Category: workers

Remembering our comrade Leah Feldman 1899 – 1993 .. A Rebel Spirit!

 by kate Sharpley Library        Leah Feldman was one of the ordinary men and women who rarely get into history books but have been the backbone of the anarchist movement.

Born in Warsaw in 1899, as a schoolgirl she became interested in anarchism. She said that her mother used to hide her shoes so that she could not attend meetings, which were then illegal in Poland. Finally she ran away to her sister in London where she earned her living at the sewing machine.

Leah’s photo album

Working in the sweatshops of the East End she became active in the Yiddish-speaking anarchist movement that flourished at that time. When the Russian revolution broke out in 1917 the overwhelming majority of Russian male Jewish anarchists returned home. Many of those women whose husbands and lovers died at the hands of the Tsarists or the Bolsheviks, remained in England.

Leah, however, had made her own way to Russia. Upon arrival she saw the reality of Bolshevik rule and was not impressed. As a working woman she could see the effects of their dictatorship in a way that visiting intellectuals could not. Continue reading “Remembering our comrade Leah Feldman 1899 – 1993 .. A Rebel Spirit!”

The ABC of Anarchism… by Alexander Berkman.. free download

 
A gifted writer for the anarchist movement, Alexander Berkman left Russia for the United States in 1888 when he was eighteen. Thirty-one years later, after serving a prison term for an attempted assassination, he was expelled to the Soviet Union, a country which he eventually renounced.
But before his repudiation of the Soviet system, Berkman attempted to answer some of the charges made against anarchism and to present its case clearly and intelligently. This book, first published in 1929, is the result of those efforts.  
 
Thorough and well stated, The ABC of Anarchism is today widely regarded as a classic declaration of the movement’s goals and methods. For those who have questions about anarchism, Berkman provides lucid answers. In conversational tones, he discusses society as it existed in the early twentieth century; why in his opinion, anarchy was necessary; the myths surrounding it; and necessary preparations for its successful implementation. Continue reading “The ABC of Anarchism… by Alexander Berkman.. free download”

Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell.. Free Download, PDF

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Literature,  shared with thanks

…”They [Catalans] had attempted to produce within the militias a sort of temporary working model of the classless society. Of course there was no perfect equality, but there was a nearer approach to it than I had ever seen or than I would have thought conceivable in time of war.”…

FREE DOWNLOAD CLICK HERE

Homage to Catalonia (1938) is what it says, George Orwell’s homage to the people of Catalonia who attempted an anarchist/socialist revolution in response to the army’s attack on their fledgling democracy, and more broadly in response to centuries of harsh rule by feudal landowners supported by the Catholic church and the monarchy. A revolution that was brought down not by the civil war but by the backsliding of right-wing socialists in the Republican government and by the treachery of the Communists.

In this it resembles (or presages) another account of anarchist ‘revolution’ undone by Communists, Daniel Cohn-Bendit’s Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative(1968) about the Paris uprisings of that year and which I have owned almost since it was written. In fact, a great deal of Orwell’s book, particularly about the lies invented and propagated by the news media, serves to show plus ca change etc.

Homage to Catalonia has two parts – Orwell’s memoir of his time as a volunteer soldier, and an analysis of the failure of the Revolution – written in the immediate aftermath of his service, “five months ago” as he says, and before the end of the Spanish war (1936-1939). The book contains a third part, Looking Back on the Spanish War, written in 1943. But that deals in particular with the partisan, dishonest role played by the press and deserves a separate review. Continue reading “Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell.. Free Download, PDF”

A New World in our Hearts: ‘La Rimaia’ Squat centre Evicted for 5th Time

Incredibly last week was the 5th time the Occupied Social Centre La Rimaia  (pronounced ReeMyYa) has been violently evicted. Its history reads like a passionate anti-capitalist thriller.

Beginning in Dec 2008 the first Rimaia was occupied in central Barcelona at the height of the student uprising against the Bologna process of elitism and  privatising of Universities.

After a violent eviction the ‘okupas’ took over a huge building in the main Gran Via and declared the Free University with dozens of free courses and workshops. it had a library, an art workshop, a cooperative and multiple classes (philosophy, computer networks, Languages…).

see also.. New Mutual Aid Hotline Blocks dozens of Evictions, Threats and Toxic Capitalism

After another shocking illegal surprise eviction the Rimaia Free Uni grabbed an abandoned building in the Sant Antoni barrio where the project has put down community roots.Pablo Molano, center> his life and death were the inspiration of the latest New Rimaia

Inside the Free University you could live the revolution in miniature, all is decided in open assembly and almost always unanimously, with up to 70 people, 30 living there and 40 with projects. Living freely with huge enthusiasm and creativity. Continue reading “A New World in our Hearts: ‘La Rimaia’ Squat centre Evicted for 5th Time”

FREE ALPHABET PICTURE BOOK ABOUT EUROPE’S VIOLENT COLONIAL RACISM

by Eye Candy at AfroPunk        Spain-based Peruvian writer Daniela Ortiz’s new book is the history lesson I never got as a child but always needed.  free download HERE.

The ABC of Racist Europe seeks to expose how Europe’s racist, colonial laws came to be and can still be felt today in xenophobic migrant and refugee policies.

According to Telesur, the book began as part of an exhibit showcased earlier this month at The Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art in Middlesbrough, England.

“Each letter has an imperialist message, for example, the letter K was for King … where the image shows a king imprisoning Africans, an image that today would be unacceptable,” Continue reading “FREE ALPHABET PICTURE BOOK ABOUT EUROPE’S VIOLENT COLONIAL RACISM”

Who are these Anarchists? and What the Hell do they Want?


 

WHO ARE THE ANARCHISTS AND WHAT IS ANARCHISM?

  By      Thomas Giovanni   at   Black Rose Anarchist Federation: …………..   In the wake of the use of militant street tactics at the Trump inauguration protests, the controversial shut down of two prominent right-wing speakers at the University of California, Berkeley, and a variety of high profile actions against the far right, anarchists have received increased media attention in the USA and sparked widespread debate, particularly around anti-fascist struggles.see also> Murray Bookchin: anarchist heretic who Inspired spreading Revolution in Middle East

But many people are still confused about anarchism, associating it with indiscriminate violence, chaos, and disorder. This distorted image runs counter to more than a century of anarchist activity in and outside the United States.

So if not chaos or disorder, what does anarchism stand for? What do anarchists believe in?

Core Anarchist Values

At the most basic level, anarchists believe in the equal value of all human beings. Anarchists also believe that hierarchical power relations are not only unjust, but corrupt those who have power and dehumanize those who don’t. Continue reading “Who are these Anarchists? and What the Hell do they Want?”

Anarchist Lighthouse shines for 30 years in Barcelona’s Raval

  summarized translation  en catalá abaix.    “Those who have known and lived with El Lokal, see it as a beacon for social movements in the city, a center of constant social and political unrest; a space for training, debate, organization and  coordination of local and international  struggles. Always ready, always on the ball.

see also…New Mutual Aid Hotline Blocks dozens of Evictions, Threats and Toxic Capitalism

Last Sunday we celebrated its 30th birthday at the adjacent  ‘Agora Juan Andrés Benítez’ occupied space, which is named in  memory of a neighbor killed by the Mossos local police in 2013- with a debate that brought together some of the anarchist and autonomous struggles of today. Continue reading “Anarchist Lighthouse shines for 30 years in Barcelona’s Raval”