A fierce working class propagandist, Motler couldn’t stand the stilted, esoteric tones of many anarchist and socialist writers – and wasn’t shy in saying so
~ Rob Ray ~
Freedom was contacted, around this time last year, by a small production company interested in doing a documentary for the British Sign Language Broadcasting Trust. What would a small publishing house in Whitechapel have to interest them, you ask? Well the tale, and the subject of today’s reprint, is that of a deaf-mute political firebrand.
One of the anarchist movement’s lesser-known figures (bar the occasional historical talk), Leonard Motler was initially brought into the anarchist movement thanks in part to its trenchantly anti-war position and proved an immediate boon to the struggling London scene. A trained printer, talented artist and incisive writer, he was able to essentially function as his own publishing house, though he lent his energies to multiple projects around the movement, including as the printer of Freedom itself.
Motler had written in to Freedom a few times previously, but his article in the December 1914 edition of the paper was laser focused on the question of how it had come to pass that the Great Unrest had become the Great War with nary a revolutionary whimper.
In Motler’s view the left generally, the anarchists included, was far too fond of talking to its own reflection rather than making the effort to speak in ways the working class would identify with, and had thus talked itself into irrelevance. His pitch was clarity and, while he would go on to be the first of the anarchists to identify Russia’s revolution as a dud (describing it as “running agley” in 1917), he was in step with the radicals there on his quest for blunt, effective language. Like the Russians with their Rosta windows he was a proponent of the striking, illustrated front page. His writing was mostly shorn of references to proletariats and classic literature. An example of this style can be found online in his explanation of anarchist communism.
Motler was key to keeping Freedom running during the war even through the State’s attempts to repress and imprison its editorship, and managed to keep Satire printing until April 1918, when it was shut down by the police.
Sadly we’ve not heard back from the production team about their project at time of writing (though it is still listed at BSL’s website) so we can only keep our fingers crossed that Motler gets his documentary!
On Ways And Means
During the last few years the Anarchist movement appears merely to have marked time nearly everywhere. Several reasons for this partial standstill may be put forward. Amongst these the late labour unrest has been conspicuous. This unrest, culminating in the great strikes, brought matters to a head in the industrial world. Conciliation boards had been found out; agreements had proved one-sided; leaders too ready, nay eager, to temporise and compromise. Trade Union discipline broke down; the officials were flouted. In spite of a gradual rise in wages, food prices lowered the purchasing power. A sullen, bewildered policy of despair held sway. Apparently there was no absolute remedy, Anarchism and Socialism were rejected as not being immediately practicable. But shrinking as they did from the prospect of a revolution, Syndicalism with its crude simplicity was almost on the point of being welcomed with open arms. Then the government stepped in; the situation was saved; Capitalism breathed again.
How could such a remarkable collapse occur when the workers were so evidently animated with a class-conscious solidarity? The answer lies in the brutal fact that the stomach bulks largely in working-class argument. They prefer the substantial crumb to the somewhat shadowy loaf in the distance. This is the reason Anarchism was — and will yet be — postponed for further consideration.
This is the one fault of our propaganda; this is the stumbling-block in the path of our progress. We are idealists, not materialists. On the one hand, the workers see the evil of Capitalism and all its works. On the other, they see the glimmer of the City of Light, as yet to them intangible and unattainable. They understand the contrasts. Their minds readily grasp the fact that however delusive, the future may seem to be, it can at least be no worse than the desolation of the present. But between these two their minds cannot bridge the chasm.
This is our work, then. We must bridge that chasm. Our propagandist energies must be devoted to this. We must come down from the clouds and face the problem on solid ground. Anarchism must, at least initially, be explained in terms of bread and butter.
Let this be understood. I do not stand for mere Labourist compromise. I do not suggest the movement be side-tracked in favour of plaister and pilules. There is no danger whatever of the main idea being lost in a maze of palliatives. All that is wanted is a little plain-speaking.
Let us be frank. We have had enough of the economic cant, We have used the dictionary too often. Exploitation, surplus-value, proletariat, infantile mortality, bourgeoisie — all these are but meaningless catchwords to the man in the street, Shades of Marx and Engels!
What is a working man, to know of the “materialistic conception of history”? Let us be frank. We have had enough abuse of capitalists, rent-lords, and financiers. They, at least, do not misunderstand us. We have had enough abuse of the working class. Let us give Carlyle’s “twenty-five millions — mostly fools,” a decent burial — a good long rest. The working class do not understand us, They are not to be caught in the fine web of our verbiage. If we will persist in writing pamphlets and making pretty speeches in polysyllables, they will go on not understanding. Either we must descend to their plain brutality of words or we shall go on talking over their heads. They cannot see the argument for the wrapping of fine phrases. We must be curt, crisp, and to the point.
There are two sides only to whom we can make any appeal. The first and largest consists of the working class world. The second consists of those idealists — call them what you will —who are more or less of our kidney. For these latter our present pamphlets and fuller works will suffice. For the former a new literature must be brought into being — plain, large-typed, and cheap. Also let us have more pictures. The workers love pictures. They can see things better with the help of a simple illustration. A symbolic representation of Labour as an armed Don Quixote leaves them cold. A corduroy-breeched labourer is more to their understanding.
Finally, we must organise our propaganda. At present it is too scattered. There is no need to drill each group into distributing pamphlets with military precision. What I mean is that there must be some system in what we do. We have plenty of meetings, in sooth, but not enough distribution. The spoken word is readily understood — and as readily forgotten. The printed word lingers.
Let us make our pamphlets, our books, our leaflets as plain and as interesting as speech. Let us see to it that the working class is reached by these. Let our propaganda be constant. The movement has marked time too long. Now for the grand march. Forward!
~ L A Motler
End of year note:
As we come to the close of 2024, so I will close this chapter of Freedom Press’s history, looking at the events of 110 years ago through our ancestors’ eyes. There’s much more to be said about the paper’s activities during the war itself, but in 2025 I’d like to leap forward a few decades, to the end of World War II.
Like 1914, the year 1945 was a key period in the history of British anarchism, though for very different reasons. It includes the infamous War Commentary trial and its aftermath, a split which would characterise many decades to come — and the re-emergence of Freedom itself as a regular newspaper and hub of the post-war movement in London.
Image: A sketch believed to be of Leonard Motler in Satire, March 1918, alongside some of his publications
