*Note, this episode contains some strong language*

In this episode we were joined by Max Farrar to discuss his forthcoming biography, 'Arthur France MBE: The Life and Times of an African-Caribbean-British Man' (Hansib 2021). Arthur France was born in the tiny Caribbean island of Nevis, where he began his activism in trade unionism and black power. After moving to Leeds in 1964 he became a key figure in the emerging black radical cultural movements in the UK through the 1960s and 70s, most notably in his work founding Leeds Carnival. 

This was a fascinating, wide-ranging and fun conversation with Max. You can find more of Max's writings, over a lifetime of activism and reflection, at https://www.maxfarrar.org.uk/

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You can keep in touch with the podcast via email: [email protected], and Facebook, Twitter and Instragram, all @abcdannyandjim.

You can subscribe to our newsletter here: https://abcwithdannyandjim.substack.com/

The podcast music is Stealing Orchestra & Rafael Dionísio,  'Gente da minha terra (que me mete um nojo do caralho).' Reproduced from the Free Music Archive under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License, available here: https://bit.ly/35ToW4W

The podcast logo is an adapted version of the Left Book Club logo (1936-48), reproduced, edited and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence. Original available here: https://bit.ly/35Nd6cv

The image in this episode is a photograph of the early pioneers of Leeds Carnival, with Arthur France in the centre. 

This episode is something of a special, a recording of our first ever ‘live’ event, which was held on Friday 8 October on Zoom. We were delighted to be joined by Mike Finn and Dana Mills, to mark the recent publication of Mike’s book ‘Debating Anarchism’ (Bloomsbury 2021). 

Mike’s book is a brilliant, provocative introduction to the debates which surround anarchist history and theory, so we felt this would be a good opportunity to explore some of these with Mike himself, and Dana, an activist and author of – amongst many other works – a brilliant biography of Rosa Luxembourg, published in 2020 with Reaktion Books. Towards the end of the conversation we opened up for some audience questions.

If you're interested in buying 'Debating Anarchism,' you can get 35% off paperback and e-book editions when buying from the Bloomsbury website, using the following codes:

UK: GLR TW9UK

US: GLR TW9US

Canada: GLR TW9CA

Australia: GLR TW9AU

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You can keep in touch with the podcast via email: [email protected], and Facebook, Twitter and Instragram, all @abcdannyandjim.

You can subscribe to our newsletter here at abcwithdannyandjim.substack.com. The latest post, Revolution number Ja Danke, by Danny, explores the 1969 Summer of Soul and ‘the Black Woodstock’ and is well worth a read. 

The podcast music is Stealing Orchestra & Rafael Dionísio,  'Gente da minha terra (que me mete um nojo do caralho).' Reproduced from the Free Music Archive under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License, available here: https://bit.ly/35ToW4W

The podcast logo is an adapted version of the Left Book Club logo (1936-48), reproduced, edited and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence. Original available here: https://bit.ly/35Nd6cv

The image in this episode is a screenshot of Mike, Dana, Danny and Me, having a lovely time on a Friday evening. 

In this episode we discuss A.M. Gittlitz's 'I Want to Believe' (Pluto Press, 2020), a study of the remarkable development of a branch of Cold War Trotskyism under the direction of the Argentine J. Posadas. 

Gittlitz combines an astute reading of the Posadist movement with humour and pathos, bringing together stories of nuclear apocalypse, 'coffee shop wankers' and armed guerrilla struggles in Latin America, resonating with present struggles around migration, science fiction, Bogdanov's dispute with Lenin, Carl Sagan, the arrival of the conquistadors in South America, memes, the Argentinian worker's movement and the X-files. Stay tuned for Jim's revelation about dolphins at the end of this conversation....

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You can keep in touch with the podcast via email: [email protected], and Facebook, Twitter and Instragram, all @abcdannyandjim.

You can subscribe to our newsletter here: https://abcwithdannyandjim.substack.com/

The podcast music is Stealing Orchestra & Rafael Dionísio,  'Gente da minha terra (que me mete um nojo do caralho).' Reproduced from the Free Music Archive under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License, available here: https://bit.ly/35ToW4W

The podcast logo is an adapted version of the Left Book Club logo (1936-48), reproduced, edited and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence. Original available here: https://bit.ly/35Nd6cv

The image in this episode is an ironic pin-badge, playing on the classic Danish anti-nuclear symbol The Smiling Sun, to fit with Posadism's adherence to nuclear apocalypse, Ufology and the position of dolphins in the revolutionary struggle. 

A short overview of the book Joan Puig Elías. Anarquismo, pedagogía y coherencia by Valeria Giacomoni (Barcelona: Descontrol, 2016), a biography of the anarchist teacher and leading light of the Escuela Natura who presided over the Consejo de la Escuela Nueva Unificada (CENU) during the Spanish civil war.

In this episode we discuss Loren Goldner's collection of essays 'Revolution, Defeat and Theoretical Underdevelopment' (Haymarket 2017), which examines the promise and failings of four revolutionary episodes in the twentieth century: Russia, Turkey, Spain and Bolivia.

Goldner's blog 'Break Their Haughty Power' is well worth exploring, you can find it here: http://breaktheirhaughtypower.org/

Danny discusses some of the themes we cover in last week's newsletter, which you can read here: https://abcwithdannyandjim.substack.com/p/anarchism-as-non-integration

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You can keep in touch with the podcast via email: [email protected], and Facebook, Twitter and Instragram, all @abcdannyandjim.

You can subscribe to our newsletter here: https://abcwithdannyandjim.substack.com/

The podcast music is Stealing Orchestra & Rafael Dionísio,  'Gente da minha terra (que me mete um nojo do caralho).' Reproduced from the Free Music Archive under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License, available here: https://bit.ly/35ToW4W

The podcast logo is an adapted version of the Left Book Club logo (1936-48), reproduced, edited and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence. Original available here: https://bit.ly/35Nd6cv

The image in this episode is a 1920 poster from the Soviet Industrial Propaganda Bureau, captioned 'Only a close and unbreakable union of workers and peasants will save Russia from economic destruction and starvation.' Available here: https://www.posterplakat.com/posters/PP%20416

In this episode we were joined by Dr Pascale Siegrist of the German Historical Institute London. Pascale is an intellectual historian whose first book project examines the ‘global’ thought of fin-de-siècle anarchists. You can find more on Pascale's research interests here: https://www.ghil.ac.uk/team/our-team/pascale-siegrist.

For this episode we read two brilliant pieces by Pascale on anarchism and geography: ‘Historicising ‘Anarchist Geography’ in the collection Historical Geographies of Anarchism (London, 2017) and ‘Cosmopolis and Community. Élisée Reclus and Pëtr Kropotkin on Spatial and Moral Unity, 1870s to 1900s’, Global Intellectual History [published online 8 September 2020].

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A reminder that we have recently launched a newsletter via the platform SubStack: https://substack.com/profile/34666794-abc-with-danny-and-jim

You can keep in touch with the podcast via email: [email protected], and Facebook, Twitter and Instragram, all @abcdannyandjim. 

The podcast music is Stealing Orchestra & Rafael Dionísio,  'Gente da minha terra (que me mete um nojo do caralho).' Reproduced from the Free Music Archive under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License, available here: https://bit.ly/35ToW4W

The podcast logo is an adapted version of the Left Book Club logo (1936-48), reproduced, edited and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence. Original available here: https://bit.ly/35Nd6cv

The image in this episode is an orographic map of Eastern Siberia from 1875 by Peter Kropotkin, which is available in the public domain and here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orography#/media/File:Map_of_Eastern_Siberia.png

In this episode we take a break from our usual format - to coincide with our 1st 'birthday' we discuss the first two pieces to be published in our new newsletter: 'Ten Years on the Turn' and 'People Just Do Something', both written by Danny as reflections on the past decade of politics. We also use this as an opportunity to reflect on the past year. 

You can subscribe to the newsletter here: https://bit.ly/3tPBcgS

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The podcast music is Stealing Orchestra & Rafael Dionísio,  'Gente da minha terra (que me mete um nojo do caralho).' Reproduced from the Free Music Archive under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License, available here: https://bit.ly/35ToW4W

The podcast logo is an adapted version of the Left Book Club logo (1936-48), reproduced, edited and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence. Original available here: https://bit.ly/35Nd6cv

In this episode we discuss Paul Avrich's classic 'Kronstadt 1921' (Princeton University Press, 1970), marking 100 years since this pivotal event in radical history. Along the way we discuss anti-Semitism within critiques of communism, the perils of a mechanistic understanding of class struggle and historical change, the nature of Bolshevik smear campaigns, and the significance of 1921 to the prospects of internationalist socialism. 

The book is available online here: https://libcom.org/library/kronstadt-1921-paul-avrich-0

There are many, many pieces to recommend about the Kronstadt uprising and its suppression. A number of useful introductions are available on libcom.org, including:

See also the excellent Solidarity publication 'Kronstadt Uprising' by Ida Mett, available here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ida-mett-the-kronstadt-commune. 

Over the weekend of 20-21 March 2021 Danny participated in the conference 'Kronstadt as Revoutionary Utopia, 1921-2021 and Beyond'. The conference website hosts a wide range of pieces reflecting on the event and its legacy: https://kronstadt2021.wordpress.com/

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The podcast music is Stealing Orchestra & Rafael Dionísio,  'Gente da minha terra (que me mete um nojo do caralho).' Reproduced from the Free Music Archive under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License, available here: https://bit.ly/35ToW4W

The podcast logo is an adapted version of the Left Book Club logo (1936-48), reproduced, edited and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence. Original available here: https://bit.ly/35Nd6cv

The image in this episode is the poster Kronshtadtskaia karta bita! (The Kronstadt Card Is Trumped!) by Vladimir Kozlinskii for the Petrograd office of the Russian Telegraph Agency in 1921, available in the public domain. The image depicts a reactionary White Guard as synonymous with a Kronstadt sailor, both vanquished by RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Republic). Thanks to Dr Hannah Parker for her help interpreting this image. 

In this episode we're delighted to be joined by Martha Ackelsberg (Smith College, Massachusetts) to discuss her classic study of Mujeres Libres, 'Free Women of Spain,' on the 30th anniversary of its original publication. 

Martha's work has been hugely influential in the study of anarchism, gender and the Spanish Civil War, and has shaped the work of both Danny and Jim. We were thrilled that she could join us for this discussion, which covers the history of anarchist feminism in Spain, sexism within the movement, the problems of equating gender emancipation with fighting, and the lessons of the Mujeres Libres for today's radicals. 

You can find more about Martha's extensive work on these subjects here: smith.edu/academics/faculty/martha-ackelsberg

In 2016 Danny and Jim were delighted to guest edit a special issue of International Journal of Iberian Studies on transnationalism and Spanish anarchism, featuring a brilliant article by Martha on the links between radical feminists in Spain and Argentina. The journal is available here, or you can get in touch with the show for access. 

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The podcast music is Stealing Orchestra & Rafael Dionísio,  'Gente da minha terra (que me mete um nojo do caralho).' Reproduced from the Free Music Archive under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License, available here: https://bit.ly/35ToW4W 

The podcast logo is an adapted version of the Left Book Club logo (1936-48), reproduced, edited and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International licence. Original available here: https://bit.ly/35Nd6cv 

The image in this episode isa photograph of a Mujeres Libres section during the Spanish Civil War, which is available in the public domain