anarchists
Articles about the lives of the men and women who helped to build the international anarchist movement.
Caron, Roger, 1914-1999
A short biography of anarchist communist, Platformist, and one of those who rebuilt the post-war French anarchist movement, Roger Caron.
Born on 23rd October 1914 in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, Roger Caron began work at the age of 12 as an apprentice and then as an electrical mechanic. He joined the Union Anarchiste (UA) a revolutionary anarchist organisation, in the 1930s. He became treasurer of the Jeunesses Anarchistes (Anarchist Youth).
Dumartheray, Francois, 1842-1931
A short biography of possibly the founder of anarchist communism, Francois Dumartheray of France.
Francois Dumartheray was born at Collonges, Haute-Savoie in the Savoy on 27th January 1842.
A member of a utopian Icarian group in Lyons, he was one of those who fled to Geneva after the events of 1871.
He became a member of the L’Avenir group, along with Antoine Perrare, composed mostly of workers who had their roots in the Cabetian strand of communism in Lyons.
Cieri, Antonio, 1898-1937
A short biography of Italian anarchist rail worker, anti-fascist militant and Spanish Civil War fighter Antonio Cieri.
Born in Vasto near Chieti in the Abruzzi in 1898, Antonio Cieri served as an officer in the Italian Army during World War I and was decorated.
After the war he became active in the anarchist movement in Ancona. He got a job as a technical designer for the Italian railways.
Traven, B. – An Anti-Biography
A short biography of the writer and anarchist, B Traven, also known as Feige, Ret Marut, Torsvan, Croves...
+++
B. TRAVEN – AN ANTI-BIOGRAPHY
"An author should have no other biography than his books."
“The biography of a creative man is completely unimportant.”
– B. Traven
– B. Traven
Bresci, Gaetano, 1869-1901
A short account of the life of Gaetano Bresci, who in 1900 assassinated King Umberto I of Italy in response to a massacre of workers in Milan.
Schmitz, Hans, 1914-2007
A short biography of German anarcho-syndicalist, militant anti-fascist and conscript to the Wehrmacht, Hans Schmitz.
Hans Schmitz was born in Wuppertal, Germany in 1914.
His father,* a leading activist in the anarcho-syndicalist union the FAUD, was a devout Catholic and a convinced pacifist from both a religious and ideological standpoint (!). Despite this, as Hans Schmitz reports, he carried a weapon as a member of the “Red Ruhr Army” during the right-wing Kapp putsch.
Muehsam, Erich, 1878-1934
A short biography of Erich Muehsam, German poet, playwright, bohemian and anarchist revolutionary.
Erich Muehsam was born in Berlin in 1878 into a fairly well-to-do Jewish family. Soon after his family moved to Luebeck in north Germany where his father worked as a pharmacist (in fact the pharmacy is still there).
Leggio, Franco, 1921-2006
A short biography of Italian miner, Franco resister, publisher and anarchist Franco Leggio.
Franco Leggio was born in Ragusa, Sicily,on 2nd March, 1921.
He first came across anarchism mentioned in a disparaging way for its role in Spain in 1937 during the Civil War, but this only ignited his interest. Working as a sulphur miner he had developed a rebellious outlook.
Duke, James Herriott, 1939-1992
A short biography of Australian anarchist poet, James Herriott Duke, who also lived in the UK.
Remembering Jim Duke
"I started performing poems as a timid person with a stutter but the spirit of the times soon converted me into a bellowing bull." Jim Duke
“The voice played like a human saxophone.” Nicholas Zurbrugg
Kafka, Franz, 1883-1924
A short biography of the anarchist-influenced writer whose name spawned an adjective for the absurdities of bureaucratic power.
“Our laws are not generally known; they are kept secret by the small group of nobles who rule us … for the laws were made to the advantage of the nobles from the very beginning, they themselves stand above the laws” (Kafka, The Problem of Our Laws)
