💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › albert-meltzer-the-anarchist-black-cross.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 07:19:54. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-06-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: The Anarchist Black Cross Author: Albert Meltzer Date: November 1992 Language: en Topics: Anarchist Black Cross, history Source: Retrieved on 19th May 2021 from https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/f4qs5x Notes: In KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 3, November 1992
The need to defend themselves against Tsarist police and Cossacks led to
the formation of various Anarchist self-defence organisations within
Russia. Both the Jewish and Lithuanian communities had formed defence
organisations and on these a unified Anarchist Self-Defence was modeled.
Later, this merged into the Anarchist Black Cross, an organisation
supporting political prisoners and so far as possible, all those
persecuted within Tsarist Russia for whatever reason. It was remodeled
on the lines of the Red Cross and before and during the Civil War was
funded by exiles in America. At the same time the work. of the Anarchist
Self-Defence continued until incorporated into other fighting
organisations, such as Makhno’s army.
During the Russian Civil War, as a result of which the Red Cross was
active in relief throughout the areas affected, the name “Anarchist Red
Cross” was altered to “Black” to avoid confusion.
When Alexander Berkman was in Russia he was not in specific contact with
the ABC but when he went back into exile he re-organised the ABC in
Berlin. This fought for the rights of Russian prisoners, still possible
at that stage, and then for the prisoners of the Italian Fascisti. Its
funding still largely came from America. As repression grew in country
after country, the work of the ABC became more onerous, added to which
the depression in America dried up the funding from Anarchist workers
there, often the first to be hit by unemployment. Nevertheless comrades
in Chicago continued the task for years in a fund named for Alexander
Berkman, organised by B. Yelensky.
During the Spanish Civil War (and after) it was found that practically
all international support from radical organisations to Spain went to
the Communist Party. A scandal arose among the miners and printers that
money specifically raised for Spanish miners and for printers never went
to those unions, because they were not Communist controlled, but instead
diverted to the UGT or the Popular Front. Catalonia received not a penny
because the unions were anarcho-syndicalist. Sam Mainwaring Junior
raised the matter at the 1937 NUM conference and Albert Meltzer with
London Printers Anti-Fascist Committee, to no avail. The CP influence
was too strong and denounced criticism as “trotskyite-fascist”, then
their favourite slogan. Mutual aid groups were mooted, some put into
practice, all on the lines of the ABC but unconnected with each other.
At this time Meltzer started the Asian Prisoners Aid (an offshoot of
many groups for Indian political prisoners) with M.P.T. Acharya and
extended it to cover Chinese prisoners.
During the Civil War the CNT floated a new international fund,
principally but not exclusively for Spanish refugees, the Solidarid
Internacional Antifascista (SIA). At that time the ABC was no longer in
existence. The monetary support came mostly from the CNT members
themselves.
After the Defeat the Spanish refugees especially in France required
massive support but all they received was that contributed by other
Spanish comrades in the SIA. However, after the World War, the official
Spanish libertarian movement in exile seemed to hold aloof from those
who continued the struggle in Spain. When Stuart Christie went to Spain
in an abortive attentat against Franco, his case aroused international
interest (as it involved a Briton — there had been many French and
Italian comrades joining with the Spanish before him). Both the British
press and many liberals thought it a frame-up (which caused maximum
embarrassment to the Franco regime just when tourism was beginning). As
a result attention was focused on the Spanish prisoners [and] the
postwar genocide (estimated at a million people through one cause or
another, equal to the number of German Jews killed by Hitlerism).
Christie received immense support in food parcels and so on which he
shared with the other libertarian prisoners, and so a new network of
support for Spanish political prisoners was built. Few abroad had
realised such help was possible, and SIA had not enlightened them.
The CNT had always helped its political prisoners, but it was felt the
SIA was not playing a sufficient part at the time. For instance, the
majority of the money collected for Spanish exiles in France was from
American Jewish and Italian needleworkers in the States, who loathed the
CP, but supported Spanish anti-fascism. Some of those involved in the
Christie defence campaigns managed, through the efforts of Nancy
MacDonald, to get this support diverted to the libertarian prisoners.
After his release, Christie joined with Albert Meltzer to re-form the
Anarchist Black Cross, the committee since the death of Acharya in
Bombay being limited to correspondence with a few Chinese comrades and
Christie utilised his own contacts with CNT prisoners. The idea was not
to collect money but to persuade people to adopt a prisoner, and write
or (as could be done in the case of Spain but not elsewhere) send food
parcels.
The first prisoner to be released who was supported by the ABC in those
last years was Miguel Garcia (who had served 22 years) and the three
extended the ABC to an international network. The paper Black Flag,
started as a bulletin of the ABC, made it well known in the anarchist
movement, and independent groups, and networks were established
everywhere in an informal international.
The work of the ABC has not been “philanthropic”. It has raised
collections for prisoners and sent parcels but its main work has been
solidarity and making sure people are not forgotten. Its most active
section now is in Greece where it is the main unifying factor on the
libertarian scene. Internationally, two of its secretaries have been
murdered by the police — Giuseppe Pinelli, of Milan, was thrown to his
death from a police station window, Georg Von Rauch, of Berlin, was shot
down in the street by police. In Denmark too it is strong and forms the
basis of the Anarchist movement.
Its sections in Canada, America and Australia pioneered the idea of
extending support from just Anarchist and political prisoners to all
class struggle prisoners, and this is now general. Owing to resistance
to the poll tax, at one time there were more British anarchist prisoners
than Spanish. The international network, loosely organised, now spreads
far beyond the early days when it was an offshoot of “Black Flag”, and
groups are entirely autonomous.
It has avoided setting up a section in Spain because of the existence of
SIA and the CNT Pro-prisoners aid, seeing no point in duplication. The
Stockholm chapter of ABC calls itself Anarchist Black Hammer, and the
question has recently been raised as to whether the name, ABC should not
be changed since it is extending its activities to Muslim countries
where “cross” might be misunderstood (it is obviously not intended in a
religious sense).