In its work on mapping the figures of the Czech anarchist movement at the turn of
the 19th and 20th centuries, the Zádruha Historical Society this year focused,among other things, on the Glory of Herlas (1890-1915) and published a pamphletwith his texts, which were collected from the then Zádruha magazines and A youngpioneer. ---- Herlas belonged to a pre-war generation of young anarchistactivists. As a university student (he eventually became a mechanical engineer),he became involved in founding a student group of the Czech Anarchist Federation,worked in the Youth Club for Karlín and the surrounding area, and became involvedin anti-militaristic activities. Thanks to this activity, he quickly came underthe search of the police, was arrested in 1910 and the following year wassentenced to 6 months for the crime of "incomplete incitement to violate militaryservice". He ended his career at the age of twenty-five - in 1915 he fell on theBalkan front, the details of his death are unknown.In the introduction, the pamphlet deals with both his short life and what hemanaged to find out about him, as well as the aforementioned process in whichseveral anarchists were convicted. Its core is then a brief work "SocialQuestion", the individual chapters of which were based on the continuation of thethen Zádruz. But nowhere did I find any mention of what numbers were involved andin what year. In his text, Herlas abandons the faith of earlier generations inthe social revolution, which is certainly already on the horizon. He criticizesMarxism and the approach that enjoys the worse the better. He puts himself inparliamentarism and considers syndicalist direct action to be a kind ofreformism, and he holds the promised climax - a global general strike and a uniontakeover - only as a promise that cannot be fulfilled without the necessaryconditions. "The revolutionary enthusiasm of the anarchists is beginning to cooland to give way to a more sober assessment. You can't live by believing that ourdescendants will jump into the realm of freedom, and each of us also wants tolive more bearable and not be a martyr of an idea. "He realizes that people mustfirst want to live a better life and be able to live it. Subsequently, this stateof mind can turn into action. And the anarchists should help in this - to preparethe ground for a future society. The path is: "enlightenment and freedom toharmonize relations between people." In practice, it is a moral and economiceducation, where people are partners and not mentors and listeners. Thecooperating platforms for these two areas of activity can then be the anarchistfederation of propaganda and, on the other hand, the trade union.The other two articles also turn inside the movement. "Two goals" appeal, perhapstoo zealously, to the need for self-education and self-initiative, and "About us"addresses with youthful passion who is the right anarchist and warns against"romantics", because instead of working for an idea repressive effects on themovement. In the text of " Essay ", he states that the worker should not considerhimself a worker in the first place, but a human being. Then he can open thegates of his emancipation.The publication is undoubtedly an interesting probe into the thinking of younganarchists before the advent of World War II.Glory to Herlas: The Social Question and Other Essays. Historical AssociationZádruha, 2021. 48 pages A5, price 50 CZK. It can be ordered atspolekzadruha[a]riseup.net.https://www.afed.cz/text/7544/vychova-k-anarchii_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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