Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

News from the Kate Sharpley Library

Another Tom Brown piece up (with some biographical details):
"One’s first day at work is an important day. In my case it was also a very long day. Hurrying along the damp, dark streets at 5.30 on a winters morning, with a tin tea can and a parcel of bread (there were few canteens at that time), I felt like a workman, though a very small one."
School for Syndicalism
 
Kate Sharpley said:
23rd of August is the anniversary of the killing of Sacco and Vanzetti. We posted an article on Vanzetti's "Story of a proletarian life" back in February:

“Nameless in the crowd of nameless ones…” : Some thoughts on The Story of A Proletarian Life, by Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 1923 by Barry Pateman

I can’t remember when I first read “The Story of A Proletarian Life.” I just know that one edition or another has been in and around my life for a long time. I read it most years, and usually I find myself reading it in a different way from the time before. Sometimes I read it as the voice of the immigrant experience and am moved by the image of Vanzetti, alone in the Battery, trying to make sense of where he was and realizing his essential loneliness and alienation from all that he saw around him. His portrayal of the exhausting search for work and the seeking out of fellow country people for help and support is both grim and poignant reading and one can understand how the acts of kindness he receives begin to drive and shape his philosophy of life. His experience (and the experience of many others, I would guess) reflected the experiences of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman who, although rebels of a kind in their home country, were made anarchists by the conditions and situations they encountered after in America. In early twentieth century America, anarchism wasn’t necessarily a foreign import, even if the press did live in fear of being swamped by immigrant devils arriving with hidden anarchist newspapers and pamphlets written in alien and crude languages. In truth it was American capitalism, with its casual, everyday cruelties that helped turn some immigrants into anarchists, Vanzetti and his comrades among them.

The rest is at: “Nameless in the crowd of nameless ones…” : Some thoughts on The Story of A Proletarian Life, by Bartolomeo Vanzetti, 1923
Click to expand...

May be of interest - a PHD just been done:

And They Called Them “Galleanisti”: The Rise of the Cronaca Sovversiva and the Formation of America’s Most Infamous Anarchist Faction (1895-1912)
 
Last edited:
KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 96, October 2018 has just been posted on our site. The PDF is up at: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/sj3wmw. The contents page is at KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 96, October 2018

Contents:
Pierre Monatte: no stripes, no rank by Louis Mercier Vega "His reportage, his pamphlets explain, appeal, invite and incite. Not some mania but dogged questing after what might be and sometimes was. With no illusions and no regrets."

Revolution and the State: Anarchism and the Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 by Danny Evans [Review] "Evans approaches history with questions to ask, rather than ready-made answers to bludgeon us with."

The missing memoirs of Tom Brown, Tyneside syndicalist. "If you know the current location of his memoirs, or you can tell us something that would help to track them down, we’d be glad to hear from you."*

Juan Busquets (former Maquis) on Ramón Vila Capdevila, his comrade
"I want them to bury me
Way up in the high mountains
Alongside the tall pine tree
That stands alone in the gully"

Anarchism, 1914-1918: Internationalism, anti-militarism and war [Book Review] by Barry Pateman "The anthology brings together many themes that we still struggle with today and opens many doors so that others can go through. Hopefully more work will be produced as a result of these essays."

Recently received (October 2018).

*"Unfortunately, the manuscript was borrowed by ‘two visiting female American academics whom he had met either at or in connection with the Durham Miners Gala’ – and never returned." - anyone who has links to North American Labor History discussion lists, please pass word on.
 
Kate Sharpley said:
*"Unfortunately, the manuscript was borrowed by ‘two visiting female American academics whom he had met either at or in connection with the Durham Miners Gala’ – and never returned." - anyone who has links to North American Labor History discussion lists, please pass word on.
Click to expand...

That reminds me, i meant to ask after reading my copy of the bulletin in the week, is there any idea when this visit was?
 
more info:
"Tom and Lily moved to Gateshead c.1967/8. [T.B. visited London] soon after 15 May 1972. He made no mention then of the American women; he would almost certainly have mentioned the memoirs in a general sort of way. He was dead by the early summer of 1974, something I discovered then when a letter or publication Stuart sent him was returned marked "deceased." I wrote at once to Lily to ask if he had left the memoirs he often talked of writing and she wrote back about the Americans. All that must narrow things down a bit. The ladies' interest may have been caught initially by Tom's early membership of the SLP [Socialist Labour Party] (today just about dead, I think. but which in its heyday produced a daily paper, the Daily People, in the USA; of course the same party also produced, besides James Connolly -- who would have had a substantial Irish following in the USA -- a large percentage of the founders of the CPGB)."
 
Kate Sharpley said:
more info:
"Tom and Lily moved to Gateshead c.1967/8. [T.B. visited London] soon after 15 May 1972. He made no mention then of the American women; he would almost certainly have mentioned the memoirs in a general sort of way. He was dead by the early summer of 1974, something I discovered then when a letter or publication Stuart sent him was returned marked "deceased." I wrote at once to Lily to ask if he had left the memoirs he often talked of writing and she wrote back about the Americans. All that must narrow things down a bit. The ladies' interest may have been caught initially by Tom's early membership of the SLP [Socialist Labour Party] (today just about dead, I think. but which in its heyday produced a daily paper, the Daily People, in the USA; of course the same party also produced, besides James Connolly -- who would have had a substantial Irish following in the USA -- a large percentage of the founders of the CPGB)."
Click to expand...

Typical fucking Labour/Labor History academics. Vultures. :mad::mad:
 
Just heard about the death (at 99 years old) of Alexander Nakov, Bulgarian anarcho-communist.
Alexander-Nakov-1-752x440.jpg

'In the words of the Stalinist secret police, Alexander was “modest, a teetotaller, and a fine worker. He is possessed of a good overall political grounding, reads a lot, knows Esperanto and is a member of the New Path Esperanto Society. He is a fanatical anarchist who openly declares that nothing on earth can divorce him from his ideas and from his relations with anarchists.”'
'In Alexander’s own words, he received his “secondary education in fascist prisons” and his “higher education in Bolshevik prisons”'
Obituary by the Anarchist Communist Group: Obituary – Alexander Nakov, 1919-2018 – Anarchist Communist Group
 
Osvaldo Bayer, author of Rebellion in Patagonia died on the 24th of December. We send our thoughts to his family, friends and comrades.
Two pieces just up on our site:
From Pagina/12 (periodical) "Given his ill health he turned up in a wheelchair to support the recent 24 March demonstration. He had suffered a few household accidents and age-related afflictions. But even so, there was a never-ending parade of students, writers, journalist and anyone else so minded calling on him at his home in the Belgrano district of Buenos Aires – which his friend, the writer and journalist Osvaldo Soriano once dubbed “The Shack”." Osvaldo Bayer is Dead
Frank Mintz says "Obviously, having read and translated Rebellion in Patagonia, I was a fan of Osvaldo’s contribution and rescue efforts, not merely in the form of his books but in terms of his disinterested assistance to ventures and projects related to libertarian matters in Argentina." Osvaldo Bayer 1927-2018: In Memoriam
 
Kate Sharpley said:
Osvaldo Bayer, author of Rebellion in Patagonia died on the 24th of December. We send our thoughts to his family, friends and comrades.
Two pieces just up on our site:
From Pagina/12 (periodical) "Given his ill health he turned up in a wheelchair to support the recent 24 March demonstration. He had suffered a few household accidents and age-related afflictions. But even so, there was a never-ending parade of students, writers, journalist and anyone else so minded calling on him at his home in the Belgrano district of Buenos Aires – which his friend, the writer and journalist Osvaldo Soriano once dubbed “The Shack”." Osvaldo Bayer is Dead
Frank Mintz says "Obviously, having read and translated Rebellion in Patagonia, I was a fan of Osvaldo’s contribution and rescue efforts, not merely in the form of his books but in terms of his disinterested assistance to ventures and projects related to libertarian matters in Argentina." Osvaldo Bayer 1927-2018: In Memoriam
Click to expand...
osvaldo bayer ¡presente!
 
maestro.jpg

In his Rosario hat, posing for La Garganta Poderosa, the magazine of the Poderosa movement - local assemblies with an anarchistic bent.

'Trabajar el sueño fundamental: un mundo con abejas y pan, y sin hambre ni balas!'
(roughly - 'Work towards the fundamental dream - a world with bees & bread, & without hunger or bullets!'

(eta - i could be wrong about the CARC hat, letters looks off, but I know he followed Rosario Central)
 
3bk4pj

Eight anarchists from the Nabat Confederation, "probably a Kharkov prison in 1922".
Front row left to right: A. I. Levada, Ivan Charin, Liya Gotman, Aron Baron
Back row left to right: Rebeka Yaroshevskaya, Alexey Olonetsky, Aleksandr Protsenko, Anton Shlakovoy
From the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine (via facebook) thanks to Malcolm Archibald.
originally posted at Nabat anarchists

and you should probably read "The Funeral of Sazhin-Ross", too. 'The Marxist philosopher Vladimir Adoratsky once warned a young colleague not to get Sazhin upset because “in Switzerland he could toss opponents off a cliff in a fit of anger.”' The Funeral of Sazhin-Ross
 
Kate Sharpley said:
Back row left to right: Rebeka Yaroshevskaya, Alexey Olonetsky, [not Aleksandr - see update below -but] V.I. Protsenko, Anton Shlakovoy
Click to expand...
Update: Anatoly Dubovik has just made a correction to the identifications in the photo: it is V. I. Protsenko in the photo, not Aleksandr Protsenko (who was born in 1909). The rather obscure figures V. I. Protsenko and A. I. Levada were delegates to an anarchist congress in November, 1920, representing peasant groups.
 
Kate Sharpley said:
3bk4pj

Eight anarchists from the Nabat Confederation, "probably a Kharkov prison in 1922".
Front row left to right: A. I. Levada, Ivan Charin, Liya Gotman, Aron Baron
Back row left to right: Rebeka Yaroshevskaya, Alexey Olonetsky, Aleksandr Protsenko, Anton Shlakovoy
From the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine (via facebook) thanks to Malcolm Archibald.
originally posted at Nabat anarchists

and you should probably read "The Funeral of Sazhin-Ross", too. 'The Marxist philosopher Vladimir Adoratsky once warned a young colleague not to get Sazhin upset because “in Switzerland he could toss opponents off a cliff in a fit of anger.”' The Funeral of Sazhin-Ross
Click to expand...
i wonder if they were expecting someone else as there's a vacant stool
 
KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 97-98, February 2019 [Double issue] has just been posted on our site. The PDF is up at: https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/k0p452. The contents page is at KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 97-98, February 2019 [Double issue]

Contents
Osvaldo Bayer is Dead "He showed up at every protest by workers, peasants and native communities. Championship of ethics and human rights was his forte."

Osvaldo Bayer 1927-2018: In Memoriam by Frank Mintz "There is no separating Osvaldo Bayer’s output from the annals of Argentinean and world anarchism"

Alan MacSimoin 1957-2018 "Coming from Irish Republicanism to anarchism in the 1970s, he belonged to the Murrays Defence Committee, the Dublin Anarchist Group, the Anarchist Workers Alliance and helped found the Workers Solidarity Movement in 1984."

Anarchy: A Definition by Stuart Christie "Whatever the immediate prospects of achieving a free society, and however remote the ideal, if we value our common humanity then we must never cease to strive to realise our vision."

A beautiful idea: history of the Freedom Press anarchists by Rob Ray [Book review] "Rob Ray’s book begins with the disarming confession that he imagined writing a ‘relatively short pamphlet’ (p3). 300 pages later you’ve been given a whistle-stop tour of Freedom’s history"

Statement by the Black Flag Group to the Liverpool Conference of the Anarchist Federation of Britain, Sept., 1968 "Anarchism is a revolutionary method of achieving a free non-violent society, without class divisions or imposed authority."

1952: Barcelona executions, global protests (Case number 658-IV-49) including material by Miguel Garcia Garcia "Every one of the resistance organizations – with only a few exceptions – had been smashed. Some had shot it out, some had been taken by surprise, some had been shot down."

The Invisible Dictatorship [a short history of Anarchy magazine (second series)] by Philip Ruff "Humbled as I am to be awarded the position of Great Helmsman of the Anarchy Collective, the historical facts are rather different."

News from the Kate Sharpley Library, February 2019 (more books on the way!)

David Porter "David was a fine man and a fine historian."

The Massana Gang by Imanol (with material by José Ester Borrás) "his was possibly the only group of any vintage that suffered no losses and that was a real rarity; his life was also spared because after he had disarmed some customs officers in France, he was charged and was then banished far from the French-Spanish border and was not deported."

Thoughts on ‘What everyone should know about state repression’ by Victor Serge "The book’s an evocation of the Russian revolutionary tradition which gives it a certain amount of derring-do"

See also Kate Sharpley Library for the extras that didn't get into this issue:
Photo of eight Nabat Confederation anarchists with notes by Malcolm Archibald and Anatoly Dubovik (as mentioned above)
The Funeral of Sazhin-Ross by A. Alekseyev, Translation and notes by Malcolm Archibald.
Bolshevik Concern for the Individual by V.T., Translation and notes by Malcolm Archibald.
The Lost Memoirs of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Isaak Tarasiuk, Translation and editing by Malcolm Archibald
Ivan Alekseyevich Yudin by G. P. Maximoff
And two poems:
The gods are dead by J. William Lloyd
The Disinherited by J. William Lloyd
 
gxd3m3

Just posted a tribute to David Nicoll:
In March 2019 it’s a hundred years since the death of David Nicoll, anarchist speaker, writer, editor, poet and activist. He was a central figure in keeping the Commonweal going after William Morris left the Socialist League in 1890. From 1894-97 he lived in Sheffield, producing the Anarchist single-handedly.[1] Nicoll is best known for his tireless work in defence of the Walsall Anarchists and served eighteen months for an article written in protest at their framing in 1892.
See the rest: A tribute to David Nicoll (1859-1919)
(NB Nicoll died on the 2nd March 1919. He is buried in Islington and St Pancras Cemeteries in an unmarked grave No 26, off Viaduct Road in the cemetery. A relative of his would like to mark the spot. Please let us know if you’d like to join us in helping make that happen.)
 
Kate Sharpley said:
z8wc7x

That this was out was mentioned in the bulletin. There's now a review:
"Philip Ruff has been looking for the truth about Peter the Painter since 1986, off and on. When he started, there was still a Soviet Union and he had to interview the KGB (rather than the other way round) about the Latvian revolutionary movement..."
Portrait of the artist as a wanted man: Philip Ruff’s search for Peter the Painter
Click to expand...
Latest post reminded me, Phil is doing a launch of this in Bristol The Cube Cinema – 8 pm Monday June 3rd. Latvian TV are filming for a program they're making too. Last time he was here he gave a great talk at the old cop shop.
 
Last edited:
(NB Nicoll died on the 2nd March 1919. He is buried in Islington and St Pancras Cemeteries in an unmarked grave No 26, off Viaduct Road in the cemetery. A relative of his would like to mark the spot. Please let us know if you’d like to join us in helping make that happen.)
Click to expand...

Yes!
 
D47Enx5WAAAi0AY.jpg

More exciting book news:
Philip Ruff's “A Towering Flame: The Life and Times of the Elusive Latvian Anarchist Peter the Painter” is to be published by Breviary Stuff Publications.
Launched in Bristol 3 June 2019 at the Cube Cinema in conjunction with the Bristol Radical History Group.
Details of the launch: Cube: A TOWERING FLAME
Details of the book: Philip Ruff – A Towering Flame | Breviary Stuff Publications
 
A review of the Sons of Night book is now up on our website
"I’m not used to books that tell you how to read them. At the start you’re advised to read Antoine’s account straight through, and then read it again with the end notes from part two. It works, but you may need another go round. Bring two bookmarks, some blank paper and an open mind. Listen to the sons and daughters of the night. As the Giménologues say ‘the history of the social war in Spain will never be over until we have done with the world that made it a possibility, and a necessity.’ [p9]"
The Sons of Night by Antoine Gimenez and the Giménologues [Book review]
 
New article: Arendarenko's account of his time in prison and exile.
"In 1937–1938 the last anarchists in the USSR were physically eliminated by Stalin’s terror. One exception was the Ukrainian anarchist Ignaty Vasilevich Arendarenko (1898–after 1953). A native of Poltava, he joined the anarchist movement in 1919, taking part in the Poltava branch of the Nabat Anarchist Confederation and the Makhnovist movement. From 1926 to 1936 Arendarenko was either in prison or serving terms of exile. Possessed of excellent survival skills, when he had the opportunity in 1936 he began to live illegally, spending the next few years in Ukraine. Dodging frst Stalin’s agents, then the Nazis, he was fnally swept up in a raid in 1944 and sent to Austria as a “guest” worker. After the war he lived in Western Europe, contributing articles to the Russian-American journal Dielo Truda-Probuzhdenie (DTP). In 1952 he emigrated to Mexico. In the following article written for DTP, Arendarenko honours the memory of the fellow anarchists (and others) he met in the Soviet justice system."
The article, What I Saw and Experienced by Ignaty Vasilevich Arendarenko (1898–after 1953) can be read at What I Saw and Experienced
Big thanks to Malcolm Archibald from Black Cat Press for translation and editing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Yugoslav
The Left Failing Young Men (and how to reclaim the Left from liberals)
7 8 9 10 11
Replies
309
Views
6K
PTK
PTK
JimW
Collection of images from Qajar Dynasty (1789-1925) Persia leaked from Iranian archives
Replies
0
Views
227
JimW
JimW
hitmouse
Immunity, barring from office and all that
Replies
1
Views
208
emanymton
emanymton
T & P
What would likely happen accent-wise if you set up a colony of a hundred odd people from distinctly different areas?
2
Replies
56
Views
2K
PR1Berske
PR1Berske
JimW
Tin cargo on a 2000-year-old wreck off Haifa came all the way from Uzbekistan
Replies
11
Views
750
DaveCinzano
DaveCinzano
Back
Top Bottom