Moral cowardice and the custom of submissiveness and quaking, such is the legacy of the barracks.
It is on graduation from the regiment that some men prove themselves capable of becoming traitors to the working class by becoming policemen or scabs.
But the army has a quite separate part to play: it is the nation's gendarme.
It is soldiers who are sent in during strikes with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets. It is they who rake the streets with gallops and charges when, having been driven out of work by the avarice of the employer, the workers rightly take the view that their place is on the streets.
And it is not only with its rifles that the army rallies to capital's aid. Soldiers even take the places of workers in strikes. The nation's army, the army made up of the offspring of the people is in the boss's service and ranged against the people. The army lends its murderous capacity to the boss and occasionally replaces the striking worker.
Hypocritically, those in government state that the army is guaranteeing the right to work. This is a lie. It is guaranteeing the exploiter's right over the exploited.
While waiting to serve in a foreign war, the soldier in fact is still and primarily used in the social war. Those in government and those with property never shrink from using force when they fear for their power or for their money. Our history, like that of every other country indeed, is awash with the blood of the evidence of this truth. Let the sons of the people press for a little more freedom and a little additional comfort and the rifle spits their answer. Without going into the greater massacres — like 1830, 1848 or 1871 — when proletarians by the thousands fell to the bullets of the defenders of law and order, not a year goes by but that workers are massacred somewhere or another.
Every time that workers try to strike to secure a few meagre benefits, some minor improvement in their circumstances, the troops are sent in. With every move that he makes the striker runs up against the soldier.
We are proletarians, which is to say that we are the ones who now bear the full burden, all of the sadness of society. The army is the primarily the underpinning of that society. And to cap it all, it draws its recruits from among the most wretched, most afflicted victims of capitalist rule.
On the day when the bulk of the workers, the conscious ones, seek to demand their proper share of society's wealth, of which they are the producers, cannon, rifle and bayonet will be send against them.
The sons and brothers of workers will turn into murderers unless they find the courage to refuse to open fire, to refuse to get involved in massacre.
Such is the culmination of the highfalutin talk of the Nation and the bombast talked underneath the Flag. When we swallow an imbecilic chauvinism we are merely justifying and consolidating an invincible power turned against us by the exploiters and those in government.
When the bourgeois swoon at the sight of military parades behind banners and bands, when they are moved by the splendid array and the martial bearing, this is only fair, since these good fellows will be standing guard at the entrances to banks, factories, workyards and ministries. They are security for the strongboxes, the survival of privileges which have had their day. How come the owners of the strongboxes and the owners of the privileges do not expose themselves to danger?
But we are mown down on the streets at a yea or nay! As far as we are concerned, the battalion marching past represents slavery. Slavery and shame, for as soon as he dons the soldier's livery, the man of the people betrays his own, whatever his intentions. The soldier proletarian is a man ranged in defence of the rich and the powerful, a man equipped and armed against his brothers.
Outside of its object, its raison d'être, militarism is odious to us on another count. What it turns us into, what it costs us.
The army is not merely an academy of crime, it is a school of vice, a school of treachery, of laziness, hypocrisy and cowardice. (....)
Advice to Conscripts
Young men full of vigour and health, about to be snatched away from your work, your hopes, your loved ones;
Young men about to don the livery of honour (as they describe the livery of slavery or crime) for a three year stretch;
Young men, think about what you must do! Make a decision!
If you think you ought not to endure the vexatiousness, insults, stupidities, punishments and all of the turpitudes that await you in the barracks: Desert! Better that than serving as a source of fun for the alcoholic bourgeois and irate madmen who will be looking after you in the military prisons.
If you think that there is no chance of propagating revolt in the barracks, if you think that such propaganda is not worth the risk involved in its making: and if you think that there is no way that you could serve out your three years without carrying out this propaganda that you reckon is pointless and potentially harmful to yourself: Desert!
Your Unions, your Trades, your Bourses du Travail will do everything possible so that you will have moral and financial support. For their sake you will find a fraternal welcome abroad and you will thereby learn that the Mother-Country is everywhere where there are men who struggle, think, suffer, toil, hope and revolt against society's injustices.
But should the affection of those around you, should fear of the unknown, of all the irritations and misery that might await you in a land where you know neither the customs nor the language: should other considerations overpower your horror of the regiment: Go to it! But do what you can to retain your manhood there. Rise above your disgust. Make yourself loved by your wretched fellow-slaves and make propaganda to each one individually. Turn the school of crime into a school of revolt. Day to day facts will abet you in this. On your return, you will be able to expose what you will have seen or undergone. By citing facts you will thereby be contributing your courageous blow of the pick to the demolition of this stall upon which the edifice of society largely rests.
Moreover, you will not the first to have done so. Others have already gone before you. (....)
Exhortations to Serving Soldiers
For three years you have been confined to barracks, removed from the world that produces, the world that gets on with life. You are machines. You must not respond to even the foulest insult from the first imbecile to happen along, should he be wearing one or several stripes. And you must obey even the stupidest orders! All of which is, of necessity, brutalising.
However, do not be disheartened. Go along to the Bourses du Travail, go along to the people's Libraries and Universities. Only there will you encounter genuine affection and the most fraternal of welcomes. There you will be able to forget barracks life, its vices, its deceit, its ridiculousness, its cruelty.
Furthermore, you will also find a brotherly token of sympathy that binds you to the comrades you left behind. That token is the small regular sum paid out to you from your trade union organisation's Sou du Soldat (Soldier's Halfpenny).
We know of course that the sum is not going to help you degrade yourself through drink. But it will relieve your boredom and give you encouragement.
If some day you should be called upon to march against some enemy, your unhappy brethren exploited some other country, you will know how to act conscientiously and do whatever reason dictates you should.
If, some day, you should be called upon to march against comrades struggling against the rapaciousness of the employers, who are pressing for a little more comfort, a little more freedom, you will also know where your duty lies.
Colonel de Saint-Rémy, professional soldier: Colonel de Saint-Rémy, who freely chose the trade of man-killer, of bloody executor of the orders of the Government, found clemency from a court martial which so roughly handles ordinary soldiers, for having refused to obey, on the grounds that his Christian conscience forbade him from mistreating other Christians.
Well then! Comrades your reason ought to forbid you from killing other men, your fellow-men. You will refuse to obey if they try to make murderers of you!
Your conscience as a worker forbids you to fire upon other workers. If they should send you in against strikers: You shall not open fire!
They want to turn you into killing machines? Revolt! And let the trembling be left at last to those who dare to arm you against your brethren, for your enemy is only the one who exploits, oppresses, commands and deceives you!
If they absolutely insist upon your becoming murderers with the weapons entrusted to you, do not be fratricide!
Georges Yvetot,
The New Soldier's Handbook (Paris 1903)
NEW PAMPHLET
No War But The Class War!
Libertarian Anti-Militarism Then and Now
Edited by Anna Key, Translations by Paul Sharkey.
This pamphlet presents 110 years of anti-militarist propaganda, from Spain's last imperialist adventure in 1893, through the First World War right up to the 'War on Terror'. It includes Randolph Bourne's classic analysis of why war is the 'health of the state' and a recent dissection of the myths of Remembrance Day.
Libertarians have opposed the armed forces as the ultimate prop of the state, a pool of scab labour and the place where the authority principle (orders, not logic) runs rampant. Anarchists have always argued that the alternative to dying for our leaders is fighting for a new world. There's a brief glimpse of how this looks in practice, from the Ukraine's Makhnovist insurgents to Spain's revolutionary militias.
Libertarian anti-militarists don't want the kind of peace that is only a breathing space between wars but peace from below. To get all leaders and bosses off our backs, no war but the class war will do!
Kate Sharpley Library, 2003. Series: Anarchist Sources #1 A5 pamphlet, 21 pages, illustrated. ISBN 1-873605-13-7 Price: £2 (postage free)
We have fliers and bookmarks to promote No War But the Class War — please write if you can help to shift any of these. Why not order it from your local library?
OUR NEXT PAMPHLET
is Emile Pouget's syndicalist classic Direct Action copies are already available from the US address: UK copies coming soon. Write for more info.
A CALL FROM OUR JAPANESE COMRADES [1923]
Dear Comrades:
We must inform you about the cruel intrigues of the Japanese Government.
On the first of September many violent earthquakes occurred in Tokio, a conflagration starting in several other places. Since that event the Japanese rulers resolved to make wholesale arrests on the so-called Koreans, "disobedient Koreans," Anarchists, Syndicalists and union men. At first they rapidly spread pernicious propaganda among the refugee throngs: "Beware of the Koreans, for they will throw bombs, set houses on fire, and put poison into the wells and foods." This misleading propaganda was very effective, and soon the bourgeoisie enrolled scoundrels and organized a "self-defence" body in every street. The boy scouts and veterans were also mobilized to arrest the Koreans, and the government permitted them to carry arms openly, chiefly long swords, revolvers and bomb lances. Within three days they massacred more than a thousand Koreans, men and women, virtually without a hearing. They simply arrested people on the streets for suspicion and immediately clubbed them to death on the street corner. However. many Japanese speaking different dialects and expressions shared death in similar fashion.
From the third of September, Tokio and the surrounding provinces had been put under military precaution, and numerous soldiers with bayonets were stationed all over the ruined and partly remaining streets. They continued the massacre of the Koreans, and when they had exterminated them, the several hundred still imprisoned suffered severely while incarcerated in the garden of the Mausoleum and in the esplanade of Marashino near Tokio. This was to endeavor to prove later that the government made efforts to safeguard the Koreans from the civil punishment, after which the government intrigue (so-called "high politics"), played their part.
Then their second cruel scene began, that is to wipe out the revolutionists. The high police department secretly propagated that the Anarchists and Socialists allied themselves with the Koreans to rob and burn houses, and that therefore people should beware of them; detectives conferred with the capitalists to secretly aid them in this government plot. And soon commenced the sudden wholesale arrests and murdering of Anarchists and union men. On September 3, in Ohshina Street, the secretary of the Union "Jhun Rodo Numiai." K. Hirasana (37 years) and nine other syndicalists had been arrested, and in the police station Kamcido was secretly pierced to death with swords by cavalrymen. These dead bodies were burned together with scores of Koreans, this being jointly committed by the police and the military. When dying the comrades shouted. "Long live the workers!"
Until the sixth, several hundred Anarchists, Syndicalists and Socialists had been imprisoned in the name of "Safety" and in the fettering chambers of the police headquarters the gendarms and the police had threatened them with bayonets. The comrades not yet in the grip of the police were spied upon in their homes by gendarms and police.
On September 16th, a famous Anarchist Sakae Osugi (39 years old). who was editor of an Anarchist monthly "Rodo Nudo" (Labor Movement), in the publishing office at No. 15 Katamachi, Hongo, Tokio (his home was out of town), was cruelly hung by the gendarm captain Amakasa and his lieutenant Mari in the gendarm headquarters of Tokio, together with his wife Moe Ito (20 years). His little nephew, Munekazu Techbauna, 7 years, was also cruelly hung in the same way by the gendarm corporals. Of the deed committed against Kamoshida and Hada the entire work [world] may already be aware of, though perhaps it was not reported correctly, but the truth about the child unrelated to them must he told. He was born April 14, 1917, in the restaurant of his parents Sozaburo (father) Tachibana and Ajame (mother) Tachibana in Portland, Ore., U. S. A.. and therefore certainly had the rights of an American. He had just returned with his mother to Japan.
Before Amakasa had been arrested the commander of Military Precaution, and the Gendarmy Commander suddenly had been dismissed from their duties, but the reason for it all had not been published.
Osugi, Moe and Munekazu together on that same day were waiting near a lodging house on Kashauge, Tokio, and all of a sudden had been seized and transported by an automobile to the gendarmy barracks. There they were killed in complete secrecy and the corpses nakedly submerged into the ground in a well, their clothes in shreds were burned to ashes, thus trying to conceal the crime and attempting to hide the traces of the criminal, Captain Amakasu who, according to his own testimony, boastfully says that his act was due to his patriotic sincerity and his personal intention, but this we believe to be A stupid lie. For if he undertook the crime thru his own designs, then he did not have to accompany Osugi to the official gendarmy quarters, nor did the government have to dismiss the commanders.
Another thing, if the action originated from the public idea of patriotism, he would never have been obliged to hide his crime. However, we can soon reach the decision that these four gendarm accomplices were a minor sacrifice to the systematically agitated intrigue of the Japanese government. But this intrigue, unfortunately, became disclosed through the quarrel of the police and the gendarmers. or between the local department and the military department, from the confession of Captain Amakasu at the first court muddle (hearing) Oct. 8. There he confessed that he had been agitated by the captain of Jakobash police station (near the lodging house of Osugi) to kill Osugi while the military precaution ruled Tokio.
The murder of the ten Syndicalists by the cavalry was also forbidden to be made public in the press, and only when the first trial of Amakasu had been opened did the entire press strongly menace the metropolitan police headquarters till at last the government with difficulty and unwillingly permitted the news to be made known and only because of the responsibility does the public prosecution negligibly move in this rather stale crime.
On October 1st, the comrades who were previously chained were released. but numerous spies are constantly on the watch around their houses. This clearly shows that they await the opportune moment to exterminate us, therefore we are now in extreme danger, enduring extreme impatient agony because of the murdered comrades, men and women. Even to mourn martyrs is now strictly forbidden.
Comrades the world over, remember always that the Japanese Government is an enemy detrimental to mankind, and that we, the Japanese Anarchists, will battle untiringly with this bloodthirsty enemy as long as we breathe.
United Anarchists in Tokio.
Tokio, Oct. 10, 1923.
From Behind the Bars no 1. New York: Anarchist Red Cross Society, January 1924.
ROCKER'S INTERNMENT MEMOIRS
"Stacheldraht und Gitter". By Rudolf Rocker. Mk.4.50. Berlin O34: Der Syndikalist, Fritz Kater, Kopernikusstr. 25.
"Hinter Stacheldraht und Gitter" (Behind Barbed-Wire and Grill), by Rudolf Rocker, is a fragment from the awful chapter a so-called "Civilisation" busied itself in writing during the four years in which it wiped out of existence some ten million lives, crippled and wounded fully twice that number, and left everywhere behind it a sickening trail of desolation. On the other hand, it overthrew three brutal and decadent Empires, and gave birth in Russia to an epoch-making Revolution which has yet to grow out of its swaddling-clothes. These gains may be set to its credit; but it seems to me that the story of its worst discredits is only now beginning to be told. Of its glories we still hear incessantly, but of its unspeakable meannesses hardly a word is said.
I have read Henri Barbusse's terrible "Sous Feu" (Under Fire), but it did not shock me as has Rocker's book. Barbusse gives us a powerful picture of physical and mental suffering, but it also inspires one, perhaps despite oneself, with admiration for a race that can so greatly dare and endure. Rocker presents, with equal power, a different picture — one of the meanness of great Governments caught in the grip of abject fear. Let us, however, do them justice, and admit that they all had reason for their fear. Bombs rained on their cities from above, and torpedoes sank their fleets from below; they saw their commerce ruined, and not one of them knew but that starvation might bring them to extinction; they had unloosed forces of whose actual power they had never dreamed; and because of all this each one of them was hideously afraid. They were panic-stricken; and the cruelty of the panic-stricken, dominated by the basic instinct of self-preservation, knows no bounds.
In all the warring countries men saw spies at every turn, and traitors in their lifelong friends; were ready to swallow at a gulp any slander, however preposterous; were, in a word, completely abnormal and utterly beside themselves. Take Rocker's own case as an example. For years, as a speaker and editor of the Jewish Anarchist weekly, the Arbeiter Freund (Workers' Friend), he had been known as one who attacked German Imperialism and militarism remorselessly with tongue and pen. No matter; he himself was of German birth, and might be dangerous; so he was pounced on instantly, and kept under lock and key throughout the War. Thousands and thousands of others found themselves in the same case - petty tradesmen whose only thought had been their shops, and humble mechanics whose one interest was in their jobs; harmless old men, and helpless women who had married some naturalised foreigner, and discovered suddenly, to their profound amazement, that they were regarded as a menace to their native country, outside of which they had never set a foot. All were driven alike into the net; and it was all done in a frenzied hurry, under the management of men crazy with suspicion and intoxicated with the conviction that they were called on to save their Fatherland from ruin. Not for a moment do I believe it was worse here than elsewhere, for the English are a phlegmatic people, slow to anger and not easily alarmed. But they also had caught the universal madness, and they also were swept off their feet.
Throughout his internment Rocker kept a diary, just as Berkman did in Russia. In 418 large and closely-printed pages he has set out in detail his experiences from day to day, and such works are invaluable. Everybody who values truth should study them, because they show things as they are. I myself can understand now how I should have felt had I been hustled into the crowded concentration camp at Olympia, where men were herded like sheep, and the most ordinary decencies were simply impossible. I can follow step by step the life at the Alexandra Palace, with things somewhat improved as time wore on; or aboard the "Royal Edward," usually packed to suffocation; or in the Isle of Man, invariably regarded as a hell on earth; or at Stratford, which seems to have been little better. Above all, I can see and hear the howling Southend mob that jeered and cursed the helpless prisoners as their keepers marched them through the town for embarkation. You can easily comprehend that Rocker felt that far more keenly than all the physical trials. He remarks that he had always thought that Christ's real torture was not the actual crucifixion but the journey to the cross.
Unquestionably he is right. Physical suffering is bad, but one hardens to it. It is humiliation that thrusts a dagger into the heart; it is contempt that drives men mad; it is the sense of suffering injustice and being impotent to remedy it which wears the nervous system to a frazzle. I confess myself amazed that Rocker was able to preserve such sweetness in the constant company of men who, distracted by the loss of everything that made life dear to them, and with nothing in the world to do but brood and brood, developed necessarily whatever in them was most detestable and base. Take one instance out of many recorded. After months of silence a man hears from his wife. She writes that his four sons have all been killed, that his daughter-in-law has gone insane, and that she herself is penniless. And he himself is powerless to help! All he can do is to sit and think and think, yet all to no intent. It seems to me that these are the real cruelties of war; mean cruelties without a single feature to redeem them.
Of course also there was heroism; an extraordinary amount of it. I cannot rid myself of the conviction that it is a comparatively easy thing to pit your physical life against that of your enemy, and especially under the influence of great excitement; but that to rise superior to these spiritual tortures calls for courage of an infinitely loftier type. It appears, however, that character can carry a man through anything; and Rocker's sturdy character was well known. He had had a great influence, and men of that type are always pretty sure to make their mark. It need not, therefore, surprise us to find that here also he rose above his circumstances, organised circles, kept up a propaganda on ideal lines, and became quickly recognised as a leader even by the authorities, who admired him for his outspokenness. This has not astonished me; but I confess myself amazed that he was able to uplift so many others; that his following was so large and full of vitality; that, being entrusted with authority, he was able to get most wonderful results by persuasion and unauthoritative methods. This is the cheering and inspiring portion of the record, for it shows how much of the fine and the heroic is latent, under all conditions, in the ordinary man.
This book should be translated and widely read, because it shows War stripped of its finery and standing naked to the world, the child of Fear. Fear drives dynasties to war. Fear forces nations to fly at each others throats; and I think that at the root of all our social troubles lies the fact that men are still afraid of one another. Perhaps at present they have good cause to be; but that is the very thing that must be altered.
SENEX. [William C. Owen]
From Freedom, September 1925.
Credit
This edition of KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library brought to you in January 2003 by the KSL Collective
Feedback, reviews, rants, donations etc very much welcomed: as are orders from new people or our staunch regulars. Hope you enjoy it.
WWWoes of the Web
Anyone visiting www.katesharpleylibrary.org recently will have noticed it's been out of action. This is not because we've given up and gone home. Our crack team of webmonkeys (sadly, not an infinite number) are at work, mending it, and hopefully it will be up and running by the time you read these words.
REVIEW:
Bending the Bars: Prison Stories by John Barker
www.christiebooks.com
Christiebooks, PO Box 35, Hastings, TN34 2UX
123 pages £9.95 + postage
You remember John Barker? 1972, the AB show trial, where he used the dock to counter-attack the prosecution case. He was convicted, but got a lot of credit for the ten year sentences that otherwise would have been fifteen — or more… These stories go from the first days on remand in Brixton to finally walking out seven years later. He says in the intro that it's impossible to convey the 'tedious parts' of doing that length of time. This is true because, unlike the sentence, it's a book you don't want to see the end of.
The early seventies were obviously an interesting time - inside or out. What anarchists like to call 'the spirit of revolt' (or dodgy authoritarians 'the insurgent virus') was definitely on the loose. Outside, the miners and others on strike; inside, sitdowns and protests for better conditions. In such circumstances the perpetual questions - what can be done and who can be trusted? … carry a lot more weight, especially on the inside of the repression industry.
Barker doesn't give us a Punch and Judy version, clich?s to show that 'the struggle continues' … he obviously knows the value of a sense of humour too well for that. Not that a sense of humour means giving any ground: 'The Home Office, how's that for a laugh. Anywhere else it's the Ministry of Internal Security. Only the English could be so brazen, the name suggesting warm fires, slippers and general cosiness while in fact they're smashing down doors and ripping homes apart.' (At least then, unlike now they didn't have a slogan saying they were 'building a safe, just and tolerant society'!)
As well as the acts of resistance … from a spectacular paint-bombing to work to rule in the workshops … we also see the dynamics of relations between the cons: the balancing act, 'knowing how to live with other people in a small space, a necessary respect between cons that gave us the chance of coming out sane' as well as tension and comeback. There's also the crack, banter shooting off on tangents:
'"Sure, detection was never the name of the game, you can leave that to your man Sherlock Holmes."
"All Sherlock Holmes would get is a pull for cocaine possession…" …
"Dr. Watson grassed him up," I said. "He was always trying to get him to kick the habit"'
It makes a lot of 'gangster nostalgia' look like a lovingly drawn six pound note.
But what sticks most in my mind is the sheer poetry of some of the moments: the trees seen from a prison van: 'trees everywhere, fat ones, thin ones, tall and short, all reassuring with their grounded stillness. Nearly naked too, just starting to bud, the intricacy of their branches and twigs sharply focused.'; the smell of the night as dark comes on. Not like a Wordsworth in Colditz, nose stuck in a bunch of daffodils, but awake to life, as well as fighting. Obviously poetry, like the struggle for freedom, can take root even in places designed to eradicate it.
[Review taken from Freedom.]
Memoirs of a Fighter When he first met Miguel Garcia in Madrid's Carabanchel prison in 1966, Stuart Christie found it staggering that the man before him had already spent seventeen years behind bars. 'He had a clear complexion,' noted Christie, 'and such fiery dynamism that one would have thought he had only just been arrested and would be out by the end of the week ? such was his cheerfulness.' On the face of things, however, Miguel Garcia had little to be cheerful about. In total he was to serve twenty one years, ten months and thirty hours behind bars. Yet despite the appalling length of his incarceration neither Carabanchel nor General Franco broke Miguel Garcia's spirit.
Although invisible to 'mainstream' anarchist history Miguel Garcia's story will already be familiar to readers of Franco's Prisoner (1972) and Miguel Garcia's Story (1982). By his own recognisance, from his resistance to the military insurrection in July 1936 to his death in 1981, Miguel Garcia never 'stopped being Active for a minute.'
After World War Two many anti-fascists assumed, not unreasonably, that with the Axis defeated the Allies would in turn overthrow Franco. It proved, however, a forlorn hope as Western economic and strategic interests prevailed over humanity. Abandoned to the murderous apparatus of the Francoist machine which killed more of its opponents than Mussolini, Miguel Garcia, like many others, was forced to embrace clandestine resistance and worked alongside the Tallion Group until his arrest in 1949.
The interview which forms the core of Looking Back after Twenty Years brims with keen impressions and astute analysis borne of a life time of resistance against Francoist oppression. Beyond his capacity for recalling in riveting detail the actions undertaken by these affinity groups, Miguel Garcia offers a number of important insights into the practical operation of libertarian ideals as well as reviewing the devastating effect of militarisation on both the anarchist militias and the revolution itself.
Released from prison in 1969 Miguel Garcia committed himself to 'wandering from place to place raising the flag of liberty' before settling in London where he became the International Secretary of the rejuvenated Anarchist Black Cross. Miguel Garcia, worked tirelessly to improve the lot of imprisoned activists like himself who had previously suffered in silence because, unlike 'Prisoners of conscience' who have 'suffered from tyranny, but not resisted it' they fought back against Franco and were thus branded 'terrorists.' As the collected letters at the end of the pamphlet reveal, Miguel Garcia never forgot those who dared all in their struggle against Franco and was scathing in his criticisms of those who by omission, commission or simply sheer ignorance sought to whitewash the reality of Franco's systematic, genocidal repression.
Whilst Miguel Garcia was a tremendously industrious activist Looking Back after Twenty Years reveals that he never fought alone. Whilst mourning the loss of his friends and comrades including Jose Luis Facerias and Fransisco Sabater Llopart, Miguel Garcia observes the crucial distinction between remembrance and idolatry noting that 'there is no need to ritualize the homage to the dead for us to remember those comrades who so freely gave their lives, we pay tribute in carrying on the work they can do no more.' Indeed, for all his many years fighting against Franco, Miguel Garcia laconically stated that 'I fought, I fell, I survived. The last is the more unusual.' It is perhaps this alone which distinguishes him from the countless others whose active resistance to Franco and fascism ensured that they never returned from the abyss into which they were cast. In this respect Miguel Garcia's story is their story too.
Miguel Garcia Garcia, Looking Back After Twenty Years of Jail: Questions and Answers on the Spanish Anarchist Resistance, (Kate Sharpley Library: 2002) ISBN 1-873605-03-X. only £1.50 to individuals.
BITS & BOBS
Aint it True
"If ever," says Jean Grave somewhere, "the history of the movement is written, if ever it is revealed how the anarchist publications have lived, how they have amassed sou by sou the sums necessary to their appearance, the world will be astounded at the proofs of solidarity and devotion which will thus be brought to light. It will appreciate what a force conviction is, especially among the most disinherited."
Paris and the Social Revolution by Alyon Francis Sanborn. Boston : Small, Maynard and co., 1905.
Money
Comrades paying with Postal Orders, please don't stick the 'additional value' stamps to the PO (it confuses the bank.)
Comrades from overseas paying with Sterling cheques: These HAVE to be drawn on a UK bank (otherwise the bank takes all the money and we get nothing.)
Can we encourage any flush comrades to set up standing orders? This way, you not only have the warm glow of giving the KSL a donation every month, but you're saved the trouble of remembering to resubscribe. Write for details.
Correspondence (a selection)
'Seeing as "Bash the Fash" has sold so well, when's the follow up coming out?'
Well, we're waiting for someone (anyone) to step forward and post us their manuscript. It doesn't even need to be anti-fascist memoirs. We can't guarantee to publish them, but we'll be happy to see anarchist autobiographies, short or long. You don't need to be Shakespeare: just balance the politics and analysis with a bit of humour and you're away.
Recently, we had a comrade approach us with some letters written to him over a period of years by Albert Meltzer. Would we be interested? We nearly took his arm off! This sort of stuff gives personal views on what's going on that may never get in the official version. If you think we might want something, please ask. Even eg duplicate magazines can be given good homes.
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