Today's Topics:
1. Czech, AFED: Dictator Erdogan threatens to continue the
invasion of Syria [machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
2. cgt.org.es: Chronicle Caravan Opening Borders (ca, it, pt)
[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
3. Canada, Collectif Emma Goldman - [Chicoutimi] Vigil against
feminicides (fr, it, pt)[machine translation] (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
4. US, Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council - MACC
Organizing Assembly: February 2nd (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
5. black rose fed: Review: Don't Throw Lucy Parsons' Anarchism
Under the Liberal Bus (a-infos-en@ainfos.ca)
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Message: 1
Translation of the statement of the internationalist campaign RiseUp4Rojava of 31 January ---- For several days now there has been an
indication that the offensive of the fascist Turkish army in northern Syria will be renewed soon. We have always emphasized that war has
never been stopped, but merely changed its form. However, a low-intensity war may soon result in the opening of a new front. Again, the
enemy gathers heavy weapons and Islamist mercenaries on the border of liberated areas. There are reasons to believe that the Turkish
occupation state is preparing new attacks, especially against the Kobanê area. However, areas west of Kamisli are also at risk. Kobanê
became a symbol of the invincibility of the revolution, and therefore the AKP-MHP regime is naturally interested in its occupation. After
the successful occupation of Kobanê, the attackers could link occupied territories from Serê Kanîyê to Africa. With a possible attack on
areas west of Kamišli, another wedge would be put into the liberated areas, thereby further restricting the freedom of movement of
revolutionary forces and the civilian population. At the same time, it is no secret that Turkey focuses its attention mainly on the wealth
of oil fields around Tirbespis and Rimelans.
Various scenarios were evaluated at the Turkish Security Council yesterday and readiness for further operations was expressed because
"terrorist organizations could continue to attack Turkey and the civilian population of Syria despite all international agreements." At
today's AKP meeting, dictator Erdogan reaffirmed in his speech that "Turkey will not only look on in Idlib or in other areas". Those
wondering what Turkey is doing in Syria should "read the Adana Agreement", which entitles Turkey to counter-terrorist operations in the
north of Syria, and understands that Turkey is entitled to carry out its occupation operations. According to the agreement, "terrorists and
all those who are dangerous to the country should be persecuted to the very end".
Dictator Erdogan stressed that "it will never allow a separatist terrorist organization to take root in Syria," even if it means using
military force. In the context of the Syrian regime's offensive, Erdogan even threatened to intervene directly if Idibub returns to normal.
Given the false claims made by Turkish officials that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) did not withdraw from the 30 km wide "security
zone" as agreed, they are now trying to legitimize the new attack.
At this point, it is not possible to accurately predict when a new offensive will occur. What we can do, however, is to prepare ourselves
adequately and face any kind of attack with determined, broad and diverse resistance. Just as the people of Rojava prepare each day to
defend the revolution, the international resistance movement must be prepared for all eventualities. It is time for vigilance and necessary
preparations.
The revolution of northeastern Syria wins! Fascism will be destroyed!
Related links:
https://www.afed.cz/text/7101/dva-roky-od-zacatku-turecke-okupace-afrinu
https://www.afed.cz/text/7098/kdyz-turecko-valci
https: //www.afed.cz/text/7081/v-brne-za-rojavu
https://www.afed.cz/text/7062/pochod-pro-rojavu
https://www.afed.cz/text / 7061 / health-of-rojavy
https://www.afed.cz/text/7060/dopis-z-jinwaru
https://www.afed.cz/text/7059/protitureckeinvazi-v-dejvicich
https: // www.afed.cz/text/7058/podpor-rojavu
https://www.afed.cz/text/7055/pokracuji-akce-na-podporu-rojavy
https://www.afed.cz/text/7051/ olomouc-not-cylinders-in-north-syria
https://www.afed.cz/text/7050/stop-turecke-agresi
https://www.afed.cz/text/7049/kazdy-stat-ktery- turn-against-people-eventually-lose
https://www.afed.cz/text/7048/situace-v-rojave
https://www.afed.cz/text/7047/projevy-solidarity-s-rojavou
https://www.afed.cz/ text / 7046 / non-Turkish-invasion-solidarity-with-swarms
https://www.afed.cz/text/7044/a3-zradne-namluvy-nacionalistu-a-dzihadistu
https://www.afed.cz/ text / 7043 / prague-no-cylinders-in-north-syria
https://www.afed.cz/text/7042/brno-ne-valce-v-severni-syrii
https://www.afed.cz/ text / 7035 / navsteva-rojavy
https://www.afed.cz/en/text/7007/ne-valce-proti-severni-syrii
https://www.afed.cz/text/7109/diktator-erdogan-hrozi-pokracovanim-invaze-do-syrie
------------------------------
Message: 2
One more year, from CGT we have accompanied the Caravan Opening Borders in a new edition of it in which we have traveled to the Southern
Border to meet people and groups that fight every day against the criminalization of the right to survive away from horror and the misery
that every human being has. ---- The Southern Border is one of the doors that migrants choose to access Europe on the western Mediterranean
route. It is estimated that more than a thousand people have lost their lives in the last year trying to reach the Spanish coast through
this deadly road. ---- The caravan 'Opening Borders' what it intends since it began to organize and participate in society to make visible
this problem, is to touch the consciences of those who can and should avoid this suffering to thousands and thousands of people willing to
lose their lives fleeing from misery and the war The suffering of these people and their respective families is due to the implementation
and subsequent development of the policies of the European Union, the "Fortress Europe".
This year we start in Granada. On July 12 and 13, a round table was held to discuss and learn about reception experiences and in the
afternoon we participated in a demonstration against the G7 summit (the 7 most industrialized countries in the world) to be held in Biarritz
(France) at the end of August.
On Sunday, July 14, we arrived in Motril, where a round table was held on the rescue of migrants. Activists such as the Sevillian
firefighter Miguel Roldán, war photojournalists such as Felipe Passolas, activists from several humanitarian aid NGOs such as Motril Acoge,
APDHA, CIEs No Granada, CIEs No Motril, Emergency Frontera Sur, Alarm Phone and HOAC Granada participated in this round table . We also have
the presence of our partner and Maritime Rescue worker, Manuel Capa, who was able to explain in the first person how these bailouts occur at
sea, what consequences they have and, above all, what is the importance of the defense of public services of emergency and rescue for all
people who may find themselves in a similar situation.
After listening to the fellow participants of this interesting round table, we went to a demonstration in the city.
On Monday July 15 we arrived in San Roque (Cádiz). We made a concentration in the CATE of this city and had some incidents with several
agents of the National Police during our concentration. This prevented us from following our route to La Piñera, where we planned to reach
the CIE to protest before him.
In the afternoon we participate in a demonstration that ended before the CIE of the island of Las Palomas in Tarifa.
At this stage of our trip we were joined by two boys of Moroccan origin who had knowledge of the existence of the caravan contributing their
experience as migrants.
On Tuesday, July 16 we traveled to Ceuta where more companions and companions met us at the port to start a march to Tarajal. During the
journey several representations of different realities of migrants were made.
On the beach of Tarajal we remember people of sub-Saharan origin who died after the shooting of riot agents of the Civil Guard in February
2014. A press conference was held later and in the afternoon more activities and actions were carried out in the Plaza de the Kings as
exhibitions of photos and other performance, as well as a solidarity concert after the dinner together.
On Wednesday, July 17, we held a meeting with Ceuta associations in the El Príncipe neighborhood, one of the most humble neighborhoods in
the city where inequalities become more than patent. There we could see how is the reality of so many people who do not have "papers" and
therefore lack essential rights to be invisible to the State. In this regard, it is worth highlighting the work carried out by Senegalese as
Digmun, in constant struggle for the dignity of women, boys and girls.
In the afternoon we went to a brief presentation of the National Federation of the Agricultural Sector of the UMT in the House of Culture,
to learn about the reality of so many cross-border women.
The screening of the film / documentary "Guerrero" was very interesting, where one of its protagonists (Mario) has been a caravan
participant and has contributed his testimony and experience as a migrant. Mario has been looking for his missing brother for a long time,
who is also trying to find a life opportunity. In Mexico, Mario participates and collaborates recovering the body of deceased migrants.
On Thursday, July 18, we arrived in Jerez de la Frontera. The first thing we did was collaborate and participate in a protest parade from
the town hall to the Plaza del Arenal where we read a manifesto against the borders and in defense of a dignified reception of migrants. In
the afternoon we were present in the tribute to the victims of the Civil War and Franco's repression in Scout Park. There the symbolic rodeo
of the statue of the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera was made, still visible in this place of the city. At night we enjoy a meeting of
anti-racist and solidarity football in the sports hall Chapín.
We entered Seville on Friday, July 19. The first thing that is done is a press conference at the Salt Pier, next to the Tolerance monument.
At the same time, another group of women and men celebrates a meeting with the support group for the Solidarity Flotilla with Gaza and
several events are held on the Guadalquivir River with volunteers.
We continue traveling to Huelva to participate at 6 pm in a rally at the headquarters of the FOE, the Onubense Federation of Entrepreneurs,
with the aim of denouncing the over-exploitation of foreign women who survive as day laborers.
On Saturday July 20 we are in Lepe (Huelva) where we attend in the morning to the international presentations on "origin and destination".
Here, several Moroccan companions of the FNSA-UMT and the AMDH tell us their experiences to know how is the process of intermediation of the
contracts at the origin of the temporary women of Huelva in Morocco and also to know and consolidate future working relationships.
In the afternoon we participate in the visit to several settlements of migrants existing in this area of Andalusia and we have dinner in the
shelter squatted by migrants where we collaborate with the cleaning of the place and help in the arrangement of some electrical
installations. The sub-Saharan companions offered us a small spontaneous concert
After dinner together we organize ourselves in small groups to reflect and draw conclusions from our trip.
On Sunday July 21, it is time to return. During the bus journey we held a final assembly to jointly assess all the activities and
experiences lived during the days in which the caravan has been developed this year.
Rosa Calf
https://cgt.org.es/cronica-caravana-abriendo-fronteras/
------------------------------
Message: 3
More than 75 people gathered in front of the Saguenay Courthouse to denounce feminicides, to honor the memory of these women and force the
government to put in place measures to curb all forms of violence against women . In Saguenay, the action was organized by La Maison Isa -
Calacs. In the past five weeks, 4 women have been murdered: Astrid Declerck in Montreal, December 25; Jaël Cantin in Mascouche, in
Lanaudière, January 16; Annie Koneak in Kujjuaq, in Nunavik, on January 18 and Marylène Lévesque, on January 22, in Quebec. Another woman,
Dahia Khellaf, as well as her two sons were killed in their residence in eastern Montreal on December 10. In Canada, there is a femicide
every 2.5 days. According to the Coalition of Women's Groups in the Capitale-Nationale region, which organized a similar vigil before the
National Assembly, 1,128 women and children have been murdered by a spouse or ex-spouse in Quebec since the anti-feminist attack perpetrated
30 years earlier at the École polytechnique de Montréal. Vigils also took place in front of the courthouses in Sherbrooke and Gatineau.
by Collectif Emma Goldman
http://ucl-saguenay.blogspot.com/2020/02/chicoutimi-vigile-contre-les-feminicides.html
------------------------------
Message: 4
(NEW TIME AND LOCATION) ---- Sunday, February 2nd @ The Seneca ---- 7:30PM - 9:30PM ---- 582 Seneca Ave., Ridgewood ---- The Metropolitan
Anarchist Coordinating Council (MACC) will be holding an organizing assembly at The Seneca, 582 Seneca Ave. in Ridgewood. Please attend and
invite your friends and comrades. Organizing assemblies are open to all of those who have participated in MACC working groups or general
assemblies! If you can't arrive on time, feel free to come late. ---- The organizing assembly is MACC's primary decision making body and
deals with the nuts and bolts of MACC as an organization and its infrastructure. These assemblies are a forum where we explore and attempt
to address the wider needs of MACC and the anarchist movement in NYC. We also use these meetings to set the agenda and the tone for general
assemblies ("GAs" ), and to check in with working groups.
The next General Assembly will be on Friday, February 7th at Verso Books. There will be an orientation at 6:30pm and the assembly will begin
at 7:00pm.
Thanks and we hope to see you there!
- MACC
For more information, visit www.macc.nyc.
To get in contact, email us at info@macc.nyc.
Follow us on Twitter or Facebook.
Find more MACC events here.
facebook.com/events/447163726190783
https://mailchi.mp/macc/macc-organizing-assembly-tomorrow-128-7pm-892620
------------------------------
Message: 5
Lucy Parsons remains an under recognized yet powerful figure of American radicalism. New scholarship into her life and background is welcome
but as this review suggests the recently published Goddess of Anarchy by Jacqueline Jones has a number of critical flaws. ---- Jacqueline
Jones. Goddess of Anarchy: The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical. New York: Basic Books, 2017. ---- By Jon Bekken ---- Lucy
Parsons's Anarchism ---- Despite her central role in the Haymarket events and five decades as a leading activist in the anarchist movement,
Lucy Parsons has received little attention from historians. Until this volume, there was only Carolyn Ashbaugh's Lucy Parsons: An American
Revolutionary (1976/2013) and Gail Ahren's anthology of her writings, Lucy Parsons: Freedom, Equality & Solidarity-Writings & Speeches,
1878-1937 (2004). Jacqueline Jones, professor of women's and southern history at the University of Texas at Austin, has done extensive
research into Parsons's life and written what will likely be the definitive biography for years to come. Yet despite her impressive
scholarship and extensive citations, Jones does not fully grasp the nuances of the radical and labor movements-and especially the anarchist
movement-of the time.
Jones has done extensive work with primary sources to document Lucy Parsons's birth and early years as a slave, before refashioning herself
in the early years of Emancipation. The certainty with which Jones derides Lucy Parsons's "fiction about her origins" (p. ix) goes well
beyond the documentary record-relying heavily on an 1886 newspaper article Jones terms "the Rosetta Stone of Lucy Parsons's early life" (p.
361n1), but the argument that she was born a slave is persuasive. Although Jones dismisses Parsons's claim to Mexican heritage, her birth
name, Lucia, suggests otherwise. There seems to be no surviving evidence as to who her father was; Jones speculates that it was either the
man who owned her mother, Thomas Taliferro, "or another white man" (p. 12). Jones's documentation of Parsons's final decades is less
impressive, no doubt largely because Chicago police and the FBI seized her papers and books in the aftermath of the fire that killed her.
In Texas, where she changed her name to Lucy and met and married Confederate soldier turned Reconstruction Republican Albert Parsons, the
Parsonses defied the racial status quo and worked to build a multiracial alliance before fleeing north to Chicago. While official records
might be afforded less deference (Jones concludes, for example, that Albert lied about his age based upon an 1850 census report listing his
birth in 1845 rather than 1848-something that could be a result of clerical error or confusion, especially as both parents were dead within
months of the interview), she draws on a rich array of primary sources for this period.
Lucy Parsons and Race
Jones criticizes Parsons for denying her African American heritage after fleeing Texas, and especially for failing to adequately address the
violent oppression African Americans faced or to organize among Chicago's African American population. Albert and Lucy Parsons only
occasionally addressed this reign of terror in their speeches and writings after leaving Texas, although when they did address it they
consistently denounced racism, and the anarchist International Working People's Association (IWPA) program demanded equal rights. Chicago
was hardly a safe place for African Americans. Illinois's infamous black codes were repealed in 1870 and its antimiscegenation law only in
1874, the year after the Parsonses arrived in Chicago. African Americans remained a tiny proportion of the Chicago population until the
early 1900s. Lucy Parsons was far less involved in organizing by the time a substantial African American population had developed in
Chicago, largely focused on preserving the memory of the Haymarket Martyrs and working to expose contemporary repression, often through the
lens of the Haymarket legacy. Indeed, Lucy Parsons shared a platform with the mother of one of the Scottsboro "boys" during this period.
Chicago and the Haymarket Affair
In Chicago, the Parsonses quickly became active in the labor and socialist movements, joining a handful of English-speakers in what was a
predominantly immigrant movement. The movement soon abandoned electoral reform, and Albert and Lucy joined efforts to build the IWPA. Jones
states that native-born IWPA activists "presented themselves as the new abolitionists ...[but]most native-born workers found this analogy
highly offensive" (p. 121). References to wage slavery might connect with immigrants, she contends, but to "white, American-born men" such
rhetoric registered as an insult. No doubt some found it so, but the language of wage slavery continued to be employed well into the
twentieth century, suggesting that it resonated for many. And, of course, immigrants made up the core of Chicago's working class. Jones
insists that the Parsonses' rejection of religion, voting, and temperance alienated them from ordinary workers, ignoring the substantial
numbers who joined "free-thought" and anarchist organizations, were in any event denied the right to vote as immigrants, and held their
meetings and celebrations in taverns and beer gardens. At the same time, she criticizes Lucy Parsons for her failure "to speak openly and
honestly of her enslavement as a youth and of her free-spirited sexuality" (p. 348). Jones believes Parsons had a number of sexual partners
both before marrying Albert Parsons and after he was hanged; she offers strong evidence for some, but for many others little more than
speculation.
Lucy Parsons is of course best remembered for her (and Albert's) role in the Haymarket events, and for her decades-long crusade to keep the
memory of the Haymarket Martyrs alive and to prevent future such outrages. Jones's account of Haymarket relies heavily upon Timothy
Messer-Kruse, who devoted two books to resuscitating the prosecutors' case against the Martyrs and imagining an international anarchist
terrorist conspiracy. (It being impossible to defend the trial as fair to contemporary audiences, Messer-Kruse falls back on the claim that
the trial was acceptable by the standards of the time. One need only look to the international protests and Governor Altgeld's pardon of the
surviving martyrs to see that the trial outraged contemporary sensibilities.) Jones acknowledges in a footnote that Messer-Kruse's attempt
to vindicate the police and prosecutors is controversial (citing but a single critique), but this does not seem to have discouraged heavy
reliance on his deeply flawed work.
The resulting account is in many ways reminiscent of Henry David's (uncited) History of the Haymarket Affair (1936), with its emphasis on
dynamite talk to explain the brutal repression of Chicago's radical labor movement. Somehow, while she acknowledges the mainstream press's
advocacy of murder of tramps and labor activists and the severe violence police routinely meted out on picket lines, labor demonstrations,
and radical meetings, she does not adequately take this context into account when criticizing the movement's rhetoric. This was an era when
soldiers were routinely dispatched to suppress labor disputes, and courts treated labor unions as criminal conspiracies (something she
suggests on page 318 began in the 1920s). Given this reality, it should not be surprising that activists were looking for means to defend
themselves. German and Czech immigrants in Chicago organized workers' militias, but these were promptly outlawed. Western miners did in fact
use dynamite as they defended themselves against company and government thugs, martial law, and concentration camps. It is no coincidence
that the first popular history of the American labor movement was titled Dynamite (Louis Adamic, 1931, 1935/2008), or that a more recent
history of press coverage of labor disputes during this era was titled The Great Industrial War (Troy Rondinone, 2009).
It is surely worth remembering that the Haymarket rally was called in response to the police murder of workers picketing the McCormick
Reaper Works, and that there was no violence at the rally until police attacked it. Who threw the bomb (which almost certainly killed fewer
people than the indiscriminate police gunfire) remains a matter of conjecture, though the anarchists' Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung was
convinced that the police were responsible and had killed their own as a result of their incompetence.
Jones's unremitting hostility to anarchism pervades the book. She insists that "principled anarchists ... would have refused counsel[at the
Haymarket trial], arguing that the state-run proceedings were inherently corrupt" (p. 145). That it was an inherently corrupt show trial is
beyond dispute, but does that mean the defendants should meekly go like lambs to the slaughter? Jones understands anarchism's (or at least
the IWPA's) "guiding principle" to revolve around "burst[s]of violence that would awaken the masses from their slumber and impel them to
overthrow their masters" (p. 90). This misunderstanding flows naturally into her obsession with dynamite, and she attributes the Parsonses'
continued involvement in a range of organizing and propaganda as evidence not of her misunderstanding, but rather of incoherence on their
part. She also seems not to recognize that there was an actual mass movement of which they were a part. Jones resorts to the passive voice
when discussing August Spies "becoming" editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung and "turn[ing]it into an anarchist publication" (p. 91). It was in
fact an elected position, and the movement chose to replace an advocate of electoral reform with an avowed anarchist. Similarly, in Jones's
account, "Albert withdrew from the[Trades & Labor Assembly], taking twelve unions with him," and "formed a new federation-the Chicago
Central Labor Union (CLU), which consisted of an estimated 12,000 members, rivaling the TLA" (p. 93). In actual fact, the CLU was a movement
initiative, grounded in an immigrant working class that had developed its own unions, cultural and political associations, and daily and
weekly newspapers.
The IWPA's and CLU's relations with the mainstream labor movement were often contentious. Jones criticizes Albert Parsons for his
denunciation of the National Typographical Union and other business unions, suggesting that "his animus toward the local seemed to stem not
only from broad ideological differences with its members but also from his bitter memories of those members who had abandoned him when he
was blacklisted" (p. 121). Of course, their decision to allow employers to blacklist a union member because of his political activities was
symptomatic of a class-collaborationist approach that led the Typographers to routinely scab on other newspaper unions and to boast, when
they were finally locked out by publishers in 1947, that the union had gone one hundred years without striking. For much of her life, Lucy
Parsons made her living as a dressmaker-Jones says she "probably" employed one or two assistants in a small "factory" with Albert as her
"business partner" and salesman (p. 55, 69). The evidence cited to support this insinuation that she was an employer is a business card for
"Parsons & Co." (pp. 372-3n1).
Jones repeatedly asserts that the Parsonses routinely lied about their lives and about the Haymarket events, including when they challenged
the prosecution's claim that the martyrs had planned violence at the Haymarket rally, noting that they would not have brought their children
with them if they had any reason to expect violence. Jones says the claim that they were at the Haymarket was "untrue," a "myth," and notes
that no one testified during the trial to seeing the children at the rally (pp. 150, 200, 344, 349). Elsewhere she acknowledges that the
entire family was at Haymarket Square that evening when the rally was scheduled to begin, before proceeding to a meeting of the American
Group of the IWPA called to discuss organizing seamstresses. Jones suggests that the meeting was called for some other unspecified, sinister
purpose, but offers not the slightest evidence for this. Albert and several others left that meeting when a messenger arrived saying
speakers were urgently needed at the Haymarket rally. Jones says they "may have arranged for someone else to take their children home" from
the meeting, though Albert and Lucy insisted they had brought them to the rally (p. 132). It is not clear why she insists they were lying
about this, as no evidence contradicting them has ever been produced. It appears that the children were sent home at some point, as the
rally ran until 10:30 p.m., when it was broken up by the police attack, but the details have never been established. Jones claims that the
Parsonses must have known that an attack against police was planned, offering as evidence only the fact that Albert went into hiding after
police opened fire on the demonstration. This suggestion is unsupported by any evidence (police were not even present until after the mayor
left, creating an opportunity to attack the rally), and seems to have been concocted to support the claim "that Albert needed the ruse of
his children's presence there in order to dispel suspicions that he was privy to the information" (p. 152).
Colorized historical drawing depicting the Haymarket bombing with speaker on podium as bomb blasts in background. Image of Albert Parsons is
overlayed.
Further Problems with Goddess of Anarchy
A major theme of the book is Jones's concern that the Parsons paid insufficient attention to racial oppression after leaving Texas and that
Lucy betrayed her heritage by trying to pass as Mexican. She devotes several passages to demonstrating that reporters did not go along with
this. She also discusses instances where Lucy Parsons addressed racial issues, including an article ("one of only a handful of Alarm pieces
devoted to southern blacks," p. 127) on a massacre of 23 African Americans in Carrollton, Mississippi. In that article, Parsons suggested
that blacks were terrorized not because of their race but because they were poor and powerless, and that the key to their liberation lay in
arming themselves to enforce their rights. Jones claims Lucy Parsons made only a single passing reference to lynching and black oppression
in her writings and "denigrated the black freedom struggle," including "the opportunity to advance within the workplace, to swim at a
lakefront beach on a hot summer day,[and]to send their children to decent schools" (p. 349). The first claim is disproven by Jones's own
book (though there are other writings which she does not discuss), even if racism received less attention than it deserved; the second
appears to be a complete fabrication, unsupported by any footnote or textual evidence. In 1915, Parsons agreed to speak under the auspices
of the African American Alpha Suffrage Club (p. 302), raised funds for the Magonistas, and offered her Spanish-speaking skills to the
movement. Jones, nonetheless, insists that Parsons did not speak Spanish, offering no source for the claim.
Two years later Parsons embraced the Russian Revolution, and Jones seizes on the moment of revolutionary enthusiasm to tar Parsons with "the
Bolsheviks' bloody suppression of their political opponents, evidenced, for example, in genocidal progroms against Jews" (p. 304). That the
Bolsheviks were ruthless dictators is now beyond dispute, and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and other radicals published
firsthand exposés at least as early as 1921. (Parsons never confronted the Bolsheviks' betrayal, whether out of distrust of press accounts
or a misguided commitment to left unity. But she also refused to join the Communist Party, identifying as an anarchist until the day she
died.) But genocidal progroms were the specialty of the old czarist regime and the White armies that sought to restore it; like the
Makhnovshchyna, the Bolsheviks condemned progroms and executed progromists. Here Jones seems (the relevant paragraph is footnoted, but the
note does not address the issue) to conflate the official anti-Semitism that flourished under Stalin with the earlier years of the Revolution.
Jones describes Lucy Parsons' writing as "descriptive and colorful[,]exploit[ing]melodramatic themes and[taking]considerable care in
fashioning her prose" (p. 104). But this does not discourage her from scandal-mongering and constant digs. There is extensive speculation
about her relationships after Albert's judicial murder, supported by contemporary gossip and by court testimony by one man following a
violent incident when she barred him from her home. Her strained relationship with the Pioneer Aid Society, which maintained the Haymarket
Monument and supported the Martyrs' survivors, is documented, as is her discomfort with more "American" elements in the twentieth-century
anarchist movement, which emphasized cultural rebellion and sexual liberty in ways that left her uncomfortable. Instead, Lucy Parsons
preferred to work with immigrants, who in any event remained a strong majority of both the anarchist movement and Chicago's working class.
Apparently convinced that Lucy Parsons cared more for the spotlight than for the emancipation of the wage slaves, Jones suggests that she
might have resented the failure of Columbian Exposition organizers to invite her to speak in 1893. There is not the slightest evidence that
she sought or expected such an invitation. It is not as if Parsons was not regularly invited to address rallies and meetings during this
period. Indeed, Jones seems surprised that Parsons and other anarchists sometimes spoke at "respectable" venues; this is an artifact of her
pervasive present-mindedness. Albert Parsons and his colleagues often spoke to such audiences in the 1880s; Karl Marx was a correspondent
for the New York Tribune; and radicals and reformers regularly engaged with one another through World War I at least (and if one considers
the Popular Front, for decades beyond). In part, I suspect, this engagement was prompted by the undeniable brutality of the era and a shared
understanding that unprecedented concentrations of power posed an imminent danger to nearly everyone.
As she moves into the 1910s, Jones focuses increasingly on broader social trends and Parsons recedes into the background for pages at a
time. There are some curious choices in the extensive sections where Jones relies on the secondary literature, and some places where she
seems to have misread her sources. For example, she discusses a letter Parsons wrote to Eugene V. Debs "to congratulate him on his decision
not to beg for the restoration of his citizenship after his release from prison" (p. 325). While it is true that Debs was under the
impression that he had been stripped of his "right of citizenship," by which he seems to have meant the right to vote, the source Jones
cites for this letter makes it clear a few pages earlier that Debs was not stripped of his citizenship (and indeed could not have been), and
retained the right to vote under Indiana state law.[1]
In her final years, Lucy Parsons tried to bridge ideological divides, working with the Communist Party-dominated International Labor Defense
but also the IWW and the anarchist Free Society Group. This led to much criticism, though as anarcho-syndicalist Sam Dolgoff, who met her in
Chicago when he was beginning his own revolutionary career, noted, "For her, anyone against capitalism was ipso facto a revolutionist and
she saw no reason why all of them should not bury the hatchet" (p. 326). Nearly blind and increasingly frail, Parsons was killed at age
ninety-one when her house caught fire March 7, 1942, but remained a rebel to the day she died. Police officers and FBI agents stole her
library and any surviving papers-no doubt a fitting end to a lifetime of struggle against the forces of oppression, but one which will
continue to frustrate historians exploring the life of this remarkable woman.
https://blackrosefed.org/review-dont-throw-lucy-parsons-under-the-liberal-bus/
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