New article: Facebook announce crackdown against anarchists
http://www.redblacknotes.com/2020/08/20/facebook-announce-crackdown-against-anarchists/

OTD, 21 August, 1933, Goliardo Fiaschi was born in Carrara, Italy. A quarry labourer, Fiaschi joined the Italian resistance during WW2 aged just 13. After the war he became deeply involved in the Spanish resistance movement, suffering torture and two decades in prison for his role in the anti-fascist struggle.

You can read more on anarchist involvement in the Italian partisan resistance here:
https://libcom.org/history/red-years-black-years-anarchist-resistance-fascism-italy

OTD, 22 August, 1949, Ivan Morales Generalli was born in Bella Union, Uruguay. A humble worker, Generalli was a member of the Anarchist Federation of Uruguay. He would be martyred during the struggle against the dictatorship in 1974.

You can read more about the FAU here:
https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/n02wnq

You can read our introduction to Abraham Guillen, a theorist of anarchism connected to the FAU here: http://www.redblacknotes.com/2020/08/10/abraham-guillen-between-bakunin-and-marx-anarchism-socialism-and-the-economics-of-self-management/

You can read about the Trelew massacre here:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19952796

OTD, 23 August in 1927, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed by the electric chair in Charlestown State Prison, Massachusetts. Sacco and Vanzetti were Italian migrants and anarchists, falsely accused of murder during a robbery they did not commit. Despite one of the largest solidarity campaigns in world history, the men were nonetheless executed simply for their conviction as anarchists.

Read Howard Zinns beautiful essay on Sacco and Vanzetti here:
https://libcom.org/history/sacco-vanzetti-howard-zinn

#OTD 25 August, 1918 the First Pan-Russian Conference of Anarcho-Syndicalists was held in Moscow, Russia.
More info and links: https://mastodon.social/web/statuses/104749013642290071

On this day, 28 August 1882, the Mexican anarchist, poet, journalist and insurgent Práxedis Guerrero was born, near León, Guanajuato.

Was a key activist of the Mexican Liberal Party post it's re-organisation by the anarchist-communist Ricardo Flores Magón.

After Magón's gaoling in 1907, Guerrero coordinated PLM activity up to and into the start of the Mexican Revolution.

Guerrero was killed leading a band of insurgents against the dictatorship in December 1910.

Introduction to a book by AK Press on Guerrero here: https://intlibecosoc.wordpress.com/archived-articles/i-am-action-praxedis-guerrero-1882-1910/

"Only the Chinese workers have the ability to defeat the “Communist” Party – and only they have the right to say what succeeds them."

https://www.redblacknotes.com/2020/09/01/no-war-on-china/

On this day, the 2nd of September, in 1872, the fifth congress of the International Workingmen’s Association began in the Hague, the Netherlands. This congress would mark the apex of the factional fighting between the centralists, who favoured a hierarchical International, and the libertarians, who favoured a federalist International.

Marx and the centralists successfully gerrymandered a majority and expelled Bakunin, Guillaume and the federalists, and thus marking the formal break between anarchism and Marxism.

Rest in Power David Graber, 1961-2020
https://www.redblacknotes.com/2020/09/04/david-graeber-1961-2020/

On this day, 16 September 1923, the Japanese anarchists Itō Noe and Ōsugi Sakae were beaten and murdered in their home by police.

You can read more about Itō Noe here https://libcom.org/history/articles/1895-1923-ito-noe
You can read more about Ōsugi Sakae here https://libcom.org/library/osugi-sakae-biography

New article up on the blog from Iswed Tiggjan of Anarchist Communists Meanjin and Tommy Lawson of Geelong Anarchist Communists. Let us know what you think.
https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/01/22/a-covid-response-requires-a-fighting-workers-movement/

New article up on the blog.

Mick Armstrong is the sect-leader and chief theorist of Australia's leading Marxist sect, Socialist Alternative.

He's recently published a rather lengthy hatchetjob on anarchism, titled "Property is Sacred: How proudhon moulded anarchism".

Whether you have read Mick or not, you want to check out this comprehensive, hilarious and thorough dunking of Mick Armstrong and similarly dishonest Marxist critics of anarchism.

https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/02/18/the-poverty-of-mick-armstrongs-polemic/

Today, Red and Black Notes is proud to publish the first complete translation of Commentary on Armed Struggle and Foquismo in Latin America, 1972, by the Federación Anarquista Uruguaya.

This is an entirely new translation of the FAU's seminal critique of Foquismo by Campy Sino, with introduction by Tommy Lawson (Geelong Anarchist Communists).

"Are the comrades who have participated in the foco activity revolutionary? Yes. Is Foquismo an effective revolutionary conception? No. Foquismo is an erroneous revolutionary conception and as such negative and dangerous for the revolution. "

https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/04/02/copei-commentary-on-armed-struggle-and-foquismo-in-latin-america-1972-new-and-complete-translation/

Well, the federal election has been called for 21 May.

Tommy Lawson recently debated members of Socialist Unity on the question of electoral participation.

As half the far left throws everything it has into yet another doomed micro party tilt at Parliament, it's worth restating why anarchists abstain from bourgeois elections.

https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/04/10/why-do-anarchists-abstain-from-elections/

Red and Black Notes, alongside Garage Press and Distro, will be at the Incendium Radical Library zone fair next Sunday with a ra ge of stickers and zines. Come and say hi if you're about!

https://facebook.com/events/s/incendium-radical-library-and-/947386875970398/

Lest we forget:

The soldiers, generations of the working class sent to their deaths in the name of imperialist war.

The victims of rape in all countries in all wars.

The refugees fleeing violence and persecution, only to be persecuted by our government.

The conscientious objectors and anti war activists who refuse to march to the drums of another rich man’s war.

The civilian victims who have died and are dying in all wars, and all who have suffered and hungered in the shadows of bloated military budgets.

The custodians of this land who have fought, and fight, and who survive.

“If blood be the price of all your wealth, good God we have paid our share.”

* * *

Zine available in print ready pdf format, image gallery, and plain text.

https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/04/24/lest-we-forget/

https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/04/24/lest-we-forget/

New on the blog, article by the Melbourne Anarchist Communist Group:

"Anarchists and other activists in the United States should resist the calls to “put aside your petty differences and get behind the Democrats in November”. This is a recipe for disaster. "

https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/06/30/secure-abortion-rights-with-direct-action-and-mutual-aid/

New on the blog, article by Tommy Lawson on Francesco Fantin

"Francesco Giovanni Fantin was an Italian anarchist who migrated to Australia in 1924. Less than twenty years later, in November 1942, he was murdered by a fellow detainee in Interment Camp 14A, Loveday, South Australia. Born in 1901 in the small town of San Vito in Northern Italy, Francesco Fantins life was exemplary of a number of migrant anarchists to Australia and their efforts to continue the anti-fascist and workers struggle abroad."

https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/07/09/francesco-fantin-and-italian-anarchism-in-australia/

New on the Blog, Matt Crossin tackles some of the nonsense that gets bundled up under the label "dual power"
https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/07/18/anarchists-and-dual-power-situation-or-strategy/

New on the blog, Tommy Lawson marks the 86th anniversary of the Spanish Revolution with a bit of forgotten history from the May Events
https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/07/19/josep-rebull-the-poum-and-the-spanish-revolution/

New on the blog, Matt Crossin tackles horizontalism
https://www.redblacknotes.com/2022/07/25/anarchists-and-neo-anarchists-horizontalism-and-autonomous-spaces/