The new issue of Black Flag: Anarchist Review is now available:
The main focus of this issue is Emma Goldman. While much, rightly, has been written about this stalwart of the movement for fifty years, it has all too often been focused on her life or her feminism. While this is understandable – her life was eventful (to say the least) and her feminism is important – this has led to a downplaying of her communist-anarchism. Here we seek to address this by means of a debunking of a deeply dishonest Leninist account of her life. This shows two things.
First, that Leninists have few qualms at distorting anarchism and why it is important to check the references they use in relation to their claims. As we show, the facts are usually at odds with the claims made. A genuinely revolutionary movement cannot be built on lies. Second, that Goldman’s politics were anarchist-communism and so rooted in class analysis and class struggle.
We include many rare writings by Goldman, most of which are reprinted for the first time since their publication. While the collection Red Emma Speaks is good, an anthology of her writings edited by an anarchist is well overdue. This would help place her in the mainstream of communist-anarchism she actually was in, something usually obscured by previous writings on her which concentrate more on her admittedly eventful life or her feminism.
However, we start with André Léo. An early French feminist, Internationalist and Communard, she has unfortunately been somewhat forgotten over the decades. This is undoubtedly because she sided with Bakunin against Marx and Engels, with the latter denouncing her in print. As such, she is harder to appropriate for Marxism even if she does – rightly – gets mentioned in Marxist accounts of women in the Commune (although her actual politics go unmentioned). Yet she was not a revolutionary anarchist and her relations with Bakunin were mixed (he broke with her before the Commune for her attempts to appeal across class divides). Rather, she was a mutualist who, rightly, mocked Proudhon’s sexism and consistently applied the ideas of associationism across all aspects of life, including the family. Along with many newly translated writings, we include her impressive speech at the League of Peace and Freedom on the Paris Commune.
Léo and Goldman share an analysis which, rightly, puts the struggle against patriarchy on an equal footing as class struggle. This is important for all too often the left at best pays lip-service to this idea while, in practice, sexism is tolerated and addressing it postponed to “after the revolution” (i.e., never). For example, an All-Russian Congress of Women Workers and Women Peasants was held in Moscow in November 1918 by the Communist Party (RCPb) and created what became known as “the women’s section” (Zhenotdel). However, its impact was limited:
“But in spite of Lenin’s claims to the contrary, inside the RCPb, the Zhenotdel was not an independent body. All instructions and plans for the Zhenotdel were discussed at joint meetings with the Organisational Department of the Central Committee, which was led by men. In addition, the Zhenotdel’s outreach activities came under the direction of the Central Committee’s Department of Agitation and Propaganda. The same situation existed in the regions, where women’s political work was guided by male party functionaries under the principles of ‘democratic centralism’. The majority of local communist leaders had strong patriarchal views and did not want to empower women by increasing their representation in the RCPb or allowing them to create autonomous structures within it. In this way, women’s aspirations to equal treatment were often blocked (but never eradicated) and they were forced to accept a subordinate role.” (Olga Shnyrova, “Women and Socialist Revolution, 1917–23”, Women Activists between War and Peace: Europe, 1918–1923 [London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017], Ingrid Sharp and Matthew Stibbe (eds.), 133)
In other words, issues like sexual freedom and equality cannot be left until “after the revolution” – if so, then they will never be addressed. Goldman and Léo were right to put this at the centre of their politics and apply it in the here and now, rejecting the (at best) lip-service of men within the movement to an equality which is denied in practice.
Then we move onto John Turner, a stalwart of the early British Anarchist movement for decades. A member of the Socialist League and then the Freedom Group, Turner was a regular contributor to Freedom as well as a leading activist and then official within the Shop Assistants’ Union which he helped found in 1891. As can be seen from the articles we republish in this issue, his writings for Freedom reflected his union activity (which, in turn, reflected the perspective of Freedom’s anarchist-communism) and he regularly toured Britain lecturing on anarchism as well as speaking at numerous meetings alongside the likes of Kropotkin. Later, he was the editor for Freedom’s syndicalist journal The Voice of Labour as well as a leading member of the Industrial Syndicalist Education League. He also toured America in 1896 and 1903, the second time saw him become the first victim of the 1903 Anarchist Exclusion Act which barred anyone with anarchist views entering the country.
Turner’s election to the office of general secretary of the Shop Assistants’ Union in 1912 saw him place union work before his anarchism. In short, his union activities showed both the positive and negative aspects of working within the unions for he turned from an activist to a bureaucrat. However, he declined the union attempt to nominate him for Parliament as he preferred not to waste his time in parliamentary debates. Given his decades of activism in the movement, Turner's contribution should be better remembered, and we hope that this issue ensures that.
Then Constance Bantman discusses the “Trial of the Thirty” held in August 1894. This trial was the first use of the so-called “Wicked” laws passed to criminalise the anarchist movement in France, using a wave of bombings as an excuse. It was a classic example of over-reach, with the State seeking to lump together anarchists activists with criminals but the trial exposing this as the nonsense it was. There is little on this trial available in English (although it is usually mentioned in passing in histories of the movement). We hope that this article fills a gap in our knowledge of the period and be the foundation for further research and writing on it.
Then we have reviews of a new volume of Malatesta’s Collected Works and Proudhon’s War and Peace, followed by our usual “Parish Notes” on news from the movement and a discussion article suggesting anarchists vote which we hope will provoke replies (whether for or against). Before our usual news on the movement (“Parish Notes”), we include a debate piece on why anarchists should vote – we hope that will get a response or two!
Original translations which appear in Black Flag: Anarchist Review eventually appear on-line here:
https://anarchistfaq.org/translations/index.html
This year we aim to cover a range of people and subjects. These should hopefully include Anselmo Lorenzo, Edward Carpenter, Ricardo Flores Magón and the debate with Kropotkin over his support of the Allies in 1914. Plus the usual reviews and news of the movement.
Contributions from libertarian socialists are welcome on these and other subjects! We are a small collective and always need help in writing, translating and gathering material, so please get in touch if you want to see Black Flag Anarchist Review continue.
This issue’s editorial and contents are here: https://anarchism.pageabode.com/black-flag-anarchist-review-summer-2024-issue-now-out/