Anarchism and Revolutionary Defeatism

From History is What's Happening by K. C. Sinclair

What is “revolutionary defeatism,” where does it come from, and what is its current relevance for anarchists and other social rebels? As a slogan and stance, revolutionary defeatism was devised by the Russian statist socialist Vladimir Lenin and, to a lesser extent, the Ukrainian statist socialist Grigory Zinoviev, in the context of the First World War.

We Are a Conspiracy: 56 Notes on Red

From Black Ink

Because the history and practice of anarchism have been foundational to me—and because I’m aware of the toxicity of deadnames, the patriarchy embedded in surnames, and the trauma at the root of slavenames and government names—I have a high tolerance for anyone who, whatever the reason, changes their name. I read the shifting of Red’s name, over time, as a survival strategy; she was a Black woman in a country founded on, among other things, the abuse and erasure of Black women.

Bad History

From Collective of Anarchist Writers

I wrote this before Luigi Mangione shot the CEO of United Healthcare. Such an act, totally unpredictable but ripping open the seams of this world to instantiate possibility in the present, is a beautiful act—not historical, since it breaks with this world and cannot be contained by time.

Why do we tell ourselves history? Why this pious agreement that being informed about history, along with politics, makes us somehow better, smarter, aware?

Joan Busquets Vergés, the last Catalan Maquis

From Memoria Libertaria
November 30, 2024

During this November, Joan Busquets, “El Senzill” visited the Spanish State to present his claim as a victim of Francoism.

In this post you can find the chronicle of the event and the recording at the FAL (Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo) on the 19th, the press conference in Barcelona, and a conversation between him and the historian and researcher Dolors Marín.

The Fall of Assad, the Future of Syria

by Peter Gelderloos
Dec 8, 2024

As we wait to hear if Bashar al-Assad has already fled Damascus or fallen to a coup, here are a few thoughts about what might come next. Syria may well prove to be a linchpin of West Asia, as the civil war of 2012-2018 has suddenly reignited. Just two weeks after a surprise offensive in the northwest of the country by Sunni fundamentalists, all of Assad’s many enemies are sweeping the country and by tomorrow morning his regime may have definitively collapsed.

A Critique of Filial Piety and the Traditional East Asian Family Model

From The Commoner by Liao

This piece is a continuation of a series of articles that seek to articulate Asian anarchism. To briefly reiterate, Asian anarchism aims to unite Asian and Asian-diasporic thought under a lens of anti-hierarchical analysis as we look toward a liberatory future. Given that Asia is extremely diverse, there will be a plurality of viewpoints, and as a Chinese-Taiwanese writer, I am best suited to examine and critique the cultures that I know best. Additionally, this piece was written in tandem with a conversation between myself and another Chinese comrade, whose words are paraphrased in various places within the text.

A Russian village where the Revolution went to die

From Fifth Estate, #415, Summer 2024, by Lawton Browning.

a review of Chevengur by Andrei Platonov. NYRB 2023 (Originally published 1929)

In his 1920 essay, “Anarchists and Communists,” journalist, engineer and author Andrei Platonov wrote “True Anarchy is the understanding that all power and authority on Earth is unnecessary and harmful, that people do not need to be led.”

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