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taki118 · 4 years ago

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Go Watch the Venture Brothers

So just heard the complete and utter Bullshit news that Adult Swim has cancelled one of (if not the best shows) they have the Venture Bros. This series is one of those shows that for WHATEVER reason never got to the level of fandom Rick and Morty has even though they’ve been at the genre parody game longer and in my opinion better.

The series is about Rusty Venture former boy adventurer and failing super scientist who in an attempt to keep his head above water in debt goes around with his two boys Hank and Dean, and bodyguard Brock on misadventues while various legal archnemisis go after him, such as the Monarch.

So if you never watched or never heard of this 7 season series let me give you a break down on why you should,

1) Art Style & Animation

Venture bros is one of those rare Adult aimed animated series that that really truly tries to utilize their medium to the best of their abilities. Season 1 had like such a small budget and corners had to be cut so it can be a little hard to watch at times.

But with each passing season they get a little better, a little more fluid, go just a little harder and it truly feels rewarding to watch. Like seeing an artist you follow online improve over the years. Like they COULD have stayed with the choppy and stiff animation from season 1 it fit right in with its fellow adult animated shows but it didn’t. They strove for quality to have something that matched the story they were telling.

2) The Writing

Venture Bros has some of the tightest and consistently great writing of ANY serialized show I’ve seen, adult, animated or other wise. Wanna know why? Cause it’s all done by TWO people (save for like one ep each season where one other person is allowed to touch their baby). Yeah TWO people and they work their asses off every season to interject, humor, refrences, parody, plot and character development in equal measure.

3) Character Development

Um yes in case you were wondering that’s right an adult animated show has CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT that holds as the series goes on. Not to give spoilers but characters will go through changes in alignment, relationships will develop and change, some characters will go through negative arcs where they are straight up unbareable for a season before coming out the other side even better than they were before. There is no end of epsiode or even end of season reset. Characters, settings, and dynamics all change over the course of the show and it feels just so god damn good.

4) Story Development

Just like the characters the story of the Venture Bros grows and changes each season. Things that are set up even as early as season one are paid off as the series goes on. Like not to be that bitch but you know how RIck and Morty teases an overarching plot ALL THE TIME but like will often just spit in the face of fans hoping for more than like one episode a season addressing it? Yeahhhhhhh that doesnt happen here, fans are consistently rewarded for putting the time in to rewatch and really think about what happened in the series. Characters that are seen in the background or are just referenced by other characters will be brought in to be recurring characters, things that start off as a small detail or gag will be given larger relevance and each time they do this you get that “OH I remember that from last season! So thats what it was!” The writers WANT you to rewatch, they WANT you to analyze and they WANT you to theorize, and they give you a show that gives back the time you put in.

5) Parody & Reference

This series does a great thing with parody. They make real characters who are just as enjoyable as the characters they parody, they make story lines that both poke fun at the absurdity of the media but shows the writers love for it. So often parody and references are just used to mock the thing but with Venture Bros you feel the love and care so when you know the thing being parodied you can laugh but feel good about laughing cause they are never laughing at a thing maybe you cared for in your youth but rather laughing with it.

And it’s never just one thing. When they parody a thing its often layered with other things to make it even more unique. Scooby-Doo is overlayed with famous criminals, Laura Croft is mixed Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, GI Joe is given the look of the Village People and so on. They never go for the easy joke or reference. Hell theres an episode that starts with them reciting the lyrics to David Bowies Space Oddity for really no reason other than they could. They weave these things in naturally with their setting and characters so nothing feels out of place. Like if you dont catch a reference or parody you dont feel like “I think this isa reference to something?” like a LOT of things do not just adult animated shows. You arent taken out of the moment cause it all feels so natural.

6) The Characters

God damn these characters, I could go on for hours about these characters. From main to one off these are some of the most likeable characters you can find. I mean it when I say I can’t think of a single character I wish they had cut cause they are all so well created. Even the ones I hate i have fun hating cause they were made to be that way. I’ll be good though I’ll only talk about my absolute top faves.

- The Monarchs

You ever sit and wish villain couples could have functional healthy relationships? Well look no further than Malcom Fitzcarraldo aka The Monarch and Dr. Shelia Girlfriend (yes that is her last name). The Monarch is a high strung impulsive saturday morning cartoon villain whos tendency to over react is only matched by his unspecified hatred of Dr. Venture. And Dr. G is his nonsense partner in crime who will cut a bitch if they don’t play by their admittedly weird rules. Both characters are great on their own but are better together. Though that doesnt mean they always get along. Like a real couple they have their ups and downs they fight, break up, make-up and grow stronger in their relationship with each season.

- Shore Leave

Ok ok so I want you to imagine James Bond, mixed with GI Joe simmering in a cocktail of the most flamboyant gay men you have ever seen and you have one of my favorite gay characters/characters in general. Shore Leave is a member of OSI (the shows SHEILD/GI Joe parody organization) he’s loud, brash, flippant, sassy and highly competent at his job loving every second of getting to beat bad guys down within an inch of their life. I love seeing him play off the stoic Brock and the two have this great brotherly dynamic that’s never called into question. He also gets to have a very cute romance with Al the Alchemist (who is also great). I could talk about this man all day.

- Dr. Rusty Venture

They did such a good job with this man. He’s a self serving, sexist, perverted, whinny, self important asshole and yet you feel pity and genuine sympathy for him and want him to succeed. You can see how Dr. V was given a raw deal by his father who seemed to care more about his adventures than his sons well being and how this molded him into the bitter man he is today, but on the flip side you can see where he chose to use that as a crutch for his worst behaviors and impulses. Seeing him slowly grow and change and be an actual good father to his boys while all the while still be a giant dick is actually really great.

- Dr. Byron Orpheus

Ahhhhh Dr. Orpheus part Dr. Strange Parody part busybody stay at home dad, he’s just such a delight. Dr. Orpheus is a divorcee, with an unfulfilling job of maintaining order to the cosmos (which isnt as hard as one might think), and uses his magical ablities in ways most of us would (ie menial tasks and home chores). Overly dramatic and affectionate Dr. O is a delight whenever he appears, but he’s at his best around his daughter and old friends The Order of the Triad.

Again I can go on but all these characters ranging from main to recurring are crafted with the utmost care for you to want to see them succeed or fail, to see them again even if you know it’ll never happen, and want them to cross paths with other characters.

The Venture Bros is one of those series that I will ALWAYS recommend even to the pickiest of humor tastes. But if you don’t believe its as good as I said or don’t think the concept is to your tastes I’ll recommend a few eps that I think best show off the base idea of the series without giving much away. In terms of plot and spoilers, though somethings wont make a lot of sense.

- S1 ep10 "Tag Sale – You're It!" - Dr. V is having a yard sale so of course all manner of costumed weirdos show up. - S2 ep5 "Twenty Years to Midnight" - basically a fetch quest around the world to save the planet with daddy issues - S3 ep2 "The Doctor Is Sin" - Again daddy issues but with one of the best recurring characters and a great showcase of the series deeper emotional plots - S4 ep6 "Self-Medication" - Really embraces the parody as Rusty goes to a former boy adventurer support group. Anyway the show is 7 seasons with 80 episodes, please go watch it. I will never forgive @adultswim for cancelling what was to be their final season. And in closing GO TEAM VENTURE!

#venture bros #the venture bros #venture brothers #adultswim #adult animated shows #animated shows #animation #go watch this show #go watch #adult animation

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mister-tom-a-dildo-lover · 6 years ago

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Strive Pt. 19

{PART 1} {PART 2} {PART 3} {PART 4} {PART 5} {PART 6} {PART 7} {PART 8} {PART 9} {PART 10} {PART 11} {PART 12} {PART 13} {PART 14} {PART 15} {PART 16} {PART 17} {PART 18}

Pair: Tomarry

Rating: M-E(depends)

Tags: Mild Language, Homosexuality, Sexism, Obsessed Tom, Time-Travel/Dimension-Travel, Teacher/Student, Eventual Romance, Teacher-Harry, Grey!Harry, MoD(sort of), Death!being,

Tom began enforcing his demands over his fellow Slytherins. The end of the year exams were coming sooner than any of them would like to think, and for the seventh years that meant their N.E.W.T.s. And as those were always more difficult, they required more studying and consideration than anything else at present.

He wanted the entirety of Slytherin to do well on their exams. Even the somewhat challenged students were expected to scrape by with Acceptables because he refused to have his minions poorly representing him in any manner. And they all knew that if there was so much as one Troll, all hell would be set loose upon them.

Their reviews in class had become more intense as well.

Professor Potter had been the most strict with them because he expected more out of his students than any other teacher had during Tom's time at Hogwarts. He had a mental scale of where seventeen/eighteen year olds should be in terms of magical skills and put them to the test during every class and every club meeting. He pushed them harder than he ever had before and didn't accept excuses.

The interesting thing about his teachings, was that he focused a lot more on defensive tactics even while using offensive spells. Potter didn't want anyone to end up stranded should they somehow get caught in the crossfires of Grindelwald's forces. He wanted to arm them with the means to escape such a situation should it potentially arise, but he did not want them to have to fight for their lives.

And Tom hadn't minded when he realised just what the man he admired was doing. Potter actually cared. Sometimes it felt like the teachers truly didn't care about the students because they were just passing faces. Within seven years this batch would be gone and would be replaced like always. Every school was a revolving door basically. But it was obvious that Potter cared and was trying his best to help their future endeavours.

The man had been new but was sacrificing sleep and time because he wanted to help the students learn more easily. Because he wanted them to actually reach the potential they all possessed. Because Potter saw something in each and every student and decided that it was something worth his attention. Something worth the amount of effort he put in to help them.

Personally, Tom couldn't say he saw the same, but he at least appreciated that Potter would be so optimistic. Even when optimism seemed pointless sometimes. At least Potter had faith in his students. And he didn't judge them based upon prior actions of theirs.

All Tom needed to do was to study as much as possible in between all the small tutoring sessions he'd been giving to the younger students who'd been paying for his help.

He really needed to become a teacher. There was just something about watching people succeed because of him. And he knew it was because of him since so many of those students would still be utterly hopeless without his aid.

Tom had to make sure that when he came to Hogwarts to apply for a job, he did it when Dumbledore wasn't around so he couldn't attempt to interfere. And he knew very well that Dumbledore would no doubt try to put a wrench in his plans even if he didn't know what they were exactly.

The Slytherins were whispering thanks to the recent article in the Daily Prophet. Dumbledore had been landed with major fines though the details had remained private. Still, the knowledge of his suffering made many hearts feel lighter as the N.E.W.T.s drew nearer. The Slytherins were espeically pleased with this information since it felt like the man was finally getting his comeuppance after years of being an arsehole with contradictory views.

Dippet was constantly on edge during meals recently, and it probably had to do with how he hated confrontation. The man was like a wet doormat and didn't really like doing much of anything. He was also relatively easily to manipulate if one knew how.

His former Deputy being investigated made him look bad for never noticing anything he had done before Lord Malfoy lodged a complaint. And people liked to talk in the wizarding world. No one was a stranger to rumours and Tom had heard a few people wondering none too quietly, if he'd been in on Dumbledore's actions because Dumbledore was so famous so he'd get away with more than others would. Had Dippet possibly turned a blind eye to his attitude because of who Dumbledore was? Or had Dumbledore bribed him somehow?

This left the man in a precarious position and he had to tread carefully lest he lose his own job.

Truthfully, Potter would be a better Headmaster than anyone else on the staff.

"Thank Merlin that it's all over!" said Abraxas as he pretended to faint onto one of the green sofas of the Common Room. "I never want to see another book or piece of parchment every again!" he cried dramatically.

"If you wish to become the Lord of your House you'll have to suck it up," said Nott blandly, holding up the very thing Abraxas claimed to never want to lay eyes on again. "Otherwise I'm certain your parents will gladly try for another child if it bothers you that much."

There was a shared look of disgust from all but Tom, who didn't care enough about things not about him to be emotionally invested in them. Tom was busy reading through the review he'd made for his Charms N.E.W.T. and nodded to himself as he noted every single thing that had been asked on the Theoretical exam. And then of course the Practical where he'd scored an extra point for his Corporeal Patronus.

That same day, he'd also taken his Transfiguration N.E.W.T. and he'd gotten an extra five points because of his Animagus form.

Yes, Tom had succeeded! Months ago he'd done the entire ritual to the exact measure and had finally managed to figure out his Animagus form. No surprise, it was a snake. And use of the Room of Requirement allowed him to make use of a room full of mirrors so her could see just what kind of snake he was.

He was an all-black Horned Viper with equally black eyes to show that he wasn't a natural serpent. Horned Vipers weren't black. They were usually shades similar to sand or dirt in order to camouflage themselves more easily. He had two pointed horns atop his head as well as had the venom the common serpents of the species possessed. He was sure of how to use it yet but he'd get there eventually.

And when he Transfigured himself right in front of the examiner, the woman had tittered with excitement and called him a genius as she batted her lashes in exaggeration. She also handed over a form for him to fill out so the Ministry could register him immediately. He'd received high praise for his accomplishment since not many magicals even attempted to become Animagi and certainly never before graduation.

He'd put in the time and effort and while he'd attained his form months back, he'd practiced consistently in order to officially debut it for his N.E.W.T. exam. That way he could do it on command and it seemed more impressive that way.

Perfection was what Tom strove for. Among other things of course.

He'd been assured that he'd set the record for the youngest Animagus in British history. It was a pleasing piece of information and made his day all the better.

Tom always did love succeeding.

And at some point in the future he would have more time on hand to fully explore what he was capable of when in his snake form. He could imagine all the spying possibilities!

Tom entered Professor Potter's office with slight trepidation. He didn't actually know why the man had called him over, but he knew it at least had to be important.

The man was seated as usual, though his hair was a bigger mess than it usually was, and he looked so very tired. Like he was out on the front lines of either war and was just done with everything. There were literal lines on his face.

"Mr. Riddle, I know it's a bit sudden to just be calling up up here but I felt it urgent to speak with you."

"Is this about my N.E.W.T. score, sir?" No one could blame Tom for being worried around his grades. They were the most important things to him at present. All Tom really had to his name was his intellect. And Parseltongue, but for things publicly expressed, his intelligence was it.

The older man shook his head. "I simply felt it better to inform you of this in private. London was bombed yesterday."

"Again?" was the only thing he could ask. Over the past several years, London had been perpetually bombed over and over. He'd managed to never be there personally when it happened, but London was a major city and as such, it was often a target of the Nazis. Still, mid-June of 1944 and they were still bombing London!

Why anyone would choose to continue living in such a place when it was constantly under attack made no sense to him. The orphanage itself had been lucky enough to escape any damage, not that the buildings around it were lucky enough to say the same. In fact, on the very block of road, Wool's was the only building still relatively intact if one didn't count the already numerous damages from years of disrepair. It was over a century old after all.

"I'm afraid so. The bombs were a lot larger this time and caused considerable damage. I felt it best to warn you ahead of time. I do not know if you intend to go back once you graduate or not, but it's always best to be aware or your surroundings."

Thank Merlin Tom had in fact not been planning to go back. And really, who would miss him in that hellhole he grew up in? They'd just think of him as another casualty of war and for once he wouldn't mind that in the least. Their opinions meant nothing to him. He'd be doing things they could only dream of once the time came.

"I won't be returning there, sir. But thank you for your concern."

He was… dare he say, touched that the man felt enough concern over his well being. No one ever truly had before. Not that Tom ever really had anyone that would care about him anyway.

Potter smiled a small smile that was filled with both sadness and relief. "Forgive me for intruding but will you have somewhere to stay after the term ends?"

Not really. He could probably get an invitation to spend the summer with Abraxas, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to. On one hand he wanted to be on his own to do things on his own and explore his interests on his own, but on another he longed to remain at Hogwarts. He knew he'd miss everything but the other students.

"I'll take your silence as a negative."

Tom willed his face to not blush because he didn't like blushing and didn't like expressing common emotions. And he didn't want Professor Potter to see him when he wasn't in perfect control. The man had already seen enough emotion from Tom and Merlin forbid he see more.

Potter fiddled with his spectacles for a moment, tossing them between his hands without a thought. "As you can imagine, I am being stretched a little thin when it comes to all the work I'm doing now. I simply have too much to focus on at present and I might need some assistance come the new term."

Was he honestly doing what Tom thought he was doing? Tom held his breath in anticipation, afraid to get his hopes up too much.

"Perhaps you can apply to be a Teacher's Assistant. Mine, to be more precise. And you and I would have control over the DADA classes and would be working together to instruct the students. I will still maintain control over the Dueling Club, but my duties as Deputy Headmaster are unfortunately very taxing and time consuming, and there is more to do than you'd think."

"Yes," was all Tom could say. Because he'd been given essentially what he'd wanted. He would work at Hogwarts and stay where he'd longed to be. He'd have a guaranteed place to sleep and food every day. And he would have access to the Library and wouldn't be forbidden from the Restricted Section because he would no longer be a student. And he'd be around Potter every single day. It was all he could ask for.

Potter smiled much brighter this time, and Tom could feel the odd lightness in his stomach in response to how charming the man appeared. And how effortless it was for him too.

"I'm glad. You are a model student. You are intelligent and from what I've heard of your N.E.W.T. scores, you set some records. And the benefit of assisting me will aide you in the long haul. Especially when I intend to win that Dueling Mastery come July."

Ah, yes. If the man managed to become a Dueling Master, then Tom would be able to learn more from him than a usual student would and no one could claim favouritism.

"Thank you, sir."

"In order for us to truly mesh well, we'll need to spend this summer getting better acquainted, don't you think? I'll inform the Elves that your possessions will be moved to your new room post haste."

Tom was going to be working at Hogwarts. Despite the unpleasant news about London, this ended up being a great day for him.

The very last day. As a student at least. This wasn't Tom's last day at Hogwarts in general, but he was still feeling a little emotional at the thought of how a few weeks ago he'd been under the impression that he'd have to stay in Diagon Alley all summer, possibly struggling to get by until he could hopefully apply for a job at Hogwarts. Possibly having to listen to the explosions not too far away from where he'd sleep. And now he was sure of the fact that he was going to be okay. He was in the safest place in the British Isles.

Nothing could get to him here. And Professor Potter was perfectly fine with him staying over the summer. In fact, he wasn't the only one staying. With Dumbledore no longer in Dippet's favour, Dippet was easier to convince of certain things. And Potter was the favourite professor, as well as his Deputy, so listening to him was a good idea.

Four other muggle-raised students would be staying over the summer because they too lived in London and it was too dangerous to go back yet. Potter had already set up rooms for their families to use if they had to come to Hogwarts to escape the tragedy. Tom had already seen the tears of absolute gratitude for the man's actions and would admit to himself alone that he'd also felt a little emotional as well.

How was it that Potter could understand the absolute seriousness of the muggle world war, but Dumbledore, a fellow Halfblood just like them, couldn't?

It was like every time he turned around, Potter gave Tom another reason to admire him.

Tom's only regret was that Potter hadn't come to them years ago, where he would have no doubt done something then as well. Tom wasn't blind to the fact that some students never came back. And he understood exactly why things like that happened.

If only Potter, or someone at least like Potter, had been around when the bombings had started. Tom could think of so many students who would still be here.

A lot of magical people liked to claim they cared about muggleborns and muggle-raised children, but even the most Light of magical users overlooked those very people all the time. Sure, they bent some of the old laws and traditions to better cater to those new individuals, but did they ever really stop to think about truly integrating them into their society? No.

It was a glaring fault in all magical communities around the world.

But Tom could see that Potter wanted to change that. Because he actually gave a damn about everyone.

A/N: London was actually bombed during mid-June of 1944. It was the first use of a specific type of bomb too.

#Tomarry #fanfiction #Strive #Watermelonsmellinfellon #Tom Riddle

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crimethinc · 7 years ago

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Restless Specters of the Anarchist Dead: A Few Words from the Undead of 1917

This year is the centennial of two revolutions in Russia: one in which the people toppled the Tsar and another in which the Bolsheviks seized state power. Within twenty years, the Bolsheviks had executed or imprisoned most of those who carried out the revolution. Today, as the hashtag #1917live trends on twitter, we should remember the #1917undead, the anarchists who strove to warn humanity that statist paths towards social change will never bring us to freedom. Some of them, like Fanya and Aron Baron, were murdered in cold blood by authoritarian communists in the Soviet Union. Others managed to survive, betrayed by their supposed comrades, to witness the totalitarian results of the Bolshevik coup. Their voices cry out to us today from the grave. Let’s listen.

Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin had sought total centralized power in the name of the proletariat, promising that this was a step towards the “withering away” of the state. From this historical vantage point, their cynical efforts to blot out any model for social change besides the tyranny of state capitalism are clear enough; if it is still difficult to envision what anarchist revolution might look like on a massive scale, we can blame those who systematically exterminated anarchists in the name of socialism. Being the foremost opponents of tyranny, the anarchists were among the first victims of Soviet prisons and firing squads. Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and many others tried to warn the world of the horrors of Lenin and Stalin, but most people only learned about the gulag archipelago much later from Aleksandr Solzenhitsyn.

Mikhail Bakunin

Although Bakunin passed away more than 40 years before the Russian Revolution, he predicted exactly what would come of Marx’s authoritarian prescriptions for socialism. Those who attempt to excuse Marx, suggesting that Lenin failed to apply his instructions correctly, should take note that Bakunin saw the tragedies of 1917 coming a half century in advance.

Scrutinizing Marx’s conduct in the revolutionary struggles of the 19th century, rather than the books he wrote, we can see today what Bakunin saw then. Marx began his career in the 1840s by attempting to form revolutionary cabals, then purging everyone who did not toe his ideological line—especially working class thinkers like Wilhelm Weitling and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who were more suspicious of the state than he was. Marx mocked Bakunin for attempting to foment an uprising in Lyons in 1870, though it was precisely the absence of other revolutionary footholds in France that doomed the Paris Commune in 1871. During the Paris Commune, Marx sent Elisabeth Dmitrieff, a twenty-year-old with no experience, to assume control of women’s organizing in Paris, intending to supplant organizers like Louise Michel who had been active for decades. (After the Commune, Dmitrieff disappeared from radical politics, a casualty of authoritarian burnout.) After the Commune fell, Marx took advantage of the fact that the participants—most of whom did not subscribe to his politics—were slaughtered or in hiding to speak on their behalf, announcing that the Commune confirmed all of his theories. In the First International, Marx passed unpopular resolutions in closed-door meetings while the opposition were imprisoned or in exile, rigged majorities at the congresses, and finally attempted to kill off the organization entirely by moving its headquarters to New York when it became clear he could not control it. (Although most historians pass over this, the International survived for several more years as a topless federation run on anarchist principles, whereas the Marxist splinter group became immediately moribund.) Afterwards, from the safety of his study in London, Marx continued to mock Bakunin and others who risked their lives in uprisings while emphasizing that workers should join political parties and subject themselves to party leadership. Marx was no enemy of state oppression.

With the 20th century behind us, Bakunin appears to us as the Cassandra of the 19th century, warning us against the butcheries, betrayals, and gulags to come. Whatever his own shortcomings, he remains a voice from the grave, urging us to beware of anyone who proposes that the state could render us equal or give us freedom.

“Liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.”

— addressing the League of Peace and Freedom, September 1867

“I hate Communism because it is the negation of liberty and because humanity is for me unthinkable without liberty. I am not a Communist, because Communism concentrates and swallows up in itself for the benefit of the State all the forces of society, because it inevitably leads to the concentration of property in the hands of the State, whereas I want the abolition of the State, the final eradication of the principle of authority and the patronage proper to the State, which under the pretext of moralizing and civilizing men has hitherto only enslaved, persecuted, exploited and corrupted them. I want to see society and collective or social property organized from below upwards, by way of free association, not from above downwards, by means of any kind of authority whatsoever.”

— addressing the League of Peace and Freedom, September 1868

Mikhail Bakunin.

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky himself deserves no tears from those who love freedom, egalitarianism, and human decency, as he personally oversaw the butchery of countless thousands of anarchists and other rebels in the course of the Bolshevik conquest of power. But early in his career, before he joined the Bolsheviks, he foresaw presciently exactly how Stalinism would arise from Lenin’s approach—how the party would substitute its own conquest of power for the proletariat, and a ruthless dictator then substitute himself for the party. The All-Russian Congress of Food Industry Workers later confirmed this in March 1920, on the basis of experience: “The so-called dictatorship of the proletariat is really the dictatorship over the proletariat by the party and even by individual persons.”

Despite this foresight, Trotsky still joined the Bolsheviks as a consequence of their apparent success in the revolution. When Stalin’s lackeys butchered Trotsky with an icepick, it was poetic justice. Trostsky died because he failed to heed his own insights, and above all because he broke solidarity with other foes of capitalism. He died because, like so many after him, he substituted pragmatism for principles, believing it would be more expedient to go rapidly in the wrong direction than to proceed slowly towards genuine liberation.

We can hardly remember him as a tragic figure, as millions suffered at his hands—but we can take his example as a cautionary tale.

“In the internal politics of the Party these methods lead, as we shall see, to the Party organization “substituting” itself for the Party, the Central Committee substituting itself for the Party organization, and finally the dictator substituting himself for the Central Committee.”

— “Our Political Tasks,” 1904

Peter Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin was an old man by the time of the 1917 revolution. Desiring to legitimize Bolshevik authority with the reputation of a universally respected anarchist, Lenin maintained cordial relations with Kropotkin; Bolshevik propagandists took advantage of this to publicize the lie that Kropotkin was more or less in favor of the Bolshevik program. In fact, Kropotkin opposed their authoritarian program, as he made clear in a series of statements and protests. Far from endorsing Lenin’s seizure of state power, Kropotkin is quoted as saying “Revolutionaries have had ideals. Lenin has none. He is a madman, an immolator, wishful of burning, and slaughter, and sacrificing.”

Kropotkin’s funeral, on February 13, 1921, was arguably the last anarchist demonstration in Russia until the fall of the Soviet Union. Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman and many other prominent anarchists participated. They managed to exert enough pressure on the Bolshevik authorities to compel them to release seven anarchist prisoners for the day; the Bolsheviks claimed they that would have released more but the others supposedly refused to leave prison. Victor Serge recounts how Aaron Baron, one of the anarchists who was temporarily released, addressed the mourners from Kropotkin’s graveside before vanishing forever into the jaws of the Soviet carceral system.

“Is there really no one around you to remind your comrades and to persuade them that such measures represent a return to the worst period of the Middle Ages and religious wars, and are undeserving of people who have taken it upon themselves to create a future society on communist principles? Whoever holds dear the future of communism cannot embark upon such measures.”

— Letter to Lenin, December 21, 1920

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Kropotkin’s funeral.

Nestor Makhno

After seven years in the Tsar’s prisons, Makhno was released from prison by the upheavals of 1917. He eventually became a leader in the anarchist forces that fought in turn against Ukrainian Nationalists, German and Austro-German occupiers, the reactionary Russian White Army, the Soviet Red Army, and various Ukrainian warlords in order to open a space in which anarchist collective experiments could take place. Makhno and his comrades repeatedly bore the brunt of the White Army attacks, while Trotsky alternated attacking them with the Red Army and signing treaties with them when the Soviets needed them to keep the Whites at bay. On November 26, 1920, a few days after Makhno had helped to definitively defeat the White Army, the Red Army summoned him and his comrades to a conference. Makhno did not go; everyone who did was summarily killed.

Authoritarian socialists have expended rivers of ink attempting to discredit Makhno and those who fought at his side in order to excuse this cold-blooded betrayal and murder. They accuse Makhno of authoritarianism in hopes of justifying a far more authoritarian state. They suggest that his struggle contributed nothing to the liberation of the proletariat, when in fact he was struggling against those who ruined and discredited the notion of revolution while ensuring that Russian workers would remain in subjugation for at least a century more.

Makhno and his comrades surely were not perfect; Emma Goldman records that some Russian anarchists questioned the anarchist credentials of the Ukrainian uprising. But history is written by the victors: there is so little information about Makhno’s achievements precisely because the Bolsheviks and other reactionaries sought to erase them from the historical record (just as a few Ukrainian nationalists have recently sought to appropriate and distort them). Fortunately, we can still read statements from the Makhnovist rebels in their own words describing their values and goals, and historical accounts from participants such as Peter Arshinov.

“State-socialists of all denominations, including Bolsheviks, are busy swapping the names of bourgeois rule with those of their own invention, while leaving its structure essentially unchanged. They are therefore trying to salvage the Master/Slave relationship with all its contradictions…

“While a bourgeois government strings a revolutionary up on the gallows, socialist or bolshevik-communist governments will creep up and strangle him in his sleep or kill him by trickery. Both acts are depraved. But the socialists are more depraved because of their methods.

“Government power will never let workers tread the road to freedom; it is the instrument of the lazy who want to dominate others, and it does not matter if the power is in the hand of the bourgeois, the socialists or the Bolsheviks, it is degrading. There is no government without teeth, teeth to tear any man who longs for a free and just life.”

— The Anarchist Revolution

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Nestor Makhno.

Lev Chernyi

After serving a decade in prison under the Tsar, Lev Chernyi was released in 1917 and participated passionately in anarchist organizing. On March 5, 1918, foreseeing the wave of attacks the Bolsheviks were about to launch against anarchist organizing in Moscow, Chernyi denounced the Bolshevik government, arguing that it was essential to paralyze the mechanisms of government itself. In April 1918, the Soviet secret police raided anarchist social centers around Moscow, gunning down at least forty people and arresting many more. The Bolsheviks claimed that the anarchists were engaged in “banditry” on account of their efforts to redistribute wealth and set up social centers around the city—accusing them of precisely the same activities that the Soviet government was carrying out on a much larger scale.

Chernyi was later captured and charged with counterfeiting in order to discredit him and take him off the streets. In August 1921, an official report announced that Chernyi and nine other “anarchist bandits” had been shot without hearing or trial. The authorities refused to release his body, leading many to conclude that Chernyi had actually been tortured to death.

Lev Chernyi.

Fanya Baron

After seven years in exile from Tsarist Russia, Fanya Baron returned to her homeland in 1917 to organize alongside other anarchists for social liberation. Within four years, she had been imprisoned and murdered by the Soviet secret police.

“This big-hearted woman, who had served the Social Revolution all her life, was done to, death by the people who pretended to be the advance guard of revolution. Not content with the crime of killing Fanya Baron, the Soviet Government put the stigma of banditism on the memory of their dead victim.”

— Emma Goldman, My Further Disillusionment in Russia

Kropotkin dying of hunger, Berkman by his own hand, Fanny Baron biting her executioners, Mahkno in the odor of calumny, Trotsky, too, I suppose, passionately, after his fashion. Do you remember? What is it all for, this poetry, This bundle of accomplishment Put together with so much pain?

— Kenneth Rexroth, “August 22, 1939,” written on the anniversary of the murder of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

Fanya Baron.

Aron Baron

A Jewish exile from the Ukraine, Aron Baron organized with the Industrial Workers of the World and worked with Lucy Parsons in the United States before returning to revolutionary Russia. He fought alongside Nestor Makhno and edited the anarchist paper Nabat. After two decades of harassment, arrests, imprisonment, and internal exile, he was shot on August 12, 1937 in Tobolsk along with many other anarchists, including Prokop Evdokimovich Budakov, Zinaida Alekseevna Budakova, Avram Venetsky, Ivan Golovchanskii, Vsevolod Grigorievich Denisov, Nikolai Desyatkov, Ivan Dudarin, Andrei Zolotarev, Andrei Pavlovich Kislitsin, Alexander Pastukhov, Anna Aronovna Sangorodetskaya, Mikhail G. Tvelnev, Vladimir Khudolei-Gradin, Yuri I. Hometovsky-Izgodin, and Nahum Aaronovch Eppelbaum.

Fanya and Aron Baron and friends.

The Kronstadt Rebels

In February 1921, in response to Soviet crackdowns on labor organizing and peasants’ autonomy, the crews of two Russian battleships stationed at the island naval fortress of Kronstadt held an emergency meeting. Many of these were the same sailors who had been on the front lines of the revolution of 1917. They agreed on fifteen demands, and Kronstadt rose in revolt against the Soviet authorities.

The Bolsheviks attempted to portray the rising as the work of foreign reactionaries. Read their demands for yourself and decide whether this was the work of counter-revolutionary capitalists:

Immediate new elections to the Soviets; the present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be held by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda for all workers and peasants before the elections.

Freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties.

The right of assembly, and freedom for trade union and peasant associations.

The organization, at the latest on March 10, 1921, of a Conference of non-Party workers, soldiers, and sailors of Petrograd, Kronstadt, and the Petrograd District.

The liberation of all political prisoners of the Socialist parties, and of all imprisoned workers and peasants, soldiers and sailors belonging to working class and peasant organizations.

The election of a commission to look into the dossiers of all those detained in prisons and concentration camps.

The abolition of all political sections in the armed forces; no political party should have privileges for the propagation of its ideas, or receive State subsidies to this end. In place of the political section, various cultural groups should be set up, deriving resources from the State.

The immediate abolition of the militia detachments set up between towns and countryside.

The equalization of rations for all workers, except those engaged in dangerous or unhealthy jobs.

The abolition of Party combat detachments in all military groups; the abolition of Party guards in factories and enterprises. If guards are required, they should be nominated, taking into account the views of the workers.

The granting to the peasants of freedom of action on their own soil, and of the right to own cattle, provided they look after them themselves and do not employ hired labor.

We request that all military units and officer trainee groups associate themselves with this resolution.

We demand that the Press give proper publicity to this resolution.

We demand the institution of mobile workers’ control groups.

We demand that handicraft production be authorized, provided it does not utilize wage labor.

Two weeks later, on the 50-year anniversary of the Paris Commune, 60,000 Red Army troops captured Kronstadt, killing and imprisoning thousands. Just as the bourgeois republic that came to power in France in 1870 stabilized its reign by slaughtering the rebels of the Paris Commune, the Bolsheviks stabilized their reactionary seizure of the Russian revolution with the bloodbath at Kronstadt.

Apologists for the Bolsheviks have argued that it was necessary to slaughter the Kronstadt rebels to consolidate power for the Soviet state; perhaps so, but that is no argument for any state! If it was admirable and appropriate for the Kronstadt sailors to rise against the Tsar, it was equally admirable and appropriate for them to rise against the new tyrants.

The failure of the Kronstadt uprising is above all a lesson in solidarity: if the Kronstadt rebels had risen up in April 1918 when the Bolsheviks were carrying out their first attacks against anarchists in Moscow, the Bolsheviks might not have had a firm enough grip on state power to defeat them. What is done to the least of us will be done to all of us. This is why solidarity is such an important value to anarchists.

Alexander Berkman

Alexander Berkman, an anarchist who served 14 years in prison for the US for an act of vengeance against the union-busting industrialist Henry Clay Frick, set out enthusiastically for Russia after the Bolshevik revolution, only to discover that the state was just as authoritarian under Lenin as it had been under the Tsar. He was fortunate to escape alive. He summarized his experiences in The Bolshevik Myth, and also assisted with Letters from Russian Prisons, documenting Bolshevik oppression.

“Grey are the passing days. One by one the embers of hope have died out. Terror and despotism have crushed the life born in October. The slogans of the Revolution are forsworn, its ideals stifled in the blood of the people. The breath of yesterday is dooming millions to death; the shadow of today hangs like a black pall over the country. Dictatorship is trampling the masses under foot. The Revolution is dead; its spirit cries in the wilderness… I have decided to leave Russia.”

— Berkman’s diary, 1922

Emma Goldman

Emma Goldman shared Alexander Berkman’s enthusiasm for the initial apparent triumph of the October Revolution1 and his dismay at its dismal results. She traveled with him to Russia, witnessed the first years of the revolution firsthand, and afterwards shared his conviction that Bolshevik authoritarianism was responsible for the results.

“Lenin had very little concern in the Revolution… Communism to him was a very remote thing. The centralized political State was Lenin’s deity, to which everything else was to be sacrificed. Someone said that Lenin would sacrifice the Revolution to save Russia. Lenin’s policies, however, have proven that he was willing to sacrifice both the Revolution and the country, or at least part of the latter, in order to realize his political scheme with what was left of Russia.”

— Afterword, My Disillusionment in Russia

Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman.

Errico Malatesta

Malatesta began his career as a revolutionary in Italy in the 1870s, working with Bakunin within the famously insurrectionist Italian section of the First International—arguably the first properly anarchist movement on record. From the start, he opposed statist models for social change, having seen how republican nationalism had only brought a new regime to power in Italy and reinforced existing social inequalities. He went to jail and prison again and again in the course of his efforts to open the way to freedom.

In the 1880s, when Malatesta’s former comrade Andrea Costa renounced anarchism, entered the Italian Parliament, and set out to convince the movement that electoral politics were the best way to seek social change, Malatesta sneaked back into Italy, despite facing a variety of unresolved charges in his homeland, and challenged Costa to a public debate. Costa attempted to weasel his way out of it, but was ultimately compelled to meet with Malatesta, then fled the city after being trounced in the discussion. Having won the argument, Malatesta went directly to jail.

Later, after escaping Italy concealed in a box of sewing machines, surviving an assassination attempt in New Jersey, and organizing one clandestine newspaper and uprising after another, Malatesta witnessed the 1917 revolution and the mass defection of anarchists to the Communist Party when the state communist model suddenly appeared more “effective” and “pragmatic.” If not for these wrongheaded conversions, there might still have been hope for emancipatory revolutions in the 20th century.

“It seems unbelievable that even today, after everything that has happened & is happening in Russia, there are people who still imagine that the difference between socialists & anarchists is only that of wanting revolution gradually or quickly.”

— Errico Malatesta, Umanita Nova, September 3, 1921

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Malatesta celebrating May Day 1920.

Victor Serge

Victor Serge started adulthood as an anarchist. However, after the Bolshevik seizure of power, he joined the Party and served them as a journalist, dutifully excusing the imprisonment of honest anarchists, the butchery of the Kronstadt rebels, and many other steps in the Bolshevik counterrevolution. In this regard, he is an example of the millions of rebels and common laborers shifted their allegiance from anarchists to statists after the apparent victory of the Bolsheviks in Russia.

How did it work out for Serge? A few years later, he was expelled from the Communist Party, thrown in jail, sentenced to internal exile, and in the end barely managed to escape the Soviet Union with his life. Had he remained faithful to his anarchist politics, he might have saved himself a lot of grief—and above all, he would not have been complicit in setting the stage for the slaughter and imprisonment of millions.

Peter Arshinov

Peter Arshinov participated in the anarchist uprising in the Ukraine alongside Nestor Makhno between 1919 and 1921, at which point he narrowly escaped the Bolshevik counterrevolution with his life. Fleeing west into Germany, he authored the History of the Makhnovist Movement (1918–1921). He also co-authored the “Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists.” Eventually, he renounced anarchism and returned to the Soviet Union to join the Communist Party, only to be purged and executed. If not even the original Bolsheviks were safe from Stalin’s Terror, it was foolish to imagine a former anarchist might be.

Fedor Mochanovsky

Once the Bolshevik Terror was underway, it became increasingly difficult to get information about what was happening to anarchists and other rebels behind the borders of the Soviet Union. Fedor Mochanovsky was one of countless anarchists who vanished in the course of this repression. By 1928, the Soviet authorities had moved Mochanovsky from the Butyrka prison in order to cut off international support, effectively disappearing him. He almost certainly died in the hands of the Stalinist state.

“In 1918 the Bolshevists organized an anti-anarchist front to seek the destruction of the anarchists in Russia. Throughout the land and in every sphere of life across the territory of the soviet republic, they took up arms against the anarchists. They shut down their presses and their literature. They shut down anarchist clubs and bookshops. They resorted to all sorts of means in order to undo the organization of their congresses and they arrested the anarchists. And when the opportunity presented itself, they shot them down on one pretext or another.”

— Speech of the anarchist Fedor Mochanovsky before the Petrograd Revolutionary Court on December 13, 1922

Max Nettlau

Near the end of his life, Max Nettlau, one of the greatest historians of the classical anarchist movement, having witnessed the Bolshevik victory and the subsequent nightmares of Leninism and Stalinism, summarized the essence of Marx’s political incoherence in a letter to a friend. This little-known excerpt casts considerable light on the contradictions within Marx’s thought, which have been the cause of so much misfortune:

I call Marx “triple-faced,” because with his particularly grasping spirit he laid a claim on exactly three tactics and his originality no doubt resides in these pan-grasping gests. He encouraged electoral socialism, the conquest of parliaments, social democracy and, though he often sneered at it, the People’s State and State Socialism. He encouraged revolutionary dictatorship. He encouraged simple confidence and abiding, letting “evolution” do the work, self-reduction, almost self-evaporation of the capitalists until the pyramid tumbled over by mathematical laws of his own growth, as if triangular bodies automatically turned somersaults. He copied the first tactics from Louis Blanc, the second from Blanqui, whilst the third correspond to his feeling of being somehow the economic dictator of the universe, as Hegel had been its spiritual dictator. His grasping went further. He hated instinctively libertarian thought and tried to destroy the free thinkers wherever he met them, from Feuerbach and Max Stirner to Proudhon, Bakunin and others. But he wished to add the essence of their teaching as spoils to his other borrowed feathers, and so he relegated at the end of days, after all dictatorship, the prospect of a Stateless, an Anarchist world. The Economic Cagliostro hunted thus with all hounds and ran with all hares, and imposed thus—and his followers after him—an incredible confusion on socialism which, almost a century after 1844, has not yet ended. The social-democrats pray by him; the dictatorial socialist swear by him; the evolutionary socialists sit still and listen to hear evolution evolve, as others listen to the growing of the grass; and some very frugal people drink weak tea and are glad, that at the end of days by Marx’s ipse dixit Anarchy will at last be permitted to unfold. Marx has been like a blight that creeps in and kills everything it touches to European socialism, an immense power for evil, numbing self-thought, insinuating false confidence, stirring up animosity, hatred, absolute intolerance, beginning with his own arrogant literary squabbles and leading to inter-murdering socialism as in Russia, since 1917, which has so very soon permitted reaction to galvanize the undeveloped strata and to cultivate the “Reinkulturen” of such authoritarianism, the Fascists and their followers. There was, in spite of their personal enmity, some monstrous “inter-breeding” between the two most fatal men of the 19thcentury, Marx and Mazzini, and their issue are Mussolini and all the others who disgrace this poor 20th century.

— correspondence with a comrade, c. 1936

Max Nettlau.

Luigi Camillo Berneri

The tragedies brought about by the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 did not end in Russia. Once there was a state that supposedly represented the revolutionary socialist agenda, revolutions and revolutionaries all around the world were sacrificed in cold blood to advance the imperatives that drive all states. As his temporary pact with Hitler illustrates, “Stalinism” was not a coherent ideology but a mishmash of all the things Stalin had to do to continuously pursue power for himself and the Soviet Union.

Not wishing any revolutionary movements to triumph elsewhere in the world that did not answer to his Comintern, Stalin made sure to undermine the anarchist and republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. The Stalinist faction within the struggle against Franco was small, but because they controlled access to resources from outside Spain and did not shrink from open betrayal, they were able to centralize control of the defense in their hands. In the end, many Spanish anarchists were murdered by Stalinists rather than by the fascists they were supposedly fighting together.

An associate of Malatesta and fierce critic of Trotsky as well as Stalin, Luigi Berneri was a well-known Italian anarchist organizer who traveled to Spain to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He was offered a position in the Council of the Economy, but refused to participate in the government.

When clashes between anarchists and the Stalin-controlled Communist Party broke out in Republican Spain, the house Berneri shared with several other anarchists was attacked. He and his comrades were labeled “counter-revolutionaries,” disarmed, deprived of their papers, and forbidden to go out into the street. On May 5, 1937, Stalinists murdered Berneri along with another Italian anarchist, Francisco Barbieri.

“What evil the Communists are doing here too! It is almost 2 o’clock and I am going to bed. The house is on its guard tonight. I offered to stay awake to let the others go to sleep, and everyone laughed, saying that I would not even hear the cannon! But afterwards, one by one, they fell asleep, and I am watchful over all of them, while working for those who are to come. It is the only completely beautiful thing.”

— Berneri’s last letter to his family, May 3-4, 1937; translation published in The Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review #4, 1978

Luigi Berneri.

Park Yeol

The Soviet model for seizing power and repressing dissidents of all stripes spread far outside Stalin’s sphere of influence, sealing the fates of anarchists and millions upon millions of other people.

Park Yeol, the anarchist whose high-profile trial and imprisonment was dramatized this year in the South Korean movie Anarchist from the Colony, fought long and hard against capitalism and imperialism only to be disappeared by a state communist regime. After 22 years in prison, Park was released at the end of the Second World War, only to be captured by the North Korean army. He subsequently vanished.

Alberto Miguel Linsuain

The pattern that began in Russia in 1917 and then spread to Spain, China, and Korea repeated in Cuba and elsewhere around Latin America, too.

Alberto Linsuain was the son of a well-known revolutionary who participated in the Spanish Civil War. Linsuain fought against the Batista dictatorship and joined the rebel forces under the command of Castro’s brother, Raúl Castro. He became a lieutenant in the Rebel Army on account of his bravery in battle. After the armed struggle, he dedicated himself to union organizing. His fellow workers elected him General Secretary of the Federation of Food, Hotel, and Restaurant Workers of the Province of Oriente. When the communists began to take over the organized labor movement, Linsuain fought back. They threw him in jail without trial, along with many other anarchists who had participated in the revolution.

Within a year, he had died at their hands.

In Conclusion

When proponents of state socialism accuse anarchists of being sectarian for not desiring to work together for common ends, we have to ask: do we share the same goals, really? What can we have in common with those who believe that guillotines, courts, judges, prisons, gulags, and firing squads can do the work of liberation?

If history is any guide, partisans of the state will not hesitate to use those against us and anyone else that hinders their pursuit of centralized power. Tens of millions murdered by the state cry out to us from the 20th century, urging us to heed their warnings, so their deaths might not be in vain.