Cover of Black Flag vol 5 no 3

The new issue of Black Flag: Anarchist Review is now available:

https://www.blackflag.org.uk

This year’s third issue has, more by accident than by design, a decidedly anti-parliamentarian aspect to it. We start with four notable radical women whose writings should be of interest to libertarians today even if they may not be as well-known as they should be.

Lousia Sarah Bevington (1845-1895) was an English anarchist, essayist and poet. She wrote for the Commonweal and Freedom, although she seemed to be most associated with the London Liberty, edited by the Scottish anarchist and tailor James Tochatti, for which she wrote numerous articles and poems. Some of these were re-issued as pamphlets, including her “Why I Am an Expropriationist” along with William Morris’s “Why I Am a Communist”. She also wrote a Manifesto for the short-lived Anarchist Communist Alliance. Kropotkin was amongst those who attended her funeral, indicating her importance to the movement. As such, it is good to introduce her to modern radicals.

We then discuss Scottish anarchist Ethel MacDonald (1909-1960), a stalwart of the Anti-Parliamentarian Communist movement before and after the Second World War. After the outbreak of the Spanish Revolution, she went to Barcelona to report on it but was soon making radio broadcasts on behalf of the CNT-FAI. With the rising Communist-led counter-revolution, she helped revolutionaries to escape from Spain. Here we reproduce many of her reports and broadcasts from Barcelona as well as two articles.

Next is Ethel Mannin (1900-1984), a noted writer but also a revolutionary. Initially a Trotskyist, she became a libertarian after working with the anarchists publishing Spain and the World and Emma Goldman during the Spanish Revolution.

Then we discuss Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) and her journey from suffragette to anti-Parliamentarian Communist as well as her links to anarchism. We show that her experiences in the struggle lead her to anarchist conclusions and that she re-evaluated her initial support for Bolshevism to become an anti-Bolshevik communist whose critique echoed the anarchist analysis. While best remembered of the four, her communist period is often glossed over.

This is followed by an overview of the post-First War World Anti-Parliamentarian movement (which Pankhurst and MacDonald were connected to) and a recent article by an Australian anarchist on the need for socialists to recognise the importance of anti-parliamentarianism.

We end with two reviews and our usual round-up of movement news, Parish Notices.

Original translations which appear in Black Flag: Anarchist Review eventually appear on-line here:

https://anarchistfaq.org/translations/index.html

Next year we aim to continue to cover a range of people and subjects. These will hopefully include John Most, Alexander Berkman, Guy Aldred, the Haymarket events, the British General Strike, Mother Earth, amongst others.

However, this work needs help otherwise at some stage it will end. Contributions from libertarian socialists are welcome on these and other subjects! We are a small collective and always need help in writing, translating and gathering material, so please get in touch if you want to see Black Flag Anarchist Review continue.

This issue’s editorial and contents are here: https://anarchistfaq.org/anarcho/black-flag-anarchist-review-autumn-202…

Comments

anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/11/2025 - 09:48

come the fuck on. anews has now fully become a recycling bin for this type of expired garbage. except for some hipster trimmings, it is indistinguishable from ainfos and other internationalist leftist trash.

anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/12/2025 - 08:26

ANTI-PARLIAMENTARIAN AKTION

there's a typo in the piece, it says "libertarian socialists" instead of "librarian socialists"

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/14/2025 - 09:21

I, for one, enjoy anarchist history, and I think that if you don't like anarchist history, there's not much point in being an anarchist. Not that you have to agree with everything that happened in it, but if you simply dismiss anarchist history because it's old, in my opinion, you are not an anarchist but a run of the mill ignoramus.

anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/14/2025 - 12:24

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

Me too! But there's still this annoying pattern that when there's talk of anarchist history, soe drone starts by telling us about the workers movement from 100 years back and the Spanish Civil War, not only as if that's the only anarchy that ever happened, but also still happening despite what the real world sez.

anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/17/2025 - 15:35

In reply to by anonymous (not verified)

"I think that if you don't like anarchist history, there's not much point in being an anarchist."
means absolutely nothing.

and, what about the interesting anarchist histories, like the ones Enemy Combatant brought to light, instead of the same old leftist crap.

history doesn't have to be boring and worthless.

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
%
W
i
D
B
k
S
z
Enter the code without spaces.
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.