Sunday, January 3, 2010

Papers Past: traces of Anarchist Communism


Killing time on the internet is something I do a lot... and what better way than to trawl through Papers Past, an online archive of historical New Zealand newspapers. Unfortunately the Maoriland Worker, Industrial Unionist and other radical papers aren't there, but a search with the terms 'anarchist communism' returned some interesting results (amongst other returns, which all included almost demonic attacks on anarchism and anything slightly radical). The letter below is from the September 8th, 1917 edition of 'Truth'. Also found an advert for a talk presented by the Freedom Group — possibly Aotearoa's first anarchist group — and the Grey River Argus piece on 'Socialism and Anarchism'. Geek.

Here's part of the letter (click on it to enlarge). What is interesting in it is the critique of state socialism (read state capitalism) and a scathing critique of the state in all its forms.


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