Capetillo, Luisa - a biography

Short biography of Puerto Rican anarchist, feminist and labor agitator.

This month we celebrate the Discovery of Puerto Rico on November 17. It is important to celebrate not only our culture, music and food, but also to remember those who came before us, without whom we might not be where we are. Among those historical figures is a Puerto Rican woman who could very well have lived in modern times. Her name is Luisa Capetillo.

Puerto Rican Cigar History

Description of some of the conditions Puerto Rican cigar makers worked under.

A Voice Through the Window

"When I was a boy in Cayey, my hometown in Puerto Rico, we lived in a house in back of which was a big cigar factory. Every morning, starting around ten, a clear, strong voice coming from the big factory came through my window. It had a tinge of the oratorical in it.

Brazilian Anarchist Chronology 1823-1937

Timeline of anarchist history in Brazil. From Against All Tyranny : Essays on Anarchism in Brazil.

1823; The Ypiranga Declaration declares Brazil independent of Portugal and the former Portuguese Regent becomes Pedro I of Brazil.

1840; The French engineer Louis Léger Vauthier arrives in Recife, Brazil to work. He spreads the ideas of Fourier, influencing intellectuals such as Antonio Pedro Figueiredo.

A riot outside the NZ parliament in June 1968?

An account of a little-known strike and unruly demonstration outside parliament, Wellington, New Zealand, June 1968.

Hot on the heels of events in France in May-June 1968, a worker-student protest of several thousand people converged on parliament [Wellington, New Zealand] on June 26 1968.1 Students held ‘Students and Workers Unite’, ‘Student-worker Solidarity’ and ‘Bursaries and wages must be increased

  1. 1. This article is a shortened version of a paper presented at the LHP seminar 1968: A Year of Revolution?

The Black Sea Revolt - Tico Jossifort

Russian Black Sea fleet 1913

The history of a 1919 naval mutiny of French troops sent to intervene in Russia against the revolution. Initiated by a group of anarchist sailors, the revolt spread to other ships - so preventing naval intervention against Soviet Russia and achieving the desired demobilisation of the mutineers.

I: Sailors In Revolt Seize the Battleship France

The Revolt at Radomir - Tico Jossifort

Alexander Stamboliski

The story of a little-known Bulgarian anti-war movement; including a 1918 mass mutiny and armed rebellion. This led to fraternisation with Russian troops, the collapse of the Bulgarian war effort, the abdication of the King and a potential revolutionary opportunity. The Leninist author attributes the movement's failure largely to the non-Bolshevik conceptions and strategies of the social-democratic and peasant leaders. The rebels faced ruthless state repression; but it appears that, rather than poor leadership, it was the limitation of the struggle to the military terrain and the eventual acceptance of the compromises of political leaders by the mass of rebels that was the real defeat.

'RADOMIR' is a tragic event which occurred in Bulgaria just before the end of the First World War. This had been preceded on two occasions by a dress rehearsal which Bulgaria could well have done without , the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, wars whose only purpose was to serve as the prelude to the Great War. The Social Democratic Parties of the region had proclaimed:

A Working Class Hero - Charlie Gee

Silentnight picket line banner

Charlie looks back at his youthful experiences as a militant hippy factory worker and shop steward in 1970s & 80s northern England. Part 2 deals with his involvement in the long-running Silentnight bedding factory strike; the dispute began in late July 1985 - a few months after the ending of the 1984-85 Miners Strike - and by the time it finally ended in April 1987 it had become the UK's "longest-running continuous strike in trade union history". The Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, visited Silentnight owner Tom Clarke to show support and dubbed him "Mr Wonderful".

The author; "My name is Charlie Gee, I am 55 years old and I live in the Yorkshire Dales. I suppose if I had to describe myself I would say I am an unreformed ageing hippy..."
Charlie Gee's site: MSing Around - http://lotties.brainiac.com/ceegee/aboutme.htm

Part 1:
CHANGING COURSE

The mysterious death of Shchors

Nikolay Shchors

A short account of the life and mysterious death of Red commander Nikolay Shchors

“A Communist commander is always a most precious acquisition for our Red Army. Only he must be a real Communist, that is, a man of duty and discipline from head to foot. However, we still have amongst our officers a considerable number of commanders who demand unquestioning subordination to themselves but are completely insubordinate towards their own immediate superior.

The Dvinsk Regiment and the mysterious death of Grachov

Mass grave of  revolutionaries killed in the fighting in Moscow in October 1917

A short account of the revolutionaries of the Dvinsk Regiment and the suspicious death of their commander Grachov

“…Arshinov often told me how the comrades of the Moscow Federation and the renowned Dvintsy (soldiers of the Dvinsk regiment under the command of our comrade Grachov) fought in the streets of Moscow. His stories never failed to fill me with pride in the Moscow Anarchists as well as Grachov and all the Dvintsy”. Nestor Makno, Under the Blows of the Counterrevolution.

The Petrenko incident: an opening shot in the attack by the Bolsheviks on the Revolution

A short account of the attack by the Bolsheviks on the detachment led by the revolutionary Petrenko in May 1918 at Tsaritsyn.

"It seemed to Antonov-Ovseenko [commander-in-chief of Soviet troops in 'South Russia' in 1918] that the only reliable forces available [to oppose the Austro-German invasion] were the Latvian International detachments, as well as the detachment of the anarchist Petrenko, who on March 24 at Zvenigorodka [90 miles southeast of Kiev] engaged the German forces in battle on his own." from Twelve Wars fo