Anarchism, 1914–18 : Internationalism, Anti-militarism and War

This volume provides examines anarchist responses to the First World War. The collection is divided into three sections. The first examines the interventionist debate, focusing on the acrimonious disputes between Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta which split the anarchist movement in 1914. The second discusses the impact of the war and the Bolshevik revolution, presenting a historical analysis of German, Dutch, French and US movements and conceptual analysis of just war and intervention, prefiguration, nationalism, internationalism, transnationalism, anti-colonialism, pacifism and terrorism. The final section focuses on anti-militarism and discusses no-conscription campaigns, anti-war/anti-capitalist cultural resistance and ideas of memory and war myths, centring on the experiences of Herbert Read. The book discusses the impact of the war on anarchism by looking at the social, cultural and geo-political changes that the war hastened, promoting forms of socialism that marginalized anarchist ideas, but argues that even while the war destroyed many domestic movements it also contributed to a re-framing of anarchist ideas. The book shows how the bitter divisions about the war and the experience of being caught on the wrong side of the Bolshevik Revolution encouraged anarchists to reaffirm their deeply-held rejection of vanguard socialism and develop new strategies that drew on a plethora of anti-war activities. The currents of ideas that emerged from anarchism's apparent obsolescence were crystallised during the war. Introduction - Matthew S. Adams and Ruth Kinna Part I: The interventionist debate 1 Saving the future: the roots of Malatesta's anti-militarism - Davide Turcato 2 The Manifesto of the Sixteen: Kropotkin's rejection of anti-war anarchism and his critique of the politics of peace - Peter Ryley 3 Malatesta and the war interventionist debate 1914-17: from the 'Red Week' to the Russian Revolutions - Carl Levy Part II: Debates and divisions 4 Beyond the 'People's Community': the anarchist movement from fin de siècle to the First World War in Germany - Lucas Keller 5 'No man and no penny': F. Domela Nieuwenhuis, anti-militarism and the opportunities of World War One - Bert Altena 6 'The bomb plot of Zürich': Indian nationalism, Italian anarchism and the First World War - Ole Birk Laursen 7 The French anarchist movement and the First World War - Constance Bantman and David Berry 8 At war with Empire: the anti-colonial roots of American anarchist debates during World War I - Kenyon Zimmer Part III: The art of war: anti-militarism and revolution 9 The anarchist anti-conscription movement in the U.S. - Kathy E. Ferguson 10 Aestheticising revolution - Allan Antliff 11Mutualism in the trenches: anarchism, militarism and the lessons of the First World War - Matthew S. Adams Index Anarchism 1914-18 is the first systematic analysis of anarchist responses to the First World War. It examines the interventionist debate between Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta which split the anarchist movement in 1914 and provides a historical and conceptual analysis of debates conducted in European and American movements about class, nationalism, internationalism, militarism, pacifism and cultural resistance. Contributions discuss the justness of war, non-violence and pacifism, anti-colonialism, pro-feminist perspectives on war and the potency of myths about the war and revolution for the reframing of radical politics in the 1920s and beyond. Divisions about the war and the experience of being caught on the wrong side of the Bolshevik Revolution encouraged anarchists to reaffirm their deeply-held rejection of vanguard socialism and develop new strategies that drew on a plethora of anti-war activities. A volume that focuses on the complex and multifaceted answers that the international anarchist movement gave to the outbreak of the First World War and its aftermaths and, in turn, the impact of the Great War on the anarchist movement. -- .