tion>
Alexander Berkman
Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066402860
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: What Do You Want Out Of Life?
Chapter 4: How the System Works
Chapter 9: Can the Church Help You?
Chapter 10: Reformer and Politician
Chapter 12: Whose is the Power?
Chapter 14: The February Revolution
Chapter 15: Between February and October
Chapter 17: Revolution and Dictatorship
Chapter 18: The Dictatorship at Work
Chapter 19: Is Anarchism Violence?
Chapter 20: What is Anarchism?
Chapter 21: Is Anarchy Possible?
Chapter 22: Will Communist Anarchism Work?
Chapter 23: Non-Communist Anarchists
Chapter 25: The Idea is the Thing
Chapter 27: Organisation of Labour for the Social Revolution
Chapter 28: Principles and Practice
Chapter 29: Consumption and Exchange
Chapter 31: Defense of the Revolution
Introduction
I want to tell you about Anarchism.
I want to tell you what Anarchism is, because I think it is well you should know it. Also because so little is known about it, and what is known is generally hearsay and mostly false.
I want to tell you about it, because I believe that Anarchism is the finest and biggest thing man has ever thought of; the only thing that can give you liberty and well-being, and bring peace and joy to the world.
I want to tell you about it in such plain and simple language that there will be no misunderstanding it. Big words and high sounding phrases serve only to confuse. Straight thinking means plain speaking.
But before I tell you what Anarchism is, I want to tell you what it is not.
That is necessary because so much falsehood has been spread about Anarchism. Even intelligent persons often have entirely wrong notions about it. Some people talk about Anarchism without knowing a thing about it. And some lie about Anarchism, because they don't want you to know the truth about it.
Anarchism has many enemies; they won't tell you the truth about it. Why Anarchism has enemies and who they are, you will see later, in the course of this story. Just now I can tell you that neither your political boss nor your employer, neither the capitalist nor the policeman will speak to you honestly about Anarchism. Most of them know nothing about it, and all of them hate it. Their newspapers and publications - the capitalistic press- are also against it.
Even most Socialists and Bolsheviks misrepresent Anarchism. True, the majority of them don't know any better. But those who do know better also often lie about Anarchism and speak of it as 'disorder and chaos'. You can see for yourself how dishonest they are in this: the greatest teachers of Socialism - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - had taught that Anarchism would come from Socialism. They said that we must first have Socialism, but that after Socialism there will be Anarchism, and that it would be a freer and more beautiful condition of society to live in than Socialism. Yet the Socialists, who swear by Marx and Engels, insist on calling Anarchism 'chaos and disorder', which shows you how ignorant or dishonest they are.
The Bolsheviks do the same, although their greatest teacher, Lenin, had said that Anarchism would follow Bolshevism, and that then it will be better and freer to live.
Therefore I must tell you, first of all, what Anarchism is not.
It is not bombs, disorder, or chaos.: It is not robbery and murder.
It is not a war of each