The Black Rose of Anarchism: Marie Louise Berneri

The Black Rose of Anarchism: Marie Louise Berner

Rejecting the American model: Peter Kropotkin's radical communalism

Kropotkin's anarchism looked to a future defined by communalism. However, his understanding of this potential communal future has rarely been subject to analysis. Particularly important was his distinction between communalism and the tradition of communal experimentation in the US, which drew heavily on the ideas of Charles Fourier. Kropotkin was influenced by Fourier, but thought that attempts to found phalanstèries had been disastrous, vitiating the power of communalist propaganda. To defend the idea of a communal future, Kropotkin therefore advanced a tripartite critique of the US model of utopian experimentation. The image of American utopianism he created consequently served as a useful rhetorical device, allowing him to advance a counter-image of the anarchist communal theory that lay at the heart of his political theory

Utopian civic virtue: Bakunin, Kropotkin, and anarchism’s republican inheritance

Civic virtue is a core concept in the republican tradition. Its associations with duty and sacrifice indicate that it is temperamentally incompatible with anarchism, an ideology typically defined by its commitment to maximising freedom. Presenting an original reading of the work of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, two seminal figures in the history of anarchist ideas, this article argues that, nevertheless, a conception of civic virtue was central to their political theory. Tracing their engagement with the language of Enlightenment civic virtue, filtered through the experience of the French Revolution and the politics of Jacobinism, it argues that Bakunin and Kropotkin looked to anarchist civic virtues to both conceptualise anarchist revolution and underpin future anarchist social relations. Casting fresh light on anarchism’s intellectual origins, its neglected relations with republicanism, and the complexities of republican visions of civic virtue, this article also recovers duty, and a potentially demanding model of participation, as key values in anarchist political thought.<br

To hell with culture: Fascism, rhetoric, and the war for democracy

To Hell With Culture was Herbert Read’s most concise exposition of his aesthetic politics, but it was a work moulded by the particular context in which he wrote. Starting life as a contribution to a series of pamphlets pondering the shape of Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War, Read drew on a deep reading of socialist intellectual history to plot a new, radical path for democracy. His text was a necessary utopia, presenting an outcry against the cultural barbarities of both the capitalist and totalitarian superpowers, and entering a battle of ideas to determine the shape of post-war Europe

Herbert Read and the fluid memory of the First World War: poetry, prose and polemic

According to many critics, Herbert Read’s experience fighting in the trenches of the First World War was a formative one that shaped his intellectual life. His war poetry and autobiographical prose reflected on the horrors of fighting, and his anarchist-pacifism was a product, they argue, of experiencing the war first hand. Utilizing archival material and analysing Read’s poetry, prose and polemical writing, the present article contests this reading. It argues that Read’s perception of the war was deeply ambiguous, and shifted in response to the changing view of the conflict in British cultural history. He saw the war as at once disabling and liberating, and his continual return to the conflict as a subject in his writing was a process of attempting to fix its ultimate meaning to his life

Art, education, and revolution: Herbert Read and the reorientation of British anarchism

It is popularly believed that British anarchism underwent a ‘renaissance’ in the 1960s, as conventional revolutionary tactics were replaced by an ethos of permanent protest. Often associated with Colin Ward and his journal Anarchy, this tactical shift is said to have occurred due to growing awareness of Gustav Landauer’s work. This article challenges these readings by focusing on Herbert Read’s book Education through Art, a work motivated by Read’s dissatisfaction with anarchism’s association with political violence. Arguing that aesthetic education could remodel social relationships in a non-hierarchical fashion, Read pioneered the reassessment of revolutionary tactics in the 1940s that is associated with the 1960s generation. His role in these debates has been ignored, but the broader political context of Read’s contribution to anarchist theory has also been neglected. The reading of Read’s work advanced here recovers his importance to these debates, and highlights the presence of an indigenous strand of radical thought that sought novel solutions for the problems of the age

Mutualism in the trenches: anarchism, militarism and the lessons of the First World War

Mutualism in the trenches: anarchism, militarism and the lessons of the First World Wa

Formulating an anarchist sociology: Peter Kropotkin's reading of Herbert Spencer

The work of Herbert Spencer was a crucial influence on the development of Peter Kropotkin’s historical sociology. However, scholars have underestimated this relationship; either overlooking it entirely, or minimizing Kropotkin’s attachment to Spencer with the aim of maintaining the utility of his political thought in the present. This article contests these interpretations by analyzing Kropotkin’s reading of Spencer’s epistemological, biological, and political ideas. It argues that Kropotkin was engaged in a critical dialogue with Spencer, incorporating many Spencerian principles in his own system, but also using this reading to articulate a distinctive anarchist politics

The possibilities of anarchist history: Rethinking the canon and writing history

While the study of anarchism has undergone a renaissance in recent years, historical scholarship has been a relatively minor aspect of this renewed focus. Presenting an historiographical examination of the main forms of writing on anarchist ideas, this article argues that the predominance of ‘canonistic’ approaches to anarchism is in part a consequence of the disciplinary dominance of political theory in the study of anarchism. Despite anarchism’s complex intellectual history, intellectual historians continue to overlook this rich political tradition. The article concludes by reflecting on the possibilities offered by an intellectual history of anarchism informed by recent methodological developments in cultural history. Not only does this allow us to see beyond the canon, but it also offers new insights on anarchism’s most influential thinkers

Marie Louise Berneri (1918-1949): ‘Prophecying Utopia’

Marie Louise Berneri (1918-1949): ‘Prophecying Utopia