anarchism

ONE MAN’S WAR IN SPAIN. Thievery, Treachery and Trickery by Joaquín Pérez Navarro. The last of the ‘Friends of Durruti’ (Translated and Edited by Paul Sharkey). £12.95 (inc. p+p UK) Now also available on Kindle (£2.67)

anarchism, Anarchism in Barcelona, Spanish anarchism, Spanish Revolution/Civil War No Responses »

Apr 302013

One Man’s War in Spain. Trickery, Treachery and Thievery by Joaquín Pérez Navarro (Translated and Edited by Paul Sharkey) ISBN 978-1-873976-62-3, pp. 256, 229mm x 153mm, £12.95 inc p+p UK. (Europe €17,50; USA $17.00). ChristieBooks, PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 1ZS (Check out all Kindle editions of ChristieBooks titles) NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE £2.67 READ INSIDE!

UK : £2.67 ; USA : $4.13 ; Germany : €3,16 ; France : €3,16 ; Spain: €3,16 ; Italy : €3,16 ; Japan : ¥ 392 ; Canada : CDN$ 4.07 ; Brazil : R$ 8,00

The collected memoirs and documents in this book, penned or preserved by the author with such belief and ideological conviction over so very many years of effort, can be described as a masterwork. Without euphemism or any other sort of circumlocution, they bluntly set out facts that will come as a revelation to anyone who knows only the accounts sympathetic to those who had a hand in the loss of the Revolution and War in 1936–39 – works indeed often written by counter-revolutionaries themselves to conceal the malicious intent that they so cravenly pursued. The revolutionary structures of the anarcho-syndicalist and anarchist movement were undermined to their very roots by all its foes without and within, by Bolsheviks in particular and by the cohorts of the state in general.

People Without Government. An Anthropology of Anarchism by Harold Barclay – Preface by Alex Comfort (Kindle edition)

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Apr 162013

People Without Government. An Anthropology of Anarchism, Harold Barclay (Preface by Alex Comfort) (ISBN 978-0-904564-47-1), £2.69, ChristieBooks. PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN341ZS. First published by Cienfuegos Press, Over the Water, Sanday, Orkney, in 1982. This fully revised ChristieBooks (Kindle eBook) edition published 2013.

UK : £2.69 ; USA : $4.12 ; Germany : €3,14 ; France : €3,14 ; Spain: €3,14 ; Italy : €3,14 ; Japan : ¥ 377 ; Canada : CDN$ 4.07 ; Brazil : R$ 8,09

Anarchy, as the absence of government, is neither chaos nor some impossible Utopian dream. In fact it is a very common form of political organisation and one that has characterised much of the human past. People Without Government describes briefly the anarchic political structures of a number of these societies. True they are mainly small-scale hunting, gathering and horticultural groups. However, the social organisation of certain large populations with complex relations is also sometimes anarchic. Thus anarchy applies to a broad spectrum of different kinds of societies.

THE GREAT DECEPTION. How Parliamentary Democracy Duped the Workers, Donovan Pedelty (with a biographical note and some thoughts on the life behind the thinking)

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Apr 032013

THE GREAT DECEPTION. How Parliamentary Democracy Duped the Workers, Donovan Pedelty (ISBN 978-1-873976-00-5), £2.71, ChristieBooks. PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN341ZS. First published by Prometheus Press, Powys, Wales, in 1997 as The Rape of Socialism. This fully revised ChristieBooks (Kindle eBook) edition published 2013

UK : £2.71 ; USA : $4.12 ; Germany : €3,21 ; France : €3,21 ; Spain: €3,21 ; Italy : €3,21 ; Japan : ¥ 377 ; Canada : CDN$ 4.07 ; Brazil : R$ 8,09

‘An elegantly argued and searing indictment of the economic and sociological background of the British political system of “representative” democracy in general, and parliamentary socialism in particular. The first hundred pages or so examine the evolution of the British Conservative Party over the past two centuries; the remaining four-fifths of the book focuses on the British Labour Party and how it corrupted the socialist ideal. An important and challenging book that should be read by ANYONE interested in politics, especially those who put their faith in the “Labour Movement”’ — Stuart Christie

A hundred years or so ago socialist thinking, in tune with the rising tide of labour protest, presented a serious challenge to the capitalist hegemony. However much they differed over ultimate objectives and how to reach them, the socialists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were at one in their conviction that possessive, individualistic, capitalism would have to be overcome to establish a just, equitable and sane society. They were equally certain that the huge advance in productive capacity which capitalism had helped to bring about, by proving that poverty could be abolished, had made such a transformation possible, immediately or at least within the near future.

Power and Liberty by Leo Tolstoy. Introduction by Albert Meltzer Kindle edition £1.02

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Feb 272013

Power and Liberty by Leo Tolstoy. Introduction by Albert Meltzer. ISBN 978-1-873976-13-5 First published in 1968 by Coptic Press, 10 Gilbert Place, London WC1. This edition (2013) by ChristieBooks (Kindle edition). (Check out all Kindle editions of ChristieBooks titles)

UK : £1.02p ; USA : $1.50 ; Germany : €1,17 ; France : €1,17 ; Spain: €1,17 ; Italy : €1,17 ; Japan : ¥ 140 ; Canada : CDN$ 1.53 ; Brazil : R$ 2,96

In this essay, Tolstoy maintains his theory of great men as the myths and tickets of history. History, he asserts, must give up the idea that great men rule us, and busy itself with the discovery of the idea of humanity. One looks for the overthrow of the French Empire not in this or that decision of Napoleon, but in the various factors down to the corporal who enlisted for the bounty once too often. What causes that great motion, the People, to brim over into an historic event? Nobody nowadays believes that the French Revolution happened because Marie-Antoinette was somewhat careless with her jewellery; but many people believe that Churchill, or Stalin, “won the war”, or that Hitler, personally, lost it. Moreover, the whole defence of Nazi war criminals — “we acted under orders” — is relevant to Tolstoy’s critique: it is not your great men who order history. It is a combination of circumstances in which the great man acts merely as the reference-card in the history book. It is not denied that they too like all other individuals play their part in history; but that role is not so decisive as those who wish to avoid responsibility admit.

“The great are only great because we are on our knees”.

Cover illustration: The Vendôme Column, Paris, completed in 1810, to celebrate the French victory at Austerlitz. The column is topped with a statue of a bare-headed Napoleon, crowned with laurels and holding a sword in his right hand and a globe surmounted with a statue of Victory in his left hand.

Proudhonist Materialism and Revolutionary Doctrine by Stephen Condit (Kindle edition £1.96)

anarchism, Anarchist ideas, France, Ideas, libertarian socialism, Philosophy No Responses »

Feb 022013

Proudhonist Materialism and Revolutionary Doctrine by Stephen Condit First published in 1982 by Cienfuegos Press, Over the Water, Sanday, Orkney. This eBook (Kindle) edition published 2013 by ChristieBooks, PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN341ZS ISBN 978-0-904564-49-5

UK : £1.30p ; USA : $3.07 ; Germany : €2,31 ; France : €2,31 ; Spain: €2,31 ; Italy : €2,31 ; Japan : ¥ 271 ; Canada : CDN$ 3.01 ; Brazil : R$ 6,09

Few historians of ideas have questioned Proudhon’s impact in his own time. Yet his affinities with and contributions to some of the most important trends in modern political philosophy, and his relevance to the problems which increasingly reveal the failures of existing political doctrines and systems, have been neglected.

‘… in general, regimentation was the passion common to all socialists prior to 1848. Cabet, Louis Blanc, the Utopians — all were possessed by the passion to indoctrinate and to organise the future. All were authoritarians to some degree. The one exception was Proudhon. The son of a peasant, and by instinct a hundred times more revolutionary than all the doctrinaire and bourgeois socialists, Proudhon developed a critical viewpoint, as ruthless as it was profound and penetrating, in order to destroy all their systems. Opposing liberty to authority, he proclaimed himself an anarchist as distinct from state socialists, and in the face of their deism or pantheism he also had the courage to declare himself an atheist . . .’ Michael Bakunin, ‘A Critique of State Socialism’ (Review)

Milly Witkop-Rocker — a tribute by Rudolf Rocker (KOBO eBook £1.00)

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Jan 312013

Milly Witkop-Rocker (March 3, 1877 – November 23, 1955) by Rudolf Rocker. This 1956 tribute to his life-partner, Milly Witkop, by Rudolph Rocker was handset with the Kennerley and Hadriang types, designed by Frederick W. Goudy & printed on superfine text paper at the Oriole Press by Joseph Ishill, Berkley Heights, New Jersey. The frontispiece illustration is a crayon drawing by her son, Fermin Rocker. Republished 1981 by Cienfuegos Press, Over the Water, Sanday, Orkney, UK, and Soil of Liberty, Minneapolis, Minnesota. KOBO eBook £1.00

Milly Witkop was born Vitkopski in the Ukrainian shtetl of Zlatopol to a Jewish Ukrainian-Russian family as the oldest of four sisters. The youngest of the four, Rose, was also a well-known anarchist. In 1894, Witkop left the Ukraine for London where she worked in a tailoring sweatshop saving enough money to finance her parents’ and sisters’ passage to England, and it was her involvement in a bakers’ strike that led her to become involved with the group around the Jewish anarchist newspaper Arbayter Fraynd. In 1895, she met Rudolf Rocker in the course of her political work and, in May 1898, Rocker invited her to accompany him to New York, where he hoped to find employment. The two were, however, not admitted to the country, because they refused to marry legally and were returned to the United Kingdom on the same ship that had taken them to the United States.

Marxism and a Free Society by Marcus Graham (Kindle edition £1.30p)

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Jan 252013

Marxism and a Free Society by Marcus Graham. First published 1976 by Simian Publications (Cienfuegos Press), Over the Water, Sanday, Orkney, KW172BL/ This eBook (Kindle) edition published 2013 by ChristieBooks, PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN341ZS. ISBN 978-0-904564-13-6

UK : £1.30p ; USA : $2.07 ; Germany : €1,54 ; France : €1,54 ; Spain: €1,54 ; Italy : €1,54 ; Japan : ¥ 180 ; Canada : CDN$ 1.98 ; Brazil : R$ 4,08

Isaac Deutscher’s lecture “On Socialist Man” was given to the second annual Socialist Scholars Conference held at the Hotel Commodore, New York, on September 9-11, 1966. Deutscher had come from London as the principal invited guest at the conference. This reply to Deutscher’s address by Romanian-American anarchist writer Marcus Graham deals, in particular, with the Minutes of the First International and the sabotaging of the Hague Congress by the Marx clique.

Marcus Graham (1893-1985) lived most of his early life in the semi-clandestine world where many fighters for freedom have occasion to find themselves. He contributed to several anarchist papers before launching, in January 1933, MAN!, the organ of the International Group in San Francisco, an important link between different strands of the North American anarchist movement. In its pages Graham published articles covering the whole spectrum of anarchist thought, the politics of Roosevelt’s America, crime, fascism, religion, resistance, art, poetry, literature and anarchist profiles — a real snapshot of life and anarchism throughout most of the Thirties. MAN! continued to be published, despite police and state harassment, until its forced closure by the US government in April 1940.

Three Essays on Anarchism by Charlotte Wilson (with an introduction by Nicolas Walter) (Kindle edition £1.30)

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Jan 242013

Three Essays on Anarchism by Charlotte Wilson. Introduction and biographical note by Nicolas Walter. First published as separate essays in 1886. Compiled and published in 1979 by Cienfuegos Press, Over the Water, Sanday, Orkney, KW172BL This eBook (Kindle) edition published 2013 by ChristieBooks, PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN341ZS. ISBN 978-0-904564-26-6

Charlotte Wilson was the principal founder of Freedom Press, and the first editor of the anarchist newspaper Freedom, in 1886. She had been writing about anarchism in the socialist press since 1884, and like the work of her better-known contemporary Peter Kropotkin, whom she invited to England to join the Freedom group, her anarchist writings are scholarly, original, thoughtful and clear.

Libertarian Communism by Isaac Puente Amestoy (Kindle edition £1.30)

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Jan 212013

Libertarian Communism by Isaac Puente Amestoy. First published in 1932 under the title El comunismo libertario. First English-language translation (by Paul Sharkey) published in The Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review (No. 6, 1982), Over the Water, Sanday, Orkney, KW172BL This eBook (Kindle) edition published 2013 by ChristieBooks, PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN341ZS. ISBN 978-1-873976-11-1

Dr. Isaac Puente Amestoy (3 June 1896 – 1 September 1936)

‘Economic pressures compel the individual to co-operate in the economic life of the locality. These same economic pressures ought to be felt by the collectives, obliging them to co-operate in the economic life of the nation. But to accomplish this needs no central council or supreme committee, which carry the seeds of authoritarianism and are the focal points of dictatorship, as well as being nests of bureaucracy. We said that we have no need of an architect or any ordaining authority beyond the mutual agreement between localities. As soon as each and every locality (city, village, or hamlet) has placed its internal life in order, the organisation of the nation will be complete. And there is something else we might add concerning the localities. Once all its individual members are assured that their needs will be met, then the economic life of the municipality or of the federation will also be perfected. . .’

This seminal anarchist text defining the term ‘libertarian communism’ was first published in 1932 by the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist unions of the National Confederation of Labour (CNT), with many subsequent editions. The first English translation, by Paul Sharkey, appeared in ‘The Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review‘ #6 Orkney, 1982.

Peter Kropotkin: His Federalist Ideas by Camillo Berneri (Kindle edition £0.96p)

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Jan 212013

Peter Kropotkin: His Federalist Ideas by Camillo Berneri. First published in 1922 under the title Un federalista Russo, Pietro Kropotkin. First English-language translation published in War Commentary, May 1942. This eBook (Kindle) edition republished (2013) from the ‘Simian’ (Cienfuegos Press) edition 1 Exchange, Honley, W. Yorks. 1976. ChristieBooks, PO Box 35, Hastings, East Sussex, TN341ZS ISBN 978-0-904564-07-5

UK : £0.96p ; USA : $1.52 ; Germany : €1,15 ; France : €1,15 ; Spain: €1,15 ; Italy : €1,15 ; Japan : ¥ 134 ; Canada : CDN$ 1.48 ; Brazil : R$ 3,05

Camillo Berneri (May 28, 1897, Lodi – Murdered Barcelona, May 5, 1937)

One thing on which all anarchists and libertarian socialists agree is that the social revolution should be the result of a popular movement, not one imposed from above. As Peter Kropotkin, probably the best-known of the anarchist theoreticians, described it, “[the revolution] must take the form of a widely spread popular movement, during which movement, in every town and village invaded by the insurrectionist spirit, the masses set themselves set themselves to the work of reconstructing society…without waiting for schemes and orders from above…They may not be – they are sure not to be – the majority of the nation. But if they are a respectably numerous minority of cities and villages scattered over the country…they will be able to win the right to pursue their own course”.

Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, Kropotkin began developing his federalist ideas as a means of countering the centralised state-building agenda then being pursued by the Bolsheviks. His vision of a federalist Russia was based on the existing regions of the Tsarist empire: Finland, the Baltic provinces, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Siberia and others, each of which would have received international recognition of its right to govern itself. But, as Camillo Berneri points out, Kropotkin envisaged that, ultimately, each component of the new Russian Federation would itself by a federation of free cities and rural communities.

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Christie Books

ONE MAN’S WAR IN SPAIN. Thievery, Treachery and Trickery by Joaquín Pérez Navarro. The last of the ‘Friends of Durruti’ (Translated and Edited by Paul Sharkey). £12.95 (inc. p+p UK) Now also available on Kindle (£2.67)

THE GREAT DECEPTION. How Parliamentary Democracy Duped the Workers, Donovan Pedelty (with a biographical note and some thoughts on the life behind the thinking)

Power and Liberty by Leo Tolstoy. Introduction by Albert Meltzer Kindle edition £1.02

Proudhonist Materialism and Revolutionary Doctrine by Stephen Condit (Kindle edition £1.96)

Milly Witkop-Rocker — a tribute by Rudolf Rocker (KOBO eBook £1.00)

Marxism and a Free Society by Marcus Graham (Kindle edition £1.30p)

Libertarian Communism by Isaac Puente Amestoy (Kindle edition £1.30)

Peter Kropotkin: His Federalist Ideas by Camillo Berneri (Kindle edition £0.96p)

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