Albert Meltzer, Our Comrade – Thirty Years On

Albert joined the anarchist movement, aged 15, in 1935. Veterans like Mat Kavanagh and Leah Feldman connected him to the movement’s past. He linked up with anarchists in India and China but he was particularly inspired by the Spanish revolution of 1936. He also supported the anarchist resistance in the long, grim years of Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975). That solidarity mushroomed when Albert and Stuart Christie revived the Anarchist Black Cross and grew again when resistance veteran Miguel Garcia moved London.

Albert’s long commitment to anarcho-syndicalism aimed to connect the Spanish example of revolutionary unions, affinity groups and armed revolt to British working class history and experiences. At times Albert stepped back from the anarchist movement to focus on freethought propaganda, or simply to get on with his life. But his anarchism remained focussed on working class self-emancipation and well-being for all.[1] This led to a certain amount of conflict with those around the anarchist movement, uninterested in the working class or revolutionary social change, that he saw as liberals. Such conflicts, and the assault on the working class before, during and after Thatcherism made Albert more critical, and more concerned with anarchism’s internal disputes. 

It’s been fascinating to critically examine several of those disputes like Albert’s response to George Woodcock slandering the Spanish Anarchists, or Donald Rooum’s myth-making about the failure of the Wooden Shoe Bookshop as a trigger for Albert’s critique of Freedom Press.[2] That made us appreciate the complexity of his life (and how easy it is to underestimate). Albert’s autobiography I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels is, as the subtitle promises, an account of ‘sixty years of commonplace life and anarchist agitation’ but it’s also a record of Albert coming to terms with his past. He found something positive to say about figures that he had criticised earlier like Guy Aldred and Tom Brown. Albert lamented ‘I’d have kept everything if I’d known I would be the last one.’[3] This concern with history was key to the creation of the Kate Sharpley Library.

In 2021 Phil Ruff described Albert as ‘a perfect example of a working-class intellectual who had never been to university’.[4] That’s true, but Albert was amused by people declaring themselves intellectuals: ‘a woman Left Wing writer of children’s stories who called herself, modestly, an intellectual was furious when I asked her if Enid Blyton was one.’[5] Albert paid attention to academic writing on anarchist and working class history – he was pleased when German secret police files showed that the movement there was not made up solely of ‘a few intellectuals’.[6] Yet he put much more faith in the tales of his comrades. It’s always a challenge to distinguish history from stories of what should have happened (a universal problem).

Let’s give an example. In 1966 Albert quoted Spanish novelist Pio Baroja: ‘not all Army officers are heroes – least of all in Spain where “in war-time they run; in peace-time they shoot the people”.’[7] After some digging we traced this back to Baroja’s 1906 novel Paradox Rey. The 1931 translation reads ‘The soldiers, in peace time, steal what they can lay hands on. – And in time of war? – In time of war they run away.’[8] Albert’s memory made the quote more pointed. This was not a simple error but, consciously or not, treated Baroja’s text as an inheritance: ‘ours by right of birth alone’.[9]

Albert was and still is our comrade. Thirty years on from his death he still influences how we think about anarchism and history, and what the Kate Sharpley Library does. We have been tracking down and reading his articles for over a decade now. Reading and critically examining what he wrote has given us an insight into what he felt, thought and did across his life, and into the history of the anarchist movement. Albert was against racism, nationalism and war, an opponent of the state and capitalism and a critic of half-measures in getting rid of them. It suits some to exaggerate Albert’s sectarianism but he also spent much of his time explaining to people what anarchism was and could be. We think his writings are of more than historical interest.

KSL Collective

Notes

1, A.M., ‘Transition and the Right to Well-being’, Black Flag, April 1981 https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/cnp6vw. 

2, ‘Slaughter or Slander? Notes on the Albert Meltzer-George Woodcock Conflict.’ [2022] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/cjt075 and The Wooden Shoe Is on the Other Foot: Examining a Myth [2023] https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/jsxnnt.

3, Barry Pateman, personal communication.

4, Phil Ruff, ‘Remembering Albert Meltzer 25 years on’ https://freedomnews.org.uk/2021/05/07/remembering-albert-meltzer-25-years-on/.

5, Sectarian, [i.e. Albert Meltzer], ‘The Problems of an Anarchist Movement’, Black Flag, April 1971.

6, Albert Meltzer, ‘Only a Few Intellectuals’, Black Flag, April 1974.

7, Internationalist [i.e. Albert Meltzer], ‘Whither the CNT?’, Freedom, 1966-01-08

8, Pío Baroja Paradox, king, a novel, translated by Nevill Barbour (Wishart, 1931). Thanks go to staff at the University of Leeds Libraries.

9, Anon [Albert Meltzer], Aims and Principles of Anarchism, Coptic Press, 1968 https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/ns1th7 

Image: Albert Meltzer at the typewriter https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/0vt527 (Source, Phil Ruff)