Anarchist Movement Research Articles

Élisée Reclus e o círculo de geógrafos anarquistas (1872 – 1890)

O objetivo principal desse trabalho é fazer breve percurso pela vida e obra do geógrafo francês Élisée Reclus, entre os anos de 1872 a 1889, com a intensão de demonstrar seu envolvimento com o movimento anarquista e como o mesmo buscou aproximar essa teoria das liberdades com o pensamento geográfico. A aproximação entre geografia e anarquismo ocorreu devido ao vínculo estabelecido entre Reclus e demais personagens anarquistas de sua época constituindo um círculo de estudos em torno da geografia e do anarquismo comunista.
 Palavras-chave: Élisée Reclus. Geografia anarquista. Círculo.

Los anarquistas de habla hispana en Estados Unidos y sus redes transnacionales. El periódico El Despertar de Brooklyn (1891-1902)

This text is based on the premise that the anarchist movement can only be understood in its full dimension and complexity if it is analysed as a transnational network that spread through many countries in various continents. The transnational character of Anarchism also affects its publications, which saw a flurry of activity, often from one coast of the Atlantic to the other, and the different national Anarchist movements of Europe and America thus connected with each other. This is the case of El Despertar, a Spanish-language Brooklyn periodical whose influence spread well beyond the borders of the U.S. This text is an attempt to bring to light the connections and the close network of contacts, both amongst groups and particular individuals, of the Hispanic anarchists in the U.S., spotlighting the figure of Pedro Esteve who, for three decades during the course of the xix al xx Centuries, carried out an immense work of rallying and propaganda in the Spanish, Italian and Cuban labour movement of the United States, mainly through the periodicals he published or those in whose editorial staff he was a key figure.

Montseny entre ruinas: impresiones arqueológicas de una anarquista

Este artículo se aproxima al desconocido campo de la recepción de la Antigüedad en el pensamiento anarquista mediante el análisis de un texto específico: un artículo de 1926 sobre la ciudad de Ampurias escrito por Federica Montseny en La Revista Blanca, una autora y una publicación emblemáticas del periodo de auge de la ideología libertaria en España. Se comentan y contextualizan varias facetas del texto: el legado literario que incidió sobre su evocación poética de las ruinas, la proyección de la información histórica y arqueológica derivada de las excavaciones coetáneas, su idealización filohelenista vinculada al refuerzo identitario catalanista y el mensaje anticristiano que transmite al confrontar las distintas etapas del enclave. Se sondean así algunos temas, conexiones y particularidades en la compleja relación entre anarquismo y mundo antiguo.

Anarchist against Violence. Gustav Landauer’s Subversion of the Rational Paradigm

At the end of the 19 th century, violent attacks by so-called anarchists gave the anarchist movement an increased amount of publicity. In the meantime, the success of scientific socialism promoted rationality to the rank of a new political doctrine. This article analyses the joint criticism of violence and materialism in the discourse of Gustav Landauer (1870-1919). The German philosopher and revolutionary made an original contribution to anarchism in theorising its incompatibility with violent means of action. He also made a crucial move for the theory of ideas in affirming that reason was not the solution, but often the cause of violence.

El anarquismo español con, por y ante la Segunda República Española (1931-1936)

The history of the anarchist movement has been dominated by a series of commonplaces that have deformed it. However, when we look at the documentary sources, we see an anarchist movement very different from the one commonly presented. The present work starts from an analysis of the historiography of anarchism and then goes into the history of anarchism during the republican period between 1931 and 1936. It establishes the libertarian prominence at the time of the proclamation of the Republic, the dispositions that entailed the confrontation with the reforms of the first biennium and the internal division of the CNT, to end with a new turn towards the workers’ alliance. The article is a complex understanding of a fundamental movement in the history of the first third of the 20th century and of the Second Spanish Republic.

The case of "Sophia" and the question of anarchist expropriation

The article is devoted to the analysis of the events that took place in July 1907 - the anarchists expropriated a large amount of money from the boat «Sofia» in the Black Sea. Considering this event, the author discusses the essence and role of political expropriations during the revolution of the early twentieth century, the peculiarities of the tactics of anarchist groups in Ukraine, the fate of some anarchists and their associations. For the South of Ukraine in 1906-1908 political expropriations were common. The article examinates the robbery of a steamer and a train near Odessa, a bank robbery in Odessa, a robbery of a cash register in Verkhnedneprovsk, carried by anarchists. Such actions were conducted not only by anarchists, but also by Bolsheviks, social revolutionaries and other radicals. The expropriations that were carried out by the Odessa anarchists in July-September 1907 became the last chord of the anarchist practice of «direct actions» that allowed, for some time, to restrain the political horizons of the federation of anarchist-syndicalists and communist anarchists also known as the «Working Group Anarchists in the South» (1907–1910). The theme of the discussion is a question about anarchist expropriation, which some researchers consider only as «criminal gangsterism». The article states that the money that was captured by anarchists, initially, went to purely political actions: the preparation of strikes, the printing of propaganda publications, organizational expenses and the purchase of weapons. After the expropriation on the steamer «Sofia», the anarchists sent part of the money to organize a strike of Odessa sailors and port workers, to organize acts of terror against representatives of the executive and judicial authorities. In the second half of 1907, the anarchist groups showed a tendency for self-provision of revolutionaries – spending money that was captured during the expropriation for personal needs, which led to the disappearance of money, weakening of the activities of anarchist structures, the collapse of anarchist groups. «Money depravity» has become one of the causes of the crisis in the anarchist movement and to the disintegration of individual groups. After a series of high-profile expropriations, the police sent all their forces to search for «malefactors». Many anarchists were arrested, including 14 out of 18 participants in the robbery at Sophia, several people were executed. Chasing of the police led to mass arrests and to the emigration of part of anarchists abroad.

Public Distrust and Environmental Citizenship: Primary Impetuses of Radical Protest in Bima District, 2011-2012

This article aims to show how the social movement was conducted in the framework of claiming a number of aspects of citizenship, especially environmental rights and political participation, to the local government. The refusal of FRAT Bima over the extractive policy of the Government of Bima District during 2011-2012 becomes a reflective context of the type of social movement with such a framework. This social protest should be explored further because it used acts of vandalism on some public facilities as the chosen way to fight against the environmental and political injustices. Through a case study, the author aims to explore the sequence of repertoires which were applied sequentially by FRAT Bima’s social protest as well as to examine its linkage with environmental citizenship and public distrust. Despite being closely related to citizens' awareness about environmental citizenship, the occurrence of this anarchist movement was also triggered by the low level of "formal legitimacy" of the local government as a seed of public distrust towards the intentions of environmental governance policy that was about to be applied to make the agricultural land owned by villagers as the site of a certain project of mineral extraction. The lack of the government’s formal legitimacy, which was supported by the growing awareness of environmental citizenship, has led the sequential application of conventional and non-conventional strategies in the demands articulation of FRAT Bima. This sequence of repertoires was held due to the low-level of government's responsiveness in accommodating the public claims about the cancellation of an undemocratic environmental policy.

Partido Liberal Mexicano

Brothers Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón led the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM), the anarchist movement that fomented the Mexican revolution of 1910 from within the U.S. This article studies Enrique’s relationship with his little-known first wife, Paula Carmona, to uncover his and the movement’s conflicted positions on gender roles; a power struggle for control of the PLM’s news organ, Regeneración; and the movement’s resort to denunciation and revisionist strategies.

Revolutionary anti-authoritarian movements and anarchist studies

The three works under review here problematize standard narratives about anarchist movements and the ways in which people attempt to exist without hierarchical authority. Modern anarchism has persi...

A Transnational Perspective of Emma Goldman’s Evolution as an Anarcha-Feminist

One of the foremost American anarchists of the early twentieth century was Emma Goldman who fought for the rights of working-class men and women. Upon her arrival in the US from the Lithuanian region of the Tsarist Russian Empire, she immediately became actively involved in the American Anarchist Movement. Initially she professed and involved herself in the violent overthrow of the government and its institutions and the selective assassination of exploitative leaders in industry and government. After her imprisonment, she found another avenue for her anarchical beliefs in the form of women’s issues that included freedom of choice in marriage, and control over decision-making relative to her own body – issues that resonate today. This article, then, analyses her concentrated fight for women egalitarianism that has been described as the first vestiges of Anarcha-feminism. It is argued that her evolution towards feminist causes can be explained via three “Geo-moments” that was used to illustrate how her political beliefs progressed from Russian Nihilism, to violent Anarchism, and finally to Anarcha-feminism. The three Geo-moments employed in this study were: first, her experiences as a young Nihilist under Tsarist Russian rule; second, her arrival in the United States and introduction to American Anarchism; and lastly, her medical training as a nurse at the University of Vienna that gave rise to her views of feminism. As an Anarcha-feminist, she addressed and fought for women’s rights to use birth control to decide how many children they wanted and fought against the female discriminatory aspects of the Comstock Law. In connection to her newly acquired medical education, Goldman has been identified as one of the initial supporters of the LGBT community, their issues and acceptance into society. Lastly, was her founding the founding of the periodical <i>Mother Earth</i> that served as a platform for her fight for female equality.

Informar para mobilizar: o caso do jornal anarquista A Plebe

O fortalecimento da indústria e a imigração de operários europeus para o Brasil entre o final do século XIX e início do século XX propiciou um campo fértil para o crescimento do movimento operário e anarquista, que resultou em mais de 300 jornais e revistas operárias publicadas nesse período. Neste artigo, tomamos como objeto de estudo as 13 primeiras edições de A Plebe, um dos mais importantes jornais anarquistas do período, com o objetivo de investigar de que forma o movimento anarquista fazia uso do jornalismo como meio de legitimação e fortalecimento de suas organizações. Empregamos como metodologia de pesquisa os conceitos de discurso midiático, exotérico e esotérico, formulados por Adriano Duarte Rodrigues, que aludem às quatro funções do discurso: pedagógica, simbólica, mobilizadora e reparadora. Após empreendermos a análise, observamos que os jornais anarquistas realizam dupla função: informar seus leitores e formar entre eles novos militantes libertários.

Edward Abramowski's concept of stateless socialism and its impact on progressive social movements in Poland in the twentieth century

ABSTRACTThe author traces the impact of Abramowski's ideas on the recent history of Poland. His concepts were not only popular in the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) and the syndicalist movement in the interwar period (1918–1939), but they also exerted a profound influence on the cooperative movement and democratic left-wing opposition in the 1970s and 1980s. The leaders of the Workers’ Defence Committee (KOR) were much influenced by Abramowski's ideas and, according to some researchers, the Solidarity movement from 1980 to 1981 in Poland was the culmination of his concepts. Today's anti-systemic movements in Poland (anarchists, syndicalists, alter-globalists) are also inspired by Abramowski. The author also draws attention to certain similarities between Abramowski's ideas, Kropotkin's idea, Gramsci's concept of civil society and the thought of the young Marx. The author also outlines Abramowski's social ideas in the context of ideas promoted by the main theoreticians of the Polish left in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

VOZES FEMININAS DO ANARQUISMO NA ARGENTINA DOS SÉCULOS XIX e XX

Este texto propõe-se a uma leitura das ideias defendidas e das formas de atuação implementadas por algumas mulheres que militavam no movimento anarquista na Argentina, contribuindo para uma leitura do anarquismo no que se refere às relações de gênero. Fazendo uma breve análise dos periódicos libertários encontramos diversas vozes femininas, as quais, durante anos, permaneceram silenciadas, sendo, nas últimas décadas, recuperadas por meio de pesquisas consistentes. No brado das militantes, verifica-se a presença constante de um posicionamento invocativo, constatando-se que as/os anarquistas, com maior ou menor intensidade, há anos discutiam e até pretendiam a subversão dos papeis socias-sexuais atribuídos aos homens e às mulheres, de modo a produzir novas subjetividades.

The Cry of the Renegade: Politics and Poetry in Interwar Chile, by Raymond B. Craib

Raymond Craib’s second monograph captures the reader’s attention right from the first line: ‘The body of the firecracker poet wound its way through central Santiago.’ It was 1 October 1920 and the ‘firecracker poet’ was twenty-four-year-old José Domingo Goméz Rojas. He had been arrested on charges of subversion in late July, along with many other university students. He spent two months in police custody and died shortly afterwards in Santiago’s asylum. According to Craib, tens of thousands of people took part in his funeral procession. Craib’s book is not a biography of Goméz Rojas: it is, as the historian Natalia Sobrevilla says of her work on Andrés de Santa Cruz, president of the short-lived Peru–Bolivia Confederation (1836–9), ‘much more the story of the place [and time] he inhabited than a tale of the man as an individual’ (The Caudillo of the Andes: Andrés de Santa Cruz [2011], p. 1). Through the detail of the exploits and persecution of Gómez Rojas and scores of his fellow activist intellectuals, such as Casimiro Barrios and the brothers Juan and Pedro Gandulfo, Craib expertly delves into multiple, interweaving histories of Chile during the inter-war period: student organising; the anarchist movement; state violence; immigration and labour laws; the ‘social question’; Santiago’s prison system; and Chile–Peru relations. Drawing on a vast range of primary source materials—including letters, memoirs, newspapers, literary journals, novels, poems, prison records, memoirs, police reports, law decrees and parliamentary debates—he probes the internal diversity of Chilean anarchism, its limitations (vis-à-vis ethnicity and race, for example) and its place within the broader left-wing movement. Craib elucidates the significance of new legislation such as the Workers Housing Law and the Residency Law of 1918; his study also spotlights the anti-alcohol campaigns, living conditions in the tenement houses, high mortality rates (deaths exceeded births in 1920) and the Spanish influenza epidemic. Particularly illuminating is the discussion of collaboration, friendship and marriage between Chileans and Peruvians, alongside the better-known history of Chileans’ racism towards Peruvians, which is poignantly illustrated here by cartoons published in the magazine Sucesos (1902–32).

Education, Environment and Sexuality in the Anarchist Movement in Spain

This article analyses the importance that the anarchist movement conceded to the environment as a means for social change through education. By drawing on examples from France, Portugal and Spain, it argues that anarchists created a link between non-hierarchical pedagogies, social change and sexual morality in print and in practice. The result was a dynamic process of acculturation through the word and the deed that formed the bedrock of the libertarian method of societal transformation.

O Novo Espírito do Anticapitalismo

É conhecida a interpretação de Luc Boltanski e Ève Chiapello de que os acontecimentos de 1968 teriam desencadeado uma renovação do “espírito do capitalismo”. Assim, se o primeiro espírito, descrito por Max Weber, era do puritano ascético inspirado na ética do trabalho, a “busca por autenticidade” dos jovens de 68 teria desencadeado o novo espírito conexionista e flexível. Porém, ao mesmo tempo em que se criava o primeiro espírito do capitalismo, igualmente um espírito do anticapitalismo se gestava nos sindicatos, intelectuais socialistas e movimentos comunistas e anarquistas. Esse espírito foi igualmente renovado pelos jovens de 68 a partir da crítica à “sociedade industrial”, comum ao projeto unidimensional tanto no mundo capitalista quanto na experiência do “socialismo real” vigente. Assim, se é verdade que 68 desaguou numa renovação do espírito do capitalismo, podemos dizer que igualmente renova o espírito do anticapitalismo, cujos experimentos vivem na radicalidade das críticas feminista, antirracista, decolonial e ecológica do capitalismo hoje em dia.

Contemporary anarchist and anarchistic movements

AbstractAlthough the period of highest activity for anarchist movements peaked in the early 1990s, such movement continues in the present. Contemporary antiauthoritarian movements are a product of the 1950s and New Left, as well as the USSR's demise. Antiauthoritarian movements are either explicitly anarchist or implicitly anarchist (thus, simply “antiauthoritarian,” “autonomist,” or “libertarian‐socialist”). Anarchist identity is diverse, although anchored around an opposition to dominant culture, institutions, and hierarchical norms. The values and goals pursued revolve around a principled adoption of horizontalism, direct action, antiauthoritarianism, decentralization, anticapitalism, and mutual aid. These anarchist movements are unique movements, yet they also run parallel to certain movements—in both the adoption of anarchist strategies and membership overlap—such as antifascist, global justice, and squatter movements. Confrontational and playful street tactics combine with strategies of reclamation of radically egalitarian space, in opposition to hierarchical society. Despite their association with violence, contemporary anarchist movements are fairly nonviolent; however, many anarchists do not disavow the selective use of violence. Thus, massive efforts of social control through police and mass media attempt to moderate, disrupt, and suppress anarchist movements.

Imagen impresa y acción social. La decoración del libro al interior del proyecto cultural de Atalaya (1922-1927)

Atalaya (Alfredo Chiabra Acosta) representó uno de los actores fundamentales para la crítica de arte argentina en el marco de las corrientes renovadoras de vanguardia de la década del 20. Sin embargo, enrolado en las filas del anarquismo desde su juventud, efectuó desde su labor crítica una defensa de aquellas expresiones artísticas consideradas “menores”, en especial el grabado, aspecto que había resultado central para la estética libertaria en su misión de romper con la barrera entre arte y pueblo. En el momento que el movimiento anarquista reencauzaba sus periódicos y su labor doctrinaria y el arte parecía ya no estar a la orden del día desde un punto de vista práctico, Atalaya se propuso promover una revalorización del carácter revolucionario del arte en el seno del Suplemento Semanal de La Protesta (1922-1926). La decoración del libro y su ilustración por medio de grabados cobraron una dimensión significativa en su reflexión crítica. Estos valores puestos en el mundo del libro tuvieron su concreción efectiva cuando en 1926 fundó la Editorial de la Campana de Palo. Este trabajo se propone entonces abordar, en primer lugar, la reflexión teórico-crítica de Atalaya en torno a la decoración del libro y, en segundo lugar, analizar la empresa encausada por la Editorial de la Campana en el marco de la cultura de izquierdas de 1920.

Anarchism and Culture in Colonial Korea: Minjung Revolution, Mutual Aid, and the Appeal of Nature

The anarchist movement in colonial Korea (1910–1945) has long been remembered either as a radical and violent chapter of national resistance or as a minor, utopian strand of the broader socialist movement. Both views have some grounding in historical reality, but they also invite neglect of the tremendous cultural influence that anarchist doctrines exerted over a rapidly modernizing colonial nation. Building on recent revisionary studies of anarchism in East Asia, this article traces the ways in which anarchist ideas—particularly Piotr Kropotkin's theory of anarcho-communism—entered Korean culture via the transnational routes of Japan, China, and Russia and through a painstaking process of adaptation by local writers, poets, and other cultural operators. From Hŏ Munil's utopian peasant novel, Hwang Sŏgu's ecopoetry, and Sin Ch'aeho's revolutionary fantasy fiction, to Yu Ch'ijin's theory of people's theater, anarchism had a far more profound and diverse influence on modern Korean culture than has been previously recognized. A defining process in the politics of the 1920s was the ascendance of the term minjung, referring to the ethnonational Korean people. This article identifies popular revolt, mutual aid, and ethical naturalism as the three major themes of colonial anarchism that left an enduring legacy.

Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880–1914

Book Review| January 01 2018 Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880–1914 Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880–1914. Tom Goyens. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014; 296 pages. $28.00 (paper); ISBN 978-0252080463. Frank Jacob Frank Jacob Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal for the Study of Radicalism (2018) 12 (1): 164–167. https://doi.org/10.14321/jstudradi.12.1.0164 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Frank Jacob; Beer and Revolution: The German Anarchist Movement in New York City, 1880–1914. Journal for the Study of Radicalism 1 January 2018; 12 (1): 164–167. doi: https://doi.org/10.14321/jstudradi.12.1.0164 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectiveMichigan State University PressJournal for the Study of Radicalism Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © 2018 Michigan State University Board of Trustees2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.