anarchists

"Si las naciones d'Europa figuran como los grandes paquidermos del reino intelectual, no representemos en el Perú a los microbios de la literatura."

"La intelijencia no tiene por qué abdicar ante la fuerza; por el contrario, la voz del hombre razonable i culto debe ser un correctivo a la obra perniciosa de cerebros rudimentarios."

"Imitar equivale a moverse i fatigarse en el wagón de un ferrocarril: nos imajinamos realizar mucho i no hacemos más que seguir el impulso del motor."

"El hombre anda con pasos cortos en la infancia i en la vejez."

"Lo que poco cuesta, poco dura. Los libros que admiran i deleitan a la Humanidad, fueron pensados i escritos en largas horas de soledad i recojimiento, costaron a sus autores el hierro de la sangre i el fósforo del cerebro."

"Dada la inclinación general de los hombres al abuso del poder, todo gobierno es malo y toda autoridad quiere decir tiranía"

"la forma da el mérito; n'olvidemos que sólo por la forma, el carbono se llama unas veces carbón i otras veces diamante"

"Las revoluciones vienen de arriba y se operan desde abajo. Iluminados por la luz de la superficie, los oprimidos del fondo ven la justicia y se lanzan a conquistarla, sin detenerse en los medios ni arredrarse con los resultados. Mientras los moderados y los teóricos se imaginan evoluciones geométricas o se enredan en menudencias y detalles de forma, la multitud simplifica las cuestiones, las baja de las alturas nebulosas y las confina en terreno práctico. Sigue el ejemplo de Alejandro: no desata el nudo, le corta de un sablazo."

"La Ciencia tiene flores inmortales de donde pueden las abejas estraer miel de poesía."

"nuestro poder estriba en la unión: todos los rayos del Sol, difundidos en la superficie de la Tierra, no bastan a inflamar un solo grano de pólvora, mientras unos cuantos haces de luz solar, reunidos en un espejo ustorio, prenden la mina que hace volar al monte de granito."

"Para Manuel González Prada, esta emoción bravía y selecta, una de las que, con más entusiasmo, me ha aplaudido el gran maestro."

"Si hay placer en conquistar con la espada, no falta dulzura en iluminar con l'antorcha. Gloria por gloria, vale más dejar chispas de luz que regueros de sangre."

"En oposición a los políticos que nos cubrieron de vergüenza y oprobio se levantan los literatos que prometen lustre y nombradía. Después de los bárbaros que hirieron con la espada vienen los hombres cultos que desean civilizar con la pluma."

"El hombre no disfruta de los derechos que otros le conceden por la razón, sino de los que él mismo se conquista por la fuerza. Toda libertad nació bañada en sangre, y el advenimiento de la justicia debe compararse con un alumbramiento desgarrador y tempestuoso, no con una germinación tranquila y silenciosa. No aguardamos a que de arriba nos otorguen derechos ni libertades. Del que manda, nunca vino cosa buena ni gratuita, y las naciones que se adormecen confiadas en que la Autoridad se acerque a despertarlas con el don de la independencia son como los insensatos que en el desierto edificaran una ciudad, aguardando que un río viniese a cruzarla por el medio."

"No arguyan con obstáculos insuperables: el hombre de talento sólido, como el César de buena raza, atraviesa el Rubicón."

"Quien escribe hoi i desea vivir mañana, debe pertenecer al día, a la hora, al momento en que maneja la pluma. Si un autor sale de su tiempo, ha de ser par'adivinar las cosas futuras, no para desenterrar ideas i palabras muertas."

"Andrej Grubačić was born to a revolutionary family. His grandparents were socialists, and his grandfather represented Yugoslavia in the founding and aff airs of the Non-Aligned Movement. He grew up nourished on the ideas and reality of workers’ self-management and a particular path to socialism that was democratic and put people first, celebrating the particularity of every person, and the complementariness of collectivity and individuality. These qualities are present in Grubačić’s writing and his persona as an anarchist, or “libertarian socialist” as he prefers to be known. He has brought a new hope of unity in struggle, and the old-fashioned principle of “an injury to one is an injury to all” to the scattered movements in the United States."

"The history of Yugoslavia is of global relevance, and there's no one better placed to reveal, share, and analyse it than Andrej Grubacic."

"The reader will find me contradicting myself, as well as making mistakes and trying to correct them, all of which reflects my own development as a protagonist, propagandist, and essayist."

"The political strength of a term comes from its application. No appliers, no strength."

"Anarchists like to blame the ruthlessness of capitalists and their cronies for their failures – or the backstabbing of Marxists."

"If anarchists want to be revolutionaries, they need to present models of revolution that differ from the Leninist one but are more substantial than the hope for some kind of historical magic."

"Anarchists were always skeptical of Marxism, because Marxism was a modernist ideology."

"Before the French Revolution, the idea that change is possible, change is normal, change is even something that is good, has been universally rejected by traditional monarchistic ways of thinking about the way that the world works and the way that history moves."

"The future of Europe, should there be one, is in the Balkans, not the other way around."

"Anarchists will in all likelihood not lead a revolution in the near future – or ever, considering the paradox implicit in the idea itself."

"Life was difficult for everyone in Germany after World War I and particularly so for the political refugees. Many of us felt that we had to leave Germany. A number of us went to France, including Sasha and Emma."

"We were informed that the exchange with Russian prisoners of war would take effect on the 23rd of November, 1921. We were all deported to Russia."

"His name will live as long as there are and will continue to be rebels who struggle for genuine, true liberty."

"In July, 1918, we learned that President Wilson had sent ten thousand American troops to Vladivostock to intervene militarily against the Russian Revolution. At that time we were all very much in sympathy with the Russian Revolution. We sent out a call for a mass protest meeting against intervention and sent it to the American press. Samuel Lipman attended the mass meeting even though he considered himself a Marxian Socialist and we were glad to have him."

"Russia of today is a great prison where every individual who is known not to be in full agreement with the Communists is spied upon and booked by the “GPU” (Tcheka) as an enemy of the government. No one can receive books, newspapers, or even a plain letter from his relatives without control of the censor. This institution which keeps the people in absolute ignorance of all news detrimental to the interests of the Bolshevists is now better organized and more strict than was the famous Black Cabinet under Czar Nicholas II. The prisons and concentration camps of Moscow, Petrograd, Kharkov, Odessa, Tashkent, Vologda, Archangel, Solovki, and Siberia are filled with revolutionaries who do not agree with the tyrannical regime enforced by the Bolsheviks. The inhuman treatment that those people receive at the hands of their jailers can have only one purpose: that is, to wear them out physically and mentally so that their lives may become a mere burden to them."

"The well-known liberal periodical, The Nation, printed an editorial challenging the legality of the proceedings and raising embarrassing questions for the government to answer. The policy of military intervention in the Russian Revolution was abandoned. We won, in spite of the fact that Abrams, Lachowsky and Sam Lipman were sentenced to twenty years imprisonment, and I to fifteen years."

"Alas," wrote Mollie in November 1927, "the entire spirit of the 'platform' is penetrated with the idea that the masses MUST BE POLITICALLY LED during the revolution. There is where the evil starts, all the rest ... is mainly based on this line. It stands for an Anarchist Communist Workers' Party, for an army ... for a system of defense of the revolution which will inevitably lead to the creation of a spying system, investigators, prisons and judges, consequently a TCHEKA."

"Mollie Steimer resembled Emma Goldman or Voltairine de Cleyre in the strength of her commitment more than she did Marie Ganz or Margaret Anderson."

"Steimer remained convinced that constitutional safeguards of freedom were a sham."

"Mollie Steimer, who was harassed, imprisoned, and finally deported for her support of the Bolshevik Revolution, believed at the time that only through revolution could capitalism be overthrown. She later supported the equally direct, but less overtly violent, concept of the general strike as the most effective revolutionary tool."

"There is a sharp contrast between Marie Ganz's brief and flamboyant career in the anarchist movement and the sustained dedication of Mollie Steimer (1897-1980). Steimer emigrated with her family from the Ukraine in 1912. One of six children, she described her life in a New York ghetto as typical of "most poor Jewish immigrants." Her father was a laborer, her mother took in boarders, and she worked in various factories. Her formal schooling having been limited by her poverty, Steimer, like Ganz and numerous others, received her education in the radical youth groups where literature and philosophy received almost as much attention as ideas for the creation of the new world. Inspired by Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread, she joined the anarchist group Freedom in 1917. She could not have chosen a more unpropitious time to become an anarchist. The United States, having recently entered World War I, was increasingly intolerant of radicals."

"Mollie Steimer and Emma Goldman were deported to Russia. Many of these women, if not all, are now dead. But in a great crisis they stood staunch and true in defense of peace and democracy."

"Mollie Steimer was sentenced to fifteen years for proclaiming: "The tyrants of the world fight each other until they see a common enemy-WORKING CLASS ENLIGHTENMENT. As soon as they find a common enemy they combine to crush it.""

"Among other things it has been stated in the American press that I was very happy to leave Russia, and that I preferred exile in Germany to freedom in Russia. This statement attributed to me, is a deliberate lie! It is true that the hypocrisy, intolerance, and the treachery of the Bolsheviks arouse in me a, feeling of indignation and revolt, but, as an Anarchist, I have no admiration nor defence for any government of any land, and the statement that I prefer exile in Germany rather than freedom in Russia is ridiculous and false. I made it very clear to the press correspondent with whom I spoke that in spite of all the difficulties with which I had to put up with in Russia, I was deeply grieved when I was forced to leave that country. This was not true when I left America. Although I have my entire family, good comrades and many dear friends in the U.S.A. Yet, when I was deported from there by the capitalist government, my heart was light. It was not so in the case of Russia. Never have I felt so depressed as since I have been sentenced to exile from Russia. My love for Russia and its people is too deep for me to rejoice that I am an exile, especially at a time when they are undergoing extreme suffering and most severe persecution. On the contrary, I would prefer to be there, and together with the workers and peasants, search for a way to loosen the chains of Bolshevik tyranny...No, I am NOT happy to be out of Russia. I would rather be there helping the workers combat the tyrannical deeds of the hypocritical Communists"

"I left her with a heavy heart. While the Communists are issuing long protests against the persecution of political prisoners (they mean only Communists) in “capitalist” countries, they themselves are imposing savage sentences upon their opponents and are forcing many of our best comrades to die slowly in the jails and concentration camps, and hundreds of others to suffer the bitter pangs of hunger and the unbearable cold of northern Russia and Siberia. The real revolutionaries of Russia today are exiled and cut off from the entire world, forbidden the right of communication with any loving person except the damnable spies who are forever shadowing their footsteps.s"

"All our members sincerely believed that the Revolution was around the corner. Events were taking place very rapidly. In Russia a Revolution had broken out which filled us with great enthusiasm. It was then that our discussions began. Should we give up our stand against war and take the side of the allies, or side with the German militarists? Bernard Sernaker wrote an article for Our paper supporting Peter Kropotkin and the famous sixteen in favor of the allied side against the German Government, to safeguard the libertarian traditions of the French revolutionary movement. After exhaustive discussions we did not accept Sernaker’s article for our paper. We decided to continue our call to the world against war and to stop the bloodbath. But we were not able to continue our agitation much longer because of the Espionage and Sedition Act of October, 1917. We could no longer work openly and freely. All criticism of the government was prohibited. The printshops refused to print our leaflets and our paper. We were compelled to operate underground, illegally."

"During these years of exile in the - 1920s and 1930s, Senya and Mollie received a steady stream of visitors-Harry Kelly, Rose Pesotta, Rudolf and Milly Rocker, among others-some of whom recorded their impressions of their old friends. Kelly, for example, found Mollie "as childlike in appearance as ever, and as idealistic too." Goldman, however, thought her "narrow and fanatical," while Senya was always "ill and broken." Emma again compared Mollie to Alexander Berkman as a young militant and "a fanatic to the highest degree. Mollie is a repetition in skirts. She is terribly sectarian, set in her notions, and has an iron will. No ten horses could drag her from anything she is for or against. But with it all she is one of the most genuinely devoted souls living with the fire of our ideal.""

"In October, 1919, I was illegally sentenced to six months imprisonment in Blackwell Island Prison where I was placed in solitary confinement, entirely separated from the outside world, wt without mail, without visitors. Even my mother was not allowed to visit with me. One day, in January, 1920, a slip of paper was smuggled into my cell informing me that Abrams, Lachowsky; and Lipman were caught while trying to flee to Mexico. That same day a newspaper clipping giving the history of our group a was thrown into my cell."

"Alexander Berkman, “Sasha” to his friends, was a rebel from early childhood. He protested against injustice wherever he saw it...After Berkman was released from prison he continued to devote his life to the revolutionary cause, a convinced anarchist. He worked with all his energies and dedication for the movement, for freedom, and wound up a political refugee in the various countries where he was permitted to live. He was one of the finest, most generous people I ever knew. Although he had very few material possessions, he was always ready to give everything away to others and had to be reminded not to deny himself his urgent personal needs. Berkman made every possible effort to understand and help people...He radiated warmth and comfort, like the rays of the sun."

"I first met Berkman in New York City in the late Fall, 1919, at the home of Stella Ballantine, Emma Goldman’s niece. We discussed the Russian Revolution and the need to expose the atrocities of the Bolsheviks against the anarchists, socialists and all who dared to criticize their new dictatorial regime in Moscow...Sasha argued that the Bolsheviks should be given a chance, that it was too early to start an organized opposition because the revolution was surrounded by enemies...Our second meeting with Sasha and Emma took place in Berlin four years later, November, 1923, where they had been living for two years, since January, 1922. They had left Soviet Russia greatly disillusioned with the Bolshevik regime. Sasha and Emma were each writing about their experiences in Russia. In addition, Sasha was active organizing help for the anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists and other political Opponents held in prison by the Bolsheviks. He appealed for funds, issued a bulletin in English, translated the letters from men and women prisoners in Russia. He assembled and translated all the material that was published in the book, Letters From Russian Prisons."

"Anarchism is a new social order where no group shall be governed by another group of people. Individual freedom shall prevail in the full sense of the word. Private ownership shall be abolished. Every person shall have an equal opportunity to develop himself well, both mentally and physically. We shall not have to struggle for our daily existence as we do now. No one shall live on the product of others. Every person shall produce as much as he can, and enjoy as much as he needs – receive according to his need. Instead of striving to get money, we shall strive towards education, towards knowledge. While at present the people of the world are divided into various groups, calling themselves nations, while one nation defies another – in most cases considers the others as competitive – we, the workers of the world, shall stretch out our hands towards each other with brotherly love. To the fulfilment of this idea I shall devote all my energy, and, if necessary, render my life for it."

"To the end, her revolutionary passion had burned with an undiminished flame."

"It is difficult not to be overwhelmed by Mollie Steimer's fidelity to principle throughout decades of persecution. Whether such constancy is a virtue or a flaw may be argued; nevertheless, despite an almost identical sociocultural background to Marie Ganz, Steimer was inspired by intellectual, social, and psychological forces that profoundly distinguished her from the more changeable Ganz. Steimer's conversion to anarchism derived less from an emotional response to a crisis situation than from her acceptance of the basic tenets of anarchist ideology. As a disciple of Kropotkin, Steimer possessed an intellectual and moral vision of the future."

"Conditions are better in Spain than in Russia for carrying out a revolution with a strong anarchist content, given that there is a peasantry and proletariat with a great revolutionary tradition. Perhaps your revolution will arrive early enough for me to have the pleasure of seeing a living anarchism inspired by the Russian Revolution! You have a sense of organization in Spain that our movement lacked; organization is the foundation of the revolution. That’s why I not only admire the Iberian anarchist movement but also think that it’s the only one presently capable of making a deeper revolution than the Bolsheviks’ while also avoiding the bureaucratism that threatened theirs from the outset. But you have to work hard to preserve that sense of organization and don’t let those who think that anarchism is a theory closed to life destroy it. Anarchism is neither sectarian nor dogmatic. It’s theory in action. It doesn’t have a pre-determined worldview. It’s a fact that anarchism is manifest historically in all of man’s attitudes, individually or collectively. It’s a force in the march of history itself: the force that pushes it forward."