dependence will be eliminated and the happiness of freedom and equality will be achieved. All the systems of inequality and injustice of former days will be abolished. There will be no more talk of unevenness and inequality. If the sage were reborn, he would not argue with me.

Look at the Warring States period. Xu Xing advocated that scholars should also farm. He said, “The sage will farm and eat side by side with the common people. If people eat well, the state is peaceful. However, King of Teng set up granaries and government to exploit people in accordance with his own interests.” His idea is incisive. Farming side by side with peasants means that everyone should work. He scolds King of Teng for exploiting the people for his own good. His idea is against class. However, Mencius attacks this point, arguing that Xu’s theory is wrong because if everybody engages in farming, other necessities of life will not be met. Chen Xiang, a former disciple, told Mencius that “artisans could not work and at the same time cultivate.” Farmers and workers could trade with each other. From this perspective, isn’t it true that China already has two classes of workers and peasants? Isn’t it difficult to have equal jobs? Mencius replies to Chen, “One needs all the necessities produced by hundreds of artisans to maintain oneself. If he insists that he only use the stuff produced by himself, he is leading people to ruin the Tao.” Xu Xing exchanges millet for necessities, but he never argues for the self-sufficient idea. Although the self-sufficient idea is very similar to the equal man theory, they are different. If Mencius were to be reborn, how could he use this pretext? If he argues that there is a difference between using the body (laoli) and using the mind (laoxin), between rulers and ruled, this would be totally contradictory to the equality of humankind. His theory is even worse than Xu Xing’s. Although Xu’s is not perfect, he was the first person in China to advocate that scholars should farm side by side with peasants. This is a capital idea…

Nowadays people who advocate that men are superior to women all think women’s obligation is inferior to men’s. If we carry out this plan, there would be no difference between men and women’s obligation. Men will not depend on women’s housework; women will not depend on men’s money for clothing and food. The dependency tendency will be totally eliminated. Moreover, since newborn children will be sent to nurseries, women will have no obligation to raise them. Thus their obligation will be the same as men’s. When their obligation is equal, the theory of men’s superiority over women will no longer be possible. Here the theory of equality of men and women and equal man theory are two sides of the same coin. It is also wrong to say that women cannot assume hardship. In several provinces, such as Hunan and Guangxi, all the hard corvee labour which men are unable to assume actually is taken on by women. The theory that women cannot assume a hard job is wrong. I hope that women will not use inability as an excuse. Equality will be good both for our society and for women.

Natural Justice, Volume 3, July 10, 1907

Ernest Coeurderoy – Citizen of the World

One selection I really regret not including in Volume 1 of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas is the following piece by Ernest Cœurderoy (1825-1862), excerpted from his Jours d’exil (Paris: P.-V. Stock, 1910-11, originally published 1854-55) and translated by Paul Sharkey. Coeurderoy is perhaps best known for his Hurrah!!! Ou La Révolution par les Cosaques (London, 1854; republished be Editions Plasma, Paris, 1977), in which he envisioned a Cossack invasion of France to sweep away all vestiges of authority, with a libertarian socialist society emerging from the ruins. Coeurderoy was a radical republican turned socialist active in the 1848 Revolution in France. Trained as a doctor, he cared for injured workers following the abortive uprising of June 1848. He opposed the rise to power of Napoleon III and was forced into exile, first in Switzerland and later in England. In this excerpt from Jours d’exil (Days of Exile), Coeurderoy identifies himself with the outcast, the disadvantaged and forsaken in society, in a manner reminiscent of the much more recent and better known self-description of Subcomandante Marcos from the modern Zapatista movement in Mexico: “Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10:00 P.M., a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.”

I am a citizen of the world these days and regard that title as greater than anything the proudest of nations can bestow; what is more, it is of my own choosing and not doled out through some accident of birth. I am exiled, which is to say, free; these days one can only be so outside of society, country and family, all of them buckling under shameful servitude. What care I about armies, flags, governments and police! I skip across frontiers like the smuggler. I have no home, no land for which I am required to pay tax. Far from me, kings ascend their thrones and step down from them like shame-faced crooks; and I laugh at this phantasmagoria. I flee from churches the way I would from the gates of Hell. Laws are not made for me; I am outside the law and prefer that to being under its protection. I am a vagabond; and, first and foremost, revel in the fact. Neither king nor subject: the strong are stronger on their own.

In every land there are folk who are kicked out and driven away, killed and burnt out without a single voice of compassion to speak up for them. They are the Jews. – I am a Jew.

Skinny, untamed, restless men, sprightlier than horses and as dusky as the bastards of Shem, roam through the Andalusian countryside. Real wolves. They give every appearance of being horse-traders, but nobody is quite sure what trade they ply and the common gossip accuses them of sorcery. They are not – lucky mortals! – deemed worthy of being subjected to the laws of Spain. They live and marry according to their own ways. They drift through civilization, setting up their tents on the forest’s edge. The doors of every home are barred to them, in hamlet and town alike. A widespread disapproval weighs upon their breed; no one knows whence it comes nor whither it is bound. Such men are known as Gitanos. – I am a Gitano.

In the mountains of Scotland and Norway, out on the heaths of England and Ireland, camp sorcerer clans that have provided inspiration for the divine voices of Shakespeare and Walter Scott. They dance in the mist, setting huge fires of holly and gorse ablaze and, come nightfall, under the pale moonlight they summon up the spirits from the abyss. They go by the name Gypsies. – I am a Gypsy.

In Paris one can see wayward boys, naked, who hide under the bridges along the canal in the mid-winter and dive into the murky waters in search of a sou tossed to them by a passing onlooker. They go unshod upon the asphalt of the quays and boulevards and have nowhere to shelter other than under the lee of the roofs and carriage entrances. Their trade consists in purloining scarves and pretending to ask for a light but swapping cigarettes. These are the Bohemians. – I am a Bohemian.

In Naples the Lazzaroni sprawl on the marble terraces of the ducal palaces, rubbing their bellies in the sunshine while dining on a glass of water and a quattrino of macaroni. – I am a Lazzarone.

In Switzerland and Germany one sees folk with neither creed nor law, rights nor duties and whose origins no one knows and who seem lost among all the rest. They are known as the Heimatlosen. I am a Heimatslos.

Ah, if only I, like all the homeless folk, could spend my days in the shaded woodland and my nights under the beautiful stars, on the flowering banks of the streams! But I was raised in comfort, like the grocer’s children.

Everywhere, there are folk banned from promenades, museums, cafes and theatres because a heartless wretchedness mocks their day wear. If they dare to show themselves in public, every eye turns to stare at them; and the police forbid them to go near fashionable locations. But, mightier than any police, their righteous pride in themselves takes exception to being singled out for widespread stigma. – I am one of that breed.

Oh the bourgeois misery, somber as any Whitechapel proletarian, wretchedness in greasy and down-at-heel boots, a wretchedness that wears a long neck-tie and an excuse for a shirt and which never laughs and dares not weep! Hypocritical, indescribable, unutterable, unclassifiable, hope-destroying misery, the greatest, most atrocious of all miseries! The misery of a study supervisor!

There are young folk everywhere, shunned by everyone else because they are the outcasts of society, because they are not acceptable and will not abide by the world’s conventions. They are stiff-backed and angular types; they have a look of gloom about them; the buzz of conversation irritates them. They love broad ideas and loose clothing; their thoughts are bad and their status worse. They dare to question the infallibility of the Pope, divine right, the legitimacy of property, the happiness of the family and the harmony of the civilized world. – I am one of their number.

There are young folk everywhere from whom earthly angels avert their all-curing gaze. I swear by my life, such folk can endure everything, the very appearance of which throws the gracious young ladies into a tizzy and the later never have a kind word to spare them. – O, ladies, ladies, every evening you call blessings down upon your mothers, from whom you get your limpid eyes; and yet you cannot see past the attire of the very man who would love you best. – Again, I am one of their number.

Very well! I shall bear my loneliness. I will not squeeze my lungs into a corset just to escape it, and I will not deliver myself up as a willing victim into the hands of tailors and the tongues of drawing-room wits. I shall roll around this world like a stone tossed from the mountain top into the yawning chasm. The pine tree thrives only on arid summits; the eagle soars unattended into the sun. The sailor wrestles with the storm unaided; the emigrant forges on alone beneath strange skies. The huntsman in the hills lies in wait, alone, for the she-bear who has lost her cubs. The lion and the tiger prowl alone; the bull stands alone in the Spanish bullring. Everything strong has no need of support. – Quite the opposite .The frightened migratory birds huddle together in order to make headway against the wind; sheep need no encouragement to gather together; the ox stretches out his neck to the yoke; capons are held in cages, swine in the mud and princes in the palaces. Crows gather only over dead bodies and party followers only over a rioting populace.

Isn’t it at the mightiest oaks and tallest spires that the thunderstorm hurls its lightning bolts? Doesn’t the pack bay at the wild boar that stands up to it? Me against the world and the world against me: so be it! I accept the challenge and am proud to enter the fray alone, for I count it an honour not to be numbered among the common herd of my contemporaries. No one acknowledges me any more: those who used to call themselves my friends have shunned me. I haven’t a penny, not a single supporter, not a single mind well-disposed towards me; my attire does not fit me too well, my eyes are stung by the flickering of a 20 sou lamp on four white-washed walls.

What matter? My cause is a good one. I wage open war against the hypocrisy of the parties. Maybe I can force them at last to break with the conspiracy of silence and battery of calumnies they trot out every evening with their whispering campaign. For God’s sake, speak up and explain yourselves; set out whatever you will in the glare of publicity. I scream Thieves! because there are so many on every side, cowardly thieves that destroy a man’s reputation, tearing it to shreds, with the same carelessness with which a pick-pocket would shred a handkerchief.

I may not be famous, but, look, I should like you to tell the truth about me, and nothing but the truth, should you do me the honour of speaking about me. I am as hard to arm as any flint, but strike me with gusto and you’ll get your spark.

Only bites bring forth bleeding. The thunder is father to the lightning. Fire sucks at the wind. Do not attack the savage beast. Don’t pet the wolf. Don’t get in the way of a man striding towards his goal. Had I a spark of intelligence, some glimmer of embittered honesty, your Jesuitical attacks would alert me to it; they would suggest what I might do, what I should try; in the innermost recesses of my soul, they would strike the spark of revenge, the passage of which sets the blood coursing.

Partisan fury, I would give you my blessing! Stoke you wrath, parade your petty susceptibilities and sinister vengeance in battle array, hone your sneers, hurl your insults and, if you can, stretch to irony. If a man must go down fighting against the parties, I am willing to be that man, but I want to leave a fatal dart in their flanks. Until such time as I have no crust to chew on and no earth beneath my feet, I will cry out to men: Throw down the gauntlet to soldiers and Caesars, throw down the gauntlet to committed folk!

You who endowed the tiger with his fearful roar, the viper with its poison and its coils, Satan, God of vengeance, I turn to you. Make my tongue rough and my pen brutal and let my every utterance, like a two-edged sword, impale the slaves kneeling in the dust!

So that, when the day of reckoning comes I am entitled to cry: Freedom!

Let the stones pile up behind me, let the houses tremble and beasts of the forest prove as pitiless as men in the middle of burning villages.

And let Revolution enfold the globe in giant’s arm and squeeze until it bursts and gushes Eternal Fire over civilized folk!

Comrade Peasant Listen!

This is a translation of a CNT-FAI pamphlet approved at the December 6, 1936 Regional Plenum of the FAI for distribution to Spanish peasants unfamiliar with the CNT-FAI, in order to assure them that the CNT-FAI was opposed to the forced collectivization of the land, but also to convince them of the benefits of libertarian communism. I had intended to include this selection in Chapter 25, “The Spanish Revolution,” in Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939). The translation is by Paul Sharkey.

WHO WE ARE

The National Confederation of Labour (CNT) and Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) address you. Both are made up of urban and rural workers, by workers and peasants who, like yourself, work for their poor fare and would like to live better. Of workers, and no one else. In our ranks you will not find folk who live off somebody else’s labours – property-owners, capitalists, rentiers or bourgeois who purloin the fruits of another man’s sweat. You and we, we and you like are members of the same family as all who produce all of the wherewithal of life and who have always, thus far, seen those who did nothing living a life of luxury and wallowing in everything while we lack life’s necessities. The time has come for this to end. Listen, comrade, to what we, the peasants and workers of the CNT and FAI have to say to you.

YOUR LIFE

Your parents, your grandparents, your forebears worked on the land and made it ready for cultivation. Can you still remember them, with hoe or pitchfork in their hands? You too labour as they did. And your children will labour, as you do.

Who benefited from that toil by your forebears, your grandparents, your parents? Whom does yours profit? And tomorrow, who will benefit from your childrens’, unless things change? The boss, the landlord, the proprietor. The State and the whole bureaucracy that oppress us with their levies and taxes. The middle-man who traffics in the fruits of your labour. You hand over thirty or forty per cent of your crops to the landlord. You pay very heavy taxes to the tax-collector. The middle-man charges a hundred pesetas for what he bought from you at fifty.

The fact is that right now, thanks to the revolution made by the CNT and the FAI, this has eased or stopped for a while. But that pause will be a fleeting one unless you make up your mind to join with us to ensure that the landowners, tax-collectors and middle-men cannot gain the upper hand again. When the wheat, rice, potato, orange, grape or any other harvest is good, instead of your benefiting from this, as ought to be the case, you are worse off, because, on the pretext of a glut, they pay you such a poor return that you get no reward and you are denied what you need to live. When the harvest is a poor one, you have little to sell and earn little. Everything backfires, everything works against you, the way things are organized. But the landlord carries on living the high life, the State gets its taxes and the middle-man carries on trading. Does this seem fair to you? Is it the truth or not?

WHAT WE WANT

We of the CNT and FAI want to see these injustices ended. We want to prevent others from being masters of the land that you work. We want to stop others from living off your exertions by depriving you of twenty, thirty or forty per cent of your harvests. We want an end to a situation whereby there are the rich who do nothing alongside so many of the poor who labour.

Let’s look at something familiar to you. Say there is a cold snap, or a drought and a crop is destroyed. As you well know, this is a frequent occurrence. The peasants hit by it are left penniless and facing a year of wretchedness, hunger or scarcity. Is that reasonable? Is the fault theirs? Is it your fault if the rain stops falling, if there is an unexpected cold snap, killing the buds on the trees, or if a blight wipes out your cereal crops? Yes or no? And, that being the case, why should you and your family have to be denied the means to exist which can be found elsewhere, when these are sometimes wrested from you, leaving you short? We want an end to all this. Should you be unable to market as much produce one year as you did the year before, because of the vagaries of nature, we want you to have the same access to what you need, provided, of course, that it can be drawn in from other parts. We know the circumstances in which you too would be prepared to send your produce to other peasant victims of cold snaps, drought or blight. So, in addition to doing away with those who exploit other people’s labours, those who grow rich on it, we want to establish a society in which all men live in fellowship, where no one goes hungry, where everyone is ready to help anyone in need and gets such help whenever required too. This is what the CNT and the FAI stand for.

HOW IS THIS TO BE BROUGHT ABOUT?

Now let us explain to you how we mean to organize all this. We want to do it without politicians, without bureaucracy, without parliament. The world should belong to the workers. We, you and we, labour in the fields, the factories, the mines. We must look to organizing ourselves, on our own account, in our unions and our communes. Workers’ associations are all that we need. Everything else is a nursery for parasites. Some peasants produce olives and grapes. Others produce rice, or wheat, or oranges. The olive- and grape-growers form one association, the rice-, vegetable-, wheat- and orange-growers another. Along with the other peasants belonging to your federation, you ship your produce to others. They send you theirs. You ship your produce to the cities. The workers in the cities in return send you clothing, footwear, furniture, tools machinery, wireless sets, etc. Is that hard? Certainly not. It merely requires determination to do it and you need only join with us in this work of emancipation and it will be accomplished in very little time.

SMALL-HOLDING

Those who seek to keep you impoverished so that they can live off you argue that we want to strip the rural small-holder of his land. That is a strategem to ensure that you do not join with those who are pointing the way ahead. We want to take the land from him who does not work it. We want to take it from him who has more than he can cultivate. We know that most of the rural small-holders would be a lot better off if society was fairer. WE understand your love of the land which supplies you with the wherewithal for living. For these reasons, we cannot target the small-holder.

But we know that work is a lot more productive when the land is worked in common. If ten small-holders were to abolish the boundaries between their fields, they could use modern machinery that would reduce the exertions required of them. On the other hand, the individual small-holder cannot afford such machinery and has to labour mightily to bring in his harvest. And his isolation leaves him defenceless in a bad year. There is work that, unlike wheat and cereal crops, does not require farm machinery; for instance, there is market gardening. Here too, joint production produces outstanding results. On the outskirts of the great cities of Europe there are three or four harvests per year, thanks to this form of farming. But it requires special piping, heating, green-housing and wintering equipment; it requires the use of special chemicals, too dear for the individual pesant to afford. The only ones who can utilize them are those who operate as collectives, or landowners who exploit eight, ten or more workers. In order to cut back on your exertions, or to ensure that you produce is at least doubled, you must, comrade peasants, work the land in common. Which does not mean that we want to impose this by force. Anybody who says that we do is a liar. We know that, over time, as they see the improvement in results, those who start out as doubters will later be won over. But we would caution you, comrades, against those who want to add to the existing number of small-holdings and who tell you that small-holdings are a necessity. They do this in order to turn you against us, so that division between the rural workers and urban workers protects them from a concerted backlash against those who keep them in wretchedness. We have no desire to forcibly wrest his land from the small-holder, but we say to him: ÒSmall-holding renders farm machinery purchase, or, once bought, payments on it, impossible; it prevents proper improvements to the working of the land. And thereby keeps and will always keep the peasant owner in poverty. Property keeps the peasant at the mercy of the rich man who buys up his land for nothing in times of bad harvests. It makes him the victim of the middle-man who pays him nothing for his produce. Whoever advocates this practices wretched deception against the peasant. You should shun him as a liar, a hypocrite and a traitor.

ALL TOGETHER, COMRADE

All together, comrade, we shall build a workers’ world. But it will belong to real workers, the sort who use hoe or hammer, file or axe, pick or shovel, who man the plough and the tractor. All together, comrades, we shall do away with poverty, so that our children may be strangers to shortages of food, clothing, care and education. All together, comrades, we shall prevent the return of the landlord, the owner of the land that you work, the collector of pointless taxes, the thieving middle-man. Workers and peasants together, in the CNT and in the FAI, let us set out to free ourselves forever and let us seek the triumph of justice, equality and happiness in a world redeemed and organized on our own account and to meet our needs. If this strikes you as right, comrades, join our ranks. We are waiting for you.

Anarchy in the UK

Black Flag

My first attempt to add images to this blogspot. Is this a background in which all flags are black? Or in which the background is a black flag?

The Anarchist Current

The metaphor of anarchism as a current of theory and practice ever changing and flowing like a river, with different sources, tributaries, eddies and currents, has been used by a variety of writers, such as George Woodcock and Peter Marshall. I think it’s an apt metaphor, and that’s one reason I’ve chosen it as the subtitle for Volume Three of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. It’s also a play on words meant to indicate that this Volume will be documenting current or contemporary trends in anarchist thought. Here is a tentative table of contents:

ANARCHISM: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF LIBERTARIAN IDEAS

VOLUME THREE: THE ANARCHIST CURRENT (1974-2007)

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1: THE POLITICS OF FREEDOM

1. Murray Bookchin: Beyond Neo-Marxism (1978)

2. John P. Clark: The Politics of Liberation (1980)

3. Hakim Bey: Temporary Autonomous Zones (1985)

4. Jorge Silva: Libertarian Self-Management (1996)

5. The Gauchist Anarchist Federation: Towards a Libertarian Politics (2000)

6. Alfredo Errandonea: Anarchism in the 21^st Century (2001)

7. Felipe Corrêa: From Party Politics to Libertarian Socialism (2005)

8. David Graeber: The New Anarchists (2002)

CHAPTER 2: LIBERTARIAN DEMOCRACY

9. David Graeber: Consensus Democracy (2004)

10. Carole Pateman: The Problem of Minorities (1979)

11. Eduardo Colombo: On Voting

12. Luce Fabbri: On Democracy (1983)

13. Amedeo Bertolo: Libertarian Democracy (1999)

CHAPTER 3: DIRECT ACTION

14. Murray Bookchin: From Direct Action to Direct Democracy (1979-82)

15. Alfredo Bonanno: From Riot to Insurrection (1985)

16. Andrea Papi: Violence and Anti-Violence (2004)

17. Benjamin Franks: The Direct Action Ethic (2003)

CHAPTER 4: THE STATE

18. Harold Barclay: Anarchy and State Formation (2003)

19. Alan Ritter: Anarchy, Law and Freedom (1980)

20. Eduardo Columbo: The State as Paradigm of Power (1984)

21. Alan Carter: The Logic of State Power (2000)

22. Jeff Ferrell: Against the Law: Anarchist Criminology (1998)

23. Crosso and Odoteo: Barbarians at the Gate (2002)

24. Howard J. Ehrlich: Anarchists and the Anti-War Movement (2002)

25. Bikisha Media Collective: Anti-Imperialism (2000)

26. Uri Gordon: Israel, Palestine and Anarchist Dilemmas (2007)

CHAPTER 5: TECHNOLOGY AND POWER

27. Campaign Against the Model West Germany: The Nuclear State (1979)

28. David Watson: Nuclear Power (1979)

29. C. George Benello: Putting the Reins on Technology (1982)

30. Brian Tokar: Biotechnology (2003)

CHAPTER 6: ANARCHY AND ECOLOGY

31. Murray Bookchin: Toward an Ecological Society (1974)

32. Noam Chomsky: Human Nature and Human Freedom (1975)

33. David Watson: How Deep is Deep Ecology (1987)

34. Graham Purchase: Anarchism and Bioregionalism (1997)

35. Chaia Heller: Ecology and Desire (1999)

36. Peter Marshall: Liberation Ecology (2007)

CHAPTER 7: WOMEN’S LIBERATION

37. Rossella Di Leo: On the Origins of Male Domination (1983)

38. Nicole Laurin-Frenette: The State Family/ The Family State (1982)

39. Kytha Kurin: Anarcha-Feminism: Why the Hyphen? (1980)

40. Ariane Gransac: Women’s Liberation (1984)

41. Carole Pateman: The Sexual Contract (1988)

42. Julieta Paredes: Creative Women (2001)

CHAPTER 8: ANARCHY AND IDENTITY

43. Alan Mandell: Anti-Psychiatry and the Search for Autonomy (1979)

44. Ashanti Alston: Black Anarchism (2003)

45. Pedro Ribeiro: Senzala or Quilombo – Relections on Black Anarchism (2005)

46. Heather Ajani and Ernesto Aguilar: White Race Traitors (2004)

47. Jamie Heckert: Erotic Anarchy (2006)

CHAPTER 9: ANARCHY AND CULTURE

48. Michael Scrivener: Anarchy and Literature (1979)

49. CRASS: Constructing Our Own Reality (1984)

50. Esther Ferrer: Letter to John Cage (1991)

51. Richard Sonn: Culture and Anarchy (1994)

52. Max Blechman: Toward an Anarchist Aesthetic (1994)

53. Edward S. Herman: The Propaganda Model – A Retrospective (2003)

CHAPTER 10: ANTI-CAPITALISM

54. Brian Martin: Capitalism and Violence (2001)

55. Normand Baillargeon: Free Market Libertarianism (2001)

56. Peter Marshall: Anarchism and Capitalism (1993)

57. Interprofessional Workers’ Union: Russian Capitalism (1999)

58. Killing King Abacus: State Capitalism in China (2001)

CHAPTER 11: REINVENTING SYNDICALISM

59. Luis Andrés Edo: Redefining Syndicalism (1984)

60. The CNT-AIT: A Different Approach to Trade Unionism (2000)

61. The CGT: A New Kind of Syndicalism

62. Madrid Declaration: For a New Libertarianism (2001)

63. Luc Bonet: Beyond the Revolutionary Model (2005)

64. Cyrille Gallion: For a Revolution in Anarcho-Syndicalism (2005)

65. Graham Purchase: Green Anarcho-Syndicalism (1995)

CHAPTER 12: THE ECONOMICS OF ANARCHY

66. Luciano Lanza: Utopian Economics (1981)

67. Murray Bookchin: Municipal Control (1986)

68. Kevin Carson: Mutualism Reconsidered

69. Adam Buick and John Crump: The Alternative to Capitalism (1986)

CHAPTER 13: BEYOND THE BORDERS

70. Sharif Gemie: Beyond the Borders (2003)

71. An African Anarchist Manifesto (1981)

72. Sam Mbah and I.E. Igariwey: African Anarchism (1997)

73. John P. Clark: The Tao of Anarchy (1983)

74. Kan San: The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1976)

75. Ba Jin: Against the Opinions of the Powers that Be (1984)

76. Mok Chiu Yu: An Anarchist in Hong Kong (2001)

77. Mihara Yoko: Anarchism in Japan (1993)

78. May 5^th Group: Fundamentalism, Nationalism and Militarism in Turkey (1998)

79. Kurdistan Anarchist Concept (1999)

80. The Cuban Libertarian Syndicalist Association: Anarchism and the Cuban Revolution (1960/2003)

81. Frank Fernández: Cuba and Liberty (2001)

82. Ruben G. Prieto: Anarchism in Uruguay (2001)

83. Marina Sitrin: Horizontalidad in Argentina (2003)

84. Chiapas Revealed: What is Different About the Zapatistas (2001)

85. CIPO-RFM: Enemies of Injustice

86. Colectivo Alas de Xue: Strengthening the Anarcho-Indian Alliance (1997)

87. Bas Umali: Archipelagic Confederation – an Anarchist Alternative for the Philippines (2006)

88. Autonomous Action in Russia (2004)

89. Harsha Walia: No One is Illegal (2006)

CHAPTER 14: NEW DIRECTIONS IN ANARCHIST THEORY

90. Todd May: Post-Structuralism and Anarchism (1989)

91. Saul Newman: The Politics of Post-Anarchism (2003)

92. Jesse Cohn: Anarchism and Essentialism (2003)

93. John Zerzan: An Abolitionist Perspective (2003)

94. John Moore: Anarchist Maximalism (1998)

95. Jesús Sepúlveda: The Garden of Peculiarities (2002)

96. Jason McQuinn: Post-Left Anarchy (2003)

97. Davide Turcato: Anarchy and Rationality (2007)

98. Daniel Colson: Belief and Modernity (2005)

99. Richard Day: Groundless Solidarity and Infinite Responsibility (2005)

AFTERWORD

Robert Graham: The Anarchist Current: Continuity and Change in Anarchist Thought

Index

Between Apocalypse and Utopia

I have so much material for Volume Two of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas that my publisher has now decided to split it into two volumes. Volume Two, originally subtitled Between Apocalypse and Utopia (1939-1977), will now be subtitled The Emergence of the New Anarchism. It begins with anarchist responses to the Second World War and the development of the atomic bomb, when the risk of nuclear apocalypse became very real. Volume Two then goes on to document the remarkable resurgence in anarchist ideas that followed, partly in response to these horrific developments. As with Volume One, Volume Two will contain many selections never before translated into English or from obscure and out of print sources. Here is a tentative Table of Contents [for the final version that has gone to the publisher, see my page on this blog for Volume 2]:

ANARCHISM: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF LIBERTARIAN IDEAS

VOLUME TWO: BETWEEN APOCALYPSE AND UTOPIA (1939-1977)

PREFACE

CHAPTER 1: COMING TO GRIPS WITH WAR

1. Herbert Read: The Philosophy of Anarchism (1940)

2. Emma Goldman: The Individual, Society and the State (1940)

3. The Romande Anarchist Federation: Coming to Grips with War (1939)

4. Marie Louise Berneri: Constructive Policy versus Destructive War (1940-43)

5. Jean Sauliere (alias André Arru), Voline et al: Appeal to all Workers (1943)

6. Italian Anarchist Federation: Act for Yourselves (1945)

7. Bulgarian Anarchist Manifesto (1945)

8. Herbert Read: War and Revolution (1945)

9. French Anarchist Federation: The Issues of the Day (1945)

10. Korean Anarchist Manifesto (1948)

11. International Anarchist Manifesto (1948)

12. Paul Goodman: Drawing the Line (1945)

13. Alex Comfort: Peace and Disobedience (1946)

14. Dwight Macdonald: The Root is Man (1946)

CHAPTER 2: THE WILL TO DREAM

15. Ethel Mannin: The Will to Dream (1944)

16. Marie Louis Berneri: Journey Through Utopia (1949)

17. Martin Buber: Paths in Utopia (1949)

18. Paul & Percival Goodman: Communitas (1947)

19. Giancarlo de Carlo: Rebuilding Community (1948)

CHAPTER 3: ART AND FREEDOM

20. Herbert Read: The Freedom of the Artist (1943)

21. Alex Comfort: Art and Social Responsibility (1946)

22. Holley Cantine: Art: Play and its Perversions (1947)

23. Paul-Émile Borduas: Global Refusal (1948)

24. André Breton: The Black Mirror of Anarchism (1952)

25. Julian Beck: Storming the Barricades (1964)

26. Living Theatre Declaration (1970)

CHAPTER 4: RESISTING THE NATION STATE

27. Alex Comfort: Authority and Delinquency (1950)

28. Geoffrey Ostergaard: The Managerial Revolution (1954)

29. Mohamed Saïl: The Kabyle Mind-Set (1951)

30. Maurice Fayolle: From Tunis to Casablanca (1954)

31. Noir et Rouge: Refusing the State (1957-62)

32. Vinoba Bhave and Jayaprakash Narayan: From Socialism to Sarvodaya (1957)

33. Vernon Richards: Banning the Bomb (1958-59)

34. Nicolas Walter: Direct Action and the New Pacifism (1962)

35. Paul Goodman: “Getting into Power” (1962)

CHAPTER 5: CULTURAL REVOLUTION

36. Herbert Read: Anarchism and Education (1944-47)

37. Paul Goodman: A Public Dream of Universal Disaster (1950)

38. L’Impulso: Resistance or Revolution (1950)

39. David Thoreau Wieck: The Realization of Freedom (1953)

40. David Dellinger: Communalism (1954)

41. A.J. Baker: Anarchism without Ends (1960)

42. Gary Snyder: Buddhist Anarchism (1961)

43. Nicolas Walter: Anarchism and Religion (1991)

44. C. George Benello: Wasteland Culture (1967)

45. Louis Mercier Vega: Yesterday’s Societies and Today’s (1970)

46. Joel Spring: Liberating Education (1975)

CHAPTER 6: RESURGENT ANARCHISM

47. Lain Diez: Towards a Systemization of Anarchist Thought (1964)

48. Murray Bookchin: Ecology and Anarchy (1965)

49. Daniel Guérin: Anarchism Reconsidered (1965-66)

50. The Provos: PROVOcation (1966)

51. The Cohn-Bendit Brothers: It is for Yourself that You Make the Revolution (1968)

52. Jacobo Prince: Fighting for Freedom (1969)

53. Diego Abad de Santillán: Anarchism Without Adjectives (1969)

54. Nicolas Walter: About Anarchism (1969)

55. Daniel Guérin: Libertarian Communism (1969)

56. Noam Chomsky: Notes on Anarchism (1970)

57. Robert Paul Wolff: In Defense of Anarchism (1970)

58. Paul Goodman: Freedom and Autonomy (1972)

CHAPTER 7: FORMS OF FREEDOM

59. Philip Sansom: Syndicalism Restated (1951)

60. Benjamin Péret: The Factory Committee (1952)

61. Colin Ward: Anarchy as a Theory of Organization (1966)

62. Murray Bookchin: The Forms of Freedom (1968)

63. Comunidad del Sur: The Production of Self-Management (1969)

64. Maurice Joyeaux: Self-Management, Syndicalism and Factory Councils (1973)

CHAPTER 8: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

65. George Woodcock: The Tyranny of the Clock (1944)

66. Paul Goodman: Science and Technology (1960)

67. Paul Feyerabend: Against Method (1975)

68. Richard Kostelanetz: Technoanarchism (1968)

69. Ivan Illich: Political Inversion (1976)

70. Murray Bookchin: Ecotechnology and Ecocommunities (1975)

CHAPTER 9: SOCIETY AGAINST STATE

71. Pierre Clastres: Society Against the State (1974)

72. Michael Taylor: Anarchy, the State and Cooperation (1976)

73. Louis Mercier Vega: The Modern State (1970)

74. Nico Berti: The New Masters (1976)

75. Noam Chomsky: Intellectuals and the State (1977)

CHAPTER 10: SEXUAL REVOLUTION

76. Daniel Guérin: Sexual Revolution

77. Paul Goodman: The Politics of Being Queer (1969)

78. Peggy Kornegger: Anarchism: The Feminist Connection (1975)

79. Carol Ehrlich: Anarchism, Feminism and Situationism (1977)

Index

From Anarchy to Anarchism

Volume One of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas is subtitled From Anarchy to Anarchism to emphasize that before any anarchist doctrines arose people had been living in stateless societies for thousands of years. Anarchy, defined broadly as a society without government, existed well before anarchism, which advocates the (re)creation of a society without government, or anarchy. Anarchist doctrines give expression not only to utopian aspirations and visions of the future but to ways of living without the state, now largely lost, which were lived realities for countless peoples until relatively recently. The Preface and Table of Contents are reproduced here from the Black Rose Books website. Selections highlighted in red are linked to on-line versions of the original texts.

Preface to Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, Volume One: From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939)

Anarchy, a society without government, has existed since time immemorial. Anarchism, the doctrine that such a society is desirable, is a much more recent development.

For tens of thousands of years, human beings lived in societies without any formal political institutions or constituted authority. About 6,000 years ago, around the time of the so-called dawn of civilization, the first societies with formal structures of hierarchy, command, control and obedience began to develop. At first, these hierarchical societies were relatively rare and isolated primarily to what is now Asia and the Middle East. Slowly they increased in size and influence, encroaching upon, sometimes conquering and enslaving, the surrounding anarchic tribal societies in which most humans continued to live. Sometimes independently, sometimes in response to pressures from without, other tribal societies also developed hierarchical forms of social and political organization. Still, before the era of European colonization, much of the world remained essentially anarchic, with people in various parts of the world continuing to live without formal institutions of government well into the 19th century. It was only in the 20th century that the globe was definitively divided up between competing nation states which now claim sovereignty over virtually the entire planet.

The rise and triumph of hierarchical society was a far from peaceful one. War and civilization have always marched forward arm in arm, leaving behind a swath of destruction scarcely conceivable to their many victims, most of whom had little or no understanding of the forces arrayed against them and their so-called primitive ways of life. It was a contest as unequal as it was merciless.

Innocent of government, having lived without it for thousands of years, people in anarchic societies had no conception of anarchy as a distinct way of life. Living without rulers was just something they did. Consequently, anarchism, the idea that living without government is a superior way of life, would never have even occurred to them, lacking anything to compare anarchy with until it was too late.

It was only after hierarchical societies arose that people within them began to conceive of anarchy as a positive alternative. Some, such as the early Daoist philosophers in China (Selection 1), looked back to an age without government, when people lived in peace with themselves and the world. Various Christian sects looked forward to the second coming, when the egalitarian brotherly love of Christ and his disciples would triumph over evil (Selection 3). Rationalists, such as Zeno, the founder of Stoicism in ancient Greece, and later Renaissance (Selection 2) and Enlightenment (Selection 4) thinkers, envisaged a new era of enlightenment, when reason would replace coercion as the guiding force in human affairs.

Although none of these early advocates of anarchy described themselves as anarchists, what they all share is opposition to coercive authority and hierarchical relationships based on power, wealth or privilege. In contrast to other radicals, they also reject any authoritarian or privileged role for themselves in the struggle against authority and in the creation of a free society.

We find similar attitudes among some of the revolutionaries in the modern era. During the French Revolution, the enragés (Selection 5) and the radical egalitarians (Selection 6) opposed revolutionary dictatorship and government as a contradiction in terms, and sought to abolish all hierarchical distinctions, including that between the governed and the governors.

But it was not until around the time of the 1848 Revolutions in Europe that anarchism began to emerge as a distinct doctrine (Chapter 4). It was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in France who was the first to describe himself as an anarchist in 1840 (Selection 8). Anarchist ideas soon spread to Germany (Selection 11), Spain (Selection 15) and Italy (Selection 16). Following the failure of the 1848 Revolutions some expatriates, disillusioned by politics, adopted an anarchist position (Selection 14).

As the political reaction in Europe began to ebb in the 1860s, anarchist ideas re-emerged, ultimately leading to the creation of an avowedly anarchist movement from out of the anti-authoritarian sections of the socialist First International (Chapters 5 and 6). The Paris Commune, despite being drowned in blood, gave renewed inspiration to the anarchists and helped persuade many of them to adopt an anarchist communist position (Chapters 7 and 8). The anarchist communists championed the Commune, but insisted that within the revolutionary commune there should be no ruling authority and no private property, but rather free federation and distribution according to need.

Although anarchist communism was perhaps the most influential anarchist doctrine, soon spreading throughout Europe, Latin America and later Asia, the First International had bequeathed to the anarchist movement another doctrine of comparable significance, anarcho-syndicalism (Chapter 12), a combination of anarchism and revolutionary trade unionism based on direct action (Chapter 10) and anti-parliamentarianism.

Of lesser significance were anarchist collectivism (Selections 36 and 55), where distribution of wealth was to be based on labour, and individualist anarchism (Selections 42 and 61), which for the most part was but a footnote to Max Stirner (Selection 11).

At the beginning of the 20th century, a new era of revolutions began, first in Mexico (Chapter 16), then in Russia (Chapter 18), culminating, at least for the anarchists, in Spain (Chapter 23). At the same time, anarchists had to deal with a devastating war in Europe and the rise of totalitarianism (Chapters 17 and 22).

Anarchist ideas spread throughout Latin America (Chapter 19), China (Chapter 20), and Japan and Korea (Chapter 21). I was fortunate to obtain for this volume translations of considerable material from these areas and from Europe that has never before appeared in English. I have also included several translations from now out of print sources that would otherwise be unavailable. Generally, I have organized the selections chronologically, but with a specific theme for each chapter, to try to convey the scope of anarchist ideas, as well as their historical development.

This is the first of a two volume documentary history of anarchist ideas. The final chapter of this volume, with selections from Emma Goldman, Herbert Read and Errico Malatesta, constitutes both an epilogue to volume one, and a prologue to volume two, which will cover the period from 1939 to the present day. I regard all three as important figures in the transition from “classical anarchism,” covering the period from Proudhon to the Spanish Revolution, to modern anarchism as it developed after the Second World War.

A review of the material in this volume alone demonstrates how remarkable was the breadth and depth of anarchist thinking for its time. Anarchists and their precursors, such as Fourier, were among the first to criticize the combined effects of the organization of work, the division of labour and technological innovation under capitalism. Anarchists recognized the importance of education as both a means of social control and as a potential means of liberation. They had important things to say about art and free expression, law and morality. They championed sexual freedom but also criticized the commodification of sex under capitalism. They were critical of all hierarchical relationships, whether between father and children, husband and wife, teacher and student, professionals and workers, or leaders and led, throughout society and even within their own organizations. They emphasized the importance of maintaining consistency between means and ends, and in acting in accordance with their ideals now, in the process of transforming society, not in the distant future. They opposed war and militarism in the face of widespread repression, and did not hesitate to criticize the orthodox Left for its authoritarianism and opportunism. They developed an original conception of an all-encompassing social revolution, rejecting state terrorism and seeking to reduce violence to a minimum.

And they paid dearly for it. Several of the contributors to this volume were executed, murdered or killed fighting for their ideals (Pisacane, Landauer, the Haymarket Martyrs, Ferrer, Guerrero, Kôtoku Shûsui, Ôsugi Sakae, Itô Noe, Arshinov, Isaac Puente), as were countless of their comrades. Others died in prison or prematurely as a result of imprisonment (Bakunin, Most, Wilde, Flores Magón, Makhno, Shin Chaeho). Others were the objects of attempted assassinations (Michel, de Cleyre, Malatesta). Still others died in tragic circumstances (Déjacque, Gross, Berkman). Virtually every one of them was imprisoned at various times for advocating anarchy. Anyone honestly assessing the impact of anarchist ideas, or the lack thereof, cannot fail to take this pervasive repression into account. The “competition of ideas” has never been a fair one.

VOLUME ONE: TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: EARLY TEXTS ON SERVITUDE AND FREEDOM

1. Bao Jingyan: Neither Lord Nor Subject (300 C.E.)

2. Etienne de la Boetie: On Voluntary Servitude (1552)

3. Gerrard Winstanley: The New Law of Righteousness (1649)

CHAPTER 2: ENLIGHTENMENT AND REVOLUTION

4. William Godwin: Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793-97)

5. Jean Varlet: The Explosion (1794)

6. Sylvain Maréchal: Manifesto of the Equals (1796)

CHAPTER 3: INDUSTRIALIZATION AND THE EMERGENCE OF SOCIALISM

7. Charles Fourier: Attractive Labour (1822-37)

8. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon: What is Property (1840)

9. Proudhon: The System of Economic Contradictions (1846)

CHAPTER 4: REVOLUTIONARY IDEAS AND ACTION

10. Michael Bakunin, The Reaction in Germany (1842)

11. Max Stirner: The Ego and Its Own (1844)

12. Proudhon: The General Idea of the Revolution (1851)

13. Anselme Bellegarrigue: Anarchy is Order (1850)

14. Joseph Déjacque: The Revolutionary Question (1854)

15. Francisco Pi y Margall: Reaction and Revolution (1854)

16. Carlo Pisacane: On Revolution (1857)

17. Joseph Déjacque: On Being Human (1857)

CHAPTER 5: THE ORIGINS OF THE ANARCHIST MOVEMENT AND THE INTERNATIONAL

18. Proudhon: On Federalism (1863/65)

19. Statutes of the First International (1864-1866)

20. Bakunin: Socialism and the State (1867)

21. Bakunin: Program of the International Brotherhood (1868)

22. Bakunin: What is the State (1869)

23. Bakunin: The Illusion of Universal Suffrage (1870)

24. Bakunin: On Science and Authority (1871)

CHAPTER 6: THE CONFLICT IN THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL

25. Bakunin: The Organization of the International (1871)

26. The Sonvillier Circular (1871)

27. The St. Imier Congress (1872)

CHAPTER 7: THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR AND THE PARIS COMMUNE

28. Bakunin: Letters to a Frenchman on the Present Crisis (1870)

29. Bakunin: The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State (1871)

30. Louise Michel: In Defence of the Commune (1871)

31. Peter Kropotkin: The Paris Commune (1881)

CHAPTER 8: ANARCHIST COMMUNISM

32. Carlo Cafiero: Anarchy and Communism (1880)

33. Kropotkin: The Conquest of Bread (1892)

34. Kropotkin: Fields, Factories and Workshops (1898)

35. Luigi Galleani: The End of Anarchism (1907)

CHAPTER 9: ANARCHY AND ANARCHISM

36. José Llunas Pujols: What is Anarchy (1882)

37. Charlotte Wilson: Anarchism (1886)

38. Élisée Reclus: Anarchy (1894)

39. Jean Grave: Moribund Society and Anarchy (1893)

40. Gustav Landauer: Anarchism in Germany (1895)

41. Kropotkin: On Anarchism (1896)

42. E. Armand: Mini-Manual of the Anarchist Individualist (1911)

CHAPTER 10: PROPAGANDA BY THE DEED

43. Paul Brousse: Propaganda By the Deed (1877)

44. Carlo Cafiero: Action (1880)

45. Kropotkin: Expropriation (1885)

46. Jean Grave: Means and Ends (1893)

47. Leo Tolstoy: On Non-violent Resistance (1900)

48. Errico Malatesta: Violence as a Social Factor (1895)

49. Gustav Landauer: Destroying the State by Creating Socialism (1910/15)

50. Voltairine de Cleyre: Direct Action (1912)

CHAPTER 11: LAW AND MORALITY

51. William Godwin: Of Law (1797)

52. Kropotkin: Law and Authority (1886)

53. Errico Malatesta: The Duties of the Present Hour (1894)

54. Kropotkin: Mutual Aid (1902) and Anarchist Morality (1890)

CHAPTER 12: ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM

55. The Pittsburgh Proclamation (1883)

56. Fernand Pelloutier: Anarchism and the Workers’ Unions (1895)

57. Antonio Pellicer Paraire: The Organization of Labour (1900)

58. The Workers’ Federation of the Uruguayan Region (FORU): Declarations from the 3^rd Congress (1911)

59. Emma Goldman: On Syndicalism (1913)

60. Pierre Monatte and Errico Malatesta: Syndicalism – For and Against (1907)

CHAPTER 13: ART AND ANARCHY

61. Oscar Wilde: The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

62. Bernard Lazare: Anarchy and Literature (1894)

63. Jean Grave: The Artist as Equal, Not Master (1899)

CHAPTER 14: ANARCHY AND EDUCATION

64. Bakunin: Integral Education (1869)

65. Francisco Ferrer: The Modern School (1908)

66. Sébastien Faure: Libertarian Education (1910)

CHAPTER 15: WOMEN, LOVE AND MARRIAGE

67. Bakunin: Against Patriarchal Authority (1873)

68. Louise Michel: Women’s Rights (1886)

69. Carmen Lareva: Free Love (1896)

70. Emma Goldman: Marriage (1897), Prostitution and Love (1910)

CHAPTER 16: THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION

71. Voltairine de Cleyre: The Mexican Revolution (1911)

72. Praxedis Guerrero: To Die On Your Feet (1910)

73. Ricardo Flores Magón: Land and Liberty (1911-1918)

CHAPTER 17: WAR AND REVOLUTION IN EUROPE

74. Élisée Reclus: Evolution and Revolution (1891)

75. Tolstoy: Compulsory Military Service (1893)

76. Jean Grave: Against Militarism and Colonialism (1893)

77. Élisée Reclus: The Modern State (1905)

78. Otto Gross: Overcoming Cultural Crisis (1913)

79. Gustav Landauer: For Socialism (1911)

80. Malatesta: Anarchists Have Forgotten Their Principles (1914)

81. International Anarchist Manifesto Against War (1915)

82. Emma Goldman: The Road to Universal Slaughter (1915)

CHAPTER 18: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

83. Gregory Maksimov: The Soviets (1917)

84. All-Russian Conference of Anarcho-Syndicalists: Resolution on Trade Unions and Factory Committees (1918)

85. Manifestos of the Makhnovist Movement (1920)

86. Peter Arshinov: The Makhnovshchina and Anarchism (1921)

87. Voline: The Unknown Revolution (1947)

88. Alexander Berkman: The Bolshevik Myth (1925)

89. Emma Goldman: The Transvaluation of Values (1923)

CHAPTER 19: ANARCHISM IN LATIN AMERICA

90. Comrades of the Chaco: Anarchist Manifesto (1892)

91. Manuel González Prada: Our Indians (1904)

92. Rafael Barrett: Striving for Anarchism (1909/10)

93. Teodoro Antilli: Class Struggle and Social Struggle (1924)

94. López Arango and Abad de Santillán: Anarchism in the Labour Movement (1925)

95. The American Continental Workers’ Association (1929)

CHAPTER 20: CHINESE ANARCHISM

96. He Zhen: Women’s Liberation (1907)

97. Chu Minyi: Universal Revolution (1907)

98. Wu Zhihui: Education as Revolution (1908)

99. Shifu: Goals and Methods of the Anarchist-Communist Party (1914)

100. Huang Lingshuang: Writings on Evolution, Freedom and Marxism (1917-29)

101. Li Pei Kan (Ba Jin): On Theory and Practice (1921-1927)

CHAPTER 21: ANARCHISM IN JAPAN AND KOREA

102. Kôtoku Shûsui: Letter from Prison (1910)

103. Ôsugi Sakae: Social Idealism (1920)

104. Itô Noe: The Facts of Anarchy (1921)

105. Shin Chaeho: Declaration of the Korean Revolution (1923)

106. Hatta Shûzô: On Syndicalism (1927)

107. Kubo Yuzuru: On Class Struggle and the Daily Struggle (1928)

108. The Talhwan: What We Advocate (1928)

109. Takamure Itsue: A Vision of Anarchist Love (1930)

110. Japanese Libertarian Federation: What To Do About War (1931)

CHAPTER 22: THE INTERWAR YEARS

111. Gustav Landauer: Revolution of the Spirit (1919)

112. Errico Malatesta: An Anarchist Program (1920)

113. Luigi Fabbri: Fascism: The Preventive Counter-Revolution (1921)

114. The IWA: Declaration of the Principles of Revolutionary Syndicalism (1922)

115. The Platform and its Critics (1926-27)

116. Voline: Anarchist Synthesis

117. Alexander Berkman: The ABC of Communist Anarchism (1927)

118. Marcus Graham: Against the Machine (1934)

119. Wilhelm Reich and the Mass Psychology of Fascism (1935)

120. Bart de Ligt: The Conquest of Violence (1937)

121. Rudolf Rocker: Nationalism and Culture (1937)

CHAPTER 23: THE SPANISH REVOLUTION

122. Félix Martí Ibáñez: The Sexual Revolution (1934)

123. Lucía Sánchez Saornil: The Question of Feminism (1935)

124. The CNT: Resolutions from the Zaragoza Congress (1936)

125. Diego Abad de Santillán: The Libertarian Revolution (1937)

126. Gaston Leval: Libertarian Democracy

127. Albert Jensen: The CNT-FAI, the State and Government (1938)

128. Diego Abad de Santillán: A Return to Principle (1938)

CHAPTER 24: EPILOGUE AND PROLOGUE TO VOLUME 2

129. Emma Goldman: A Life Worth Living (1934)

130. Herbert Read: Poetry and Anarchism (1938)

131. Malatesta: Toward Anarchy

My New Blog

This is the first step in my attempt to create a blog that will provide additional commentary and selections to accompany my anthology of anarchist writings, Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. Volume 1, subtitled From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939), was published by Black Rose Books in 2005. Volume 2, tentatively subtitled The Anarchist Current, (and possibly a third volume) will hopefully be out by the end of this year.