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7 The French anarchist movement and the First World War Constance Bantman and David Berry As one of the anarchist anti-militarist and anti-patriotic heartlands of the Western world, the French anarchist movement found itself in the eye of the storm at the outbreak of the First World War, famously rallying to the war effort – albeit neither unanimously nor unwaveringly – within just ten days of the declaration of war. This chapter examines the events and debates leading up to the interventionist 1916 Manifesto of the Sixteen (nine of whose original fifteen
Anti-militarism is today an unquestioned mainstay of anarchism. This book presents a systematic analysis of anarchist responses to the First World War. It examines the interventionist debate between Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta which split the anarchist movement in 1914. The controversy revolved around conflicting interpretations of the shared ideas of internationalism and anti-militarism. The book analyses the debates conducted in European and American movements about class, nationalism, pacifism and cultural resistance. Just as Kropotkin's position was coherent with his anarchist beliefs, it was also a product of his rejection of the main assumptions of the peace politics of his day. Malatesta's dispute with Kropotkin provides a focus for the anti-interventionist campaigns he fought internationally. Contributions discuss the justness of war, non-violence and pacifism, anti-colonialism, pro-feminist perspectives on war and the potency of myths about the war and revolution for the reframing of radical politics in the 1920s and beyond. The collaboration between the Swiss-based anarchists and the Indian nationalists suggests that Bertoni's group was not impervious to collaboration with groups whose ideological tenets may have been in tension with the ideology of anarchism. During the First World War, American anarchists emphasised the positive, constructive aspects of revolutionary violence by aestheticising it as an outgrowth of individual creativity. Divisions about the war and the experience of being caught on the wrong side of the Bolshevik Revolution encouraged anarchists to reaffirm their deeply-held rejection of vanguard socialism and develop new strategies on anti-war activities.
conditions? This chapter addresses this question from a political opportunity (PO) perspective by analyzing existent countylevel political opportunities and their relationship to the concentration of anarchist organizations. Surprisingly, we see that countries with more political opportunities also have greater organizational density. Using historical narratives from present-day anarchist movement literature (recorded in A-Infos), I also note various events and phenomena in the last two centuries and their relevance to the mobilization and demobilization of anarchist
modern anarchist movements. First, using the Anarchist Yellow Pages (AYP) directory and the International Blacklist (IBL), I offer a systematic description of the types of organizations that comprise the contemporary anarchist movement, as well as its international geographic patterns. I argue here that the best existing resource available to researchers is the AYP, which listed over 2,000 organizations in its 2005 edition. I provide an initial descriptive and analytical account of the geographic clustering of types of anarchist organizations. Using these data, we can
7 British anarchism in the era of Thatcherism Rich Cross British anarchism in the era of Thatcherism The late 1970s and early 1980s were a period of unexpected resurgence for the British anarchist movement, and for wider libertarian political initiatives circling in the orbit of an expanding anarchist core. The renaissance of anarchism in the UK was not something which many contemporary commentators on the British political fringe had anticipated. But British anarchism’s recovery and renewed confidence was not only unexpected, it took on political hues, adopted
definition one cares to use for “social movements” – unless, of course, one presumes that movements must always seek state power, be large, win regularly, and so forth. Those obtuse criteria are not employed for any other movement, thus to hold anarchism to that standard is absurd. Social movement scholars’ consistent avoidance of anarchist movement analyses illustrates both a preference for state-oriented subject matter and a confusion and frustration with explaining anti-state movements via typical frameworks. Like other movements, anarchist movements are composed of
4 Beyond the ‘people’s community’: the anarchist movement from the fin de siècle to the First World War in Germany Lukas Keller This chapter focuses on the anarchist movement as a political phenomenon at the margins of imperial German society. Drawing on government and police records as well as contemporary press coverage, it concludes that anarchism’s ideology, goals and means placed it ‘beyond’ the sphere of politics. This development reached its peak during the First World War, when anarchists found themselves outside of the ‘people’s community’ – the project
essential dimensions of these theories (Sutton & Vertigans 2006), paying close attention to how each dimension may be applied. I interrogate examples and characteristics drawn from present-day anarchist movements – including ideology, organizations, and strategy – with the NSM framework. Although not totally identical, it will be clear that modern anarchism greatly exemplifies the ideal typology created by NSM theories. Finally, I delineate differences between the contemporary anarchist movement and other NSMs. Anarchism suggests the need to modify and extend the NSM
intervention on the side of the Entente and the disavowal of Italy’s treaty obligations under the Triple Alliance. Malatesta’s dispute with Kropotkin provides a focus for the anti-interventionist campaigns he fought internationally, in London and in Italy.1 This chapter will conclude by examining Malatesta’s discussions of the unintended outcomes of world war and the challenges and opportunities that the fracturing of the antebellum world posed for the international anarchist movement. Globalised syndicalism, insurrection, imperialism and the shadow of world war Between 1905
bestiality in Europe’, the ‘capitulation of … social democracy’ represented a ‘world tragedy’.5 If the outbreak of war in 1914 was a climacteric for socialists, posing difficult questions regarding allegiance, the same is true for the anarchist movement. However, while there is a considerable literature examining the shortcomings of the mainstream European socialist movement, very little work has been done on the anarchist response to the war. This is despite the fact that, as Benedict Anderson noted, anarchism was the ‘dominant element in the selfconsciously