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Title: The Purpose of History
Author: Albert Meltzer
Date: 1991
Language: en
Topics: history, Kate Sharpley Library
Source: Retrieved on 19th May 2021 from https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/3tx9mw
Notes: Published in KSL: Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library No. 1 [1991]

Albert Meltzer

The Purpose of History

The Kate Sharpley Library, created some years ago but dormant for want

of premises, has been revamped and will be operative from November 1991.

It will contain the archives of domestic and international Anarchist

activism and research into its past history with a view to influencing

its future.

Details of its progress will be given in this and future bulletins

Draft Statutes at the (reconstituted) Kate Sharpley Library

The library; originally set up in 121 Railton Road by comrades since

moved to Australia, and named in memory of a working-class anarchist

militant, is for the preservation of records of the anarchist struggle

in Britain and so far as possible elsewhere. It aims to help activists

in their current struggles, to diffuse the knowledge of anarchism, and

to help prepare for genuine anarchist research and a comprehensive

history of anarchism.

To prevent its becoming either a personal library or to be used for

the building of an esoteric cult, trustees will ensure continuity of the

original policy and the assets of the library.

The service will be free to members of various activist groups wishing

to make use of same. All however are invited to pass over books, records

and ephemera in the knowledge that this will be preserved as part of the

records of the movement.

Material cannot be lent by post but studied at any time convenient to

whoever is staffing the library at the time, and the user. Photocopying

will be possible when resources allow. It is hoped to begin in November

91.

Individuals and institutions wishing to engage in academic anarchist

research but not involved in anarchist struggle may have access to the

archives as Outside Subscribers on the some conditions on payment of £10

p.a (£50 to Institutions). In the interests of security, certain

material may be classified and withheld from all viewers, and will be

kept elsewhere.

The range of the library will be anarchism, syndicalism, libertarian

and council communism, class struggle history, and related subjects

where helpful to the study of same — e.g. Marxism, Fascism (history

where relevant), Suffragism Capitalism and Imperialism (history in

particular) and resistance.

In addition to the Trustees there will be a list of Sponsors who will

be asked to attend an annual meeting to confirm the Library is

fulfilling its originally intended function. Such Sponsors need not

necessarily be in agreement with the principles or programme of

anarchism but should wish to preserve its history and prevent its

becoming a cult interest.

Among the Trustees there will be a working committee.

Purchases to the library will be made from time to time, and to avoid

any appeals for financial contributions, other than from Subscribers,

for the maintenance, upkeep, acquisitions to and insurance for the

library, books redundant to requirements will be sold. It is hoped that

all those anxious to preserve the history of the struggle will

contribute books, videos, documents, posters etc and also sociological

books which may supplement our list.

An occasional bulletin (of which this is the first) will be published

to keep all informed of our activities, for which a small subscription

will be made.

The library will be kept separate in a private room. Its whereabouts

will not be publicly advertised until it has its own promises, and is

insured, but may be viewed in the meantime, by appointment (after

November 91).

THE LONDON CONTACT ADDRESS IS BM HURRICANE, LONDON W.C.l. 3XX

The draft constitution of the KSL speaks for itself. What is the

necessity for a library? The purpose of this library is to make history

as well as record it. The distortion of what has happened in the past,

the deliberate neglect of the working class contribution to its own

theory and history, means that the academics can mould a new and

different and reactionary movement out of the debris of our ideas. The

anarchist movement has suffered most from this but we will not let them

get away with it any longer.

Real Anarchism it not the cult of a few ‘well known’ quasi-father

figures of the past, any more then real Buddhism it the worship of

Gautama Buddha as a god. Anarchists in practice do no more care about

what such persons said or wrote unless they happen to have said

something with which they agree. The cult of researching their

acquaintanceships, personal life and influences upon them is a

deliberate, ploy by State-sponsored academics, but it has nothing to do

with us. The personality cult, the worship of individuals and the

imposition of bourgeois ideas lead to a phony anarchism which may

flourish but is not the real thing.

We need to record and research the history of anarchist working class

movements, and have already gathered material (yet to be classified) on

the history of the anarchist movement in countries as far apart as

Rournania and China, incidents ranging from the Italian struggles

against Mussolini to the time Cerrada Santos tried to bomb Franco from

the air at a fishing fleet regatta, from the spread of syndicalist ideas

in Britain to the rise and fog of the movement in Korea. Publishing it

all to a wider audience is a far greater task then we could achieve at

the KSL (as at present constituted) but the material will be there for

those who can do it

It is sometimes said that if you don’t learn from history you make the

same mistakes again. But it is also true that if you are taught your own

history by outside influences, you are doomed to make the mistakes they

want you to make.