(Notes: From “L’Illégalist anarchiste, est-il notre camarade?” Paris and Orleans, Editions de “l’en-dehors.” [n.d].Translated for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor.)
When we consider the thief as such we can’t say that we find him less human than other classes of society. The members of the great criminal gangs have mutual relations that are strongly marked with communism. If they represent a survival from a prior age, we can also consider them as the precursors of a better age in the future. In all cities they know where to address themselves so they’ll be received and hidden. Up to a certain point they show themselves to be generous and prodigal towards those of their milieu. If they consider the rich as their natural enemies, as a legitimate prey — a point of view quite difficult to contradict — a large number of them are animated by the sprit of Robin Hood; when it comes to the poor many thieves show themselves to have a good heart.
(Edward Carpenter: Civilization, its Cause and Cure.)
I am not an enthusiast of illegalism. I am an alegal. Illegalism is a dangerous last resort for he who engages in it, even temporarily, a last resort that should neither be preached nor advocated. But the question I propose to study is not that of asking whether or not an illegal trade is perilous or not, but if the anarchist who earns his daily bread by resorting to trades condemned by the police and tribunals is right or wrong to expect that an anarchist who accepts working for a boss treat him as a comrade, a comrade whose point of view we defend in broad daylight and who we don’t deny when he falls into the grips of the police or the decisions of judges. (Unless he asks us to remain silent about his case) Continue reading Émile Armand (21 texts)→
The word society is synonymous with a group. Today most men constitute an immense grouping that, though subdivided into an infinite number of sub-groups (races, nationalities, social classes, ideological groups) can nevertheless be considered as a whole. It is this whole, this formidable collectivity that we designate with the word society. Continue reading The Individualist and society→
En los trabajos que reconstruyen la génesis del movimiento feminista apenas se citan las figuras de las mujeres anarco-individualistas de principios del siglo XX. Tal vez, porque, siendo hostiles tanto al régimen parlamentario como a la relación salarial, se mantuvieron al margen de los combates emprendidos por las feministas de la Belle Époque para la obtención del derecho al voto y por la mejora de las condiciones de trabajo de las mujeres; y acaso también porque, con excepción de artículos publicados en la prensa libertaria y de algunos panfletos hoy olvidados, dejaron pocas huellas escritas. Continue reading Las militantes anarquistas individualistas: mujeres libres en la Belle Époque→
The idea of war is on everybody’s mind nowadays. People are already calling up visions of battlefield horrors, towns on fire, corpses strewn along the roads, decimated regiments and famine and fear in the peaceful cities… Just imagining that a repetition of these sights is possible bewilders and stuns the population. War is beautiful in the stories of Ch. D’Esparbès and the novels of Captaine Danrit. War is glorious in the history books. In reality it is horrible and everyone knows it. The weak and spineless, just thinking about it, are quick to declare their love for peace… Continue reading Their Peace→
Up to fifteen years ago the term sabotage as nothing but a slang word, not meaning “to make wooden shoes” as it may be imagined but, in a figurative way. To work clumsily as if by sabot [1] blows. Continue reading Sabotage→
The idea of war is on everybody’s mind nowadays. People are already calling up visions of battlefield horrors, towns on fire, corpses strewn along the roads, decimated regiments and famine and fear in the peaceful cities… Just imagining that a repetition of these sights is possible bewilders and stuns the population. Continue reading Their Peace – Le Rétif→
