WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, UCL AL #344 - Culture, Reading: Mollie Steimer, I have nothing to lose but my chains (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

Nada Editions publish a short work retracing the life and struggles of
Mollie Steimer (1897-1980), Jewish internationalist anarchist activist,
born in Russia, she arrived in the United States at the age of 15,
deported for the first time in Bolshevik Russia in 1921 for her
activities as an anarchist activist, expelled from the U.S.S.R. in 1923
to Germany, she settled for a time in France where, stateless and
pursued by Vichy, she fled to Mexico where she ended her life. His life
and his struggles will intersect with some of the great figures of
anarchism: Emma Goldman, Alexandre Berkman, Voline.

She remained a tireless activist all her life: imprisoned in capitalist
jails in the United States, arrested and monitored by the GPU (Soviet
state police), she worked all her life in support of anarchist prisoners
in the U.S.S.R. through different associations, defense committees and
support funds.

Close to Voline, she denounced the "Organizational Platform" which she
considered "that by asking for the creation of a central executive
committee", it contained "the seeds of authoritarianism" and "came into
contradiction with the principles of basis of anarchism" namely "local
autonomy and initiative". Strongly marked by what she saw and
experienced in the U.S.S.R. on the part of "authoritarian communists" -
her short text "Communists are jailers" reproduced in the book is an
illustration of this - she will maintain a distrust of communists and
any attempt at centralism.

Composed of a long tribute text by Paul Avrich, historian, specializing
in anarchist movements in the United States and Russia, and several
articles by Mollie Steiner, the work pays homage to an anarchist
activist whose life and struggles have always been dictated by simple
principles to which we subscribe: "I will defend my idea, libertarian
communism, wherever I am".

David (UCL Savoies)

Mollie Steimer, I have nothing to lose but my chains, Nada editions,
October 2023, 128 pages, 10 euros.

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Mollie-Steimer-Je-n-ai-rien-a-perdre-que-mes-chaines
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