Our title theme this time: “Watching them watching us”—deadline 4 October As long as there has been power, there has been resistance: just like those in power have always tried to tighten their grip and gain ever more control, people have always spoken out, pushed back and reclaimed their lives.
The great and good who had mobilised to fight against attacks on the anarchists’ right to free speech recognised its true threat was broader …
We round up some of the titles to keep an eye out for, from retrospectives on punk social centres in London to the lives of brilliant organisers and mutual aid that thrives in the wake of wildfires.
Editorial from our summer issue, a rare all-colour one, out today with the theme of Our Power – looking at how anarchists and the working class can and have resisted the rightwards ratchet of capitalist politics ~ The issue includes an interview with Toby Shone on prisons and resistance, and retrospectives on Reclaim the Streets,
As the State’s machinery of repression ground slowly onwards, both the 10 March and 24 March 1945 issues of War Commentary, Freedom’s wartime newspaper, had extensive coverage of anarchists being sent to court, solidarity actions and continued police searches ~ Rob Ray ~ The headline case, following on from raids at the end of 1944
The great anarchist historian and activist left us a message for these dire times ~ Natasha Walter ~ How do we keep hope and faith alive?
Following raids on Freedom Press by Special Branch, at the behest of the Home Office, which had been reported in January 1945 (recounted in last month’s column), pressure was kept up with a succession of court cases, reported on at length by the right-wing press ~ Rob Ray ~ That the February 24th edition of
The beginning of 1945 was a turbulent time for Freedom Press, along with anarchism in Britain and western Europe ~ Rob Ray ~ While the Germans were mounting their last, doomed offensive, the outcome of World War II was already no longer in doubt.
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.
The anarchist split over the Great War (WW1) burst into print in November 1914, with grave consequences ~ Rob Ray ~ One of the most famous articles Freedom ever carried, at least in historical terms, was a piece by Errico Malatesta, that titan of the Italian anarchist movement, entitled ‘Anarchists Have Forgotten Their Principles‘, in
French police directed the demonstration with flash grenades and tear gas ~ from Contre Attaque ~ Saturday, 13 September, a rainy day in Nantes.
To resist normalisation, we need enduring groundwork with attacked communities—and spaces for open strategising ~ Blade Runner ~ On Saturday 13 September, between 110,000 and 150,000 turned out in response to Tommy Robinson’s call, a mobilisation framed as a defence of “free speech” but saturated with white nationalist, Islamophobic and anti-migrant rhetoric.
Well-coordinated direct action catches the police off guard, showing the power of secure and strategic organising ~ Kevin Blowe ~ On 9 September, at around 7.30 in the morning, an advance bloc of about 150 protesters, their faces covered, suddenly appeared by London City Hall in east London, near to where Britain’s largest arms fair,
The regime deported 52 political prisoners in exchange for sanctions relief ~ Nikita Ivansky ~ Anarchist Nikolai (Mikola) Dziadok was among 52 political prisoners released and deported from Belarus to Lithuania on 11 September, following negotiations between dictator Alexander Lukashenko and US envoy John Colae.
Having gone mostly online in 2014, Freedom continues to publish an irregular paper today. Those and many other issues stretching back to our founding in 1886 are online above, at libcom.org, and via the Sparrow’s Nest.
The book publishing arm of Freedom Press has a history stretching back to the 19th century and continues to publish today. Check out our catalogue to order stock or you can order from Central Books.
Keep up with the news, features and interviews Freedom produces over the year with our irregular newsletters.
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