Marseilles, France.

Fellow Worker:-

Received your letter the other day in Barcelona. I typed three pages in reply but could not smuggle it out of the country, so I tore it up.

I am out of Spain. The reasons are numerous. I was not wanted by the government as I was in the Durruti International Shock Battalion. The government sabotaged us since we were formed in May and made it impossible for us to stay at the front. No tobacco unless you had money. All of the time I was in the militia I received no money. I had to beg money for postage stamps, etc. I was sent back from the front slightly shell-shocked and put in a hospital in Barcelona. when we registered at the hospital I told them I was from the Durruti International Battalion and they wouldn’t register me. In fact they told me to go and ask my friends for money for a place to sleep. I explained to them that I was from Canada and had no friends in Barcelona, then they tried to make me a prisoner in the hospital. I called them all the lousy -- I could think of. Anyway, I ran away from the hospital one day to the English section of the CNT-FAI and the people there insisted that I see the British consul for a permit to leave Spain, which I did, though I hated to leave.

Spain is a wonderful country. At present it reminds me of the stories I have read of the O.G.P.U. in Russia. The jails of loyalist Spain are full of volunteers who have more than a single-track mind. I know one of them from Toronto, a member of the L.R.W.P. I wonder if they will bump him off. The Stalinists do not hesitate to kill any of those who do not blindly accept Stalin as a second Christ. One of the refugees who came over with me from Spain was a member of the O.G.P.U. in Spain, which, by the way, is controlled by Russia. Every volunteer in the Communist International Brigade is considered a potential enemy of Stalin. He is checked and double- checked, every damn one. If he utters a word other than commy phrases he is taken "for a ride." This chap (ex- O.G.P.U.) is like all the other commies coming out of Spain, absolutely anti-Stalin and anti-communist. He skipped the country by flashing his O.G.P.U. badge on the trains etc.

I believe that the I.W.W. has lost some members here, as I doubt if they would keep quiet at the front in view of what is taking place.

It was only through sabotage that the government succeeded in disbanding the International Battalion of Anarchists. Four of our bunch died of starvation in one day. Our arms were rotten, even though the Valencia government has plenty of arms and planes. They know enough not to give arms to the thousands of anarchists on the Aragon front. We could have driven the fascists out of Huesca and Saragossa had we had the aid of the aviation. But the Anarchists form collectives where ever they advance, and these comrades would rather let Franco have those cities that the CNT-FAI.

Fenner Brockway, prominent labor leader in England, exposed the way the communists were treating those boys (volunteers) in the International Brigade. They will not let any of them come back unless they are racketeers of the Sam Scarlett type who will say anything they are told as long as the pork chops are coming in.

The CNT-FAI seems to have lost all the power they had in the army. There is a good fort on the top of a hill overlooking Barcelona which the anarchists captured from the fascists. When I left for the front it was still in the hands of the FAI but when I came back the communists had it. The workers of Spain are against the communists, but the latter don’t care. They are making a play for the support of the bourgeoisie and other racketeers. As far as the industries are concerned the CNT has a lot of power, far more than any other organization.

Well, Fellow Worker, one day has elapsed since I wrote the above. Last night I had a head ache and I had to postpone finishing the letter. I am eating good since coming to France.

I believe the British consul is going to send me to England or to Canada. If I wasn’t such a wreck I would ship on a British ship for Spain. Wages are double on the Spanish run, and ships are tied up because of a shortage of men. I have been on English ships and none of the crew would speak English.

I met two more men from the International Brigade this morning. They say many Canadians are in prison in Spain.

With best wished for the I.W.W., I remain
Bill Wood

To talk of Jacobo Maguid- alias Macizo, alias Jacinto Cimazo- is to review in one’s mind’s eye the entire history of Argentina in the 20th century and, against that backdrop, the entire history of the Argentinian libertarian movement from the dying days of the Yrigoyen regime up until the current, protracted and turbulent convalescence from dictatorship. Maguid came from Santa Fe but attended university in La Plata where, even then committed to libertarian beliefs, he was a member of the Ideas group. That group had a very special place within the anarchist movement and a significance that, with the benefit of hindsight, strikes one as even more obvious. It included Lunazzi, José Grunfeld and his brothers David and Rafael. His commitment to anarchist ideas was crucial to the young engineering student, so much so that he took time off from his university career to become an editor of the newspaper La Protesta when, at the end of the Uriburu dictatorship, it managed to bounce back, thanks to the efforts of Diego Abad de Santillan who handled the printing of it single-handedly and was in need of help. Maguid saw the inside of prison a number of times during the Uriburu dictatorship as well as during his brief foray in to publishing (brief because La Protesta was shut down shortly afterwards by the authorities). His name cannot be dissociated from that of the FLA (Argentinian Libertarian Federation), going right back to the times of the CRRA (Regional Anarchist Liaison Committee) established at the 1932 congress and, from 1935 onwards, from the FACA (Argentinian Anarcho- Communist Federation), as the FLA was at first known. This obscure organisational work was boosted and convictions bolstered and enthusiasm refreshed unexpectedly by the bright light emanating from Spain. Maguid, who was at the time in the middle of a busy lecture tour in relation to the Bragado arrests, received a letter appointing him his organisation’s delegate and informing him that he was to go to Spain to assist the Spanish comrades in their mighty undertakings. He returned immediately to Buenos Aires, embarking on a ship for Spain along with his fellow delegates, Jacobo Prince, José Grunfeld and Anita Piacenza.

He had barely arrived when he was entrusted with a post: managing editor of the Tierra y Libertad newspaper, a post vacated by Santillan who was up to his neck in other matters at the time (...) In October 1938, Maguid gave up the editorship in order to avoid having to get embroiled in the internal squabbles of the Spanish movement and instead preferred to study the CNT archives, his intention being to prepare a memorandum documenting, without any subsequent misrepresentation, the events that had occurred during those three wondrous years.

When the defeat came, Maguid was among the last to leave and his escape from Spain was fraught with dangers. A fall during his crossing of the Pyrenees forced him to see the inside of a hospital and then the French concentration camps. On his return to Argentina, he resumed his activities in defence of the Bragado prisoners. Taking up his post again within the FACA, his story from then on was to become one with the story of that organisation which was to take the name FLA from 1952 onwards and which would successfully survive the Peron years and successive military dictatorships.

Maguid filled lots of roles inside the FLA. Those who stood well back could follow it in part because of his publishing activities, especially through the review Reconstruir and the books published under the same imprint.

In recent years his efforts as a writer have been particularly prolific. Three books by him have seen publication- ‘Libertarian writings’, ‘The Spanish Libertarian revolution’ and lately the little booklet ‘Memoirs of a Libertarian’, containing his autobiography, guiding us adroitly and without digression through a century of Argentinian social history, following the connecting thread of one militant’s lifetime.

Others and foremost Italian apostles of Anarchism have been in this country: F. S. Merlino, the pioneer; Pietro Gori, the poet, Errico Malatesta, Guiseppe Ciancabilla, impressing characters all of them, clear minds and pure consciences. But their activity here, however intense, was more or less of a short duration. Galleani’s on the contrary, spread over most of twenty years and was marked by the continuous progress of his mind and of the revolutionary movement as well.

When he landed on these shores, in the fall of 1901, shortly after Czologosz’ execution of president McKinley, Luigi Galleani was in the prime of his life. Ten of his forty years of age he had continuously spent either in jail, in relegation or in exile. His mind had matured through a very thorough education, hard thinking and personal experience. His conscience was clean of opportunistic entanglements. His convictions were deep rooted. Persecutions had steeled him beyond fear and temptation. He had chosen his place in life, and nothing was to lure him away from his purpose. In 1898 he was confined to the Island of Pantelleria, when the socialist politicians, who had been intriguing with all sorts of reactionary tools, conceived their idea of subduing the Anarchists to their parliamentarian policy. All Italian Anarchists were then either confined to the islands or exiled. Had they consented to give their names to a political campaign and had they been elected, which was all but impossible then, in many cases, they would have been automatically set free. Galleani answered to the socialist manoeuvre for all his comrades in seclusion, saying that prisons, chains and persecutions had not daunted their faith and that, no matter how painful they found it to be severed from the living world, they would rather stay and die, if need be, on the Mediterranean rocks, then lend their names to an electoral circus, which they despised, bow to a flag which was not theirs. "Manet Immota Fides" - he wrote then on his flag, and his faith remained absolutely unchanged to his death.

Of course, although they were absolutely truthful when they said nothing in the world could persuade them to repudiate or soften their Anarchist convictions, neither Galleani nor his comrades expected to die on the Mediterranean rocks. Errico Malatesta had escaped from the Island of Ustica a few months before, Galleani escaped from the Island of Pantelleria a few months later, and all were set free after Bresci’s execution of King Humbert, in 1900.

Following his escape from Pantelleria, Galleani spent some time in Egypt and then, by way of London, came to America.

A deep knowledge of the Anarchist philosophy, twenty years of experience at the front of the social war, the firm conviction that the social revolution is at one and the same time what the people want and what they must have if human progress is to continue and civilisation to survive, a powerful mind, a noble character that feared nothing and disdained all compromise, a masterly pen with a touch of classicism, a native and carefully cultivated talent of oratory, which made him an unsurpassed tribune of the people - these were his arms as he plunged himself in the vortex of American life, in the wake of the plutocratic imperialism that was being fostered by the elder Roosveltian windbag.

Galleani was not assimilated by the American environment. His age was too advanced to permit him to master the English language to his own satisfaction. And you cannot reach a people whose language you don’t know perfectly. Besides, he was too much of an artist, too much of a scrupulous thinker to suffer himself to express his thoughts in less than a masterly way. For this reason, his passage through the American scene remains practically unknown to all but the Italo-American community and to the native police records.

But even though he was not absorbed by the American environment, he certainly had a good grasp of its workings. Holding himself consistently aloof from the ruling cliques and from those who aspire to rule as well he could see the American panorama - its past, its present, its tendencies, from the point of view of the underdog - and accordingly elaborate his policies, his doctrine and attitude in a state of absolute independence.

His first stop was in Paterson, N.J., then at its peak as the "hotbed" of Anarchism. Here he became the editor of a weekly paper called "La Questione Sociale." When the famous textile strike of 1902 broke out, Galleani had the first opportunity to give the measure of himself as an agitator and a fighter. Nothing half-baked in him. If his written word might sound fiery to the mill czars, his spoken word rang as the hymn of resurrection to the hungry strikers. And his actions made good both. He was not an organiser. He called the workers to action for their bread, for their freedom - not for his own good. When the fight was on, he would ask the workers to keep it on, to rely on themselves, on their united effort to force the enemy into submission. He would not ask them to confide their troubles to his ability as a fixer or a mediator. For himself he would ask neither position, nor money, nor even the acceptance of his philosophy -only to let him fight by their side for the triumph of their cause.

This kind of leadership is not familiar with the professional organisers of labour who are wont to approach the strikers with condescension with the more or less tacit understanding that they shall organise under their banners and make a position for them as their paid leader. When, if ever, these organisers take to picketing, they do it for advertising purposes and only provided they are accompanied by the elaborate paraphernalia of loud drums, reel photographers, news reporters, defence counsel and other similar accompaniments. Galleani’s was the kind of leadership that marks the crusader and scares the job-seekers.

On June 18th, while leading picketing strikers, they came into contact with the gunmen of the police force. They fought valiantly. Galleani barely escaped with his life after having received a slash on his forehead and a gun shot on his upper lip. the Paterson police were in an uproar to capture him. But he succeeded in escaping and took refuge in Canada from where he came to Barre, Vt., the following year, under an assumed name. there he founded a weekly paper of Anarchist propaganda called "Cronaca Sovversiva," which was later transferred to Lynn, Mass. His identity having been publicly revealed by a socialist politician, G. M. Serrati, who lived to succeed Mussolini as editor of the official organ of the Italian revolution of 1919 - Luigi Galleani was arrested in Barre, Vt., on December 30th, 1906, extradited to New Jersey, and tried in Paterson a few months later for his part in the strike of 1902. His case was afterwards dropped following a disagreement of the jury.

From 1903 to 1918 Galleani edited "Cronaca Sovversiva," a paper which was a constant source of information, enthusiasm, courage and discussion. Into it Galleani transfused his wide knowledge and rare ability. He made it the mirror of his soul, which was itself the mirror of the anguish, torture and hopes of the underdog. For fifteen years this paper had an undisputed influence, not only over the Anarchist movement, but also over the whole revolutionary movement of the Italian community in America. It inspired a movement which was not probably very large in number but was highly select. Its members had a precise notion of what Anarchism should be, what it should do, and endeavoured to act accordingly. They did not waste their time pursuing elusive chimeras of actual realisations in any field. They conceived Anarchism as a militant struggle for the elimination of present-day oppression and exploitations - beyond their personal immediate need of acquiring knowledge. they were not to be found wasting time to conquer or build labour organisations only to be annihilated by them. they aimed, instead, at always being in the first places of the everyday struggle for the defence of liberty and social justice. The new world could not possibly emerge but from the utter destruction of the old institutions based on privilege and compulsion.

Galleani himself gave the example in words and deeds. His ultimate aim was Anarchist Communism, more or less according to the Kropotkin philosophy. He knew, however that before the ultimate aim could be realised much was to be done in order to pave the way. So he used to insist more on the details of a social order he very passionately wished for but could hardly hope that he would have a hand in shaping. "Our children will see to that," he used to say. "Our task is to bequeath to them an environment as free as possible from the hindrances of private property and political power. No free construction is possible unless preceded by thorough destruction."

He toured the country from ocean to ocean several times, generously spreading the good seed of revolt and Anarchism, and ever leaving behind a deep wake of sympathy, solidarity and enthusiasm for the cause. Again, no formal organisation. From all sides people were doing their utmost to create new regimentations and new burdens for the oppressed multitudes in addition to the old ones. Not he. His purpose was to awaken independent minds, to form solid characters, to give consciousness to stern wills. He has no use for formal adherence to his person, or paper or even ideas. He felt that what the movement needed, above all, were men and women of strong convictions, deeply persuaded that the Anarchist ideal is right, that his paper was giving a genuine interpretation this ideal. He tried to build up such characters and consciences, confiding that, had he succeeded, with or without him the Anarchist movement would have recruited new real forces, a firmer hold upon society than any former organisation could ever give. Once Anarchists had been made, co-operation among them was but a natural inevitable consequence. The doings of such co-operation would almost mechanically spring from the common urge of each and all to action.

Here is briefly sketched Galleani’s conception of Anarchism as an operating force. A movement of highly consciousness individuals who knew exactly what they wanted and how to go after it, each always in his or her judgement, bound to common action by the singleness of their purpose, co-operating out of a spontaneous impulse and deep conviction that they were acting for the good of the common cause, not for the sake of any discipline - were it even called class discipline. That such a conception was coherent with the Anarchist philosophy is obvious. that it was bound to give good results in practice was proved when the changing circumstances of the American scene brought it to the great test of the struggle against war.

Whatsoever one may think of the Anarchist movement in the United States, this much is true: that, as a movement, it suffered less casualties than any other revolutionary movement on account of the war dementia. The socialists fled "en masse" to the patriotic standards of belligerent democracy. Debs remained at the head of but a handful of his former followers. the A. F. of L., prostituted itself to the federal government. The I.W.W.’s tried to attenuate their position, claiming a political agnosticism which was tantamount to overt opposition to the war, lacking only the audacity to affirm itself as such. All the Anarchists, instead, assumed from the beginning a courageous and open stand against the ghastly butchery.

Galleani, as usual, minced no words. Persecution soon fell upon him and his paper which was denied the freedom of the mail. "Cronaca Sovversiva" continued to appear, being distributed by other means. Never had a paper been the object of such a wave of solidarity. Galleani was arrested. The paper found the means to appear just the same. "Nulla dies sine linea" was then our motto: "Not a day without a word" - against the war. Galleani was sentenced by a domesticated federal court in Boston: he would not fold his flag. He was then arrested again together with fifty or sixty comrades who were supposed to receive the paper all over the U.S. and distribute it to the readers. They were all held by the immigration authority for deportation. It was then springtime 1918. He was left almost alone in the printing shop, in Lynn. All the younger comrades were either in jail or hiding. Mr Palmer’s hounds ran into the printing shop for the last time, stole the forms of the paper, which had just been issued, and Galleani, a sick old man, whose words the mighty government of the U.S. feared, was silenced at last.

The following year, two more issues of "Cronaca Sovversiva" were published in New York. Galleani toured the country as far west as Kansas. May and June of that year had terrible bomb scares - as is always bound to happen when the freedom of speech and press is suppressed, and on the 24th day of June, Galleani was torn from his wife and children, and embarked for Italy together with eight of his comrades - all undesirable from the great republic of Wall Street.

But the American government was to remember Galleani’s passage through the American scene for quite a long time. The seeds he had planted on this soil had not fallen on barren ground. The movement he had so prodigally nurtured for so many years remained, however mutilated. And from this movement sprang Andrea Salsedo, who Mr Palmer’s assassins threw from a fourteenth story window in New York City, on May 3rd, 1919; from it too came Vanzetti whose seven years martyrdom remains as one of the most inspiring facts in modern times, and as a blot of eternal infamy upon the history of this bloody plutocracy.

Galleani’s life in Italy was eventful. In 1920 he revived his paper "Cronaca Sovversiva" only to see it die again after eighteen issues, because the government was after him on account of some objectionable articles, and he had to hide himself to escape preventative arrest. Three days before he was to be tried for this crime, he presented himself to the police, in Turin, and on October 28th, 1922 - the very same day in which the king called Mussolini to preside over the government - Galleani appeared before a jury of twelve good citizens, who condemned him to fourteen months in prison, for the crime of having called the Italian soldiers to the cause of revolution.

In prison, his disease aggravated; so, when he was released, over a year later, he had to go to a hospital. Meanwhile the fascist dictatorship was affirming itself. Freedom of speech and press was confiscated. Being unable to resume active work in Italy, he prepared, in 1925, for publication, a little book on Anarchism, which was published by his comrades in America, under the title of "La fine dell’Anarchismo?" The title: "Is Anarchism at An End?" suggests the polemical form of the book which is a vigorous defence of anarchist thought against Socialist attacks. Besides this very important work of his, he has left a big volume resuming the chronicles of heroic Anarchism up to 1898: "Faccia a Faccia col nemico" (Face to Face with the Enemy) and a book of pen sketches: "Figure figuri" (Men and Mugs), a small volume containing his criticism of the war-like attitude of Kropotkin and other revolutionists, and, finally, pamphlets of various character. Much else of standing value remains to be gathered from the collection of the papers he edited.

In 1927 he was arrested and fined because he had received an Anarchist newspaper enclosed in an envelope from America. Later for the same crime, he was again arrested, then sentenced to ten days in prison and, finally, sent to the Island of Lipari, for three years. A few days after he had landed in his new abode, he was arrested, accused of having said evil things of "Il Duce" (Mussolini), and sentenced to six months in the Island’s jail.

In 1930 he was allowed to leave the island. He took residence in a small village in an Appenine valley and there remained under the continuous surveillance of the police, who never left his housedoor and followed him in his solitary walks by the countryside, to the end of his life, which came the evening of November 4th, 1931.

While returning from his usual walk that day, he dropped a few blocks from his home. Taken to his bed by solicitous neighbours - who, although never allowed to approach him, must have sympathised with him - he died half an hour later. As a last outrage, the policeman, who had been following him after his fall, robbed him of his pocket book, which he was known to have in his pocket and which was never found afterwards; and which in the absence of money - as Galleani had always been poor - must have contained tokens of his dear ones living far away and completely unaware of his plight.

To the last moment he remained faithful to the ideals to which he had devoted his life. All those who have met him in the various prisons of the kingdom and on the Island bear witness to the unwavering nature of his convictions, the nobility of his character, the generosity of his heart, and undying hopes for the future.

His last message to his children, which was also meant for his comrades with whom for years he had been unable to correspond directly, contained these words which may be considered as his political testament: "I live all alone, serene, hopeful, certain rather that the era of restaurations which are condemned by reason, by the teachings of history, and by the destiny of progress and liberty."

Essay taken from Man! An Anthology of Anarchist Ideas, Edited by Marcus Graham.

Sébastien Faure was born on 6 January 1858 into a wealthy Catholic family and was educated by Jesuits, first in Saint-Etienne and then, in 1874, at the age of 16, in Clermont-Ferrand. After 17 months and before he took his vows, his father was stricken by a serious illness that yanked the boy back into secular life. He left college and the religious order to take over the burden of supporting the family following his father’s death. He started work in an insurance company and this brought him into contact with life and wit the day to day problems of ordinary life. Faure began to take an interest in many issues of a philosophical, political and scientific nature as his mind was opened to fresh and fascinating prospects.

After a rather disappointing time in the army and following a stay in England, he was now ready to embark upon his extraordinary existence as a militant and a revolutionary.

Now the young Faure’s real aim and sole interest became social and political activism and after a short-lived membership in the "Guesdist" party, he switched to the anarchist movement. At this point he severed connections with his own family and separated from the wife who found this radical about-turn intolerable.

In 1888 he moved to Paris where he developed his knowledge of anarchism through his reading, particularly of the writings of Elisée Reclus and Peter Kropotkin and through frequenting groups and militants of the French anarchist movement.

Endowed with exceptional, not to say extraordinary gifts as a public speaker, he toured France spreading the anarchist idea and especially its critique of the struggle against the state, capitalism, and above all, religion. The titles of his talks were provocative: Twelve Proofs of the Non-existence of God, The Bankruptcy of Christianity, The Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, Neither Command nor Obey, Parliamentary Putrefaction, etc.

Things were difficult to begin with, but the audiences at meetings, who found him as the main speaker were forever expanding until genuine tours of his own were organised and these registered such success in terms of their drawing power that they turned into matters of great resonance, rather than being merely local affairs. Texts of his talks were turned into propaganda pamphlets and were widely circulated and read. Through his activity he persuaded and opened up many men and women to anarchist ideas and earned the respect and admiration of many of his adversaries. Naturally he also attracted police attention and they regularly searched his lodgings and sent him to jail. A lecture tour that Faure made along with Louise Michel proved especially successful in terms of the numbers it drew.

In 1894 he was indicted in the "Trial of the Thirty". In 1895 he joined with Louise Michel to launch the weekly Le Libertaire and was the first to use the term ‘Libertarian’ to signify anarchist. After 1898 he committed himself wholly to the defence of the Jewish army captain Dreyfus and to the campaign to defend him.

After launching other anarchist papers elsewhere in France, by the early years of this century he was won over to Neo-Malthusianism. But from 1903 onwards he devoted his entire life, all his energies and efforts to an experiment that he held especially dear: educating children along libertarian lines. In fact he founded "La Ruche" which was in existence from 1904 until 1917, until the implications of the first world war put paid to the extraordinary experiment.

During the war he was actively involved in championing pacifist and anti-militarist ideas.

From 1926 until 1934 he produced the only example of an Anarchist Encyclopaedia with contributions from numerous experts and militants.

All in all, the main ideas underpinning this successful experiment which survived for thirteen years might be summed up as: preparing children, right from the very earliest years, to take charge of their own autonomy, develop feelings of solidarity and seek their freedom through the practice of freedom so as to build a free and fraternal society; to demonstrate in practice that, placed in an egalitarian libertarian social context, the individual develops egalitarian and libertarian values and modes of behaviour.

Faure leased a 25 hectare tract of land around 3 kilometres outside of Rambouillet (Seine et Oise department). It was known as Le Patis and it held quite a large farmhouse, an orchard, some woods, meadows and arable land. Enormous sums raised by Faure’s lecture tours were invested in its upkeep as well as in the overall activities and operations of La Ruche. Money was raised also by the work done by the community itself and from the spontaneous voluntary contributions raised by clubs, associations, trade unions, co-operatives and all the vanguard groups of that day. Initially there were twenty people living in the educational community and eventually this number grew to include around 40 boys (aged from 6 to 13) plus twenty helpers. Every pupil was admitted free of charge on the basis of a voluntary contribution according to his means. Faure inherited the educational materials and equipment from Robin and from the Cempuis school, thereby taking over from the work of the first great libertarian innovator in the sphere of alternative education in a symbolic representation of continuity in ideals and practice. There was a strong emphasis on integral education in an effort to offer every pupil the widest range of experiences and afford each of them to plump later for their particular calling.

His collaborators either lived within the community or outside of it and made their particular services available free of charge. they held weekly meetings, sometimes in the free and informal presence of the boys, to look into the community’s problems and controversies and work out the relevant decisions and options. Every aspect of the colony was autonomous. Everyone knew his own talents and voluntarily embraced obligations. the only things governing the responsibility of the individual were his capacity and his conscience.

The aim was to devise an education and training that would produce healthy and balanced, open minded and learned and with manual skills; in short, to produce the men and women of the future. Hence the emphasis on life out of doors, on health care and hygiene, healthy diet, participation in several sports for enjoyment’s sake and without competition, on walking and dances. Alongside all of this there was rationalist schooling to nurture a critical faculty and non-dogmatic powers of observation in accordance with the scientific mentality. And there were the discussions between adults and children, sex education and the absence of punishment or reward.

Visitors poured into La Ruche from all over, especially in the summer and this provided an opportunity for swapping ideas and experiences, as well as for raising contributions and seeking out skills to enrich the colony and its residents. During the summer months the children made long, interesting group excursions and members of its choir ventured far and wide to place like Switzerland or Algeria. All of which helped to publicise a novel experiment and libertarian ideas in different regions and foreign lands.

From 1914 on, Faure published a Bulletin that attracted upwards of a thousand subscribers but which survived for only ten issues. By then war was a sad fact of life and in its later years La Ruche survived amid tremendous difficulties until it was eventually forced to close down.

Translated from: Bollettino Archivio G. Pinelli No 10 (December 1997)

We have had another response to the Clément Duval article we published in KSL #13. Had I known the debate that would follow, I would have done some more homework on it. As it is, we’re grateful to our correspondents for telling us about the various editions of Duval’s memoirs. If anyone comes across copies, can they send them our way please!

Luc Nemeth writes from Paris:

Books Galore!

Paul Berman, Quotations From The Anarchists; Ralph Borsodi, Flight from the City; Randolph ("War is the health of the State") Bourne, Untimely Papers and War And the Intellectuals. As well as filling out our "B" shelves, we have the following works, too: Temma Kaplan, Anarchists Of Andalusia; G. P. Maximoff, Constructive Anarchism and The Guillotine At Work; Nellie Shaw, Whiteway, A Colony In The Cotswolds; Chuskiski Tzukui, Edward Carpenter 1844-1929 and Jack White, Misfit.

Some of these books have been donated by comrades, for which we are very grateful, while other have been purchased with KSL funds: donations to cover these costs are very welcome, too!

We would also like to thank comrades who send us new books and pamphlets: either reprints or originals.

[American (and other) friends please note: we can now handle American cash dollars but Cheques still attract crippling bank charges- if you wish to donate dollars, please write to us for details]

Future Plans for the KSL

We’d like to print a twice yearly Review using some of the vast archive we have here, as well as contemporary anarchist writing, fact and fiction. Look out for further details. We are also keen to publish work on anarchist history. Let us know if you have material you are interested in publishing.

So- all this should keep us going for some years. Keep supporting us in whatever way you can. Remember we are open to visitors- contact us at the Hurricane box number.

Our Pamphlets are available from: