Farewell Henri-Frédéric Blanc!

From Centre Internationnal de Recherches sur l'Anarchisme Newsletter

Born in Marseille in 1954, writer Henri-Frédéric Blanc died in the same city on January 23, 2025, the victim of aggressive cancer. He was the author of some thirty books: anarchist novels, plays, short stories, poetry, pastiches and pamphlets.

The Dilemma of Leninists: Research or Regurgitation?

From Anarchist Writers
June 17, 2024

A review of a book by a leading Trotskyist which shows his ignorance of anarchism. It shows the flaws within his account of Bakunin and Kropotkin plus discusses the roots of a mentality which allows someone to write about a subject (anarchism) which they clearly known next to nothing about.

John Burnside, vivid poet & memoirist – obituary

From The Telegraph
June 4, 2024

Burnside’s memoirs recall his drunken father throwing his sister down the stairs and burning his teddy bear, yet his poems were lyrical

In later life, despite having some claims to respectability as a garlanded poet and an academic – from 2009 he was Professor of Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews – Burnside remained a committed anarchist. His novel Glister, he noted, featured, as a representative of capitalism, “a one-dimensional man who only cared about money. Some people criticised me. And then 2008 happened. Sorry, but I rest my case.”

The Writer Hristo Karastoyanov Died

From Federation of Anarcho-Communists in Bulgaria
January 24, 2024

On January 23, the writer Hristo Karastoyanov died.

Hristo connected part of his creative path with the anarchist movement in Bulgaria and presented it in "Cuckoo's Yarn" and "The Same Night Awaits Us All" - as he got to know it over the years.

Anarchy and Covid-19

From Anarchist Writers by anarcho

A standard reproach against anarchism is that it would not be able to withstand crises as well as hierarchies. This is often the underlying assumption of Marxist diatribes against Anarchism – although these usually invoke euphemisms to avoid admitting that what is really being suggested is that they and their party should be in power. Hence the assertions on the need for a centralised “workers’ State” to organise defence against the counter-revolution (i.e., anyone who disagrees with them), plan the economy, and so on – skilfully avoiding discussing the grim inefficiencies and tyrannies of the Bolshevik regime or the various counter-examples which show the opposite (most obviously, the response of the CNT-FAI to Franco’s coup).

Now and After

From Anarchist Writers by anarcho

This is a write up of a talk I gave in Glasgow in 2018 entitled Now and After: What would Anarchy be like and how we create the new world by fighting the current one. It summarises anarchist ideas of what a free society would be like and how we get there. As with my previous write-ups, this reflects more what I intended to say rather than what was said. Hopefully it will be close enough. For more details of the ideas raised here, see Section I of An Anarchist FAQ.

The Trotskyist School of Falsification

From Anarchist Writers by anarcho

Most anarchists come across Victor Serge (1889-1947) at some stage, the elitist-individualist anarchist turned elitist-Bolshevik whom Leninists to this day like to invoke as “the best of the anarchists” to get libertarians to join their party (“Victor Serge: The Worst of the Anarchists,” ASR no. 61). This work by him and Natalia Sedova Trotsky, The Life and Death of Leon Trotsky (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2016), is a biography of Leon Trotsky and is of note as a good example of what could be termed The Trotskyist School of Falsification, to invoke the title of Trotsky’s 1937 work The Stalin School of Falsification. (171)

Precursors of Syndicalism IV

From Anarchist Writers by anarcho

In previous instalments of this series, we have discussed syndicalist ideas in the First International (Precursors of Syndicalism I), before turning to International Working People’s Association (Precursors of Syndicalism II) and communist-anarchism (Precursors of Syndicalism III). Here, we highlight anarchist-communist criticisms of revolutionary syndicalism.

Anarchism, Syndicalism and Workers Councils

From Anarchist Writers by anarcho

This is a write-up of a talk I gave in Edinburgh in April 2019 on anarchist ideas on social change and organisation. I have used the slides I created for the talk as the basis of this write-up, although as usual I am sure this is not the same as what was said on the night but close enough. Hopefully this talk gives a useful summary of anarchist ideas on organisation and their development from the birth of anarchism to around 1920.

Subscribe to anarchist writers