Kulten av kadavret

Av Albert Libertad

Genom sin längtan efter evigt liv har människan kommit att betrakta döden som ett slags genomgångsstadium, en smärtfylld etapp, och således böjt knä inför sitt eget ”mysterium” till den grad att hon rentav högaktar döden.

Innan människan ens kunde göra bostäder till de levande av sten, marmor och järn förstod hon att handskas med dessa material när det gällde att hylla de döda. Under kyrkornas och klostrens kor och mittskepp låg gravarna väl skyddade, medan de usla kojorna – som så illa förmådde att härbärgera de levande – krossades nedanför dess murar.

Redan från första början hindrade kulten av döden människans utveckling. Det är den som är ”arvsynden”, dödvikten, stenen kring mänsklighetens hals. Mot det universella livets röst höjdes – då som nu – dödens röst, de dödas röst.

Denna Jehova, som det för tusentals år sedan krävdes en fantasi av Moses” dimensioner för att framkalla i Sinai, dikterar alltjämt sina lagar. Jesus från Nasaret, som varit död i nära tjugo sekler, predikar fortfarande sin moral. Buddha, Konfutius, Laotse sprider fortfarande sin visdom. Och en hel hoper till!

Vi dignar under våra förfäders gärningar, vi har ärvt deras ”fel” och ”förtjänster”. I Frankrike är vi således avkomlingar till gallerna, fastän det är från frankerna vi härstammar så fort det gäller att piska upp hatet mot tyskarna. Vart och ett av dessa arv påbjuder oss sina särskilda skyldigheter.

Våra förfäder… det förgångna… de döda…

Döden är inte bara en första början till förruttnelse genom den kemiska upplösning som följer i dess spår (samtidigt som luften förpestas) – den är det desto mera genom sitt sätt att göra det förgångna heligt, sitt sätt att förlama en idé stadd i utveckling. Utan denna död skulle idén ha utvecklats, varit längre gången. Död kristalliserar den sig. Och det är just detta stadium av idén som de levande väljer att beundra, helga, heligförklara.

I familjen kommuniceras seder och bruk, det förgångnas misstag. Man tror på samma gud som sin far, har respekt för sina förfäders fosterland… varför respekterar man månne inte förfädernas lampor eller paltor?

Ja, det egendomliga faktumet inträffar att samtidigt som ekonomin förändras, utvecklas och differentieras, samtidigt som allt dör och omvandlas, så förblir människorna, deras espri, lika fastkedjade som förut, mumifierade i det förgångnas misstag.

I elektricitetens lika väl som flintans tidsålder tror människan blint på ett paradis som ska börja i morgon, på en gud som hämnas och förlåter, på ett helvete och valhallakalas, i sin önskan att visa respekt för förfäderna.

De döda styr oss, de döda härskar över oss, de döda har intagit de levandes plats.

Alla våra fester, alla våra högtider är årsdagar till massakrer och döda. Alla helgons dag är till för att glorifiera kyrkans helgon, allhelgonadagen för att se till att ingen död glöms bort. De döda far till olympen eller paradiset, allt enligt Jupiters eller guds vilja. De fyller ut det ”immateriella” rummet och brer ut sig i det ”materiella” med sina korteger, lits de parade och kyrkogårdar. M inte naturen grep sig an med att lösa upp deras kroppar och sprida deras aska, så skulle de levande av idag inte veta var de skulle sätta fötterna på den jättelika kyrkogård som jorden skulle ha förvandlats till.

Minnet av de döda, av deras gester och handlingar, blockerar barnets hjärna. När man talar med barn är det hela tiden om de döda: det är det enda man får tala om. Man får dem till att leva i det förgångna och i det overkliga. De måste bara inte lära sig något om nuet.

Om mannen på gatan har övergivit herr Noaks respektive herr Moses’ historieuppfattning så är det bara för att ha plockat upp herr Karl den stores eller herr Kapetings. Barnen kan utantill fru Fredegundas dödsår, men är totalt okunniga om hygien. Och femtonåriga flickor känner till att en fru Isabella i Spanien hade samma skjorta på sig under en belägring, men blir mycket upprörda av sin första menstruation.

Kvinnor som skulle kunna räkna upp alla franska kungar utan att staka sig, vet inte hur de ska göra med ett barn som ger ifrån sig sitt första livstjut.

Medan man låter unga flickor komma nära en döende som ligger och vrir sig i dödsångest, så är man mycket noga med att inte låta dem komma nära en person vars buk just ska öppna sig för livet.

De döda fyller våra städer, gator, platser. Man möter dem i massor, i sten, i brons: en inskription talar om när de föddes, en annan var de levde. Platsernas namn kommer från dem och deras bravader. En gatas namn förtäljer oss inte var gatan är belägen, vilken form den har, på vilken höjd den är belägen, däremot minner det om Magento eller Solferino, någon av de dödas bravader där man slaktade människor i massor, eller så berättar gatans namn om martyren Si-och-så eller den i strid fallne hertigen Ditt-och-datt, vilkas enda förtjänster för övrigt var att de dog.

Även i det ekonomiska livet har de döda stakat ut vars och ens liv. En kan mena att hela hans liv är förstört av faderns ”brott”; en annan simmar omkring i sumpen av sina förfäders geni eller tapperhet. Och resultatet blir än en distingerad tölp, än en tarvlig adelsman. I sig själv är man ingenting, i sina förfäders skugga är man allt.

Och ändå… vad är väl döden om man ser den utifrån en vetenskaplig och kritisk synvinkel? Denna respekt för de hädangångna, denna kult av seniliteten, med vilka argument rättfärdigas den? Just detta frågar sig få människor är därför är inte heller problemet ännu löst.

Vad möter väl blicken mitt inne i städerna om inte vidsträckta områden som gudfruktigt underhålls av de levande: kyrkogårdar, de dödas trädgårdar.

De levande roar sig med att inte långt varifrån barnen leker gräva ner ruttnade köttklumpar, kadaver som utgör bästa tänkbara grogrund för diverse sjukdomar och infektioner.

Jättelika platser med magnifika träd helgas åt kroppar anfrätta av pest, tyfus, kallbrand; dör grävs de ner på en två meters djup, och efter några dar går ett virus kring i staden och skördar sina offer.

Människan – som inte har den minsta respekt för sin egen levande kropp vilken hon plågar, förgiftar och ständigt sätter på spel – blir komisk när hon hycklar inför dessa döda kroppar i stället för att göra sig av med dem så snabbt som möjligt, i en så föga skrymmande och maximalt nyttig form som möjligt.

Kulten av döden är en av de levandes mest motbjudande dumheter. Den är en rest från dessa religioner som utlovade ett paradis. Man skulle således förbereda de döda för deras besök bortom bergen, ge dem vapen så att de skulle kunna delta i jakterna i Valhall, en matsäck till resan och en sista nattvard så att de skulle kunna stå där prickfria inför gud.

Formliga mängder av arbetare använder sin talang och energi till att vidmakthålla denna dödkult. Människor gräver i jorden, hugger i sten och marmor, smider galler med mera i sina ansträngningar att bestå var och en med ett litet gravhus, en plats där man respektfullt kan gräva ner det syfilitiska as som nyss hade avlidit.

Kvinnor syr liksvepningar, viker pappersblommor, sättar samman buketter och kransar för att pryda en grav där en klump ruttnande kött av en tuberkulös stackare vilar. I stället för att kvickt som ögat göra sig av med dessa infektionshärdar, på ett så hygieniskt sätt som möjligt förstöra dessa kroppar som bara sprider sjukdomar omkring sig om de vidmakthålls, försöker man bevara dem så länge som möjligt, lägger köttklumparna på speciella kärror, likvagnar, och drar omkring med dem i gränder och prång. Och när dessa vagnar passerar så blottar människorna sina huvuden. De respekterar döden.

Summan av de ansträngningar och det material som kulten av döden har krävt av mänskligheten är ofantligt stor. Om man i stället använde dessa krafter till att på ett oklanderligt sätt ta emot barnen då de anländer, så skulle man kunna spara tusentals liv och förhindra tusentals sjukdomar.

Om denna imbecilla respekt för döden försvann och ersattes med respekt för livet skulle man öka möjligheten att bli lycklig i oanad omfattning.

Människorna har fallit offer för asätarnas hyckleri, hyckleriet hos dem som äter döda, lever på döda, alltifrån prästen med sitt vigvatten till gravrättsförsäljaren, alltifrån gravbukettsmånglaren till dödsänglaskulptören.

När man ska skaffa undan de sista resterna av någon grotesk sprattelgubbe och ge dessa en sista vila, avpassad efter den dödes förmögenhet, så använder man dessa löjliga lådor i stället för att anlita en expressbyrå som i hermetiskt tillslutna förvaringskärl forslar iväg kropparna till ett modernt krematorium.

Vi har påpekat att det är på grund av sin okunnighet som människan omger ett så naturligt och enkelt fenomen som döden med denna kult av apkonster.

Låt oss också slå fast att det bara gäller människans död; djur och växter är inte föremål för manifestationer av detta slag. Varför?

De första människorna, vilddjur som inte hade kommit så långt i sin utveckling och som inte visste så mycket, brukade i den avlidnes grav också stoppa ned hans vapen, möbler, smycket och kvinna. Andra tog med sig ”mackabéen” till en domstol där han fick svara för sitt liv. I alla tider har människan varit okunnig om vad döden egentligen är för något.

Men nu är det en gång så att allt i naturen som lever också dör. Varje organism tynar bort när balansen mellan dess olika funktioner rubbas, av vad orsak det nu vara månde. Man kan med vetenskapens hjälp fastställa sjukdomens orsaker, dödens härjningar eller vad annat som har lett till en individs död.

Från människans synvinkel existerar alltså döden, frånvaron av liv, det vill säga en viss aktivitets upphörande i en viss form.

Men från en allmän synvinkel existerar inte döden. Det finns bara liv. Efter det vi kallar död sätter andra fenomen in. Syre och väte, gaser och mineralier, lämnar kroppen, bildar nya kombinationer och bidrar på detta sätt till andra organismers liv. Döden existerar inte, bar en cirkulation av kroppar, vissa modifieringar i materien och energin, en oupphörlig utveckling i rummet och tiden av universellt liv och universella aktiviteter.

En död är en kropp i cirkulation under någon av sina tre former: fast, flytande eller gas. Så enkelt var det med det och så ska vi också se det.

Det är alldeles uppenbart att denna verklighetstrogna uppfattning, som överensstämmer med vetenskapens alla rön, inte lämnar plats för några gråtmilda spekulationer om själen, intet och det som är hinsides.

Och vi vet att alla religioner som utlovar ”ett nytt liv” och ”en bättre värld” syftar till att sprida resignation hos just dem man plockar på stålar och exploaterar.

I stället för att knäfalla vid kadavren bör vi försöka organisera livet på sådana grunder att vi kan utvinna så mycken sötma därur som möjligt.

Vad angår dem som ryser till när de hör våra teorier och vårt förakt: de bara hycklar. Kulten av döden är inget annat än en skymf mot den äkta sorgen. Att vårda en grav, att klä sig i svart och hänga ett skynke för ansiktet har inget med uppriktigheten i smärtan att göra. Själva smärtan kommer för övrigt att minskas när alla har lärt sig att inse dödens ofrånkomlighet. Lidandet ska bekämpas, inte visas upp, inte rastas vid groteska promenader och falska fester.

En som respektfullt traskar fram bakom en likvagn kanske kvällen innan svälte ut den avlidne, en som åmar sig inför liket gjorde måhända ingenting för att hjälpa den avlidne vid en tidpunkt då han hade kunnat rädda dennes liv.

Varje dag sår det kapitalistiska systemet sin draksådd av död, genom sin dåliga organisation, genom den misär den skapar, genom sin brist på hygien, genom de umbäranden och den okunnighet som människorna lider av. Genom att stödja ett sådant system skapar sålunda människorna sitt eget lidande och i stället för att tyna bort inför ödet borde de verka för att förbättra levnadsvillkoren och skänka livet dess maximum av utveckling och intensitet.

Kulten av de döda, som bygger på okunnighet, dumhet och lättrogenhet, kan bara rättfärdigas genom hyckleri och rädsla för att utmana grannens fördomar. Alla fria människor måste göra sig av med dessa förkastliga idéer, visa sin likgiltighet för dessa gester som bottnar i pueril religiositet och därmed ställa upp sina egna begrepp om vad som behöver göras och hur man ska kunna skapa ett harmoniskt liv.

NER MED DE DÖDA!

Ur La Bonne Collection nr 32, Paris, oktober 1925
Översättning: Richard Swedberg
texten hämtades en gång i tiden från hemsidan Anarki a la Chilli.

Meltzer: ”Ministerial Inefficiency”

By Albert Meltzer
War Commentary, October 1940
”World War – Cold War: Selections from the Anarchist Journals War Commentary & Freedom 1939-1950″

The inefficiency of Ministers used as a slogan for victory? It sounds almost incredible, and maybe it would be in another country, but it is a fact today in Britain. The Tory leaders are thoroughly discredited: Chamberlain has been an omen of disaster to the Conservative Party, and his followers, local Tory MPs who were full of praise for Hitler and Mussolini, would have no chance in the country if – as is not now possible – a General Election came. The man-in-the-street would be very likely to agree now with the statement of one Conservative MP some years ago: ”The Blackshirts have what the Conservatives need” – not dictatorship but Brixton!

This is shown by the phenomenal success of the book Guilty Men. It had a very good send-off by being unofficially banned, but it created a sensation apart from that. Guilty Men tells the familiar tale of a complacent Chamberlain leading a Hitler-loving Conservative solid majority in the days of Munichism. More and more people are coming to recognise this fact: yet, conversely, the Government does not lose in popularity. The antodote to all criticism is: ”But now it is all different’. A Chamberlain is out, a Churchill is in. Apart from Mr Churchill looking more like a bulldog than his colleague and the more important fact that his support and warmhearted defence of fascism under Signor Mussolini has had a chance to be forgotten while Mr Chamberlain’s visits to Munich are too fresh in the public mind, there is little difference. But the man-in-the-street is fooled: he is led to believe we have suffered some defeats because of inefficient Mr Chamberlain, and now are to be led to victory, via the change of Prime Minister, by Mr Churchill.

Even now, with the change of Ministry to ”efficient” Ministers, criticism of them has to continue. Mr Duff Cooper went into office in a blaze of glory, having made a brilliant speech crying out to Chamberlain, ”Go, go, in heaven’s name, go!” It was a dangerous speech, though, for now everyone is crying that at Mr Duff Cooper. True Mr Cooper has to defend the ridiculous methods of the Ministry of Information, sure Minister-breaker, since the Ministry can only give official policy, while the nation wants the soothing syrup of Transport House variety, the ”better land after the war” type, which the rulers may promise but cannot specify too closely. Also, he has had to tread on the corns of neewspapermen by censorship of news – always a risky business! But apart from that, what significance has Mr Cooper’s inefficiency? True, propaganda could be a great force in the war, and he is retarding it; but no more than any other member of his class would.

The reason seems clear: the Cabinet may be likened to the proverbial Russian sledge, after which the wolves of public opinion run. The mother on the sledge has to throw off her babies one by one: a hard parting, but inevitable, anything to allay the wolves. And this mother is distiinctly hard-hearted and will throw them all off if she can maintain her position on the sledge. Some of the babies, though, are lusty brats and run after the sledge crying, ”Shame!” – e.g. Mr Hore-Belisha!

The ruling class can well afford one or two Ministers as a burnt-offering if it can stop the public from thinking and acting thereby.

At the moment, there is some denunciation of Sir John Anderson, and a demand that he should resign, because of the suppression of liberty underneath him, and also because of the internment of so many refugees either anti-Nazi or friendly to the allied cause. But we are not concerned with whether Sir John would resign or not: the question is whether such practices would stop if we had a new Home Secretary. The agitation must be against the offence, not the individual acting as figure-head or held responsible.

In the trade unions, it is the same: agitation against any particular person sometimes leads to their being replaced by better men, who in turn, because of the method of trade union bureaucracy, become equally reactionary. The introduction of Labour leaders into the Government has not altered the character of the war: Mr Attlee, who before had led the demand for a statement of peace aims, once Lord Privy Seal, had to declare that the time for stating peace aims was ”inopportune’. Labour MPs led the demand for such things as nationalisation of mines; now a Labour Minister of Mines has to state that this cannot be done. So it seems that change of Ministers does not lead to a change of methods. But the agitation against inefficiency leads to a lessening of the struggle against the system, and that, of course, is what the ruling class want.

It might be stated that there is an interesting excepttion to the rule that inefficiency against individual Ministers is largely inspired by a desire to avoid essential criticism rather than to face actual criticism. That is the wide-spread belief in this country that Britain is inefficient, too lenient, too humane, etc. which is, of course, fostered with the intention of making the people believe that we must be less lenient, less humane, etc. If it were stated bluntly – ”we must be intolerant, we must be inhumane’, etc. – it is doubtful that the British people would agree. But they are told that we are notoriously lenient, ridiculously humane, and are likely to remain so, and the result is support for the reverse action to be adopted. Then, when the news comes out, the reaction is, ”Well, it’s about time too!’, or the like.

It is, by the way, a remarkable illusion that inefficiency does not exist in Germany – a thing which all good patriots here believe. Why this illusion I cannot fathom: it may have arisen as a means of exhorting people to do their bit, but it has never been very true.

In the last war the myth of German efficiency rose to an alarming extent, but was grossly exaggerated. Hasek has portrayed the corrupt and decaying Austro-Hungarian Army for ever in the Good Soldier Schweik, while as to the German Army in the last war, Bernard Shaw – who has written on everything – pronounced the truest words, in the mouth of a member of the ruling class, who says ”if the British public knew that I had said it, I should at once be hounded down as a pro-German”. It is:

”Our people have for some reason made up their minds that the German War Office is everything that our War Office is not… my own view… is that the German War Office is no better than any other War Office.
I found that opinion on my observation of the character of my brother-in-law; one of whom, by the way, is on the German General Staff.” (Augustus Does His Bit, 1917)

Today, of course, the Nazis have got rid of the aristocratic Junkers: whereas we retain the aristocratic junk. Nevertheless, today in Germany the State is in control: and the State, in its totalitarian stage, though it eliminates capitalist waste and oligarchic inefficiency, creates bureaucracy and its attendant ”red tape’. When we get much better information on how Germany wages this war (which will only, perhaps, be afterwards), we shall very probably see that Germany has not been winning victories because of the superior efficiency of Nazism, but because the bourgeoisie of the west are fearful, and therefore timid. They fear that a major war of destruction will ruin their property, and expediate social revolution: the Nazis, representatives of a ”have not” nation against the ”have” imperialisms, and who have deluded at least themselves that revolution is impossible, for they are the revolution, have no such trepidations, and so take the initiative and the drive. They err in underrating social revolution, for it is becoming ever more of an imminence, and will sweep away both them and their bourgeois ”sisters under their skins’.

A. M.

Meltzer: ”The Fifth Column”

By Albert Meltzer
War Commentary, May 1941
”World War – Cold War: Selections from the Anarchist Journals War Commentary & Freedom 1939-1950″

Consciences are bad in Fleet Street. Our press lords, who boosted Hitler to the skies when Hitler only did things one attacks him for but had not come into competition with the City of London, are now in opposition to him. Consciences are bad in the homes of the aristocracy and the politicians: the Friends of Hitler in Mayfair and Westminster have to change their tactics.

Lord Redesdale declares that he has no longer any sympathy with the Hitler regime (despite daughter Unity Mitford’s antics and son-in-law Oswald Mosley’s convulsions) for now ”the enemies of the King are the enemies of every honest man”. George Robey left for a trip to Australia and told the Daily Express how much he admired Hitler – by the time he came back he had to say ”it was only a joke”. Lord Londonderry indignantly denies canards about his being interned as a spy (because he had entertained Ribbentrop in the old days) – an analogous position with Prince Louis of Battenberg in the last war. The Page-Crofts and the Arnold Wilsons, the friends of fascism in Germany, Italy and Spain in the old days (still, so far as the last two go), the Lennox Boyds, and the others – all have to swallow their words, and all do their bit with patriotism.

Hannen Swaffer mentions Tory MPs such as this – and forgets his own idol, Winston Churchill: ”Had I been in Italy at the time, I should have been a fascist,” ”I have always declared that if Britain were defeated in a war, we should need a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful place amongst the nations.”

This was what we once called the Fifth Column. In Spain, Franco had four columns converging on Madrid, and boasted of a fifth of provocateurs, spies and fascists within it. The reference was clear. All the friends of fascism were the enemies within the gates: so they were called in revolutionary Spain.

The Communist Party took up the slogan parrot-fashion, and urged purges of the ”Fifth Column” everywhere – until its master, Stalin, about-faced and they were forced to join it.

But our Fifth Column, also reversed when war was declared. They supported Hitler, Mussolini, etc., because they wanted to preserve Capitalism-Imperialism. This war against Hitler (which poor dupes of workers are kidded is against fascism) is for the preservation of Capitalism-Imperialism. Excited patriotism took the place of fervent fascism. Sudden ”sympathy” for fishermen killed by Nazi machine-gunners (not a new development in totalitarian warfare) became one of the ”excuses” for this reversal.

Now what? Our Fifth Column has a bad conscience. It must save its face: for previous admiration for Herr Hitler is now at a discount. So it looks for a scapegoat.

Norway provides for it. Major Quisling, at the head of the Nazi party, led a movement to help the Nazis.

To put it bluntly (but don’t tell Mr Lennox-Boyd or the Friends of Nationalist Spain), Quisling did a Franco. Not a very effective Franco, but certainly Quisling had the support of an important section of the Norwegian ruling-class, e.g. the head of the Oslo police, the Bishop of Oslo, and many officers. (The Norwegian ruling-class has always been pro-German, and recently pro-Nazi, influences: largely as a result of the strength of social revolution.)

Now the Nazis have other movements, too: the German-American Bund, the Dutch, Rumanian, Swedish, etc., Nazi ”culture” and ”sports” movements: all of which could emulate Franco, Quisling or Kuusinen. Similarly, any Communist Party would help Russia (e.g. the Finnish Communist Party, although it did not exist outside Moscow) if it were the opposing force.

One might say, perhaps, that such movements represented (to the ruling classes of the Allied powers in a capitalist war) the new ”Fifth Column’. Our ex-Fifth Column, and still fascistic, ruling class might perhaps term these the new ”Fifth Column’.

Oh no. They have a better trick. With these they deliberately confuse the genuine anti-war (anti-Hitler’s and anti-Stalin’s, as well as anti-Chamberlain’s, war) elements – socialists, pacifists and anarchists.

The Sunday Dispatch has a flaming article: ”Where Britain Must Strike Next’. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of speech for ”defaitists” and anarchists, it declares. The Peace Pledge Union it denounces as a ”revolutionary” organisation. It insists on dictatorial measures in the French manner. All this from a Rothermere paper – Rothermere, the backer of Hitler and Mussolini in days gone by, the man who introduced Fascism to Britain by his support of Mosley, and the man who was recently dragged through the police courts on that case about the Princess and the royal heads of Europe and Hitler.

Hannen Swaffer, cynical Fleet Street scribbler, writes in the ”Labour” Daily Herald as though he didn’t know of the huge numbers of local Labour parties opposing the war and affiliated to the No Conscription League, or of trade union rank-and-file opposition to the war, by writing as though only fascists, plus a few communists, opposed the war – with the possible exception, perhaps, of one or two ”sentimental pacifists’.

Careful propaganda, ”public opinion made to order’, biased reporting, unscrupulous misrepresentation; gradually it is worked up to insist to suppress all revolutionary, peace yes, and labour movements. Churchill the timemay not be able to ”control” all the seas all the time, on his statement, but he ”controlled” the General Strike very efficiently. Chamberlain, Rothermere, Beaverbrook: we all know what even the ordinary trade unionist think of them.

Is the working class going to allow its movements to be broken by action, following careful propaganda? Let us know in advance the technique:

1. Ex-boosters of Hitler clamour for imprisonment of all Germans, as potential spies, inclusing those who risked their lives fighting Hitler underground whiile these gentlemen wrote letters to The Times in their clubs, saying what good Hitler was doing for Germany.

2. The demand for dissolution of all communist, fascist ”defeatist” and similar organisations (the term similar to include trade unions, Labour Parties and co-ops opposing the war; ILP, NCL, Peace Pledge Union, anarchists, educational and civil liberties bodies).

3. The creation, gradually, of the power of the executive to dissolve anything they chhoose.

4. The strengthening of the executive power as the dictatorial body controlling the country.

5. Hitlerism, and not even with the social programme that was used to delude the German people.

ALBERT MELTZER

Meltzer: What’s all this about Revolution?

By Albert Meltzer
War Commentary, April 1941
”The Left & World War II: Selections from the Anarchist Journal War Commentary 1939-1943″

Apparently the reactionary press so fears the approach of a genuine revolution that it strives to divert us with the date of the British Revolution one day last week! Everything from added wartime restrictions to trade-union leader and Royalty get-togethers have been hailed as heralding the millenium. This boulderdash does not impress any one in this country, of course – though it enjoys a certain vogue in America, where British propaganda falls between two stools – one, persuading American opinion that ”class distinctions” have been abolished; two, persuading it that Britain is not ”going Socialist’.

Apart, however, from propaganda in America, there are a lot of people here persuading themselves that there will be a ”better world after the war’: these are the social-democrats, pinning their hopes on a transformation of the government (having ceased to believe in the class-struggle) or on a declaration of peace aims by the present government. This is their idea of a ”revolution’. Mr J. B. Priestley put it,

”They (the ruling class) did not like my Sunday night broadcast because I was trying to warn the people that this is no war like the last war and that when it is over there will be no going back to 1939. They did not like my suggestion that this is as much a social revolution as a war and that it must be met in that way.” (cf. Daily Herald, 13th March 1941, report of Mr Priestley’s speech to the National Trade Union Club the previous day).

Mr Victor Gollancz, whose Left Book Club was once the wooden horse of Troy for the Stalinists in the Popular Front days, has declared that the aims of the LBC now are identical with those of the Daily Herald (i.e. of Transport House) ”in logical continuation of its pre-war campaigns”: in short, that the policy of the left fringe of the Labour Party represented by Gollancz and Cripps (the Tribune pro-war socialists) is identical with the right-wing – it wants to win the war and establish a Labour Government similar to all other social-democratic governments that have proved traitors in the past. Thus do they not only announce their refusal to face the class struggle now: they also admit their logical continuation of their present policy afterwards, for the aim of the Daily Herald is nothing more than a government of Attlee, Bevin, Morrison and Co. (all in the present government) without co-operation with the Tories and Liberals.

Normally we need not listen too much to the advice of the Liberals – noo-one pays much attention to financial advice given by a man three times bankrupt. But the Liberal policies are all being trotted out again, and in many cases – owing to the lack of anything concrete offered by the Labour movement – are coated with a socialist veneer and adopted by the rest of the Left.

They began with a typical Liberal scheme of Federal Union, the League of Nations rehashed, which lost much of its popularity when Herr itler expropriated it. Mr H. G. Wells too, who coined the phrase ”a war to end war” last time, was rash enough to re-coin another slogan this time ”A Declaration of the Rights of Man”, formulated in the newspapers. This set the ball rolling, and Sir Richard Acland began ”Our Struggle” – a similar idea of declaring the peace aims of the government for it.

The Communist Party finds itself nearer sections of the liberals than anywhere else – fine ”liberalism” that finds itself allied with Chekists! In its People’s Fronting days it threw out all the remnants of its proletarian past, save those who recanted, and filled itself with bourgeois-minded followers of Deans and Barristers. As a result, when Stalin changed his mind about supporting the war he had got his followers to urge for – the Communist Party was unable to re-adapt its old pseudo-revolutionary policy. It probably intended to at first – the wistful plea ”We have not studied our Marx and Lenin sufficiently” will long be remembered – but its ”People’s Convention” episode shows it is still hankering for the People’s Front’: in spite of returning the last People’s Government” it agitated for (Churchill, Attlee and Sinclair) it now wants another one, the most important feature of which will be ”friendship with the Soviet Union’. Its alliance with second-hand liberals who want Russia to join the war so it can be won more easily was made clear by the declarations of the banned BBC artists – to take two typical cases, Guy Verney and Michael Redgrave, who both issued public statements that they were not opposed to the ”national war effort” but wanted to strengthen it and their participation in the People’s Convention was in their mind consistent with that end.

Just as the Communist Party has never forgotten the People’s Front, so the Right cannot forget its eulogies for Hitler. Even now the majority of them, while detesting him for being the leader of the Germans, have pains to conceal ttheir admiration of ”what he had done’, which is shown in their admiration of the British Government’s emulation of its policy.

The more intelligent section, however, realise which side their bread is buttered, and have dropped their pro-Hitlerism in outvying the left in talk of ”revolution’. Thus Lord Beaverbrook’s press, which during the Spanish War was notorious for its pro-fascist yellow journalism now takes up the cudgels for ”left wing revolutions in Europe’. (For the benefit of American readers, when an Englishman talks of ”Europe” he does not include England!) This section of the Right has shed its fascist skin with the rapidity of a snake: readers of the London Evening Standard may compare the present series of ”democratic revolution” articles by Michael Foot with the lies and distortions against Spanish democrats and revolutionaries alike by Manuel Chaves Nogales of an earlier date.

We have often wondered why some enterprising American Nazi did not distribute some of the past arguments of certain British newspapers against intervention in European affairs! Some equally enterprising American Rooseveltian might then distribute forgotten German and Italian defences of interventionism!

But apart from these people who have apparently changed their mind, and who represent the Tory line of Churchill, there is a solid phalanx of (Chamberlain) Tories who are desperately opposed to the fear of playing with fire. The Imperial Policy Group in the House of Commons, for instance, warns its Colleagues against tampering with revolution in Europe, in spite of the fact that this is the only method by which Hitler can be overthrown. These are identical with the anti-change men – in particular the Army ruling clique.

The real Tories are not at all anti-Nazi, only anti-German: this is proved by the broadcasts of Sir Robert Vansittart, breathing across the ether the insiidious poison of racial hatred: talking of the Germans as Julius Strecher talks of the Jews, Pierre Laval of the English or Oswald Rirow of the Negroes.

But while the Tories may hate the Germans while the Left is only supposed to hate the Nazis, in effect it comes to the same thing. It makes not the slightest difference that the Laski-Acland-Wells theories are for supporting the war for ”internationalist” motives whereas the Captain Margessons support it for ”patriotic” reasons. The Left keeps ”its workers” in order, and the Right allays the doubts of the City of London. There is no doubt – in spite of some persiflage by Leftists about ”winning the war by and for Socialism” (Gollancz) – that the war will be won or lost by a combination of all the pro-war sections, each working in their own sphere, with occasional tiffs such as all coalitions are bound to occasion (especially when it comes to sharing Governmental positions).

But if the war is won by coalition, can that coalition be broken down immediately afterwards? There are too many obvious difficulties in the way. The quarrels over the Peace Treaty should one section want to build a federation of Europe and the other to smash Germany and her allies are obvious. But more than that: the war itself is bringing great changes, which cannot be wiped off by a stroke of the pen the day after the Armistice is signed. The war is bringing us nearer the totalitarian state: every new decree is a step in that direction. The Labour leaders have no objection to it: it turns out (as the Anarchists have always predicted) that the bureaucratic state is their real ideal. Fascism, without the brutalities often attendant on it, is in reality the Fabian-Socialist theory elaborated before Hitler was born. But what of the Tories? Have they any objection to the bureaucratic state, so long as they do not sacrifice their position under it? n the contrary, the more intelligent of them realise it is their only chance of survival, and others of them realise that what they admired in Hitler before the war was precisely the measures being adopted by the government today. The capitalists may have to sacrifice something, but the German and Italian experience shows them it is worth their while.

It seems likely, then, that the totalitarian state will be the next step in British politics. The liberals, foreseeing it, seek for declarations and promises that the individual’s rights will be respected, and that there will be some form of popular franchise. That apart there is no real difference on war aims: those who want to go back to 1939 capitalism realising that there must be some stabilising factor, those who want ”socialism” really having identical views on the co-operation of capital and labour. Internally, then, there will be no disagreement, externally, there may be considerable differences on European policy.

DIEGO CAMACHO: ”Everyone was trusted.”

By Nancy MacDonald
from ”Homage to the Spanish Exiles: Voices from the Spanish Civil War”, Insight Boos, New York 1987.

It was through Miguel Garcia Garcia that I met Diego Camacho (whose pen name is Abel Paz). During the summer of 1982 I read Paz’s book on the anarchist militant Buenaventura Durruti, and was so impressed that I wanted to translate it from the French into English. I asked Miguel if he knew how I could get in touch with the author. Miguel gave me his address and I wrote to Camacho, who agreed to let me translate the book, which was published by Black Rose Press in Canada in 1977. Earlier, Paz wrote a book called Paradigma de una revolución (36 horas de lucha en Barcelona) and is working on another, Comité Central de Milices de Catalogne.

Diego lives in Barcelona, and in October 1985 I asked friends to look him up there. He came to see them at the Hotel Ritz, where they were staying. He told them that the last time he was there, during the Civil War, he was fourteen, carried a rifle, and came to take over the hotel as a hospital. He also told my friends that in the fifties he had asked SRA [Spanish Refugee Aid] for a sewing machine for his wife, and we had given him one.

Where do you come from in Spain?

Camacho: ”I was born on August 12, 1921 in Almeria in the province of Andalusia. My parents were peasants and I lived with them until I was fourteen. I started to go to school at the age of eleven, and I went to a school subsidized by the CNT unions for 2 years. It was a rationalist school modeled on those started by Francisco Ferrer in 1909. The school was in Barcelona and the Union which supported it was the Textile Workers Union which had 70,000 members. It was called La Escuela Natura and the Director was Puig Elias, who died in exile 2 years ago in Brazil. The school was rather well known and had 400 students.

”As I couldn’t go to school in my province, my mother arranged with her mother to take care of me in Barcelona. I was at this school from 1933 to 1935. Then I went to work as an apprentice mechanic in a small shop and was there until the war started in Spain in 1936.”

When did you become an anarchist?

Camacho: ”I think in that period one became an anarchist quite naturally. The conditions of life led workers to become anarchists. For example, my father was a peasant and he worked 3 months during the year; the other 9 months he was unemployed because there was no work. He had to feed his family of five. So he was forced to go out at night and steal things in the fields to feed us. In reality, almost all the peasant population did that. They stole to eat. So in such a situation and without having any theoretical knowledge about anarchism, I was an anarchist instinctively.

”Then the war came and I was already a member of the Libertarian Youth and I was active with them until the month of November 1936. At that time I was given the opportunity of working in a peasant collective in the Province of Lerida in a village called Cervia. I stayed there until March 1937.”

What was this experience like?

Camacho: ”Life in a collective was something very interesting. Because in Barcelona, although all the industries were collectivized or socialized, one couldn’t see how things had changed since there was no community life in the factories. One works, and then each individual goes home. While in a commune everything was completely different. We all lived together and one could see better how things were changing.”

Were you sent by the CNT?

Camacho: ”We had been sent by the Libertarian Youth because in this village of 3,500 inhabitants a Libertarian Youth group had also been organized. They wanted to have direct contact with city workers because during a revolution there are always differences between the farmers and the industrial workers. And no revolution has succeeded in establishing a bond between the country and the city. But in Spain this bond was established immediately.

”If you go back to the beginnings of the workers” movement in Spain, in 1870 when the Spanish section of the International was organized, no difference was made between the peasants and the industrial workers. They were all workers. And when people went to the country to work, they didn’t live there, they went back to the towns. The peasants in Spain are very different from those in other countries. They have always been very acttive in their villages and are not just country people, so that liaison was quickly established between the city and the country.

”But there is a question of a certain mentality. The fellows who live in the country are reserved and they think they are always being fooled by those who know more than they do. So there was some distrust of the people from the city. But we were in the process of getting rid of this type of thinking. That is why the libertarians in the village wanted us city dwellers to come and live with the peasants so that they could see that there was no reason to distrust us. And so we lived there for 6 or 7 months.

”At first the old peasants had a certain pride and said of the city people, ”You don’t know how to work – you are not used to work.” But we showed them we were capable of working when necessary and that we were also capable of amusing ourselves. We showed them that we were capable of doing everything that they did with the same courage, perhaps not always with the same skill since we weren’t peasants, but we did our very best to do the hardest work. And so we were accepöted right away and we were very much loved by everyone there.”

Did you work in the fields, or as a mechanic?

Camacho: ”No, no, this collective was completely agricultural. It had many olive trees and was rich in oil. There were almond trees too, and vegetables, but the main wealth came from the oil. So there was a mill. But we had to pick the olives in the month of November. It was very cold there and you had to have pluck to pick the olives. You had to get up early.

”But the really interesting thing was how the life had changed. Formerly, people in the country lived rather closed in on themselves. Now they were beginning to live with each other; life became more open. At least twice a week there were general assemblies and all the village attended – including the women, the children, the old people, everybody. Communications were completely different. For example, before the war, young girls didn’t walk alone with boys. ow that was no longer true; life had changed 100 percent.”

And when they met, is that when decisions for the collective were made?

Camacho: ”Work was organized in brigades of 10, 15, or 20, and each brigade had a delegate who was responsible for the work done. In the assemblies all the problems of the community were discussed, such as administration, schools, organizing a theater group, sanitation, all the questions to be resolved. You might think that these assemblies might be boring for the people but not at all – it was more like a festivity. They went to have a family discussion. before, the family was limited to three or four people. Now there were collective problems of 3,500. Of course not everyone spoke. But everyone came, and if they wanted to give their opinion, they did. n the summer the assemblies took place outdoors. In winter, when it was cold, they were in the theater.

”There are a lot of interesting details about the daily life in a collective. For example, the church had been taken over and it had become the collective’s food store. That was where each family obtained their foodstuffs for the week or the day. There were no tickets. Everyone knew each other and there were no problems. For example, if you went to get some meat and you came back a half hour later, the fellow would know you and he couldn’t be fooled. But we didn’t have such problems. Everyone was trusted. Sometimes you couldn’t have a lot of a product because there wasn’t enough produced. But the rest you had in abundance.”

Was it the same for clothes?

Camacho: ”No, we didn’t make them, so they had to be bought. Or we made an exchange with the things we had, like oil. There was some control. For example, there were two pairs of shoes per year, but then there was the type who needed three pairs because he hadn’t taken care of them. He received three, but usually there was a certain control and normally people didn’t behave like that.”

Did you return from the collective before the May Days?

Camacho: ”I returned to Barcelona a few days before. I started to work again as an apprentice in my trade, as I was only fifteen. And I worked there during the tragic events of May and the counterrevolution. But I’m not going into all the question of the Spanish revolution here. We, the young libertarians, began to be persecuted by the Communist Party on the one hand and on the other we were in opposition to the CNT and the FAI for their political position in relation to the government. And this is how we lived during the war, until Barcelona was taken by Franco, and we went into exile in France.

”In France I was put into concentration camps. First I was in St. Cyprien, then Argeles-sur-Mer, and finally Bram. From there I was sent out in a work company and I remained until the Germans cut France in half. After June 1940 I went to Bordeaux. There we made a little propaganda and sabotage until we were forced to flee to the free zone. The situation then became such in France that either we had to fight the Germans or join them. A few friends studied the situation and decided, not out of patriotism, that we would prefer to return to Spain to fight against the Spanish Fascists directly.”

When was this?

Camacho: ”It was in June 1942 in Barcelona that we tried to rebuild a Spanish resistance movement and we managed to carry out quite a few little jobs. We organized several groups of young people, people we knew already. But in December 1942 I was caught by the police. I was imprisoned and condemned to 30 years by a war council for clandestine activities and for having helped rebuild an organization which the Fascists thought they had destroyed.

”In 1947 I escaped by falsifying my identity papers. It’s not worth giving you the details. Many comrades got out this way and it wasn’t the first time. Three months later I was back in another underground organization with young libertarians from Madrid. Three months after that I was back in prison again under another name, because I always used fake names. I had been picked up in Madrid but they made a new dossier for me, not knowing about the first one. This is complicated to explain, but is due in part to the disorientation and confusion in the Fascist administration. I was in prison until July 1953 when I left again by devious means and went back to Barcelona.

”At that time a National Plenum of the CNT was taking place and they were discussing the problems of the Congress that the International, the AIT, was holding in Paris. The CNT wanted to send delegates to the Congress. So I and another comrade were chosen. I came to France to attend a Congress and to stay for 8 days, and now it’s 1974 and I’m still here. Well, that is a little resumé of my life.”

July – November 1936 in Spain

By Max Nettlau
Spain and the World, 12th December 1936
”Spain 1936-1936: Social Revolution and Counter-Revolution. Selections from the anarchist fortnightly Spain & the World”, Freedom Press, London 1990.

As things are now – four months after the treacherous rising of the Spanish generals (July 17th) – not a few unbiased persons in the Western neutral countries may begin to see to what extent they underrated, and misunderstood, the situation in the early months of July and August, when with a little good will, helpfulness and fearlessness their countries might have contributed to a fair solution of a problem which now assumes ugly aspects and uncontrollable proportions.

The situation in July was simply this: a radical government, the result of a popular electoral victory in February last, was suddenly confronted by the outburst of a most carefully prepared conspirracy by almost all the officers of the army and a portion of the Navy, both closely allied to fascist organisations, the militant elements, many monarchists, both Alfonsists and Carlists, and influential people in industry and finance. The conspiracy had included in the first place relations with powerful fascists abroad, whether officially or otherwise, and had prepared plans for the imposition of military dictatorship, the crushing of constitutional life and personal liberties to the greatest extent. The real fighting force of the conspirators was the African army, which was, and is, entirely alien to the Spanish people. This army consists of enlisted Moroccan native moros and of nondescript Spanish and foreign elements, and the hired Spanish foreign legion (Tercio). From this began the meeting of uly the 17th and the 18th, practically unknown to the population of Spain, who were confronted on July 19th, by an attack on the part of the local garrisons against all the governmental, municipal and working class districts, entering into a most intense battle with all who offered resistance, end enforcing their militaristic will upon all towns, especially by surprise attacks and cruelty, and seizing the latter on July 19th and on following days.

Only in about half the Spanish Territories was this terrific onslaught checked by immense popular effort. Malaga, Cartagena, Valencia, Barcelona, Madrid and Bilbao, and other great centres still hold out. Others like Saragossa, Cordoba, Granada and Oviedo, were, or are besieged by the government forces. Only Irun, San Sebastian, Toledo were lost to the enemy, whhilst Pamplona, the Carlist centre, Burgos, Valladolid, Seville and the Western towns from the neighbourhood of Gibraltar to the north of Galicia remained in the hands of the enemy who crushed the initial Andalusian and Galician resistance, ruthlessly destroyed Bajadoz and also hold the Balearic and Canary Islands. It is remarkable that one hears very little of the old Spanish army, whilst all the fighting seems to be done by the African troops – Moros and Tercio. These could only be brought over to Europe, when by means of bombing aircraft sent from the foreign fascist countries, the Spanish warships guarding the Straits had been scattered. Then they were used against Malaga, Estremadura (Badajoz), Irun and San Sebastian, Toledo and Madrid. Thus it is clear that the rrebels have acted all along as if they were foreign invaders, being armed with fforeign supplies, fighting with an army, of Moors and hirelings and imposing their will wherever they can, by military terror.

Consequently they have been looked upon from the first hourr as traitors and not a few officers who had been arrested sttood on trial as traitors and were shot as traitors. They had really nothing to say to justify their conduct during these elaborate trials held in public court, from the trials of Goded and Fanjul in Barcelona and Madrid in August to that of the son of Primo de Rivera held in Alicante in November. They had wished to impose their will on the people of Spain, but the latter refused to give up their freedom and bravely defended themselves.

The question stands thus, and in all this there is not a jot of communism, Russia and so on. It was and is a fascist raid, which met with no popular response, but took most dangerous proportions owing to the irresponsible foreign elements engaged in it, with incalculable foreign forces behind them, and to the most cruel and desperate attitude of the conspirators, who saw before them on one side the spoils of a whole country and unlimited vengeance, and on the other side shame and a traitor’s death. This is not a ”civil war’, which presupposes honourable differences of opinion. It is not even a fascist ascent of seizure of power, as even such regrettable usurpations are based upon the action of large bodies and individuals brought together, organised and fanatized by persistent agitation. This stage was never reached by the Spanish fascists, who thrived but in hole and corner associations of gilded youth, and could not show their faces without police protection. There was much malignity shown by many, but they were not a political factor of real consequence. No, all the strength of the enemy rested in the generals and their officers, who expected, owing to their quasi unanimity, to have a walk-over, the easiest of victories, and then a long enjoyment of power on the ruins of all the liberal and social aspirations of the Spanish people. Theirs was a bid for power like that of the burglar who risks life and limb for a big haul. Maybe some oof them had guarantees for safety and were only tools of a greater conspiracy; most of them blundered into the ugly affair from sheer military cussedness, others from clerical fanaticism and bourgeois and aristocratic pride. hey are a poor lot in any case, and it would be folly to take them as representing any political wisdom or ideas: they brought about the most horrible mess and made things infinitely worse from the very beginning by indulging in dastard cruelty.

The great western countries have made a big mistake by not taking these traitors at their real value. They represented nothing but themselves and their pride and covetousness, and everyone in Spain who was not an adept of extremely reactionary opinions, or personally interested in the brutal reprression and enslavement of a whole nation, was up against them in spirit, and wherever possible in arms. But it was palpably known to the casual observer, and so much more to governments disposing of instant information from many sources, that the mutiny of nearly the whole army and part of the navy left the government and the people in the tragic plight of being almost unarmed and unable to procure new weapons on a large scale of home fabrication, when every hour is precious and the mechanised army of the enemy, disposing of ample sorts of everything, advance rapidly and before all, entrench tthemselves in many important places, crushing all local resistance. It was possible for the heroic masses to check the advance, but they could not, with riifles and bare fists, dislodge the enemy from walled towns, fortresses and citadels. Such operations, which had the entire support of the then existing government and many of their regular armed forces, obviously required a quuick supply of war material from the recognised producers in other countries in the uusual way of goods quuickly supplied for cash to authorised customers, which friendly governments always are – and Spain has not been involved in any of the European wars since the time of Napoleon. Spain has been invaded at the order of the Holy Alliance (Russia, Prussia and Austria) in the eighteen-twenties by a French army which crushed the then Liberal Government and re-established absolutism, laying the foundations of so much of the coming trouble. Surely this black spot on nineteenth century history need not be a precedent for the renewed crushing of progressive hopes in the unhappy country by foreign powers. Why then was the Spanish Government hindered in rearming when confronted by one treacherous military mutiny? Without this interference the mutiny would have been put down within a few weeks, and general progressive work in a peaceful country would now be well under way.

The reasons are twofold: one is the generally alleged great care for peace – a peace which is bought by permitting anti-social dark forces to lay hands on Germany in 1933, on Austria in July, 1934, and Ethiopia since the autumn of 1935, on Spain in July, 1936, not to speak of what happens in the Far East, where bit after bit of territory is fleeced from China, and what is fomenting day by day in France herself, in Belgium and other countries. When such open plunder at last meets with fiery resistance, the remaining not-enslaved countries do not welcome this, but do all to strangle this resistance, to hhelp to deliever up a practically unarmed people to an African invasion of Moors and nondescript hirelings. What is prompting this counsel? – iis it what one may politely call timidity, modesty, bashfulness, the wish to shirk painful diplomatic discussions, to evade hurting the feelings or some irascible tyrants, who thus get everything they wish to have? Or is it the other fatal reason, namely, that all these ”neutral” powers are glad and anxious to see freedom crushed in Spain? Were these the main reasons or were men really, placed in responsible positions, so uninformed as to be swept away by the infamous press campaigns of organised journalistic slander, such as just now made a victim much nearer to home, Roger Sallengro, in the very centre of French politics?

War is not averted by politics of timidity; on the contrary it is being provoked by them. To speak quite plainly, if a country wishes to wage war, she also wishes to make it at her own hour and under constellations favourable and, if possible, pre-arranged. ”Incidents” are used as pretexts, when everything else is ready – otherwise they only serve as bluff. All important matters, tearing to pieces parts of the treaty of Versailles, are taken in hand since last spring, and no war arises from it, nor from anything which Japan may do in the Far East, nor from Ethiopian, Egyptian, Palestine, Irak and other oriental affairs. Why then should just some war materials legitimately sold to Spain be given as a vital matter for world peace? This was and is simply preposterouus. The international situation was quite harmless in August, and the foreign fascist help was given to the generals at first in such a disguised way as to show the bad conscience of the fascist powers. Then the papers puffed it up and by this, eventually, the ”prestige” of these powers was at stake, and then the masks were lifted. Then only, and not before, Russia began to help and now the Spanish problem, which was so very simple in July and August, is being tied up, carelessly and recklessly, with the whole Russian problem. This also, in our opinion, by no means implies war, but it gives to the ”neutrals” a further pretext to be severe to the Spanish government, whom they connsider the weaker side, and bow before the generals. More victims, greater ruin and destruction are the rresult, but never mind – some appearance of working day and night for peace is kept up, and that alone seems tto count with statesmen nowadays.

Peace is impossible id tthe generals win, as it would imply that Spain and Portugal, the Baleares, Spanish Morocco, Tangier, the Canaries and Azores – all under the control of Germany and Italy; that means France open to aerial invasion from the Aragon plain and the Mediterranean, and the Cape routes blocked for England.

Peace is unlikely if Russia wins, as the Spanish people are adverse to her unfree social system and would always be in a state of revolt, and as Russian military power in the Peninsula would stimulate the Islamic and whole Oriental coming revolts, and would be considered intolerable by several great powers.

The only peaceful solution is the one which this very mutiny of July 17th, and the circumstances under which it partially succeeded, have made a matter of actuality to all progressive elements in Spain – namely Federalism, political and social, fairly and fully realised in Spain, and eventually in Portugal, a country which for ten years is unable to speak up, smarting under a dictatorship.

The Catalan, the Aragon, the Basque, the Valencian, the Madrid autonomies exist or are shaping during the hard struggles, when the best men learn to know each other and how to co-operate, developing the local resources. Under the heel of the generals none the less work is going on which will unfold as the Andalusian, Extremenos, Galician, Astturian, and other autonomies – territories self-governing and federating like the Swiss cantons and the North American States. Local conditions – territorial structure, land tenure, industries, traditional and newly acquired social mentality – differentiate tthese territories, and to this will correspond new social arrangements, generous and broad-minded. This ensemble will form a new Progressive Spain, another happy, peaceful Switzerland. There are dark corners in Switzerland, where reactionists reside unheeded, and so those of Spain might gather undisturbed in the valleys of old Navare, the Carlist region of Pamplona. Anarchists, socialists, communists, republicans, all would live in friendly emulation, increasing their ranks according to their efficiency.

To help bring this about, and to help its present protagonists, the valiant men, women and children of Spain, to protect them against the treacherous invasion – what else can be the task of self-respecting progressive men at this hour?

For some time yet the States of this planet will be divided thus: normal nineteenth century countries – victims of Fascism – States where well-meant, but unfree social methods prevail (Russia, Mexico – the only countries which openly help Spain) – and Spain, where, in parts at least, the freest methods are now in an experimental stage. The world’s future is being fought for here, as the old world ended for this country in treason and bloodshed unheard of. Let everyone help the best of all good causes.

Barcelona, 1st December 1936

Emma Goldman: Callousness or Indifference

Spain and the World, 2nd July 1937

The advent of Dictatorship and Fascism has resulted in appalling indifference to the most harrowing crimes. Time was when political abuses in any country were met with immediate response from all liberals and revolutionaries. Especially this was the case with the victims of Czarism: more than one heroic fighter in Russia was saved from death or banishment by the concerted action and protest undertaken everywhere outside of Russia. All this wonderful spirit of solidarity and fellowship has gone by the board since dictatorship and Fascism have infested all ranks. No matter how heinous the crime committed in their names, hardly a voice is being raised in indignation against them. Indeed they are accepted as a matter of course and quite in keeping with dictatorship as a redeemer of the human race.

The astounding accord between Fascism and Dictatorship has again been demonstrated in two flagrant recent crimes. I mean the murder of Professor Camillo Berneri and his comrade Barbieri, anarchists, by Communist police in Barcelona, and the equally foul murder of Prof. Carlo Rosselli and his brother, Nello, by Fascist thugs. They all use identical methods in destroying their political dissenters. They not only take their lives, they also defame their characters. Thus Stalin perpetuates the infamous story that Russia has become a cesspool of self-confessed ”spies, traitors, Trotskyists” and crooks of every sort. Mussolini on the other hand proclaims the conversion of anti-fascists to his creed. He paints them as miserable weaklings and renegades who have come to see the error of their ways. They are just dying to embrace Fascism and do the bidding of its Master if he will only forget-and-forgive. It is for this reason that the murder of Professor Rosselli and his brother must be laid at the door of the anarchists. Unfortunately there are plenty of blind zealots who take the libel of old Russian revolutionists and anti-fascists as gospel truth.

To charge Professor Rosselli with having gone back on the anti-fascist cause is adding insult to injury. Far from having made peace with Mussolini his loathing had increased when ussolini’s alliance with Franco and his support of the latter became a fact. I had occasion to talk to Carlo Rosselli while I was in Barcelona and I know that no-one of the anti-fascist forces could be more dedicated to their cause or more determined to fight ascism to the bitter end than Carlo Rosselli was. Shortly before I left Spain for England Professor Rosselli told me of a plan he had perfected for the co-ordination of the militia without deadly military drill and command. At the time I was the guest of our comrade D. A. de Santillan who was at the head of the militia in Barcelona. I arranged for Carlo Rosselli to see our comrade one evening that he may have a chance to present his plan for him. The following day Carlo Rosselli came to tell me that comrade Santillan was intensely interested in his scheme and had promised help and co-operation. Shortly after Professor Rosselli was wounded and had to leave the front. hat no doubt has interfered with his determination to carry out his interesting plan.

I am mentioning this merely as a proof of the close unity and co-operation between the comrades of the CNT-FAI and Professor Carlo Rosselli. But if there should be anyone so dense as to believe the fantastic charge that anarchists have taken the life of their close friend and comrade in arms against Fascism, Professor Rosselli’s own tribute to the anarchists of Catalonia should convince the most credulous; SPAIN AND THE WORLD has already reprinted in its early issues the article by carlo Rosselli in the paper Giustizia E Liberta.

I can only add that Carlo Rosselli enjoyed the full confidence of the CNT-FAI and tthe admiration and affection of all the Spanish anarchists at the front as well as in the rear. It is therefore a cowardly evasiion of responsibility on the part of Mussolini to charge the anarchists with the murder committed by his hirelings.

EMMA GOLDMAN

SPAIN: Social Revolution – Counter Revolution, London 1990

Meltzer: Inevitable War in the Middle East

Freedom, 16th November 1968

The demands of modern war require that the individual not only commit himself on one side or the other, but insist on the general perfection of his side. The argument that runs ”if you were a Vietnamese, you would have to choose to be involved” applies equally in Israel and also in the neighbouring Arab States. It is the more likely to appeal to people with revolutionary social consciousness. The Jewish bourgeoisie could fit in as a trading community in the Levant, to the complete satisfaction of the Arabs generally; no Zionist would object to the oil Sheikhs, desert kings and Arab military leaders, provided they afforded no threat to the growth of the Jewish State. Since however Israel have evolved into a nation with a working class as well as a trading bourgeoisie; and since the Arab leaders have to reckon with a vast mass of pushed-under workers and peasants who have no chance of life at all but revolution at home or war abroad (and in the case of some, war on their own territory), there is no alternative to war in some degree or another. Ultimately – such is power politics – such a war could involve the world.

International considerations may limit the Middle East war or cause it to observe an uneasy armistice from time to time while both sides watch for the inevitable incident which can say that the other side is ”aggressing” – as if anyone really cares which side ”starts it” – so that hostilities may commence; in fact, all realists know that hostilities will commence the moment it is in the military interest of either the Jewish State or the Arab States. To judge from the standpoint of the schoolyard argument (”he hit me first’) may suit innumerable paid and unpaid propagandists for either side, but it is only in default of an alternative case. No plea that ”the other side started it” is needed in order to oppose tyranny. But all who espouse from a partisan point of view either pan-Arabism or Zionism must feel uneasy at the company tthey keep.

The followers of ”Communism” (Moscow. Peking, Havana or Mexico-Mausoleum brands) are almost all committed to the notion of a current Arab revolution, unless they happen to be in an Egyptian desert prison (and including many of the latter, too). Nasser’s officer clique, the oil-rich Sheikhs, the Nazi advisers in Cairo, the ”Socialist” officers of Baghdad and the wily entrepreneurs of Beirut who even manage to stay neutral in their own war, are all ”objectively” part of the socialist revolution because they are deemed to be anti-imperialist.

Unfortunately, the Israeli Socialists who have picked at the same texts, use the same anti-imperialist arguments and the same quotations from oil statistics, to prove that theirs is an anti-imperialist struggle too; it is unfortunate from this point of view that power politics aligns them now with the French Right Wing, now with the Americans (on whom domestic political pressures can also be applied). Advanced cooperation on the industrial and consumer level, with liberal injections of private enterprise from capitalists and bankers elsewhere, have produced a mixed economy in Israel that is perhaps a foretaste of the ”alternative to 1984′ – the liberal-socialist-capitalist solution of involvement and integration within the present economic framework. Martin Buber held, of course, that the alternative to ”Moscow” (and to 1984) was ”Jerusalem’. This mixed economy of liberal capitalism is indeed the antithesis to feudal communism on the Egyptian plan (public works plus hereditary class control).

But the difference in economies has nothing to do with the clash which was inherent from the very beginning. One can blame ”the Jews” by saying that obviously from the start it was clear that the only way what was then Palestine could become a Jewish State would be by genocide (in those days the Zionists argued they did not want a Jewish State but merely a National Home). On the other hand, the majority of Jews did not go to Palestine voluntarily. They went as a direct result of European anti-semitism and because genocide in Russia and Germany made no other place possible. The world was prepared to accept small numbers of Jews, particularly as traders; nowhere in the world was prepared to accept millions of ”pauper” (in other words potential working class) Jews, least of all those countries which claimed to have attained socialism and solved the unemployment problem which was claimed to be the barrier.

It is for this reason that the recurrence of hostilities are inevitable, because it is the Jewish working class which has the stake in Israel, while the capitalist can (and frequently does) go anywhere in the world he chooses. And conversely the displaced Palestinian Arabs in particular, but also anyone in the neighbouring Arab countries with nothing to lose, has everything to gain from war, which – so long as it is successful – will be popular.

Has the revolutionary, therefore, nothing whatever to say in the matter? He has certainly no method of influencing the situation, because no single group emerged in any of the Arab countries without being instantly suppressed, nor in Israel at all, that was prepared even to consider the possibility of revolutionary internationalism. So far as the anarchist movement is concerned, to the best of my knowledge the Husseini brothers were the only propagandists to be directly influenced by anarchism. Within a few weeks of forming a labour movement amongst Egyptian and Sudanese workers and open to Jews, they were murdered (one by the police in open fire; one by nationalists). In Israel, despite occasional allegations that an anarchist movement is about to be created, there has certainly been no vestiges of one. (I cannot regard seriously the not unknown reformist-anarchist who retires to Israel to write an occasional broadsheet in Yiddish on the wonders of Judaism from Moses to Ben-Gurion.)

The most, therefore, that the revolutionary can ever do in the matter is to look somewhat pityingly on the people around him who, on some issues, appear to be moving in his direction, and then, at the sound of battle in Sinai, either rush to Marks & Spencer’s London office to volunteer for Israel; or mutter about the sinister influences at work on the London editors publishing news of Arab defeats.

A revolutionary movement within either Israel or the Arab countries can only come from the bottom upwards; and ultimately it will. It will not do so while the working class have, or feel they have, the major interest in warfare that perpetuates the nation State. One cannot in revolutionary terms think of ”Jews” and ”Arabs’; it is only by the abandonment of nationalism and the State that we can end both exploitation and war. It is equally true, of course, that there is no solution, in those terms, tto the problems of ”whites” and ”coloureds’; or ”Northern” or ”Southern” Irishmen. Such ”solutions” only solve the problems of the present exploitative society. Solutions in terms of a free society mean scrapping such abstracts as nationalism – that is why these solutions have to be revolutionary.

A. MELTZER

The State is Your Enemy: Selections from the Anarchist Journal Freedom 1965-1988, London 1991.

Pencilled Notes

by Isabelle Eberhardt
(From The Oblivion Seekers, City Lights 1972, 1975. Translated by Paul Bowles)

A subject to which few intellectuals ever give a thought is the right to be a vagrant, the freedom to wander. Yet vagrancy is deliverance, and life on the open road is the essence of freedom. To have the courage to smash the chains with which modern life has weighted us (under the pretext that it was offering us more liberty), then to take up the symbolic stick and bundle, and get out!

To the one who understands the value and the delectable flavor of solitary freedom (for no one is free who is not alone) leaving is the bravest and finest act of all.

An egotistical happiness, possibly. But for him who relishes the flavor, happiness.

To be alone, to be poor in needs, to be ignored, to be an outsider who is at home everywhere, and to walk, great and by oneself, toward the conquest of the world.

The healthy wayfarer sitting beside the road scanning the horizon open before him, is he not the absolute master of the earth, the waters, and even the sky? What housedweller can vie with him in power and wealth? His estate has no limits, his empire no law. No work bends him toward the ground, for the bounty and beauty of the earth are already his.

In our modern society the nomad is a pariah ”without known domicile or residence.” By adding these few words to the name of anyone whose appearance they consider irregular, those who make and enforce the laws can decide a man’s fate.

To have a home, a family, a property or a public function, to have a definite means of livelihood and to be a useful cog in the social machine, all these things seem necessary, even indispensable, to the vast majority of men, including intellectuals, and including even those who think of themselves as wholly liberated. And yet such things are only a different form of the slavery that comes of contact with others, especially regulated and continued contact.

I have always listened with admiration, if not envy, to the declarations of citizens who tell how they have lived for twenty or thirty years in the same section of town, or even the same house, and who have never been out of their native city.

Not to feel the torturing need to know and see for oneself what is there, beyond the mysterious blue wall of the horizon, not to find the arrangements of life monotonous and depressing, to look at the white road leading off into the unknown distance without feeling the imperious necessity of giving in to it and following it obediently across mountains and valleys! The cowardly belief that a man must stay in one place is too reminiscent of the unquestioning resignation of animals, beasts of burden stupefied by servitude and yet always willing to accept the slipping on of the harness.

There are limits to every domain, and laws to govern every organized power. But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the nonexistent horizon, and his empire is an intangible one, for his domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit.

Vera Figner om Netjajev

Texten är hämtad från Vera Figners ”Natt över Ryssland” (Sthlm 1927), s. 138-143:

I januari 1881, när jag och några andra medlemmar av exekutivkommittén befunno oss i den konspirativa våning, som Issajev och jag hyrde tillsammans och som även användes av kommittén för möten och sammanträden, inträdde Issajev och lade en liten bunt tunna papper på bordet framför oss:

”Från Netschajev! – Från Peter-Paulsfästningen!” sade han.

Dessa ord av Issajev, som uttalades helt lugnt, gjorde ett överväldigande intryck på oss.

Från fästningen! Från Netschajev!

Jag var nitton år gammal, då jag i en avlägsen vrå av Kasanguvernementet för första gången hörde detta namn; jag läste då i tidningarna om rättegången mot honom. Mordet på Ivanov (för föregivet förräderi) beskrevs i hela sin tragik och gjorde ett outplånligt intryck på mig, medan allt det övriga lämnade mig oberörd eller var oförståeligt för mig.

Andra gången hörde jag Netschajevs namn i Zürich 1872.

På grund av ett politiskt mord levde Netschajev som emigrant i Schweiz, men förråddes av en medlem av första Internationalen, polacken Stempkovski, och utlämnades på framställning av den ryska regeringen.

Den offentliga meningen i Schweiz var emot Netschajev; den agitation, som en emigrantgrupp utvecklade till hans förmån, blev utan resultat. En broschyr på tyska språket, i vilken han gav en framställning av sin verksamhets politiska karaktär, vann ingen spridning; de möten, som man sammankallade för samma ändamål, blevo dåligt besökta och när representanterna för emigranterna vände sig till de båda starkaste arbetarorganisationerna i Schweiz – Grütli och en bildningsorganisation – och kallade dem till skydd för den hotade asylrätten, svarade båda organisationerna, att de icke ville uppträda till skydd för gemena mördare.

Netschajevs öde var beseglat redan genom det faktum att han häktades.

En grupp studerande ungdom – huvudsakligen serbier – hade för avsikt att befria Netschajev på vägen till bangården. Man antog, att en grupp på 30 personer skulle sammanträffa för detta ändamål. men i stället för 30 kom det blott ett par man. Trots detta lär man ha försökt att befria Netschajev, men försöket misslyckades, då åskådarna hjälpte till att ånyo fasttaga honom.

Som bekant blev Netschajev dömd till 20 års tvångsarbete. Formellt hade man därmed uppfyllt avtalet med Schweiz, att Netschajev icke skulle dömas som förbrytare. Men i stället för att sända honom till Sibirien i enlighet med domen, lät man honom spårlöst försvinna. Ingen anade vad som hade skett med honom, om han levde eller om han var död.

Så förgingo många år, tills han nu, denna januariafton 1881, plötsligt steg fram för vårt minne, när han ur Peter-Paulsfästningens kasematter vände sig till exekutivkommittén.

Men hur hade hans ord funnit väg till oss ifrån Alexej-fortet, där han var levande begraven?

När Stepan Schirajev, medlem av exekutivkommittén och förövare av attentatet på det kejserliga tåget, efter de 16 narodnikernas process i oktober 1880 hade förts till fästningen, satte sig Netschajev i förbindelse med honom och beslöt att vända sig till ”Narodnaja Volja” genom hans förmedling. Genom en gendarm, som var honom blint tillgiven, sände han ett brev för exekutivkommittén till en student, som var Schirajevs landsman och en god vän till Issajev.

Detta brev hade en strängt saklig karaktär. det var inga utgjutelser, ingen sentimentalitet, icke ett ord om vad Netschajev hade genomlidit och för närvarande genomled. Enkelt och sakligt framkastade han frågan om sin befrielse. Sedan han år 1869 hade flytt till utlandet, hade den revolutionära rörelsen fullkomligt ändrat karaktär. Den hade gått på djupet, blivit permanent och hade genomlöpt tre utvecklingsfaser: den utopiska, då man ”gick till folket”, den realistiska ”jord och Frihet-agitationen” och den därpå följande politiska verksamheten med bekämpande av regeringen, icke genom ord, utan genom handling. Och Netschajev? han skrev som en revolutionär, som helt nyss hade trätt ut ur kämparnas led, och nu skrev till sina i frihet kvarvarande kamrater.

Detta brev gjorde ett underbart intryck – allt som hittills hade satt en mörk fläck på Netschajevs personlighet, det oskyldigt utgjutna blodet, penningutpressningen, anskaffandet av komprometterande dokument i utpressningssyfte – hela lögnvävnaden i namn av ett ändamål, som helgar medlen – allt var plötsligt försvunnet.

Vi mötte en man, som efter långa år i ensam cell varken var försvagad eller omtöcknad, en vilja, som icke hade brutits av det fruktansvärda straffet, en energi, som icke var försvagad trots motgången. Vi läste Netschajevs brev under kommitténs sammanträde, och vi grepos alla av samma tanke: vi skulle befria honom!

I de följande breven avslöjade Netschajev undan för undan för oss sin verksamhet under de förflutna åren. Trots att han låg fängslad till händer och fötter i sin kasematt, arbetade han dock rastlöst. dag efter dag var han upptagen av bemödandet att ställa den fientliga miljö, som omgav honom, under sitt inflytande. Han studerade karaktären hos varje enskild gendarm, varje soldat, som bevakade honom. Han observerade, jämförde, sammanställde för att inverka på var och en efter hans art och själsförfattning. Dag ut och dag in undergrävde han disciplinen hos de lägre tjänstemän, som hade till uppgift att bevaka honom. Han rubbade i deras ögon förmännens auktoritet, agiterade, propagerade, påverkade förståndet och känslan, tvang till medgivanden, bemäktigade sig människornas vilja. Han utnyttjade den ovanliga och stränga behandlingen, för att omge sin person med ett mysteriöst skimmer, som för framtiden lovade något särskilt.

Tack vare denna sega, uthålliga verksamhet lyckades denna ovanliga människa underordna 40 vaktare sin vilja. Genom dessa hade han fått reda på alla enskildheter beträffande fortets och Peter-Paulsfästningens inre beskaffenhet, beträffande dess tjänstepersonal, dennas ömsesidiga förbindelser, tjänsteordningen, fästningens läge på ön, på vilken fortet då befann sig. På detta sätt hade han långsamt samlat en mängd oskattbara psykologiska och materiella erfarenheter, som satte honom i tillfälle att utarbeta en plan för sin befrielse och att gå till förverkligandet av denna, sedan han under åratal i sin grav hade förberett densamma.

Trogen sina gamla traditioner menade Netschajev, att hans befrielse måste äga rum under komplicerade och mystifierande omständigheter. Hans befriare skulle infinna sig i ordenssmyckade militäruniformer, för att imponera på de militära tjänstegraderna. De skulle förklara, att en statsvälvning hade ägt rum, som störtat kejsar Alexander, och i den nya kejsarens namn tillkännagiva för den häktade i Alexej-fortet, att han åter var fri. All denna kulissrekvisita var naturligtvis icke bindande för oss, utan blott karaktäristisk för Netschajev.

När frågan om hans befrielse behandlades vid kommitténs sammanträde, beslöto vi utan vidare att anförtro denna uppgift åt militärorganisationen. Vi voro eniga om att hela företaget skulle uppskjutas till våren, för att fästningen skulle kunna uppnås båtledes och icke över isen. Kommittén betraktade det dessutom som omöjligt att uppskjuta attentatet mot Allexander II. Då dessa förberedelser fordrade en koncentration av alla krafter, sågo vi oss nödsakade att meddela Netschajev, att vi kunde tänka på hans befrielse först sedan anslaget mot tsaren hade genomförts.

Vi överlämnade icke till Netschajev att avgöra denna fråga, så som man senare påstått i litteraturen. Varje uppskov med förberedelserna hotade med att leda till ett misslyckande av attentatet mot tsaren. Kommittén meddelade Netschajev sitt beslut och Netschajev svarade, att han skulle vänta.

Den förbindelse, som hade knutits med Netschajev, uppehölls en lång tid genom Issajev. Denne träffade vanligen på ett bestämt ställe på gatan en soldat från fästningen, och denne lämnade honom brevet från Netscchajev med hieroglyfer av hans egen uppfinning. Den 1 april blev Issajev häktad, förbindelserna avbrötos för en lång tid och blevo sedermera slutgiltigt avbrutna genom förräderi av Mirski (attentatorn mot gendarmchefen Drenteln), som samtidigt med Netschajev hölls fången i Peter-Paulsfästningen. Följden av detta förräderi var att de gendarmer och soldater, som voro tillgivna Netschajev, häktades. 23 av dem ställdes inför rätta och skickades till straffbataljonerna, andra avskedades. Netschajev själv dog i Alexej-fortet. De närmare omständigheterna vid hans död förblevo i hemlighetsfullt dunkel ända till revolutionen 1917. Först på grund av dokumenten i fästningens arkiv, kunde det fastställas, att han dog den 21 november 1882, utan att de många narodniker, som då sutto fängslade där, hade någon möjlighet att komma i förbindelse med honom. Sannolikt har han, som så många andra av invånarna i dessa mörka kasematter dött av svält. Näringen var sedan narodnikerna fördes dit, så bristfällig, att enligt vad Bogdanovitsch vittnade, fångarna efter en månads förlopp icke längre voro i stånd att gå, utan att stödja sig mot väggen.

Netschajev var en egendomlig figur i den ryska revolutionära rörelsens historia, en egenartad typ, vars like vi icke mera möta. Hur pinsam hans skrupulösa taktik – enligt regeln ”ändamålet helgar medlen” – än var, så kan man dock icke undgå att beundra hans järnvilja och hans stålkaraktär. Man måste erkänna oegennyttan i hela hans uppträdande. Hos honom fanns icke ett spår av personlig äregirighet. Han var den revolutionära saken uppriktigt och gränslöst tillgiven. Genom hela sin personlighet utövade han, i synnerhet på mindre komplicerade karaktärer, en oerhörd, fascinerande verkan. Enligt påstående av förvisade, som i Sibirien råkade de soldater, som dömdes och förvisades på grund av sina förbindelser med Netschajev, tänkte dessa aldrig med bitterhet på Netschajev, som dock hade varit orsaken till deras olycka. De talade alla om honom med en alldeles särskild känsla, som gränsade till ångest och sade, att de hade stått fullständigt under hans inflytande. ”Det var helt enkelt icke tänkbart, att man skulle underlåta att göra, vad han befallde”, sade en av dem. ”Det var tillräckligt, att han såg på en.”

Man berättade, att soldaterna och underofficerarna under rättegångsförhandlingarna uttalade sig om Netschajev, som om de alltjämt skulle ha fruktat honom. De nämnde honom aldrig vid namn; han betecknades alltid som ”han” eller numro 5. Icke ens i det fjärran Sibirien var den fångnes starka inflytande över dem riktigt borta. Varken bittra upplevelser, tid eller avstånd förmådde förstöra denna hypnotiska makt.