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1972: Social Revolutionary Anarchist Federation declaration

The Social Revolutionary Anarchist Organization (SRAF) was a synthesis federation of anarchist groups in the North America during the 1970s.

The overwhelming majority of people have no control over the direction or the use to which our lives are put. We fight for self-direction, self-initiation, self-management and the end to all bosses and leaders. We fight for economic freedom, where we can all enjoy the full leisure and wealth we produce, or are kept from producing.

1974: Cedar Rapids Strike Continues

Description of a Cedar Rapids, Iowa hotel strike in 1974. From Free Flowing (December 1974 Volume 2 Number 1).

The strike at the Roosevelt Hotel in downtown Cedar Rapids continues. It began when Robert Cook, the manager, decided to fight the workers' union, local 497 of the Hotel & Restaurant Employees & Bartenders International Union (AFL-CIO). The strike has been in effect since Aug 1.

The anarchist underground in Leningrad

Lydia Chukovskaya in 1926

A short account of the anarchist underground in Leningrad in the 1920s

Yuri Krinitsky was an 18 year old student when he came from Tashkent to study at the Russian Institute of the History of Art. Back home he had been involved in the setting up of several circles of anarcho-syndicalist youth. He was arrested there in autumn 1922 on the charge of publishing an underground magazine Turkestan Alarm and given a written denunciation.

Garaseva, Anna (1902-1994) and Tatiana (1901-after 1997)

Anna Garaseva in the 1920s-30s

A short account of the lives of the Russian anarchist sisters, Anna and Tatiana.

Anna Garaseva and her older sister Tatiana were the daughters of a teacher who taught in a gymnasium (high school) in Ryazan. AnTatiana was born in 1901 and Anna on December 7th, 1902. In 1917 Tatiana was admitted to Moscow University, where she attended the lectures of the anarchist professor Alexei Borovoi. Tatiana joined the student anarchist club mostly made up of young women.

In Barcelona. Meeting with Durruti and the taking of Sietamo – Pierre van Paassen

Durruti

Dutch-Canadian journalist Pierre van Paassen recounts his visit of liberated Barcelona, his meeting with libertarian fighter Buenaventura Durruti, and the taking of the town of Sietamo by anarchist forces. This is an extract from van Paassen’s book Days of our Years, which documents his experiences in Europe, Africa and the Middle East before the outbreak of World War II.

Three months later when I visited Barcelona again, there remained not a trace of disorder. The old regime was making way for a new order of things. Theaters had reopened. The transportation system, including the taxicabs and the underground railway, was functioning normally, and food was plentiful. But the false Montmartre atmosphere in the Paralelo neighbourhood had completely evaporated.

An Address to the Anarchists - Antonio Gramsci, 1920

Writing on the eve of the April 1920 Turin general strike led by factory councils, Gramsci attacks the Italian anarchists in a rather patronising way, claiming that anarchists expressed only empty abstraction and ideal 'absolute truths' and that in the course of a revolution anarchist workers would overcome their 'illusions' to realise the necessity for the existence of the mythical 'proletarian state'.

According to Gramsci, the loyal pro-Bolshevik, "For anarchist workers the advent of the workers' state will be the advent of the freedom of their class, and thus also of their personal freedom..."; this was written only a year before the Bolshevik regime massacred Russian sailors and workers at Kronstadt, and at a time when anarchists and other working class critics (including the veteran B

Wafner, Kurt, 1918-2007

Antifascist youth in 1935, Wafner sitting centre front row

A short biography of German anarchist Kurt Wafner.

Kurt Wafner, was born on 25th November 1918, on the Franfurter Allee in Berlin during the height of the German Revolution. His family originally had the name Wawrzyniak and his ancestors were a mixture of Polish nobility and French Huguenot refugees. His father died in early 1923, and his mother had to eke out an existence.

Gültig, Karl, 1906-1992

A short biography of the German anarchosyndicalist Karl Gültig.

Karl Gültig was born on 20th November 1906 in the city of Offenbach am Main near Frankfurt in Germany. As a teenager he joined the Communist Youth (KJ) youth organisation of the Communist Party (KPD).

The Incomplete, True, Authentic and Wonderful History of May Day - Peter Linebaugh

Peter Linebaugh's overview of the historical roots of the traditional workers' day.

The Green

Between the war and the Revolution - Camillo Berneri

Camillo Berneri

Italian anarchist volunteer Camillo Berneri, speculates on the possibility of intervention in the Spanish Civil War.

There are many among us who have arrived at the point of describing the armed intervention of powers which have economic and military interests opposed to those of Italy and Germany.