After having been the land of asylum for the forty-eighters, then for
the Communards in exile, liberal England welcomed flocks of Frenchanarchists. And in particular during the period of great repression of
the years 1892-1895, when the proscription was so numerous between Soho
and Fitzrovia that it formed a sort of colony there nicknamed "Little
France". In May 1893, the daily newspaper Le Matin saw it as "a center
of international propaganda", an "anarchist Mecca" where it was
"fashionable to pilgrimage".
For a long time, we only knew about the environment of French
proscription in London what Charles Malato, with his delicious sense of
anecdote, recounted in 1897 in The Joyousness of Exile. The
Franco-British historian Constance Bantman, who has analyzed British and
French police reports and even probed the archives of the Quai d'Orsay,
gives us a much more complete history: she establishes the stages, the
trends, the geography.
The refugees met at the grocery store owned by ex-communard Victor
Richard and at Armand Lapie's bookstore. We passed around "the exile
press", libertarian leaflets like L'International, Le Tocsin or Le Père
Peinard. We sat at the Vrais amis restaurant or in the various shared
accommodations, and especially the clubs - the most famous of which was
the Autonomie club. Dilapidated, cramped, but equipped with a canteen
where French, Italian or German anarchists rubbed elbows, this club also
served as a dormitory for refugees who did not yet know where to stay.
Obviously, it also attracted police snitches and journalists looking for
sensationalism... A great soul, Louise Michel provided all she could in
financial assistance to the needy - even if it meant being exploited by
a few crooks. For a time, she even opened an international anarchist
school to educate the children of refugees!
But overall "Little France" did not leave good memories. It was an
atmosphere of survival in poverty, in waiting, in a rather deleterious
promiscuity made of mutual aid as much as acrimony. An embittered group
calling itself L'Anonymat, for example, used its energy to put up
vitriolic posters on the walls - no less than 14 in four years! -
against the "clowns" and "cowards" Malato, Pouget, Louise Michel or
Malatesta. Hatred of "pundits" by the obscure? Not only. A real
political divergence was asserting itself. Anonymity in fact embodied
the outraged protest of an anti-organizational and individualist
minority against the syndicalist turn then taking place in the anarchist
movement.
To explain this turning point, the historian Jean Maitron focused the
spotlight on Pouget and his famous article "À roublard, roublard et
demi" in the London edition of Père Peinard, introduced into France
through clandestine channels. Constance Bantman reopens the file, digs
deeper, and highlights the role of transnational discussion circles,
bringing together English (Mowbray), Italian (Agresti, Malatesta,
Merlino) and French (Pouget, Hamon, Malato) anarchists around The Torch.
This small, little-known newspaper kept the debate alive since 1892.
Observing the evolution of British trade unions towards direct action
(we then spoke of a "new unionism"), The Torch affirmed the need for a
revolutionary strategy within the syndicalism at the end of 1893. Malato
relayed these theses in Le Tocsin, then Pouget, with his own talent, in
Le Père Peinard.
There were subsequently many other bridges and exchanges, which led
Bantman to qualify the "allegedly canonical contrast between the
well-established and conservative British unions and, on the other hand,
the revolutionary French CGT, since they influenced each other and both
presented syntheses of reformist and revolutionary conceptions. It is
one of the fruits - not the only one - of this "first libertarian exile"
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Lire-Constance-Bantman-Un-premier-exil-libertaire-Les-anarchistes-francais-a
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten