2024 Berlin-Kreuzberg Anarchist Bookfair
We are pleased to announce that an anarchist book fair will take place from September 5th to September 8th, 2024 at NewYorck at Bethanien 2 B, 10997 Berlin-Kreuzberg 36. The last time something like this took place in Berlin, to our knowledge, was in 2016, when the Days of Anarchist Ideas and Publications took place. Not only have too many years passed since then, but it is also important to organize a regular event in Berlin again in terms of the spread of anarchist and revolutionary ideas. The book fair should not be seen as something ephemeral, but as a continuous event that should take place every year. Since the early 2010s, anarchist book fairs across Europe, from the Iberian Peninsula to the Balkans, have contributed to a more than welcome revival of anarchist ideas and practices. The result was not only the connection and reference between companions across the globe, but also an internationalization of debates. And this is what we want to achieve with this book fair.
There are many reasons to hold anarchist book fairs in Berlin and elsewhere, to give more space to anarchist books, therefore anarchist ideas, but is that exactly what we want? Is it enough for us to set up a few book tables, do a few book readings, hang out a bit? No, it is not enough, because what we want above all is to intensify debates that have to result in practice. Books and all written products are therefore important vehicles that can connect us all, but books themselves are nothing, it is the content they carry that is useful, it is the practice that shapes a real movement. The content includes all sorts of topics and questions that must be discussed in a debate. The aim of this debate, these discussions that we have to have here and around the world, has only one goal: to put an end to the world of capitalism and to lift it out of its joints. This happens through the practice of insurrection, class war, social war to result in a worldwide social revolution. So the intensive debate among anarchists and all revolutionaries who will bring an immediate end to the state-nation, capital, and patriarchy.
Therefore, in addition to the need to intensify specific debates, we will also have content priorities for the book fair.
– The attitude towards war (in Ukraine and elsewhere)
– Dealing with the topic of nationalism-nation-people-state, which cannot be separated from each other.
– The spread of anarchist and revolutionary ideas via books, propaganda, practice, etc.
One might think that the anarchist movement has already come to a coherent answer/stance on many issues, but as the saying goes among some anarchists, there is nothing more radical than reality and this has been expressed again. A very misunderstood saying, because supposed anarchists still side with the state-nation, some of whom they supposedly think they are fighting. What are we talking about right now? Do we mean Catalonia, Kurdistan, the Mapuche, Palestine, Ukraine or so many other past and present examples? Are we talking about participating in elections, supporting parties, protecting democracy (i.e. the capitalist state), legitimizing the monopoly of violence, or everything at the same time? We could also see this in relation to the Corona virus, not only the “powerlessness” an anarchist movement is capable of falling into, but also the impetus with which it is capable of legitimizing the state. But what can all this have to do with anarchism, with an anarchist movement? Very simple, nothing at all.
But what are we trying to get at with all of this, what does this have to do with the saying mentioned above and what does this have to do with this Anarchist Book Fair? Quite simply, reality always catches up with those who are not clear about themselves, which leads them to defend positions that are not actually theirs. We see this best in the examples mentioned above. Reality is catching up with everyone who thinks they are so incredibly radical, when they have only built their positions on idealism and sand, and what results from this are positions and attitudes that only serve reformism and counter-revolution.
This leads us to the need for debates that must lead to practice to resolve the confusion of the present moment.
Therefore, the focus of the book fair should also be on questions about war in general and specific wars, both current and historical, and why these are inherent in the capitalist state-nation, why our relationship to it is only one of irreconcilable hostility. So not only the agitation, the propaganda, but also substantive positions are of immense importance and necessity. What does it mean for the anarchist movement, or what does it say about it, when people who call themselves anarchists take part in intra-bourgeois wars between the various factions of capitalism? Is this still anarchism or revolutionary? And what options do we have to be able to act revolutionary in wars? And certainly a thousand more questions that played and still play a role in this context.
Therefore, in order to discuss these questions and many others, we invite everyone who feels the need to address these topics to the Anarchist Book Fair from September 5th to September 8th, 2024 in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
The character of the book fair should also be international and internationalist and the call should be published in all possible languages, because the connection between anarchists and all revolutionaries must be strengthened.
If you want to organize an information table, if you want to initiate a discussion, get in touch here: abmb@riseup.net , further information at anarchistischebuechermesse.noblogs.org
Agitation, insurrection, anarchy!
Attachment
Over the next few months, until the start of the book fair, we will publish several texts that will be useful for the debates at the book fair.
So far there are three texts, one from the anarchist publication Black Flag – Bulletin of the Anarchist Black Cross which was founded in 1968 and two texts from Argentina from the anarchist editorial expandiendo la revuelta.
The text of Black Flag from 1968 deals with the phenomenon of reformism within the anarchist movement and the two texts of expandiendo la revuelta have said very interesting critical things on the question of anarchist books. We find their positions so interesting and important that we consider them when distributing publications/books/etc. use it as an important template for a debate in this regard, or rather, interpret and present what is of great importance for the book fair in the form of a contribution.
Text by Black Flag. All issues of their publication can be found here.
Black Flag
Statement by the Black Flag Group for the Liverpool Conference of the Anarchist Federation of Britain, September 1968
Anarchism is a revolutionary method of achieving a free non-violent society, without class divisions or imposed authority. Whether this is a “utopian” achievement or not is irrelevant; the Anarchist, on any normal definition, is a person who, having this aim in mind, proceeds to get rid of authoritarian structures, and advances towards such a society by making people independent of the State and by intensifying the class struggle so that the means of economic exploitation will be weakened and destroyed.
Confusion
There should be no confusion between anarchism and liberalism however militant the latter might be (e.g. movements towards national liberation). The liberal seeks greeter freedom within the structure of society that he finds himself; he rejects the methods of class struggle which relate to the economic divisions of society. Since there is such a confusion, however, we find that there are now TWO contrary conceptions of anarchism.
There are not “as many conceptions as there are anarchists” nor “a thousand fragments” but there are TWO, both of which are probably represented at this Conference. One, which we support and intend to give coherence to as an organisation, is what we are obliged to call Revolutionary Anarchism (though anarchism should not need such a qualification) which says that there can be no compromise with the State; that there is a class struggle, and that there is nothing to be gained to [by] adapting to class society. There can only be a revolution, in the streets and in the factories. The other conception we call Liberal Anarchism (though it may regard itself as revolutionary, while more usually deriding the word) which seeks to adjust to present day society, without the need for overthrowing the State (regarded as an unlikely contingency). Such adjustment could, of course, be to Capitalism or even in same circumstances to State Communism; and there are many different ways in which it could be main [made].
Peace Movement
In the main, so far as this country is concerned, such social-liberal ideas have come into the Anarchist Movement by way of the Peace Movement which has questioned, or perhaps never understood, certain basic anarchistic conceptions. In saying this, we are not denying that pacifists can be anarchists (though for the sake of coherent action we would exclude them from our own group). So long as their viewpoint does not become a mainstream tendency we can no doubt work with them within the AFB.
We regard the principle of pacifism as irrelevant and on the whole unanarchistic (as would be making a cult of temperance or vegetarianism or taking pot or ‘dropping out’ – these are all matters for personal decisions, and while often escapes from the main social issues, only become absurd when made into a cult that all are exhorted to follow, and elevated to becoming the main social issue among ourselves and within society as a whole, with matters such as the class struggle relegated or ignored.) Even so, the issue we face in this conference is NOT pacifism as such but the fact that it has opened the door for so many liberal assumptions. For instance, that prisons can be reformed and are incapable of abolition (Vine[1]; Willis); that we should go to the extent of collecting money for policemen injured on demonstrations (Featherstone)[2]; that the police are a necessary crutch to society (Rooum)[3]; that criminals are the only free people but that we should call on the services of the police if necessary (Schweitzer-Mariconi)[4].
Liberalism
Once one accepts that “anarchism must be related to contemporary society”, capitalism ([Colin] Ward) one may accept participation in management (Topham through to Ostergaard)[5]; or the necessity for psychological and sociological adjustments to living in the rat race (various, Anarchy); or that taxation is necessary to help the poorer classes ([Vernon] Richards); or that we need merely be in a condition of permanent protest against abuses within society (Sydney Libertarians); adjusted to non-violent methods (Peace News) or to such authoritarian bodies as the Catholic Church ([Ammon] Hennacy) or even make our peace within the Communist State (Jeff Robinson)[6].
Anarchism so diluted may be recognised by the monarchy ([Sir Herbert] Read) or be compatible with voting Labour ([George] Melly); or it can be reduced to a mere imaginary mind process leading to intellectual salvation (various, Minus One)[7]. Those who reject the revolutionary concept may have various views, ranging from a rejection of contemporary values and a mere ignoring of the State hoping it will go away (hippies, diggers) to deliberate provocation of it to use its full repressive powers without, however, preparing for any effective resistance (some at least of the Provo-Situationists).
We do not recognise what we call Liberal Anarchism to be genuine Anarchism, but since it exists, we are obliged to describe ourselves as Revolutionary Anarchists. We do not know to what extent there is general agreement with us in the AFB. Our present intention is to be a membership organisation, within the AFB and local groups. If on the other hand we represent the bulk of the membership of the AFB there is no reason why the organisation cannot take over our programme. Those who have followed controversies in the Libertarian Press, at least, will know what this leaflet is about. Those who have, by reason of their contemporary experience, rejected the name anarchist, thinking they would identify themselves with what we here call Liberal Anarchist, are invited to re-think their position
International
The situation internationally, has similarities with Britain except that there the tendency to fit into the framework of society comes from an institutionalised syndicalism, or where exile movements have become bureaucratised. This is what the clash at Carrara[8] was about. But it was also a clash between a revolutionary policy and one of “fitting in”. We aim to work out a revolutionary programme, as a group having no preconceived programme of working-class organisation but accepting the principle of direct action and working with people on the basis of their beliefs and actions rather than on the mere labels they give themselves, although retaining our own identity.
(Original signatories) A. Meltzer, Ross Flett, Adrian Derbyshire, Stuart Christie, Roger Sandell, Mike Walsh, Jim Duke, Ted Kavanagh
Comments are invited upon the draft “Aims & Principles of Anarchism”.
Issued by the BLACK FLAG GROUP, 735 Fulham Road, London, S.W.6.
The first conference of the “Black Flag” group will be held in Brighton in the autumn. Discussion on the formation of another anarchist newspaper.
Remarks
As can be seen from the text, he responds to various disputes in the anarchist press, particularly in Freedom and Anarchy. I was unable to identify everyone involved or track down all of the statements.
Text by expandiendo la revuelt.
THE ANARCHIST BOOKS ARE NOT TOOLS
MEETING OF ANARCHIST LIBRARIES ON SATURDAY 11/13/21.
Books are not useful, they are not services, they do not serve any functions, and they are certainly not hammers or wrenches to open or close ideas. While it doesn’t take much to find literature aimed at enforcing regimes or dismantling them, there is an idea that seems to be firmly rooted among some anarchists: „Books are tools,“ they say, and in in fact, there is no shortage of dozens of covers and titles that make this clear that “books in themselves have no value, but when ideas materialize,” they repeat, linking to these premises the widespread idea that “we the “The idea cannot be separated from the action.”
But what are we talking about when we think of “anarchist books”? And what does it mean to unite idea and action? Because obviously we cannot reduce Ursula K. Le Guin, Mikhail Bakunin, the international magazine Kalinov Most or a pamphlet with a drawn A found on a demonstration, even if we want to group them all under the label “anarchist literature”. Along this line we can think about the intentionality of each format, that is, both its physical format and the characteristics of language, because binding a book like Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid” is not the same as quickly printing leaflets before a demonstration, that are intended for a specific time and place.
But in order to finally think about anarchist literature, we must first free ourselves from the idea that it should be closely linked to the „action“, otherwise we would erase its specificity, that is, its depth, its path, its peculiarities and its strengths.
We have therefore set ourselves the double task of clarifying the claim that, in our opinion, anarchist books cannot be tools, and then of thinking about what they are or could be.
To begin with the first point, we find in this claim a utilitarian logic of letters in relation to the militant logic, which we begin with a brief tour from the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Revolution to the political-military parties of the 1970s can locate. This means that literature, like painting, cinema or theater, must be “at the service of the revolution” (or in most cases the party).
In this sense, a famous poster from Spain in 1936 proclaimed: „Anarchist books are weapons against fascism“, although this was actually part of the propaganda of the CNT sector, which decided to make a pact with republicans and socialists to create an „anti-fascist front“ which ended with the militarization of the autonomous workers‘ militias and anti-anarchist repressions. What we want to claim, at least in this case, is that the utilitarian vision of the “anarchist books” is driven by the logic of war, but not social war, but the logic of formal armies, formal war and the necessities that dictate this supposedly brings with it.
One of the justifications we find in these cases is an appeal to urgency and the palpable danger lurking from the enemy on the other side of the border. In this context, wouldn’t it be logical that anarchist books should be subordinated to propaganda work and recruitment? Even if this question seems inappropriate given our present moment, it can help us reflect on these extreme moments. In contrast to this approach, we can see a clear difference between what was anarchist literature and propaganda during the Spanish Revolution (1936-1937) and during the Civil War (1937-1939). At the time of the revolution we can see expressions that were not reduced to propagandistic logics, but that tried from their own spheres to think, share and propagate revolutionary freedom, a clear example of this aspect was the “Sindicato de la Industria del Espectáculo Films” (SIE FILMS), who produced around 30 films between 36 and 37, the content of which was not limited to documentary narratives, but most of the works were in the field of fiction, that is, it was not just about making art for to think about the revolution, but about the revolution finding its own artistic expression.
If we trace the debate back to the last decades, it is alarming, or at least striking, that the discourses that try to reduce literary expression to a tool, that is, to put it at the service of the “ideal” or a larger goal, whatever Whatever it may be, this conclusion has its justification in the hierarchization of “action,” which, if previously embodied in the needs of the revolutionary party, is now reinforced in the overvaluation of destructive action or the anarchic offensive.
We believe that this claim is extremely coherent and an almost innate reaction to our everyday life, which is characterized by the civic pacification of social democracy, the unison repeated demonstrations/processions and the “critical” debates proposed by various publishers and writers are little more than dialectical paraphernalia conjured up to position the sales of their next book or to justify CONICET 9 ’s recent funding. But since we have been in this position, constantly reinforcing destructive actions in the face of the deafening repetition of empty phrases of democracy, we also know that actions have their own logic, their own forms and needs, which often do not correspond to the possibilities of words.
You cannot expect a book to turn into an action, just as the constant repetition of the words “fire” and “gunpowder” in our publications does not mean that they can actually become tangible, and you might ask us if Letters cannot function as agitation? Yes, they can, but if they allow themselves to be guided beforehand by what they “should be,” they end up becoming a caricature of themselves. When literature loses its distinctiveness, we are left with a hodgepodge of commonplaces and individual ones To do affirmations that ultimately do not outgrow themselves. At this point, we ask words to be something they are not, namely, functional, in the hope that the fact that we write sentences like “arm your affinity group” will truly inspire reciprocity among readers while in reality this should be the primary task of direct communication, the creation of meeting spaces and the deepening of ideas, and in any case literary reflection could reflect on the reasons for these groups, on the social and political characteristics in which how they are involved, how they might work, etc. etc.
After this critical and comparative perspective, we can go back in time and think of the “classic” anarchist newspapers that we ordered in Buenos Aires between 1898 and 1930. The genres and literary topics there ranged from propagandistic and pamphlet-like articles to plays, songs, excerpts from stories and novels to articles on philosophy, history or astronomy, to name just a few examples. These characteristics, typical of the different tendencies, clearly show us the holistic vision of the anarchist project, in which the work of agitation represented only a small part, and at the same time seeing that those that have endured over time find their strength in reflection , found in the literary search itself, regardless of the genre in which they are located, and avoid the Jesuit repetition of anarchism.
Another insinuation that we often find when we hear criticisms that assume the false dichotomy between “writing” and “acting” is the idea that literature itself represents a kind of petite bourgeois pleasure, a logic clearly derived from the Marxism-Leninism and its famous criticism of the “teething disease of the left” in which it says: “The petty bourgeois “gone wild” by the horrors of capitalism is a social phenomenon that, like anarchism, is peculiar to all capitalist countries. The inconstancy of this revolutionaryism, its sterility, its ability to quickly turn into submissiveness, apathy and fantasy, and even to allow itself to be carried away by this or that bourgeois fashion trend to the point of „craziness“ – all of this is well known. So we see how, unfortunately, the conservative ideas of nefarious Leninism feed into anarchist concepts, rendering invisible the fact that our concept of freedom goes beyond and is directly opposed to the classist and partisan vision of Bolshevism.
When anarchism prevents us from sitting down to observe the movement of the stars, from writing about our sexuality, from contemplating the properties of music or human nature, when it is not dedicated to the destruction and reconstruction of this world and our own Having reached ideas about existence, literature, theater or cinema, it only becomes a self-assertion that does not stop navel-gazing out of fear of what lies behind the ideological scheme.
So we might ask ourselves: Can a book be anarchist? Even if it repeats “Long live anarchy” on every page, what if it’s written by someone who doesn’t claim to be an anarchist? What ultimately makes a book anarchist?
What holds together the ideological character of our literature historically is much more than a particular line or a representative type of referentiality, namely the editorial, librarian, and dissemination practices of the companions throughout history. How else could we lump Henry Thoreau or Leon Tolstoy with Alfredo Bonnano or the Angry Brigade? That is, the character that has been given and continues to be given to our literature has to do not only with the books themselves, nor even specifically with the intention of their authors, but with the propagandistic work, the reception and the value that the companions necessarily gave her afterwards.
So this important work, carried out by so many over the last 150 years, has its peculiarities, not only in terms of cataloging, but also in terms of the interesting variety of questions and challenges it can raise. In this sense, we have asked ourselves, for example, whether a book can be reduced to an ideology, and while this answer may be “simpler” within doctrinal spaces, in our circles it acquires a relevant category about the possible anarchist conception in the present and the always latent tension between the revolutionary projection and the ethical foundations of anarchism. For example, if we think of anarchist literature, we can, firstly, consider the external characteristics, for example the refusal of intellectual property, ISBN or collaboration with state or multinational publishers, but these characteristics are summarized in the forms as many publishers fall into these Categories can fall and at the same time have nothing to do with our intentions, so secondly we have to think about anarchist literature itself. And this could be the real challenge: there are some categories that can be easily “classified”, as in the cinema Documentary, in literature the many publications that identify themselves as such and have the general intention of propagating anarchy, but in the case of Rafael Barret, Ursula KL Guin, Manuel Rojas or so many companions who write poems that freed from anarchist clichés, does it make sense to look at them from an ideological point of view?
Perhaps both the question and its answers are much broader, perhaps one needs to engage with the various literary genres to understand the way in which poetry, prose, social or scientific essays can be grouped or embraced under a specifically ideological label – one Task that this little sketch cannot accomplish, but it attempts to bring some of these concerns closer to our attention.
So we finally come to the question: Can literature be “useful” for the revolution? Even though it has historically been used in this way, from Mao’s Red Book to the Bible, it would be absurd to think that the act of writing and reading itself could be responsible for the actions it later uses were justified, because writing is a purely reflexive act in which freedom is experienced both in the face of the emptiness of the blank page that separates us from the world, it lies in the possibility of a relationship between our existence and the materiality outside it , a relationship that can be comprehensive, descriptive or irrational, sonorous and even chaotic.
We agree that there can be no revolutionary action without revolutionary theory, but we also affirm that one cannot come at the expense of the other. It is as naive to expect books to call for revolt as it is to expect an explosive device to tell us something about freedom, however poetically we choose to incorporate it.
NEITHER LITERARY ANARCHISM
NOR UTILITARIST LITERATURE
FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF ANY AUTHORITY.
Text by expandiendo la revuelta.
Some reflections on the anarchist edition and democratic recuperation.
Opening of the library in Caza Zaragoza on June 19, 2021.
From Expandiendo la Revuelta.
“It will undoubtedly be said that all tools aim at our freedom, since they are the instruments of a possible action and that the work of art is not specific in this respect. And it is true that the tool is the condensed outline of an operation. But it remains at the level of the hypothetical imperative: I can use a hammer to nail a box or to bash my neighbor’s head in. Considered in itself, a tool is not a prerequisite for my freedom; it does not place me before it, but rather seeks to serve it by replacing the free invention of means with an orderly sequence of traditional behaviors.
The book does not serve my freedom: it demands it. In fact, it would not be possible to approach freedom as such through pressure, fascination, or pleading. To achieve it there is only one method: first acknowledge it and then trust it; in short, to demand from her an act in her own name, that is, in the name of the trust placed in her. In this way, the book is not, like the tool, a means to a specific end; the book proposes the freedom of the reader as its goal”.
The opening of a library is always an event that fills us with joy, especially when it is accompanied by connections and demands that emphasize a critical and anti-authoritarian perspective.
In our case, as an anarchist publisher, we believe that it is necessary to make some contributions through the publication of material and, above all, by reflecting on what we see as a series of debates about the purpose of propaganda and its anarchist positioning afford to.
If we briefly look back at the extensive anarchist history in Buenos Aires, the publication of reading materials was one of the pillars from which meetings and shared affinities were projected, in this sense the publication of publications, from the first large-scale edition “El perseguido” in the year 1890, via “La Protesta”, which began in 1897, or “La antorcha” in 1921, but they not only had the “function” of conveying a message or sharing an “ideal”, but also provided information about meetings and activities , collected donations for the local population or prisoners and established connections between the different publications and spaces. In this way, the anarchist publishers, which had no central organization or any kind of leader, made a contribution both “inside” and “outside” the movement, and although there were always differences, today we can see the historicity, the debates and To trace tensions precisely from these archives and thus make them usable in the present.
Founded in 1961, the publishing house Reconstruir set itself the task of revitalizing a number of networks and spaces that had suffered repression first from the dictatorship of the 1930s and then from the Peronist advance, this is how Reconstruit worked, both to produce classic texts save, as well as to propose current debates of the time, which went from the Cuban revolt, to existentialism, to the war in Vietnam. We can also find the work of “La Protesta” during these decades and its constant function of maintaining anarchist ideology, even well into the 21st century.
However, these publications were discontinued again during the last military dictatorship in 1976, and it was not until 1983 that a new wave of publications emerged in the form of various anarcopunk fanzines and some publications of a more „countercultural“ character, reflecting the aspirations of the so-called „new left“. hidden in a certain anarchic aesthetic. Here we want to grapple with what we see as a clear intention to recover anarchist ideas to address various reformist, academic and even commercial intentions.
In general, we can say that after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the repression of the various Latin American dictatorships in the 70s and 80s, the Marxist-Leninist horizon saw the supposedly revolutionary hopes fall with its large armies, so can of a new left There was talk of “new ways of doing politics” and every attempt to promote an armed insurrection was partially defeated, such as the rejection of the takeover of the La Tablada barracks dictated by the entire “national left” in 2015 1989 shows.
Thus, anarchist practice and ideas regained importance for some editorial areas and found various conveniences, for example the fact that it was a story that was already almost a hundred years old, that is, many companions did not have that possibility to respond to these visions, and this obviously meant a “freedom” for many intellectuals, academics and democratic writers who saw in anarchist history a space that they could exploit without resentment.
In this way, we find a number of people and state spaces that are pursuing a recuperation of our memory (in the sense of history) from a civic and left-wing, even nationalist perspective, and even claiming that we are part of “Argentine history “ are. From Dora Barrancos to Martin Caparros to Cedinci, we find a clear line that is accused, on the one hand, of trivializing anarchist ideas and practices and, on the other hand, of pursuing academic careers in the hands of the state, that is, in search of power.
However, this is only a partial aspect of the situation, because if we open our eyes to other areas, we also find state-funded films and plays that show us a clear attempt to empty anarchism of its insurgent content, like this, for example has happened to the history of various indigenous peoples in recent decades. From the perspective of progressivism and the left, the genocidal history of the Argentine state is thus whitewashed and some specific people are used as scapegoats, be it Julio Argentino Roca, Colonel Varela, Videla or Menem, while the indigenous peoples are continuously persecuted and the anarchist spaces are evacuated and are hit by repression.
We do not want to make ourselves victims, but simply to point out a repressive process that has to do with the commercialization and trivialization of anarchy on the one hand and, on the other hand, with imprisonment and murder behind closed doors and miles away.
This is also clear from the label of “infiltrators” that Kirchnerism and the left imposed on us during the disappearance of Santiago Maldonado, that is, on the one hand, a mask of “solidarity” and “justice” was put on, and at the same time the ideas of Lechuga (a nickname of Santiago Maldonado) was made invisible and a political campaign was carried out in his name, even going so far as to try to release a film, which fortunately was boycotted both in Buenos Aires and in various parts of Argentina became.
Going back to publishing and propaganda, we believe that today more than ever it is necessary to take a stand, as we do not want anarchist ideas to become consumer or just another space in which intellectuals can separate themselves from the National Library jerk each other off, although these will certainly continue to be financed by state institutions, today we are much more convinced of the need to consolidate our ideas on the consistency between means and ends, so we find publications and publishers like “Anarquista” , “Gatx Negrx” or “L’anomia”, and more recently the releases of “Abrazando el Caos” or the “Anarquía” editions, to name just a few examples.
That’s why we’re not concerned with publishing books as an end in itself, although we enjoy that and it’s undoubtedly an aspect in which we also feel comfortable, but as a means of revolt, but above all for the anarchist movement and spaces. Even if we do not think about our reflections from an enlightened point of view, we are of the opinion that the means say much more about the ends than the titles, because anarchy is not found in the offices of power nor in the supposedly “good intentions “ of today’s left, but in the practical insurgent and autonomous action of those who affirm themselves as such and take a step further towards social war with their words.
1. Ian Vine wrote about crime and the law in Anarchy 59 & ‚Anarchism as a realist alternative‘ Anarchy 74
2. See the letter from Godfrey Featherstone in Freedom, April 20, 1968, and the responses from Stuart Christie, Adrian Derbyshire, James Duke, Ross Flett, Albert Meltzer and Martin Page in the following issue.
3. In Donald Rooum’s account of the Challenor case, „I Laid a Piece of Brick“ in Anarchy 36
4. In Jean-Pierre Schweitzer’s “Prolegomena to an Anarchist Philosophy: 3 – Politics”, Minus One No. 13, it says: “The criminal is the (an)archist “par excellence””.
5. Tony Topham (Institute for Workers Control) was not an anarchist; Geoffey Ostergaard wrote about Workers‘ Control in Anarchy #2 and 80.
6. I haven’t seen anything from Jeff Robinson that claims this. His ‚A statement‘ (including ‚Inner freedom is possible in the modern world even in a prison cell‘) Freedom July 29, 1967 angered Albert Meltzer: ‚The division exists between those who see anarchism as a living force, and those who find it an exciting name when talking about the need for children’s playgrounds.‘ An Understatement” Freedom August 19, 1967.
7. Minus One (“Individualist Anarchist Review”) see https://www.unionofegoists.com/journals/minus-one-1963/
8. International Congress of Anarchists in Carrara, August 31 to September 3, 1968.
9. AD , Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas is the main independent body in Argentina for promoting research, awarding scholarships, etc.