Stuart.

      The latest rendering from The Kate Sharpley Library, as usual interesting stuff, always fascinating and informative.

       From our comrades at the Stuart Christie Memorial Archive (now open!)
KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 106, September 2022 has just been posted on our site.

Contents:
         Union-Bashing Economics [1975] by Albert Meltzer "It is the language of myth called in to justify power – an economic myth to replace the patriotic myth, but in this case using the same ‘national necessity’ ploy as in war."
         Remembering Stuart, two years on "Copies of A Life for Anarchy: A Stuart Christie Reader arrived in the UK at the very end of June 2022... We’d like to see copies in libraries: have you asked your local library to get one?"
         A ‘good example’: A Life For Anarchy: A Stuart Christie Reader [Book review] by Mark R. "There is undoubtedly, a new world waiting to be built, and from those members of that ‘strange, unknown, unappreciated tribe’ who came before us, and in whose ranks Stuart Christie now stands, we can find the inspiration to fight on; for as another of those fighters once said; ‘we are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that.’"
         A living book : 'A Life For Anarchy: A Stuart Christie Reader' [book review] by Richard Warren "A life for anarchy is a proper reader – not a dry memorial, not a dusty headstone, but a living book to keep handy, to dip into repeatedly and to relish."
        Immense enthusiasm and optimism : 'A Life For Anarchy: A Stuart Christie Reader' [book review] by Chris Ealham "I was impressed by his literary references, which ranged from obscure Scottish poetry to popular culture; this was always very natural, lightly worn, in no way jarring or artificial. He also displayed immense enthusiasm and optimism. Many of these admirable traits are attested to in the final section, which consists of tributes paid to Stuart by his comrades, friends and loved ones, although the frontiers between these categories were very fluid."
        The use and need for a union by Léa Wullschleger "Certainly, if they cannot fight against the bosses with the same weapons as them, capital, since they don’t own any, they can achieve anything through numbers and organisation; since we are no doubt the more numerous."
         Joe Thomas [obituary] by Albert Meltzer "he was (to the surprise of his many friends in the trade union movement) a good friend to revolutionary anarchism and to the practicalities of anarcho-syndicalism (to the dismay of his Marxist friends)."
         Audrey Beecham [1915-89] by Albert Meltzer "She was a good friend to Miguel Garcia and myself. I took back from Barcelona this October many messages of greetings from Spanish friends both of the ‘thirties and ‘sixties, which will never now be delivered."

Anarchist history roundup Aug. 2022
          Advice to My Anarchist Comrades (1901) by Élisée Reclus (and Stuart Christie) "What then should we do to maintain our intellectual vigor, our moral energy, and our faith in the good fight?"
          You can read the bulletin via https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/dv43bp The PDF is up at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/xpnxzt

 

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Inspiration.

       The tributes to Stuart Christie, who died on the 15th August, still pour in, proof that the strands of this man's life are woven through a vast fabric that is the continuing world wide struggle for a system of justice, peace and freedom. A life of unstinting effort and sacrifice to that one cause, the better world for all, deserves to be honoured and remembered. His life should be an inspiration to all of us, young and old, who hold those same desires.

Stuart Christie, Luis Edo, Albert Meltzer, Doris Ensinger, Barcelona.

 The following from 325:

     ‘Stuart Christie, comrade, friend’ by Octavio Alberola
Stuart Christie, el compañero, el amigo
      The news of the death of Stuart Christie was communicated to me by telephone, the day before yesterday in the afternoon, by my comrade René after asking me if I was aware of the new bad news and after answering him abruptly: who has died? Well, from the tone of his voice, I immediately sensed that it must be the death of someone close to me.
       His answer left me stunned, because although Stuart had confirmed to me a week earlier that he was still suffering from cancer and that the results of the medical examinations were not very encouraging, at no time had I thought of such a quick end for him. Close to me are several comrades -more or less my age- who are not in very good health, and the “normal” thing, at my age (soon ninety-three years old), is to think that it is you that time is counting down on.
      So, in Stuart’s case, how can I think about it when he’s eighteen years younger? Besides, we were both in common projects and determined to continue participating in the fight against the world of power and exploitation.
      For me, his death is not only the loss of a comrade, of a friend; it is the end of a collaboration of many years in common actions and initiatives to denounce the injustices of the world in which we live and to fight for a more just and free world. A world that is possible and for everyone, which we have not ceased to long for and to try to build through the consistent practice of active revolutionary and internationalist solidarity.
     We had many years of a fraternal relationship since our first meeting, in that month of August 1964, until this one of 2020. More than half a century of our lives being linked, in one way or another, in a common cause in spite of the borders… Since, in spite of being focused on the political and social ups-and-downs of the Spanish people, first under Franco’s dictatorship and then under that false democracy born from the Transition/Transaction, that struggle was always framed in a revolutionary internationalist perspective.
      The proof, for him, is his prison experiences in Spain and England, and for Brenda, his companion, in Germany, and for Ariane and me in Belgium and France. These experiences bear witness to those struggles without frontiers, being aware that the condition of freedom is for everyone and for everything.
      How, then, can we not feel the need to remember this at this time when this comradeship with Stuart ends with his death. And also because of the death a few days ago of our German companion Doris Ensinger, the companion of Luis Andrés Edo, with whom Stuart also shared prison experiences and fraternization in the struggles; since it is obvious that Doris’s disappearance also meant for me, in a certain way, the definitive end point of my fraternization in the struggles with Luis. An end that began a few years before with his death.
       The fact is that with Doris I was also left in a state of shock, surprised by the news of her death that Manel communicated to me; since it was barely a week ago that she had sent us, Tomás and me, a mail to announce that she had been called to the hospital suddenly and had had a transplant… And that she was already at home and was feeling well…
        So once again I am confronted with the temporariness of our existence and the need to preserve the memory of what we have tried to be and do until death.

Perpignan, 17 August 2020
Octavio Alberola

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Kate Sharpley.

      I regularly receive emails from the Kate Sharpley Library, with their latest publications, all very interesting and informative. I consider the Kate Sharpley Library to be one of all too few archives of the anarchist movement, that are a necessary part of our history, and a wonderful resource to aid us in our struggles. In there you will find inspiration, knowledge and often hidden historical events. We at Spirit of Revolt do what we can to add to that rich history and resource.

    Who was Kate Sharpley? The following extract will give you a little insight to this remarkable woman:

Albert Meltzer
       One of our frequently asked questions is 'who was Kate Sharpley?' Many of our readers will know of her as 'One of the countless "unknown" members of our movement ignored by the official historians of anarchism.' We hope this tribute, written by Albert Meltzer in 1978 will help to fill that statement out a little. There are more details in Albert's autobiography I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels.
     Kate's Tinwear
    Sixty-five years ago Queen Mary was handing out medals in Greenwich, most of them for fallen heroes being presented to their womenfolk. One 22-year old girl, said by the local press to be under the influence of anarchist propaganda, having collected medals for her dead father, brother and boyfriend, then threw them in the Queen's face, saying, 'If you think so much of them, you can keep them.' The Queen's face was scratched and so was that of one of her attendant ladies. The police, not a little under the influence of patriotic propaganda, then grabbed the girl and beat her up. When she was released from the police station a few days later, no charges being brought, she was scarcely recognisable.
     The girl was Kate Sharpley, who had been active in the Woolwich anarchist group and helped keep it going through the difficult years of World War 1. After her clash with the police she was sacked from her job 'on suspicion of dishonesty' (there was nothing missing but a policeman had called checking up on her…) and, selling libertarian pamphlets in the street, she was recognised by the police and warned that if she appeared there again she would be charged with 'soliciting as a prostitute' (which in those days would have been a calamity, and even today a disaster, if once convicted). Isolated from her family, and with the group broken up, she moved out of activity, away from the neighbourhood, and married.
    I met her, by chance, last year in Lewisham. Twice widowed, she remembered the anarchist movement with nostalgia, and gave me a fascinating account of the local group in the years before World War 1. Unfortunately, she was already very ill, and a few weeks ago, she died, I was told by one of her neighbours.
     I had, though, asked her for a message to the Anarchist movement today. Her answer: 'Tell the kids they're doing all right, they don't need any advice from me.' Especially she praised the young women of today: 'I wouldn't have had to take cover like I did if women of my day had any guts' she said. But she did have guts. A few only in 1917 dared take any action in bereaved England.

       The following is the latest I received from The Kate Sharpley Library:

Welcome!

Here's a link to NOT the bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library, No.2 June 2020
Contents:
New pieces on the Kate Sharpley Library website
Three articles by Albert Meltzer
Elsewhere (AK Press; Audio; Naples 1884; Bristol 2020)
Still going (Research on The 1945 split in British anarchism)
You can read the PDF at https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/8933bb
  Image at the top of the page comes from Crimethinc’s ‘The Anarchists versus the Plague: Malatesta and the Cholera Epidemic of 1884’

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Remembering Our Own, Albert Meltzer.

       We should always remember our own, those who stood up and fought on the side of the ordinary people against the injustices and inequalities of this repugnant capitalist system.

     January 7th. marks the 100th. anniversary of the birth of staunch anarcho-communist, conscientious objector, Albert Meltzer who died almost five years ago on the 7th. May 1996.

      This extract is from the Kate Sharpley Library and is by his friend and comrade Stuart Christie:

 Albert Meltzer with Stuart Christie

Albert Meltzer, anarchist

Stuart Christie

         Albert Meltzer was one of the most enduring and respected torchbearers of the international anarchist movement in the second half of the twentieth century. His sixty-year commitment to the vision and practice of anarchism survived both the collapse of the Revolution and Civil War in Spain and the Second World War; he helped fuel the libertarian impetus of the 1960s and 1970s and steer it through the reactionary challenges of the Thatcherite 1980s and post-Cold War 1990s.
      Fortunately, before he died, Albert managed to finish his autobiography, I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels, a pungent, no-punches pulled, Schvejkian account of a radical twentieth century enemy of humbug and injustice. A life-long trade union activist, he fought Mosley's Blackshirts in the battle of Cable Street, played an active role in supporting the anarchist communes and militias in the Spanish Revolution and the pre-war German anti-Nazi resistance, was a key player in the Cairo Mutiny [after] the Second World War, helped rebuild the post-war anti-Franco resistance in Spain and the international anarchist movement. His achievements include Cuddon's Cosmopolitan Review, an occasional satirical review first published in 1965 and named after Ambrose Cuddon, possibly the first consciously anarchist publisher in the modern sense, the founding of the Anarchist Black Cross, a prisoners' aid and ginger group and the paper which grew out of it - Black Flag.
        However, perhaps Albert's most enduring legacy is the Kate Sharpley Library, probably the most comprehensive anarchist archive in Britain. 

Read the full article HERE: 

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Learning From The Past.

 

        At Spirit of Revolt, we are always trying to bring the history of the people's struggles to a wider audience, we select pamphlets and articles from our archive and put them up in our "Read Of The Month" for all to enjoy and perhaps learn from. This month we have chosen and small booklet, which is part of The John Cooper Collection, published by Cienfuegos Press and edited by that well know anarchist Albert Meltzer, The International Revolutionary Solidarity Movement, "A study of the Origins and Development of the Revolutionary Anarchist Movement in Europe, 1945 – 1973, with particular reference to the First of May Group."

Read on line:

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FLOURISHING GLASGOW ANARCHIST MOVEMENT.

        How has it changed and why, what ever happened? Taken from Albert Meltzer The Taste of Defeat:

      In Glasgow the anarchist movement was flourishing more than ever with its own hall and huge open air meetings at factory gates, carrying on a tradition of integration in the working class movement which was lost in England, where the old movement had decayed. Such groups as there were in London, including Spain and the World collapsed. Almost the whole working class support in places like Wales, a minority though it was, disappeared. Cores in London continued virtually as a one-person band, arranging for weekly ‘lectures’ from a wide range of speakers, which was the last flicker of the old London Freedom Group.

From the Kate Sharpley Library, read the full article HERE:

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