NOT the bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library, No.6 March 2021

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100th anniversary of the Kronstadt revolt

An online conference, March 20-21, 2021
‘We invite you to “Kronstadt as Revolutionary Utopia: 1921-2021 and Beyond,” a transnational convergence to remember history’s repressed revolutionary hopes and explore the “living past” struggle of capitalist authoritarianism vs. humanist internationalism’
Go and look at what’s on!
https://kronstadt2021.wordpress.com/

As Rexroth said:

In clotting nights in smoking dark,
The Kronstadt sailors are marching
Through the streets of Budapest.
https://crimethinc.com/2020/12/22/a-poem-by-kenneth-rexroth-painted-across-the-rooftops-of-the-world-on-the-occasion-of-his-birthday  

Kronstadt (and other revolts) in graphic novels

‘Though the insurgents were defeated in a bloody repression, their ideas live on to this day, since – as luck would have it – ideas are bulletproof. To better convey the importance of these moments in the collective, popular, and radical imagery, we chose to remember them through a few of their (international) comic book adaptions.’
See more at: https://mailchi.mp/centrostudilibertari/english-marzo-2021-864122

Emma Goldman: New Book by Rachel Hui-Chi Hsu

“Emma Goldman, ‘Mother Earth’ and the Anarchist Awakening” allows us to see Goldman as herself and not who we might like her to be during, perhaps, the most important years of her life. Through the work of Hsu we appreciate Goldman as a conscious anarchist and thinker who is part of a wider anarchist movement that is in constant reaction to the world around them.
Read the rest of the review by Barry Pateman at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/tqjrzs

Centro Iberico

‘Centro Ibérico was an important meeting space and community centre, run by anarchists in London through the 1970s and early 1980s. It became a focal point for an international class struggle based anarchist movement, and an organising centre for supporting anarchist and other political prisoners through the Anarchist Black Cross.’ The comrades at Past Tense have put together a long piece on Centro Iberico, with new comments by Phil Ruff. See https://pasttenseblog.wordpress.com/2021/03/05/spotlight-on-londons-historical-anarchist-spaces-centro-iberico/

We have weighed in by producing a rough chronology, which you can read at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/dncmc7

The Paris Commune

Here are links to three pieces from the KSL site looking back at the Paris Commune of 1871
Here is Louise Michel https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/k98tx0
The Women Incendiaries [of the Paris Commune] by Edith Thomas [Review] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/n5tc3h
Graphic dreams of Utopia [Book review of The Red Virgin and the Vision of Utopia] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/b8gvrk

On the railway (in Spanish)

The July-December 2020 issue of Germinal: revista de estudios libertarios has two articles which contain material on anarchist railway construction workers.
El movimiento libertario en Sanabria antes de la Guerra Civil (The Libertarian Movement in Sanabria [Zamora] Before the Civil War) by Carlos Coca Durán – ‘In the development of provincial anarchism the revolutionary unionism encouraged by the construction workers on the railway tracks between Zamora and Orense, which shaped Sanabrian society in the 1930s, was especially important.’

El anarquismo en las alturas: Luchas obreras en la construcción del Ferrocarril Transandino Salta-Antofagasta, década de 1920 (Workers’ struggles in the construction of the Trans-Andean Railway Salta-Antofagasta, 1920s) by Edgardo Daniel Diz Barrios

Keep an eye on https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/revista?codigo=7839

Stuart Christie: Podcast and Archive

Stuart Christie’s Life and Legacy with The Stuart Christie Memorial Archive

Jess Thorne interviewed by ‘12 Rules For WHAT’ podcast about ‘the life and passing of Stuart Christie, one of the UK’s most famous anarchists’
https://soundcloud.com/12rulesforwhat/34-stuart-christies-life-and-legacy

The Stuart Christie Memorial Archive

Has reached its fundraising target. Ron McKay says ‘It is extraordinary and humbling this support. I don’t think when we started this we ever thought we would get to this level. If I had tear ducts I’d cry.’ https://www.gofundme.com/f/stuart-christie-memorial-archive

Kropotkin

From Prison to the Cemetery: How Ukrainian and Moscow Anarchists Turned Kropotkin’s Funeral into a Political Rally by Anatoly Dubovik
‘On February 13, 1921, 78-year-old Peter Kropotkin – “the grandfather of the Russian Revolution” and the “apostle of anarchism,” as he was known to his contemporaries, was buried in Moscow. This funeral was the last political demonstration organized by a non-Bolshevik party in Moscow in that era. Anarchists from Ukraine played a significant role in this event.’ See https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/r4xjrt

Spanish comrades

The UJA, One of the Very First Groups to Fight Francoism by Imanol

‘Today we shall be tracking the footsteps of what was practically a trail-blazer in activity in Catalonia, as well, as, quite possibly, the one with the lowest average age, given that its membership ranged from13 year-olds to 23 year-olds. Not that that was the only special quality that there was to them, as we shall see. Their ranks included at least three women, which was a rarity in itself.’

Read the rest at: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/tx97vw

The Rue Duguesclin Hold-Up and the Story of the Spanish Anarchists in Lyon and Villeurbanne by Oscar Freán Hernández

‘At 6:54 p.m. on 18 January 1951, a post office van pulled up outside the Rue Duguesclin post office on the corner of the Rue de Sèze in the 6th arrondissement in Lyon to pick up a sackful of securities.The postman-driver and a security guard escort climbed out of the van. At that same moment, they were confronted by two individuals brandishing sub-machineguns.’

Read the rest at: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/m640kc

Sending you all our best wishes
Kate Sharpley Library collective (March 2021)