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Title: Islands of Anarchy Author: John Patten Date: 2003 Language: en Topics: anarchist publications, bibliography, United Kingdom, Stuart Christie, Cienfuegos Press Source: John Patten Kate Sharpley (http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/mpg57b) December 15, 2015 Notes: Copied from http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/mpg57b
Simian, Cienfuegos and Refract were three interconnected anarchist
publishing projects active between 1969 and 1986. They produced a
significant number of works reflecting the international history and
scope of the movement and promoting the contemporary use of the
anarchist critique. They also demonstrated the potential--and
pitfalls--of moving beyond print-it-yourself pamphlet publishing and
operating a professional publishing house devoted to advancing the
libertarian idea.
These groups had their roots in the anarchist resurgence of the nineteen
sixties. Young militants finding their way to anarchism, often from the
anti-bomb and anti-Vietnam war movements, linked up with an earlier
generation of activists, largely outside the ossified structures of
âofficialâ anarchism. Anarchist tactics embraced demonstrations, direct
action such as industrial militancy and squatting, protest bombings like
those of the First of May Group and Angry Brigade--and a spree of
publishing activity.
From the sixties on duplicators (and later the new offset litho presses)
were used to encourage and analyse the political ferment of the times.
Like photocopiers later they offered cheap and relatively fast and easy
reproduction of texts. Only a typewriter was needed to produce
duplicator stencils. Litho offered a more legible result and any text
already printed could be used directly to make new plates. Images, too,
were easier to produce. One of the groups taking advantage of these
machines was Coptic Press (1964-1968) run by Albert Meltzer and Ted
Kavanagh. 11, Phil Ruff, The Albert Memorial, the Anarchist Life and
Times of Albert Meltzer, p7. They produced a range of pamphlets both
political (Aims and Principles of Anarchism, Bakuninâs Criticism of
state socialism and a spoof on the hype surrounding the Grosvenor Square
demo The October revolution--27th & 28th October 1968 positions to seize
and strategic tactics to deploy22, âOne leaflet I issued, meant as a
sarcastic comment... finished in the Sunday Times in full as an example
of what was intended on the dreaded day. It included digging up Kew
Gardens, playing American football on Lordâs cricket pitch... and
blowing up Peter Panâs statue replacing it with an inscription "fairies
are a bourgeois illusion", all as part of a plot to destroy the English
way of life.â Albert Meltzer, I Couldnât Paint Golden Angels, p187.) and
more general (Hawks and hawking, Coffee houses of old London etc,
generally out of copyright items to be sold as limited editions at their
Coptic Street bookshop). Meltzer and Kavanagh were also part of the
group publishing the satirical libertarian magazine Cuddonâs
Cosmopolitan Review (1965-67).
Albert Meltzer and other activists from this group joined Stuart
Christie on his return from imprisonment in Francoist Spain (1967) in
launching the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC). Christie had been involved in
an abortive assassination attempt on the Spanish dictator, Franco. The
three years he served gave him an intimate knowledge of the Spanish
penal system and the anarchist movement. The ABC has been described as a
prisoners aid organisation though it was more of an affinity group
promoting solidarity with the Spanish anarchist movement
âWe had in fact in mind to call it "Solidarity" but it transpired that
this title was used by another grouping--hence the decision to use the
old name The Anarchist Black Cross which had the merit of immediately
suggesting support, of a permitted nature, for victims of the State...
âWhat is solidarity It does not imply charity... It is a recognition of
common struggle... The intention of this solidarity is to build an
international, not upon "paper" nor on paper conferences but on active
reality.'3
One of the first prisoners the group assisted was Miguel Garcia who on
his release moved to London and became the ABCâs international
secretary. Garcia, who had met Christie inside, was a veteran of the
second wave of anarchist resistance in Spain (1945-60). He was also an
important figure linking that generation with the new militants of the
sixties and seventies--as well as maintaining an impressive level of
activity himself after his release.
The Bulletin of the Anarchist Black Cross (which changed its title to
Black Flag in 1970) emphasised activism, solidarity and the
revolutionary goals of anarchism. It also promoted class struggle, in
opposition to the non-revolutionary tendency of âperpetual protestâ,
criticizing society but not expecting to totally change it, represented
(until recently) by Freedom and Freedom Press. This reflected a
political division which went back to the 1940s.
Simian, originally describing itself as âSon of Copticâ was the pamphlet
imprint for Black Flag. Some of its titles were Coptic Press reprints
(duplicated material tended to be produced in short runs) as well as
material generated but not used by Black Flag. The first original Simian
title was an interview with Miguel Garcia on the Spanish resistance.
Simian produced a mixture of historical studies (The Anarchist Movement
in China, The Truth about the Bonnot Gang etc.) and more contemporary
texts like On How the Student Rising is Re-absorbed.
Black Flag covered anarchist activism both past and present and
supported campaigns like those of the First of May Group against Spanish
fascism and repression in general. It also explained the motivation
behind homegrown protest bombings like those of the Angry Brigade
(1968-72). This support for revolutionary action--as well as his
previous involvement in the Spanish resistance--meant that Stuart
Christie was the police candidate for âleaderâ of the Angry Brigade.
After 16 months on remand he was acquitted on all charges in the âStoke
Newington 8â trial. By December 1972 he was a free man, but blacklisted
and facing the threat of a more effective framing the next time. This is
the background to the launch of Cienfuegos Press.
Anarchists have always been great publishers a Spanish saying goes that
if you find two anarchists youâll also find three newspapers. This
concentration on the printed word has been practical rather than
profitable. Albert Meltzer commented âAs one could not fight a
by-election for a mainstream party without incurring a loss, I do not
see how a publishing venture against the political tide could
conceivably be expected to pay its wayâ. [1] Often this has meant
comrades printing in their spare time (and many anarchists have been
employed in the printing trade) or commercial printing has been
subsidised out of wages--or illegal activity like the bank robberies of
Durruti or Sabate. Stuart Christie eulogised the anarchist propagandists
in his introduction to Man!
'They are not as other men and women; they are not at all as other
editors, publishers, speakers and writers; they are not even always like
other anarchists. They share their passionate devotion to the cause of
freedom with others, but theirs is a devouring, insatiable urge to
communicate, to proselytise, to tell how it is.... [They] sit in a
little room--often their living room--surrounded by papers, books, all
in the indescribable confusion--writing away, night after night, capable
of producing whole newspapers on their own, not only preparing it for
the printer but even if need be running it off as well. They spend their
lives in poverty, though often skilled workers on good wages; for
everything they have goes on âliteratureâ. When the situation becomes
difficult they will go out to rob a bank to raise the money for a
printing press, and from a small handpress in the cellar they will bring
out leaflets, newspapers, books and pamphlets alongside forged passes,
documents and all the other needs of the activist in a totalitarian
regime. [2]
As in the 1890s (or the media response to current anti-globalisation
protests) the resurgence of anarchism in the sixties was accompanied by
a rise in academic interest and the commissioning and reissue of both
scholarly and general works. Similarly, the quality varied, ranging from
hostile hack work to accounts from inside the movement like Christie and
Meltzerâs Floodgates of Anarchy and Miguel Garciaâs resistance and
prison memoirs Francoâs Prisoner. These were successful ventures from
their authorsâ point of view--they spread the word, were reviewed by the
mainstream press and produced an income. Floodgates of Anarchy went into
several editions. However, there were limits to the number and kind of
revolutionary books that commercial publishers would handle. For
example, Stuart Christieâs autobiography The Christie File repeated his
successful âStoke Newington 8â trial defence that detonators been
planted on him by the police. This led to its planned production by the
commercial publisher Michael Joseph being cancelled on legal advice.
Black Flag had wide international contacts, ranging from the Spanish
anarchist movement (in South America as well as Europe) to Italy and
North America. These generated a large volume of material, historical
and contemporary, most of which would not be published commercially.
Christie was not in the position to take either the spare time or the
subsidy approach to publishing, and needed a way to put bread on the
table. He had the assets of notoriety and a flair for promotion. Thus
Cienfuegos Press (named after a Cuban anarchist) was launched in 1974,
aiming to expand the amount of useful--and especially current--anarchist
material available. It consciously aimed to make material attractive.
Economically unable and probably unwilling to take the âfine pressâ
route of high production costs, they concentrated on a functional
internal layout complemented by colour covers produced by sympathetic
artists such as Flavio Costantini. It was also planned to promote titles
outside the confines of the anarchist movement.
The first two Cienfuegos publications illustrated the international
links which they could call upon as well as the kinds of titles they saw
as important. Sabate was Christieâs translation of one of the first
books in Antonio Tellezâs comprehensive recounting of the story of the
Spanish anarchist resistance. The Man! anthology was a reprint of
selections from a North American anarchist paper of the 1930s (assisted
by its former editor Marcus Graham). Man! had been a link between the
Italian-American Galleanists and the broader anarchist movement [3] but
it also prefigured some of the features of Black Flag and the Cienfuegos
Press Anarchist Review, especially their concern with examining and
reclaiming anarchist history.
Stuart and Brenda Christie moved to Yorkshire in 1975 and then to Sanday
(the Orkneys) in 1976 to escape police attention and thus avoided
involvement in the 1978 âPersons Unknownâ case. [4] As well as being out
of harmâs way, Sanday also provided storage space for the mounting
number of Cienfuegos titles.
Simian continued as the pamphlet publishing arm of Cienfuegos until
1976. After the move to Yorkshire its titles were printed, rather than
duplicated, some of them professionally. Though overshadowed by
Cienfuegosâ book publishing it produced some important texts like
Marxism and a Free Society.
Cienfuegos published a number of important works of anarchist theory
like Towards a Fresh Revolution, Anarchism Arguments For and Against and
The End of Anarchism There were also several historical studies, partly
on familiar topics such as the Russian (The Guillotine at Work) and
Spanish revolutions (With the Peasants of Aragon), but also of neglected
subjects like the Spanish movement after the Civil War (A New World In
Our Hearts), British (The Christie File, The Anarchists In London) and
Mexican anarchism (Land and Liberty) and recent European events (The
International Revolutionary Solidarity Movement). Finally, Cienfuegos
(and after them Refract) produced a number of handbooks such as Towards
a Citizensâ Militia and The Investigative Researcherâs Handbook and
analytical works like Stefano delle Chiaie and High Intensity Subversion
to underline their commitment to the practical application of anarchist
theory, rather than the rumination of âanarchaeologistsâ.
The greatest achievement of Cienfuegos Press was the weighty Cienfuegos
Press Anarchist Review. The Review shared the international reach of the
Cienfuegos project, but also its breadth, bringing together academics
and students of anarchism with its activists to discuss history, theory
and tactics. The review reprinted whole pamphlets including classics
like Sabotage (Walker C. Smith) and Libertarian Communism (Isaac Puente)
and contemporary essays like Chomskyâs âObjectivity and Liberal
Scholarship.â In its reviews, it gave an anarchist view on revolutionary
theory and history, also covering a broad range of subjects including
feminism, economics and literature, as well as promoting a revolutionary
anarchism and countering misrepresentations. Though it came from a
class-struggle anarchist perspective, the Review was intellectually
omnivorous, reprinting relevant reviews from the mainstream press as
well as taking them from titles like Freedom and the Laissez Faire
Review. It also contained a healthy dose of humour, provided by Richard
Warrenâs Misadventures of Ann and Archie comic strip and âsarco-advertsâ
attacking everything from supermarkets, religion and employers to
vanguard parties. Though it never approached anything like the quarterly
publication that was planned, the six issues form an encyclopedia of
Anarchist theory and history. Albert Meltzer bemoaned the fact that âthe
amount of essays in one Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review would have
made a couple of dozen pamphlets and a book or twoâ [5] but perhaps it
is this abundance that explains its appeal. So many topics covered by so
many authors give it the status of the collective memory of the
anarchist movement of the time.
As the Cienfuegos network developed more collaborators were brought in,
more co-publications were arranged and more titles could be projected.
Some of these titles were mentioned once as a kind of thinking aloud.
This would encourage interested groups or individuals to offer
assistance. Others were actively being prepared and indicate the
ambitious nature of the Cienfuegos project and what might have been
achieved with greater resources.
Economic problems were never far away, but the final straw was the
arrest of Brenda Christie in Germany in 1981. Information accusing her
of having been involved in a First of May Group attack ten years
previously had come from the British political police (Special Branch).
The charge was soon dismissed after an international protest campaign
but large legal and communication costs gave Cienfuegos the final push
to collapse in 1982. The Christies lost their house and had to leave
Sanday, and people with outstanding loans and bills were left out of
pocket.
Refract (harking back to the Italian-American Refrattari i.e. rebels),
the successor to Cienfuegos, suffered the same financial problems and
lasted a shorter while before it too collapsed. Its co-publications in
1985 and 1986 with Drowned Rat and Elephant Editions were, in effect,
handing titles over to other anarchist publishers.
Briefly examining the output of Simian, Cienfuegos and Refract (see
statistics) shows that many of the items they published were original,
and a large fraction were original translations. Of reprinted material,
the bulk was recent, that is from the 1960s or â70s.
Cienfuegos and Refract were always hand-to-mouth operations. There were
comrades who made significant donations, but there was always a pressing
need to increase turnover to pay for printing that had already been
done. This of course meant producing more titles. Unlike pamphlets which
could be reproduced fairly easily, books required long print runs to be
affordable, leaving the publisher with just one shot at printing enough,
but not too many books. Interestingly, only seven Cienfuegos books have
been reprinted Sabate, The Art of Anarchy and The Russian Tragedy (all
early productions with shorter print runs), Land and Liberty (pirated at
the time by an academic publisher), The Christie File (effectively
rewritten in a new edition), With the Peasants of Aragon and People
Without Government. This suggests that most titles were produced in
adequate (or too great) numbers--though of course, reprinting depends on
money being available.
Cienfuegos and Refract were hopeful of reaching a far wider audience
than the anarchist movement. While Christieâs notoriety (and dramatic
press coverage of titles like Towards a Citizenâs Militia) did generate
extra interest, and imaginative advertising spread the word wide,
neither Cienfuegos or Refract titles really broke into the general
booktrade, partly due to the specialised nature of most of their titles
and a limited response from reviewers. This increased their reliance on
radical bookshops. These had a bad record--worsening as recessionary
times advanced--of going bust and defaulting on large bills for stock.
Cienfuegos certainly hoped to make sales to libraries--in discussing
Man! they made it clear that their plans were riding on this. They had
some success, though probably not as much as theyâd hoped. Financially,
they couldnât afford large outlays for marketing. Also, itâs possible
for libraries (unless they know a field well) to fall into a
reading-list driven reliance on reprinted classics (more Kropotkin,
professor) precisely the titles Cienfuegos and Refract were avoiding.
Cienfuegos (and to a lesser extent Refract) developed a number of
strategies to maximise their turnover, nationally and internationally.
If a given book appealed only to anarchists, it didnât matter greatly
where they were as long as they bought it. Co-publishing with groups
overseas reduced the capital required (and the associated risk) as well
as the distribution costs. This complemented the international network
which had been developed. They developed a subscription service which
offered cheap books to their readers--but also guaranteed money up front
and increased sales. Operating a mail order bookshop alongside the
publishing operation also increased turnover if someone had already
bought everything published by Cienfuegos, perhaps there were other
titles theyâd like. Alongside the problem of rising postage costs this
also increased the importance of the Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review.
The Review itself exploded from 28 pages (number one) to 184 by number
four, with associated rises in printing and distribution costs.
Cienfuegos also tried vanity publishing, for example in publishing The
struggle to be human. [6] This of course had financial benefits but it
also tied up space and effort. In general, vanity publishing can
compromise peopleâs faith in your editorial judgement.
The great strength of Cienfuegos and Refract was in developing an
international support network (the âIslandsâ of the title). This
comprised writers, translators, illustrators and reviewers; people with
technical skills in editing, typesetting, layout and printing as well as
readers and supporters. Paul Sharkeyâs translation skills made available
a huge amount that had been published in Romance languages. Stuart
Christie emphasised his importance âQuite simply, without Paulâs
contribution itâs unlikely we would have produced a quarter of what we
did.â [7] Artistillustrators like Flavio Costantini, Cliff Harper, Phil
Ruff and Richard Warren made a great contribution to the appearance of
Cienfuegos and Refract titles. Collaborators with technical skills
prevented titles being bottlenecked at any stage of production (as would
have happened had they relied on their own typesetting equipment, for
example). This network allowed the decentralisation of preparation work
as well as juggling money and time to produce the maximum output. In the
year of Cienfuegosâ greatest output (1981) of thirteen titles, five
(over a third) were co-published.
This network operated before email, without a fax machine and at a time
when typesetting equipment was specialised, expensive and prone to
breaking down. The production quality (and quantity) they produced were
both impressive. Despite the attention paid to promotion, it was in
distribution that their greatest weakness lay. Ultimately Cienfuegos and
Refract, though they succeeded in producing a huge volume of anarchist
literature, failed economically as professional publishers. This lesson
has not been lost on some who have followed in their footsteps. Both
Freedom Press and AK Press operate publishing programmes on the back of
distribution and sales.
Given the propagandistic drive to distribute literature as cheaply and
widely as possible the âdismal scienceâ of economics will always be the
enemy of anarchist publishing (and vice versa). The example of Simian,
Cienfuegos and Refract gives a few pointers on how imagination and drive
can sidestep some of the problems inherent in shoestring publishing.
Black Flag, London, 1970-.
Stuart Christie, The Christie File. Partisan Press; Cienfuegos Press,
1980.
Cienfuegos Press, A Prospectus for Cienfuegos Press. Cienfuegos Press,
[1981] (see appendices)
Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review, 1-6. Cienfuegos Press, 1976-82.
Hong, Nhat. Anarchy over the water A visit to Cienfuegos Press and
conversation with Stuart Christie. Soil of Liberty, 6 (3) Nov. 1980,
p13-25. (see appendices)
Albert Meltzer, The Anarchists in London, 1935-1955. Cienfuegos Press,
1976.
Albert Meltzer, I Couldnât Paint Golden Angels. AK Press; Kate Sharpley
Library, 1996.
Phil Ruff, The Albert Memorial, the Anarchist Life and Times of Albert
Meltzer. Meltzer Press, 1997.
Other sources of information
AK Distribution, Edinburgh. Catalogue. 2000-
Paul Avrich, Sacco and Vanzetti, the Anarchist Background. Princeton
University Press, 1991.
Agustin Guillamon, The Friends of Durruti Group 1937-1939. AK Press,
1996.
Paul Nursey-Bray, Anarchist Thinkers and Thought. Greenwood Press, 1992.
John Patten, Yiddish Anarchist Bibliography. Kate Sharpley Library,
1998.
Jonathan D. Smele, Russian Revolution and Civil War 1917-1921, an
Annotated Bibliography. Continuum, 2003
Carl Slienger, Checklist of Freedom Press publications.
Kropotkinâs Lighthouse, 1981.
Part of Islands of anarchy Simian, Cienfuegos and Refract 1969-1987, an
annotated bibliography
[1] Albert Meltzer, Op. Cit., p285.
[2] Stuart Christie, Introduction in Marcus Graham (ed.) Man! an
anthology of anarchist ideas, essays, poetry and commentaries, p I.
[3] âAfter The Road to Freedom ceased publication I was approached by
the Italian-speaking comrades who were issuing a monthly newspaper
Emancipazione (Emancipation), edited by Vincent Ferrero. They suggested
I start a new anarchist monthly, and they would suspend their paper in
its favour, and devote their energy to it. Ferrero proposed the name for
the new paper MAN! as well as the sub-title "Man is the measurement of
everything". An international Group was formed to sponsor it, which
included English, Chinese, Italian and Yiddish speaking comrades.â
Marcus Graham, Autobiographical notes in Ibid., p xviii.
[4] âThe charges were so ludicrous there were fits of laughter from the
well of the court, so that when it came to "conspiring with persons
unknown", though not unusual phraseology, it caused such merriment the
magistrate had to threaten to clear the court. From then on it was known
as the "Persons Unknown" case.â Albert Meltzer, Op. Cit., p280.
[5] Albert Meltzer, Ibid., p.285
[6] Since much anarchist publishing is subsidised, âvanityâ only applies
where economic inducements overrule or outweigh political ones.
[7] Stuart Christie, email.