NOT the bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library, No.4 December 2020

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2020

Quite a lot has gone up on the website (and gone on in the world) since our last KSL Bulletin in September. We are not even thinking of trying to sum up our year. But we send you our good wishes and some anarchist history you might have missed.

Stuart Christie 1946-2020

Four months on, we’re still coming to terms with the fact it’s no good thinking ‘I must ask Stuart…’ John Barker, his friend and fellow defendant in the Stoke Newington Eight trial, has written a tribute: ‘I couldn’t stomach Bakunin and he Marx but when it came to the politics of the prison we acted as one. And something else, the great thing about Stuart as comrade and friend is that he was always cheerful and ready to make things both happen, and to work. […] With Stuart there was never any need to say, Don’t Let The Bastards Grind You Down.’

Read the rest of the tribute at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/vhhpd8

Bob D’Attilio tribute from the KSL

For many years Robert (Bob) D’Atillio was an inexhaustible source of material on the Sacco and Vanzetti case. His loss is a tremendous one to those of us interested in the nuances of anarchist history. See https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/6wwrds

There’s a longer obituary by Luigi Botta at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/vmcx9h

Other Anarchist Lives

Thoughts on Francesco Ghezzi

Francesco Ghezzi was an anarchist militant from Milan who was also active in France, Switzerland, Germany and Russia (and was imprisoned in the last three countries)…

On the 5 November 1937 Ghezzi was arrested for the final time. His case file records his frank replies to the secret police ‘I declare that I was and remain an anarchist, and that no one will change my convictions.’… (from the Gulag Anarchists blog) https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/fttgj8

‘Look – No Bombs!’ by Felix Barker

We found an article from 1955 featuring ex-Makhnovist London anarchist Leah Feldman. Anti-election propaganda is an excuse to mock; but it does give a small insight into the London Man! Group and the movement in the fifties. https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/15dwbx

New KSL Co-publication

Insurrection: The Bloody Events of May 1937 in Barcelona by Agustín Guillamón has just been published by AK Press. Guillamón explains how Stalinist counterrevolution and republican reformism disarmed the threat of the anarchist working class in the Spanish Revolution. While anarchist ‘leadership’ flailed, the defense committees were weakened, which allowed bourgeois institutions to gain power and strengthened the republican state. (Published in November in the US, due soon in the UK. ISBN 9781849353601 https://www.akpress.org/insurrection.html)

Ephemera

We have posted an Urgent Appeal for Kotoku, in the Japanese High Treason Case (1910); the anti-conscription leaflet British Worker! Are you Pro-Prussian? from the Anti-Conscription League (1915); and a ticket to the Anarchist Red Cross Ball, 10 February 1917 (cash prize for the best mask!) They and others are up at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/9320sp

Longer pieces of history

The 1945 split in British anarchism

It’s still growing: biographies of the people involved are being added. http://katesharpleylibrary.pbworks.com/w/page/139511268/The%201945%20split%20in%20British%20anarchism

The Die-Hards and Their Activities Relating to Trans-Pyrenean Invasions

Devoted to the 1944 Valle D’Arán invasion, this is the latest bit of digging away from Imanol’s dedicated researches into anarchist resistance to Francoism. https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/wwq18c

Nine Crosses Bend: One Village’s Resistance to Falangist Barbarism by Henrique Mariño

In a small village in Galicia, in 1936 nine anarchists are executed by Civil Guard and Falangist forces. Despite attempts to erase them from memory they have survived, from strokes in the dust to paint on rocks they were remembered and not erased from history. This article is a homage to an unbroken tradition of symbolic resistance and support. https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/k6dm6r

Elsewhere / Even more to read

Anarchy in the Archive! A Review, Study, and Some Ideas for the Future of Anarchist Archives

Sagan Thacker’s essay discusses what anarchist libraries and archives exist, and what might ‘drive more traffic and awareness’ their way. ‘If anarchist history is not able to survive in all its myriad forms and in all its myriad archives, then anarchists are left without a history to look back upon. It is only with organized cooperation that anarchist archival materials can be preserved and made accessible for an anarchist future.’ https://saganthacker.blogspot.com/2020/12/narchy-in-rchive-review-study-and-some.html

The Cunningham Amendment

Our comrades at the Cunningham Amendment (‘we are not like other outfits’) lament: ‘The latest plague has put a big stop to the fairs. Thus we find ourselves in tick-over mode without a plan B. But […] we don’t even tread near the pit of the give-ups.’ (Volume 19, number 3 aka Monday Morning 16th November 2020). No website, TCA, Room 6, Tangleford House, The Street, Bawdeswell, Norfolk, NR20 4RT.

Finally: Quiz Time

Our comrades at the Sparrow’s Nest have digitised Albert Meltzer’s Black Flag Anarcho-Quiz Book as their Document of the month for October. Perfect for socially distanced quizzes! Learn and laugh! https://thesparrowsnest.org.uk/index.php/14-news-and-events/222-document-of-the-month-october-2020

Start with an easy one: What English pub is named after a professing anarchist?

Good luck!

KSL,

December 2020