Anarchist Black Cross

The Anarchist Black Cross ("ABC") is an anarchist politics support organization. The group is notable for its efforts at providing prisoners with political literature, but it also organises material and legal support for class struggle prisoners worldwide. It commonly contrasts itself with Amnesty International, which is concerned mainly with prisoners of conscience and refusing to defend those accused of encouraging violence. [ [http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=10505 Prisoner of Conscience] : Amnesty International Glossary of Terms, accessed 2006-05-31] The ABC openly supports those who have committed illegal activity in furtherance of revolutionary aims that anarchists accept as legitimate. [http://www.anarchistblackcross.org/abc/why.html What is the Anarchist Black Cross?] : Anarchist Black Cross Network, website. Retrieved 18 September 2006.]

History

Founding of the Anarchist Red Cross

The Anarchist Black Cross began as the Anarchist Red Cross, a breakaway organization from the Political Red Cross organized to aid political prisoners in Czarist Russia. For years, the origin of the organization was under dispute, but recent documents have resurfaced that has narrowed down the time frame. According to Rudolph Rocker, once the treasurer for the Anarchist Red Cross in London, the organization was founded in Russia during the "hectic period between 1900 and 1905." Most material discussing ABC history points to this era as the birth of this group. The group came into prominence after the 1905 Revolution with the increase of imprisoned anarchists in Russia. Due to the refusal of the Political Red Cross and other prisoner aid groups to support anarchist political prisoners, Russian anarchists in Russia and those in exile abroad created the Anarchist Red Cross to support their comrades held in Russian prisons. Each branch of the organization was known by the region in which they operated (Latvia, Riga, Odessa, etc.) [Christie, Stuart, "Edward Heath Made Me Angry", ChristieBooks.com, 2004, ISBN 1873976232, 9781873976234, p. 1964] Within a few years, the organization spread beyond the Russian borders to the United States and England, where exiled revolutionaries had settled.

By 1905, the group changed its name, dropping "Red Cross" from the title. [Christie, Stuart, "Edward Heath Made Me Angry", ChristieBooks.com, 2004, ISBN 1873976232, 9781873976234, p. 1964] In this era, the group used various names including: Chicago Aid Fund, Society to Aid Anarchist Prisoners in Russia, Joint Committee to Aid Revolutionaries Imprisoned in Russia, and finally, the title that would remain, the Anarchist Black Cross.

However, according to Harry Weinstein, one of the two men who began the organization, the activities of the group began after his arrest in July or August of 1906 [ [http://www.abcf.net/la/laabcf.asp?page=layelensky Yelensky¹s Fable: A History of the ABC] : Anarchist Black Cross Federation, website. Retrieved 26 September 2007.] Once released, Weinstein and others provided clothing to anarchists sentenced to exile in Siberia. Weinstein alleged that the group broke off from the original Political Red Cross in late 1906 when Weinstein and other anarchists received no support despite ample donations from the anarchist community. Weinstein continued his efforts in Russia until his arrival in New York in May 1907. Once there, he helped to create the New York Anarchist Red Cross, which included such members as "Mother Earth" editor Louise Berger. In 1911, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania chapter of the Anarchist Red Cross was founded by Morris Beresin and Boris Yelensky.

Anarchist Black Cross

In 1918, Nestor Makhno organized new chapters of the Anarchist Black Cross as an adjunct to his anarchist "Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine" or "Black Army" in the territories of Ukraine which they controlled. [ [http://www.nestormakhno.info/english/mak_bl_cross.htm Makhno's Black Cross] . "Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library", No. 10 (1997). Nestormakhno.info Accessed October 11, 2007.]

It was at this time that the organization's efforts were shifted from prisoner support to emergency medical response and self-defense. With the onset of attacks from Cossacks, White Guards, pogromists, and later the Red Army, the Ukrainian Black Cross took on the unique secondary role preparing city defenses, organizing the first urban army in Ukrainian history. As a city militia, the Ukrainian Anarchist Black Cross worked alongside units of the anarchist "Black Army", but were never a mobile force, being primarily based within city environs. Members wore no formal uniforms, but were identified by wearing denim overalls and distinctive armbands.

For a time, the Anarchist Black Cross was tolerated in Moscow and Petrograd by the Bolshevik government, though its activities in those cities were not large in scale. The Cheka (Lenin's secret police) infiltrated informers into the Black Cross, who regularly made reports on the organization's leaders and activities. Outside of Moscow, Petrograd, and the areas of the Ukraine controlled by the Black Army there was complete repression; anarchist pamphlets and books were regularly seized, and even Anarchist Black Cross aid workers were subject to arrest and detention.

In September 1919, a grenade attack at a meeting of the Moscow Committee of the Bolshevik Party was used as a pretext for mass arrests of anarchists all over Russia by Bolshevik Red Army forces and the Cheka. Anarchist militants were arrested; even the Black Army and its general, Nestor Makhno, was hunted down at the orders of Leon Trotsky, determined to cleanse Russia of all anarchists with "an iron broom". [Avrich, Paul, "Anarchist Portraits", Princeton University Press (1990), ISBN 0691006091, 9780691006093, p. 116] [Goldman, Emma, "Trotsky Protests Too Much: An Essay", The Anarchist Communist Federation, Glasgow, Scotland (1938) [http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/goldman/Writings/Essays/trotsky.html Essay] : Trotsky's campaign against 'dissident elements', sanctioned by Lenin, killed or imprisoned thousands of anarchists. Most of those imprisoned were later sent to concentration camps in Siberia; few were ever heard of again.] It soon became clear that some kind of anarchist prisoner aid organization would have to be created once again to help anarchists in Bolshevik prisons. In Moscow, Kharkov, Odessa, and many smaller cities new Anarchist Black Cross and similar organizations were formed such as the "Society to Help Anarchist Prisoners", devoted mainly to supplying food to anarchists and other dissidents on the left. The work proved difficult, even where food was easy to obtain, as it would often be confiscated by Bolshevik Red guards encountered on the way. [ [http://www.abcf.net/la/laabcf.asp?page=layelensky Yelensky¹s Fable: A History of the ABC] : Anarchist Black Cross Federation, website. Retrieved 26 September 2007.] By 1922, even anarchist aid workers in Moscow and Petrograd such as Senya Fleshin and Mollie Steimer were themselves arrested by the GPU on the grounds of "aiding criminal elements" in violation of the Soviet state security code.

Later Years

During the 1960s, the Anarchist Black Cross was reformed in Britain by Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer with a focus on providing aid for anarchist prisoners in Francisco Franco's Spain. The reason for this was Christie's experience of the fascist regime's jail and the importance of receiving food parcels. At that time there were no international groups acting for Spanish anarchist and Resistance prisoners. The first action of the re-activated group was to bring Miguel Garcia, who Christie met in prison, out of Spain on his release. He went on to act as the group's International secretary, working for the release of otherscite book |last=Meltzer |first=Albert |authorlink=Albert Meltzer |title=I Couldn't Paint Golden Angels |origyear=1996 |publisher=AK Press |location=Edinburgh |id=ISBN 1-873176-93-7 |pages=200-201 |chapter=XIII] .

The organization continued to grow, spreading throughout Europe and North America. In 1995, ABC chapters in the US merged into a Federation- the Anarchist Black Cross Federation. While other formations tried to startup, they were unable to maintain long term support. Around 2001, a new organization, Anarchist Black Cross Network, began and attempted to present themselves as an alternative to the ABC Federation. A conflict existed until members of both organization sat down at the Break the Chains conference; since then the two groups have tried to develop a working relationship.

Quotes

*"When we lost the war, those who fought on became the Resistance. But to the world, the Resistance had become criminals, for Franco made the laws, even if, when dealing with political opponents, he chose to break the laws established by the constitution; and the world still regards us as criminals. When we are imprisoned, liberals are not interested, for we are "terrorists"...." [Garcia, Miguel, Franco's Prisoner, (1972) Hart-Davis. ISBN 0-246-64070-7]

*"We believe, as most Anarchists do, that prisons serve no useful function and should be abolished along with the State. We believe in the abolition of both the prison system and the society which creates it. We believe in direct resistance to achieve a stateless and classless society. We share a commitment to revolutionary Anarchism. We see a real need for Anarchists to be militantly organized."
*"When power is challenged, be it in South Africa, occupied Palestine, Chile, Ireland or Canada, it inevitably turns to violent repression and political imprisonment to maintain itself."

See also

* Anarchist Black Cross Network
* Anarchist Black Cross Federation
* anarchist symbolism
* "Black Flag"
* Louise Berger
* Prison abolition movement
* Lexington Avenue bombing

References

External links

* [http://www.anarchistblackcross.org/ Anarchist Black Cross Network]
* [http://abcf.net/ Anarchist Black Cross Federation]
*Spunk|groups/abc/
* [http://www.anarchistblackcross.org/abc/list.html List of ABCs]
* [http://127.0.0.1:8888/SSK@J3GtFnEi8b~ko6mGvvXdrQoZ3D4PAgM,hhWspr43hLbvnrlkwxtDLg/ABC_NoJail/5// Anarchist Black Cross] on Freenet

Activist prisoners' resources

* [http://www.prisonactivist.org/ Prison Activist Resource Center]
* [http://justicedenied.org/ Justice Denied, The Magazine for the Wrongly Convicted]
* [http://www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk/ Earth Liberation Prisoners]
* [http://www.thejerichomovement.com/ The Jericho Movement]
* [http://www.november.org/ Anti-"Drug War" Publication]
* [http://www.iww.org/en/projects/gdc IWW General Defense Committee]