These days these words "freedom and equality" are part of the vocabulary of each and every one of us. But make a few inquiries and ask: What is freedom? and you will be told "Freedom means freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, freedom of association and assembly, the freedom of secrecy of correspondence".
Ask: What is equality? and you will be told: "All citizens are equal before the law, with no difference between the high-born and the yokel." Now, such narrow definitions have nothing to do with true freedom, true equality. Don't believe me? Then have a read of the following.
The blight upon the people's freedom is the State. Ever since the State came into existence, we have stopped being free. No matter what we do or say, the State sticks its nose in. All we ask is to live in love with our brethren from other nations, but the State would have us patriots at any price, enrols us in its armies and forces us to murder our neighbours. And here in China the situation is even worse: here we have Chinese murdering other Chinese. For a number of years now, in Hunan and Shaanxi and Szechuan, "the tide of blood has been running high and the corpses are piling up".
What horror! So much for the benefits that the State has brought us. Arrogating to themselves the resources that are the common wealth of our planet, the capitalists grind us into a poverty that denies us the right to live. Not that the State punishes them for it: worse still, it protects them through a battery of laws.
The people has nothing to eat and has no option but to steal its food: it goes naked and has no option but to steal clothes: it has no option but to steal all that it needs. The people is driven to all this by the capitalists. And there goes the State, in its grandeur, dismissing us as brigands and decreeing that we are fit for nothing but the execution picket. We are gunned down merely for recouping — in contravention of the law, to be sure — a fraction of what we had lost, whereas the capitalists who loot the commonwealth of our planet are allowed to live in peace. If we are refused the right to steal, there is nothing left for us but to become beggars. Lo and behold, the capitalists, offended by the spectacle, bestow alms upon the poor and afford them a little of the money that they have stolen from them: and upon this they bestow the fine-sounding name of charity. Some of them even have the effrontery to insult us because we beg for our pittance instead of working for it.
Gentlemen! Can you be so sure that we do not want to work? It is more a case of our being denied work. Yet we are showered with insults. Looking at it from this angle, we can see that the "freedom and equality" of which we have just been speaking are alien to the people! Indeed, can one speak here of "freedom" and "equality"? I refuse to credit that there can be any freedom of that sort! Any equality of that stripe! But what then are real freedom and real equality?
Here comes my answer: Anarchy. That is the real freedom. And communism is the real equality. Only a social revolution can allow us to build a really free and really egalitarian society.
But what is Anarchy?
Anarchy is the placing of the State and its accessory institutions upon the Index and collective ownership of the means of production and goods produced. Every individual contributing in accordance with his ability and receiving in accordance with his needs. And work shared out according to the ability of the individual: whoever has the ability to be a doctor does the doctoring, and whoever has the ability to mine does the mining. More time devoted to straightforward tasks and less time squandered on complicated or tiresome ones. An agency to find you food when you are hungry, clothing to wear and a roof under which to shelter. Everybody in receipt of the same education, with no distinction drawn between the clever and the slow-witted.
Time and again, one French anarchist has reiterated: "Every individual need work only two hours a day if all the needs of society are to be met". And Kropotkin too has stated: "If everyone works four hours a day, that will be enough — indeed, more than enough — to meet society's needs."
I imagine that such a proposition, cutting working hours to the bone, could not help but attract universal support. Without the State and its laws, we would have real freedom: without the capitalist class, we would have real equality.
Friends of the world of labour, can you see just how free a society rid of all authoritarian power would be? Can you see how egalitarian it would be? Are you willing to build such a society of freedom and equality? Well then, make the social revolution and have done with these rascally politics.
For the sake of the advent of a society of freedom and equality, let us hope that you and your friends will soon come together as one! As long as you endure it all with resignation, you will be fodder for the capitalists!
If you do not believe me, you will see for yourselves!
Ba Jin
Appeared in Banyue (Fortnight), Chengdu, China, No 17, 1 April 1921, over Ba Jin's real name Li Feigan
The Fight For Free Speech in Tarrytown
In one of his best stories, Washington Irving, the famous American author, records the fact that a sequestered spot in the neighborhood of Tarrytown-on the Hudson has long been known as Sleepy Hollow. "A drowsy, dreamy influence," he says, "seems to hang over the land and to pervade the very atmosphere." These words were written nearly a hundred years ago, but have lost none of their freshness. Tarrytown is still sunk in deep slumber, and if it shows faint signs of awakening, the signs are very recent and can be traced to outside pressure.
Early in May, Arthur Caron, one of the men who was "beaten up" by the New York police in connection with the recent unemployed demonstrations in Union Square, and one of the active spirits in the "Free Silence Movement" inaugurated by Upton Sinclair in front of Rockefeller's office at 26 Broadway, went with a group of friends to Tarrytown to carry the anti-Rockefeller protest to the very gates of the Rockefeller home in Pocantico Hills. Out of his visit grew a plan to hold a public meeting in Tarrytown at which Rockefeller and the situation in Colorado were to be discussed. Mr. Caron appealed to the Free Speech league for co-operation, and the League addressed to Mr. Pierson, the village head, a request for a permit for an out-door meeting. No reply was received. Mr. Caron and the head of the Free Speech League then had a personal interview with the Chief of Police in Tarrytown, and repeated the request. The chief promised a reply, but failed to keep his promise.
It was not until after these peaceful overtures had been rejected that "direct action" was resorted to. On Saturday evening, May 30th, twelve of our comrades went to Tarrytown, namely: Rebecca Edelson, Arthur Caron, Charles E. Plunkett, Jack Isaacson, Frank Mandese, Louis Pastorella, Maurice Rudome, Charles Bergh, Adolph Aufriecht, Joseph Secunda, Vincenzo Fabriciano and Jack Butler. The group went over to Fountain Square, the recognized our-door meeting place at Tarrytown, where Socialists and Salvation Army speakers have been heard, and tried to start a meeting. The first speaker was arrested, and as one followed another in attempts to speak, each was arrested. Rockefeller and the Colorado outrages were the subjects on which the speakers tried to talk. One speaker is quoted as calling Rockefeller a "multi-murder" and as saying that "the only thing the Standard Oil Company ever gave away was oil to burn the miners' tents at Ludlow." The entire group were arrested and locked up in the Tarrytown calaboose, charged with disorderly conduct, blocking traffic and endangering the public health. The list of those arrested, as given above, is an interesting one and significant of the character of the movement. Intellectual and proletarian, Jew and Gentile, are represented. The nationalities of the men include American, (with even a touch of aboriginal Indian!), Russian, Italian, French and Swedish. The position of pluck Rebecca Edelson, one woman imprisoned with eleven men, recalls the plight of Suga Kanno in Japan.
On the following day, Sunday 31st, Alexander Berkman, accompanied by Helen Harris, Dave Sullivan, Harry Wilkes, Joe De Rosa and others came out from New York and tried to speak. He set a chair in the street. "Fellow citizens," he said, "I know you all admire a man who is fighting for his rights. We are fighting for free speech, which the Constitution gives us. I care not what the police say. John D. Rockefeller may own this town, but he can't stop free speech." At this point Berkman was grabbed by the police and prevented from continuing his speech. All day long he and his companions kept on trying to speak. De Rosa, Sullivan and Wilkes were arrested, and the first-named was badly bruised by police violence.
On the same evening, a band of about twenty more, mostly Italian and Spanish comrades, reinforced Berkman and his group. They went to Fountain Square and tried to speak, but were pummeled and pushed about by the police, and finally taken to the railway station and placed aboard a train for New York.
On Monday, June 1st, De Rosa and Sullivan were brought before the magistrate in Tarrytown and sentenced to three months' and thirty days' imprisonment respectively. Following these outrageous sentences, the head of the Free Speech League, who had been in Court, sought a conference with Mr. Pierson, the village President. He asked again for a permit for an out-door meeting in Tarrytown. The request was refused.
On the same day, Rev. J.E. Cates, of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Tarrytown, challenged Berkman to debate the issue of free speech and the situation in Colorado in the church-yard of St. Paul's. Berkman promptly accepted the challenge, but Cates later withdrew it, on the ground that his fellow-clergymen in the town and the trustees of his church objected. Berkman then asked Cates to debate the issues in New York.
On Wednesday, June 3rd, Marie Yuster and a committee of women distributed 500 hand-bills throughout Tarrytown. These circulars carried such headings as "Free Speech in Tarrytown Suppressed by Policemen's Clubs," "A Demand for Free Speech," "To the Workers of Tarrytown;" and they were signed by the Free Speech League, the Anti-Militarist League and the Francisco Ferrer Association.
On the following Saturday, June 6th, eleven of the prisoners arrested a week before were brought before the Magistrate in Tarrytown. Upton Sinclair came into the fight at this juncture and was present in court. The prisoners were represented by Justus Sheffield, the New York lawyer who recently defended Tannenbaum, O'Carroll, Caron and Adolf Wolff and others who were arrested for activities in behalf of the unemployed. Mr. Sheffield succeeded in winning a week's delay for the prisoners, and on Monday, June 8th, they were released on bail.
Such, in brief, is the history of the free speech fight in Tarrytown as MOTHER EARTH goes to press. The whole affair has aroused nation-wide and even international interest, not only because of the free speech principle involved, but also because everyone realizes that the "speech" suppressed was in the nature of an attack upon Rockefeller in Rockefeller's home town. It was an attack, that is to say, upon the richest man in the world, calling him to account for crimes that he has committed against humanity, and in especial, for crimes committed against the coal miners in Colorado.
It is an inspiration to know that men and women are still willing to fight, to go to prison, and if necessary, die for freedom. Those of us who were present in the little court-room at Tarrytown on June 6th knew that we were participating in an historic occasion. It was Tarrytown, its officials and magistrate and police, who were on trial that day, not Miss Edelson and her companions before the bar. Intelligence and idealism were on the side of the prisoners.
By the time this issue of MOTHER EARTH is in the hands of the reader, our comrades may have been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Their imprisonment can only cover them with glory. All honor to them and to all who take their attitude! To such we owe whatever liberties we possess. The fight in which they have enlisted is never-ending, and is always victorious.
"Who is it speaks of defeat,
I tell you a cause like ours
Is greater than defeat can know,
it is the power of powers."
by Leonard D. Abbott MOTHER EARTH, June 1914
Anarchism, Séan M. Sheehan. Reaktion Books, London, 2003. ISBN 1-86189-169-5. £12.95.
I admit I had my doubts when I first saw this: he's written about Wittgenstein and he chucks phrases like 'Kantian dualism' (p61) around. Still, introductions to anarchism are thin on the ground, so a new one's worth looking at. Thankfully, it's not an exercise in academic posturing or the flipside, politics played for a laugh.
Sheehan starts, understandably enough (isn't this why the book's coming out?) with Seattle putting anarchism back into the news and cuts straight to the anarchist critique of the state, and the varied tendencies this has given rise to. The heavy philosophy starts in chapter 3, devoted to Marx and Nietzsche. He uses them as emblems of the twin anarchist demands — equality and liberty. Looking at what they wrote, Sheehan is able to make a coherent explanation of their ideas, rather than leaving them significant but unread, interpreted by 'experts'. Apparently Marxism (meaning its anti-capitalist part, rather than Leninism) has an appointment with anarchism — though I'd rather concentrate on the idea of class struggle which Marx expressed (not created) and leave the whole prophet thing alone.
The practice of anarchism is covered, not exhaustively but quite widely: Winstanley, Berkman and Goldman, Kronstadt, Makhno, the Spanish revolution, Angry Brigade, Class War and the Zapatistas. All this could have been done by rote, repeating the same errors and the same conclusions of a dreary procession of mumbling historians. But — Bakunin's beard be praised! — it's not. He's put the effort into finding out about the history of anarchism, and he also has the intelligence to asses it. He's rightly suspicious, for example, of Hobsbawm's dismissal of the Spanish anarchists as 'passionate romantics, daredevil bandits' (p97). The history of anarchism is the history of the fight for liberation: Sheehan makes it as interesting as it should be. He also covers some of the cultural output of anarchism, like the influence of (the non-anarchist) Reich and the fiction of Ursula LeGuin. This is a useful examination of the spirit of revolt alongside the earlier more concrete stuff.
Concluding, he comes full circle back to the anti-capitalist movement, where tension is the keyword, between Marx and Nietzsche as well as between where we are and where we want to be (p158). Tension is a good word, one he's not alone is using, a recognition that you can't ever sit back and go, OK, well that's over, we're all free and enlightened now.
I'm personally not sure that 'traditional' anarchism has been 'left behind' for something else, or that every revolution was about 'capturing political power' (p155). I don't think I'd use film examples so much (is Land and Liberty more real to people than the facts about the Spanish revolution?) but by and large they work. Nor do I think affinity groups suddenly appeared in Spain in the 30s, but as you can see, the quibbles are getting smaller and smaller. I'd recommend that everyone read this book, and get other people to read it, because it's interesting as well as inspirational. As an introduction to the history and ideas of anarchism, it'll give you a head start. Looking out at the here and now, it reminds us we have a world to win.
New Title: The Anarchist Response to War & Labor Violence in 1914
The Anarchist Response to War & Labor Violence in 1914: Rebecca Edelsohn, Alex. Berkman, Antimilitarism, Free Speech & Hunger Strikes
ISBN 1-873605-57-9, Price £3 (£2 post free individuals)
Rebecca (Becky) Edelsohn was a dynamic New York Anarchist active in unemployment protests, anti- militarism, and solidarity actions with both the Mexican Revolution and the Colorado miners strike at the time of Rockefeller's notorious Ludlow Massacre.
This work examines both the NY Anarchist movement of the time (including the Lexington Avenue explosion which killed four militants) and her personal struggle — on the streets, in the courts, and finally in jail.
It's concluded with writings by and about Becky Edelsohn from "The Woman Rebel" and "MOTHER EARTH"
This issue of the KSL Bulletin brough to you in July 2003 by the Kate Sharpley Library collective.
KSL, BM Hurricane, London, WC1N 3XX
KSL, PMB 820, 2425 Channing Way, Berkeley CA 94704, USA
Pamphlet
Anyone interested in a pamphlet on the History of Mayday (rather like No War but the Class War)? — articles required, send in your suggestions.
Encyclopedia of Political Anarchy, Kathlyn & Martin K Gay. ABC-Clio, 1999. ISBN 0-87436-982-7 £20.95.
An encyclopedia is a store of condensed knowledge. It should be interesting and informative, even if what you're reading is not what you opened it for. An encyclopedia of anarchism could be a great help to research.
This book is written by (and for) outsiders to anarchism, not in itself a bad thing. While they have some idea of what's going on — they can see through 'anarcho-capitalism' for instance — they haven't really got to grips with the subject. They quote Chomsky: 'No-one owns the term "anarchism." It is used for a wide range of different currents of thought and action, varying widely. There are many self-styled anarchists who insist, often with great passion, that theirs is the only right way and that others do not merit the term… The ratio of such material to constructive work is depressingly high.' (p8) which comes close to giving up on it meaning anything. Also, there's no appreciation that disagreement can be constructive, or the basis of constructive work. The authors are not entirely sure what anarchism is, or isn't, and so they follow an open door policy. This presumably explains why non-anarchists like Daniel De Leon, Blanqui and Gandhi get entries, and not even critical ones at that. There should be room in an anarchist encyclopedia to discuss other groups and ideas, but the first step should surely be to understand how they relate to anarchism?
There are factual errors, some of which are down to insufficient research. For example, they know that Camillo Berneri was killed by communists in the Barcelona 'Maydays' (1937), but they have him 'gunned down in the street' (p25) — not taken away and murdered by the secret police. Discussing the 'Maydays' elsewhere they tell us 'Workers took up arms … government and communist troops on one side and anarchists on the other, both shooting at [the] POUM'! They also repeat — without comment — the idiotic comment by a biographer of Orwell 'He was willing to die in a fight against fascism but not in some pointless squabble over left-wing loyalties.' (p158.) Finally, would you trust the research skills of people who seem unaware that there were two revolutions in Russia in 1917?
Beyond factual errors, there is the problem of interpretation. An entry under 'Anarchist Authors', if you don't just want to list the big names, could discuss how writers relate to the anarchist movement and it's press. Instead we get 'Some of the most well-known anarchist writers of the past published their theories in book form', a quarter of a page on Rousseau and a random selection of writers to prove that, yes, people have written books on anarchism (p8-9.)
Inevitably there are omissions, for example, nothing on South America, and no entry for the FAI or the Friends of Durruti. The discussion of the 'Platform' is buried under Dielo Trouda and situationism is also (some might say mercifully) absent. The English-language (and North American) bias is partly because they are outsiders, reliant on books and (heavily and obviously) the Internet. This shows in the geographic coverage. There are books on Chinese anarchism, so it gets an entry. Japan is covered by biographical pieces on Osugi Sakae and Kotoku Shusui. Korean anarchism isn't mentioned at all. Other entries have obviously been included because of a convenient website: is 'Rebels at Ruesta' the only anarchist conference worth mentioning? And far too much has been cut and pasted — and not properly analysed.
A charitable verdict would be that the authors have bitten off more than they could chew. Replacing the irrelevant entries with more on the history of anarchism would not help, because the whole project is lacking focus. There's no depth to the consideration of what anarchists want and how they try and have tried to get it.
So, if we don't trust the 'experts' (and why should we?) is there any hope for a useful encyclopedia — or even dictionary — of anarchism? There is the Daily Bleed's online anarchist encyclopedia, http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/gallery/galleryindex.htm an impressive range of biographies (and some events), but this is more of an anarchist almanac, and only deals with ideas in passing.
I'd like to see something (unlikely to be a hardback book) which covers people, groups, events and ideas from a class-struggle anarchist perspective. Critical, but not engaging in snide point scoring, the idea would be to get insight into our history — and our practice. No doubt it would be a nightmare to organise. Entries would have to be short; it might even end up being a collection of quotes. But it might be useful. Anyone interested in this kind of project should write to the London address.
John
Albert Meltzer's I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels (a view from the vanguard!) 'His arrogant dismissal of all "vanguard parties" makes him, objectively if not subjectively, a supporter of the bourgeois-democratic state' This in a review entitled Anarchist Arrogance, from the Weekly Worker. Thanks to the comrade who sent it in.
Appeal for help - Anarchism in the North East of England 1945-95
A researcher is looking at this to produce a piece in a NE Labour History Society book.
Contact paletinyo@yahoo.co.uk or PO Box ITA, Newcastle, NE99 1TA
Review of Bending The Bars — Prison Stories by John Barker
Despite the occasional ghostwritten biographies of would-be gangsters, the cod-Porridge rubbish The Guardian is fond of, the more recent bullshit of ex-Government ministers, and the genuinely informative articles written by the likes of John Bowden, prison for the most part is still very much a closed world.
John Barker is someone from our own movement, one of those comrades sent down in the 1970's for daring to take on the British State as members of the Angry Brigade. John went to prison in 1971, and stayed there for 7 long years. This is a collection of stories written then, and published together now for the first time. As John says in the introduction to Bending The Bars: "Impossible to convey the longeur — the 'length' and 'tedious parts' of those 7 years, but what is possible is to give a feel for the jail, the times, and the crack for cons who aimed to eat as little shit as possible."
The world John describes is the world of the 1970's high security prison, a world of uniformed warders in slashed-peaked caps, of piss-pots, pig-meal porridge, and 'diesal' (prison tea), but one where through collective solidarity long-term prisoners were able to win a few concessions to humanity. Despite in-cell TVs and toilets, conditions for today's long-term prisoner are as John readily accepts in many ways even worse than they were in the 1970's.
I was first imprisoned in 1980, and so for me there was a certain familiarity in the compelling tales contained in this book. Many things may have changed over the years, but psychologically the reality of prison life is much the same — crushing boredom, frustration, casual brutality, and constant attempts to dehumanise people. For those aware of the possibility of imprisonment there's a great deal to be learned from Bending The Bars, and it provides a unique insight into a piece of all but forgotten history.
In 'The Sit Down' John describes the effect outside political action (in this case the miners strike) has on the prisoners, with working-class militancy beyond the bars being reflected by the growing militancy of those locked-up. Little victories, like the smuggling in of a radio, encourage the boldness to greater expectation and the willingness to fight for better prison conditions. "Action causes its own momentum." Resistance is it's own celebration. Unfortunately, the concessions to humanity John and other prisoners fought so hard to achieve in the 70's and 80's have been virtually handed back to the System on a plate by today's cons.
The militancy of prisoners on the Scrubs long-term wing forced some screws to take a pragmatic approach, others inevitably remained as hard-line as ever, taking any opportunity to wind the cons up. John and his mates thought a lesson was in order, and an exciting account is given of how a full-scale gloss paint attack was launched on the worst screws in reprisal for their behaviour.
Another feature of the nicks back then were the Firms, with alliances struck between groups of cons for better or worse. Escape was also very much on the agenda, but unfortunately for John, it wasn't to be.
John writes of all aspects of prison life, from racism, to the workshop routine, to seeing the doctor and being down the block. Nothing is shied away from, and his accounts have an easy flowing style.
Of prison work, John tells us "It was nearly all unskilled manual work, as if they wanted cons to feel at home doing the kind of work they'd become criminals to avoid."
Receiving mail is usually the highlight of every prisoner's day, and this was particularly the case back in the days of monthly visits, and before the introduction of card phones. Like most cons John liked to savour the experience, "I hate rushing a letter, it's something to take slowly like a bath."
Not many things in prison can be enjoyed at length, and that is certainly the case with 'association', when just as you're enjoying stretching your legs or having a laugh with your mates, some sour-faced little man shouts, "End of Association", and it's time to be locked behind your door for yet another night. "Now this is the time you really know you're not free. You're talking, feeling good, but it ends not when it's ready to end but when that fucking tannoy starts."
In 'Manoeuvres' John suffers his first attack caused by the sensory deprivation of solitary confinement, a condition most long-term prisoners will be familiar with even if they cannot name it, the notorious 'K Complex'.
Later in the same chapter reports reach the cons at Long Lartin of the 1976 Hull Prison uprising. John feels frustrated at not being in a position to offer solidarity, but when two ex-Hull screws, right bastards, are posted to Lartin in the wake of the riot, it's a provocation too far. "I could do with some adrenalin, half the time I feel I'm coasting through this too easy." The cons talk of what to do, and a sit-in protest is organised to follow the showing of the weekly film. The collective show of strength by the prisoners forces the departure of the two ex-Hull screws.
For the political prisoner there is a daily struggle to maintain integrity behind bars. "Every question that should be political becomes one of self, of whether or not I lived up to my standards, to the way I see myself."
After an inter-prison visit to Holloway to see his co-defendant and lover, John expounds, "It's a truism and it's true that jail can only work if the cons let it work, but there's another side to the story. There's the knowing how to live with people in a small space, a necessary respect between cons that gave us the chance of coming out sane." Words as relevant now as when they were written.
John went to prison in 1971 aged 23, and came out in 1978 aged 30. Near the end of the book, he tells us "We can understand conditioning, understand such a process exists, even the hows and whys, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened to us." None of us who go through the nightmare of long-term incarceration survive it undamaged, all we can hope to do is survive. John most certainly did, and 25 years later he's still fighting for a better world. His courageous spirit, his endurance, his unwillingness to surrender, his continued passion, these alone are an act of vengeance against the system that imprisoned him, and a testimony to a great man.
Like all great prison memoirs Bending The Bars captures the spirit of indominitable humanity, a defiant slap in the face for all those twisted little men who may have held the keys to John's freedom, but who never ever came close to breaking him. It is a tragedy that it has taken so long to publish these stories, but they are still a relevant, compelling and hugely enjoyable read, the best insight I've read into the closed world of British high security prisons in the 1970's. Buy it.
Mark Barnsley, May 2003
Gordon Carr — The Angry Brigade: The Cause and the Case
Between 1970 and 1972 the Angry Brigade used guns and bombs in a series of symbolic attacks against property. A series of communiques accompanied the actions, explaining the choice of targets and the Angry Brigade philosophy: autonomous organisation and attacks on property alongside other forms of militant working class action. Targets included the embassies of repressive regimes, police stations and army barracks, boutiques and factories, government departments and the homes of Cabinet ministers, the Attorney General and the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
These attacks on the homes of senior political figures increased the pressure for results and brought an avalanche of police raids. From the start the police were faced with the difficulty of getting to grips with a section of society they found totally alien. And were they facing an organisation ñ or an idea?
This book covers the roots of the Angry Brigade in the revolutionary ferment of the 1960s, and follows their campaign and the police investigation to its culmination in the 'Stoke Newington 8' conspiracy trial at the Old Bailey ñ the longest criminal trial in British legal history.
Gordon Carr produced the BBC documentary on the Angry Brigade and followed it up with this book. Written after extensive research ñ among both the libertarian opposition and the police ñ it remains the essential study of Britain's first urban guerrilla group. This expanded edition contains a comprehensive chronology of the 'Angry Decade', extra illustrations and a police view of the Angry Brigade. Introductions by Stuart Christie and John Barker (two of the 'Stoke Newington 8' defendants) discuss the Angry Brigade in the political and social context of its times ñ and its longer-term significance.
The Angry Brigade: The Cause and the Case has just been reprinted by Christiebooks. We have a number of copies available to individuals at half the published price (£15 rather than £30). You'll still have to add £3 for UK postage but it saves you paying the £200 someone wants for the first edition... North American comrades, copies in transit over your way too. Write for details.
Organise! for Revolutionary Anarchism Issue 60
Among the usual news and views on current events (war, strikes, revolt) They have a good article on the history of the Anarchist Black Cross by Matthew Hart ('Yelensky's fable') and a brief biography of the German militant Senna Hoy.
Organise, c/o 84b Whitechapel High Street,
London, E1 7QX
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