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Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader

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Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader

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Overview

“Landauer is the most important agitator of the radical and revolutionary movement in the entire country.” This is how Gustav Landauer is described in a German police file from 1893. Twenty-six years later, Landauer would die at the hands of reactionary soldiers who overthrew the Bavarian Council Republic, a three-week attempt to realize libertarian socialism amidst the turmoil of post-World War I Germany. It was the last chapter in the life of an activist, writer, and mystic who Paul Avrich calls “the most influential German anarchist intellectual of the twentieth century.”

This is the first comprehensive collection of Landauer writings in English. It includes one of his major works, Revolution, thirty additional essays and articles, and a selection of correspondence. The texts cover Landauer’s entire political biography, from his early anarchism of the 1890s to his philosophical reflections at the turn of the century, the subsequent establishment of the Socialist Bund, his tireless agitation against the war, and the final days among the revolutionaries in Munich. Additional chapters collect Landauer’s articles on radical politics in the US and Mexico, and illustrate the scope of his writing with texts on corporate capital, language, education, and Judaism. The book includes an extensive introduction, commentary, and bibliographical information, compiled by the editor and translator Gabriel Kuhn as well as a preface by Richard Day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604860542
Publisher:	PM Press
Publication date:	07/01/2010
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Gustav Landauer is one of the key figures of German Anarchism, and his influence can be seen in the work of many prominent authors including Martin Buber, Walter Benjamin and Hermann Hesse. Born in 1870, by the 1890s he was Germany’s most prominent anarchist author and agitator. After several prison sentences and increasing tensions within the country’s anarchist movement, Landauer focused on translations, literary criticism, and philosophical writing. In 1908 he returned to political activism by founding the Socialist Bund and reviving the journal Sozialist. Both were forced to an end by World War I, which Landauer campaigned against unwaveringly. After the end of the war, he became involved in the Bavarian Revolution and played a decisive role in the proclamation of its council republic in April 1919. When this experiment in radical democracy was crushed by military force three weeks later, reactionary soldiers murdered Landauer.

Gabriel Kuhn (born in Innsbruck, Austria, 1972) lives as an independent author and translator in Stockholm, Sweden. He received a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Universityof Innsbruck in 1996. His publications in German include the award-winning ‘Neuer Anarchismus’ in den USA: Seattle und die Folgen (2008). His publications with PM Press include Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy (2010), Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge, and Radical Politics (editor, 2010), Gustav Landauer: Revolution and Other Writings (editor/translator, 2010), Erich Mühsam: Liberating Society from the State and Other Writings (editor/translator, 2011) and Soccer vs. the State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics (2011).

Richard J.F. Day is an autonomy-oriented theorist and practitioner, whose work focuses on creating non-statist, non-capitalist, post-colonial, sustainable alternatives to the dominant global order. He works and teaches at Queen's University, and is a founding member of the AKA Autonomous Social Centre, both in Kingston, Ontario.

Preface: Landauer Today - Richard J.F. Day 6

Editor's Note - Gabriel Kuhn 10

Introduction - Gabriel Kuhn with Siegbert Wolf 18

Childhood and Youth

Twenty-five Years Later: On the Jubilee of Wilhelm II 62

Early Anarchism

Anarchism - Socialism 70

An Anarchist's Response to the Kaiser's Speech 75

A Few Words on Anarchism 79

Anarchic Thoughts on Anarchism 84

Through Separation to Community

Through Separation to Community 94

Revolution

Revolution 110

Socialist Hopes

What Does the Socialist Bund Want? 188

The Socialist Way 191

The Settlement 196

Socialist Beginning 201

The Party 206

Weak Statesmen, Weaker People! 213

The Twelve Articles of the Socialist Bund, Second Version 215

On War and Nationalism

The Free Workers' Council 218

The Abolition of War by the Self-Determination of the People: Questions to the German Workers 222

Revolution, Nation, and War 230

Peace Treaty and Peace Administration: A Letter to Woodrow Wilson 234

On America

The 11th of November 240

In Memory of Robert Reitzel 245

Tucker's Revelation 248

McNamara 255

From Mexico 261

Mexico 264

Opinion and Journalism Pieces

The Petroleum World Monopoly 272

Do Not Learn Esperanto! 276

May 1 280

Ferrer 286

Japan 291

The Beilis Trial 295

Letters

Letter to Paul Eltzbacher (1900) 302

Letter to Julius Bab (1904) 304

Letter to Erich Mühsam (1907) 307

Letter to Max Nettlau (1911) 309

Letter to Bernhard Kampffmeyer (1912) 312

Letter to Ludwig Berndl (1915) 314

Letter to Hugo Landauer (1917) 316

Letter to Martin Buber (1918) 319

Letter to Margarete Susman (1919) 321

Postcard to Fritz Mauthner (1919) 323

Letters and Telegrams to His Daughters (1919) 324

Bibliography

German 328

English 339

Index 342

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Editorial Reviews

If there were any justice in this world—at least as far as historical memory goes—then Gustav Landauer would be remembered, right along with Bakunin and Kropotkin, as one of anarchism’s most brilliant and original theorists. Instead, history has abetted the crime of his murderers, burying his work in silence. With this anthology, Gabriel Kuhn has single-handedly redressed one of the cruelest gaps in Anglo-American anarchist literature: the absence of almost any English translations of Landauer.”
—Jesse Cohn, author of Anarchism and the Crisis of Representation: Hermeneutics, Aesthetics, Politics

“Gustav Landauer was, without doubt, one of the brightest intellectual lights within the revolutionary circles of fin de siècle Europe. In this remarkable anthology, Gabriel Kuhn brings together an extensive and splendidly chosen collection of Landauer’s most important writings, presenting them for the first time in English translation. With Landauer’s ideas coming of age today perhaps more than ever before, Kuhn’s work is a valuable and timely piece of scholarship, and one which should be required reading for anyone with an interest in radical social change.”
—James Horrox, author of A Living Revolution: Anarchism in the Kibbutz Movement

“At once an individualist and a socialist, a Romantic and a mystic, a militant and an advocate of passive resistance… He was also the most influential German anarchist intellectual of the twentieth century.”
—Paul Avrich, author of Anarchist Voices

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Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader

Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader

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