Anti-Militarism of the Deed

Table of Contents

Bart de Ligt – TOWARDS A FREE ORDER 1

I. BATTLE PLAN AGAINST WAR AND WAR PREPARATION

AND OTHER PRACTICAL PROPOSALS FOR ANTIMILITARIST ORGANIZING.

  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Soldiers and workers, strike! (1918, 20p)
  • 3. Exerpt from ‘War or revolution, speech before the IAMV congress in Den Haag’, 1920.
  • 4. The anti-militarists and their means of struggle (1921)
  • 5. Positive revolution (1921)
  • 6. Revolution and evolution (1923)
  • 7. Revolution and anti-militarism (1924)
  • 8. War against war. What everyone of us can do (1933°
  • 9. Mobilisation against the war! (1934)
    • Introduction.
    • A. MOBILISATION AGAINST THE WAR! (‘100 Minutes Speech’ WRI Welwyn – 1934)
      • 1. Necessity of systematic struggle against war.
      • 2. Voluntarism against coercion.
      • 3. First things first.
      • 4. The meaning of military conscription.
      • 5. The nature of modern conscription.
      • 6. Woman and the modern war.
      • 7. International character of the war against war.
      • 8. Don’t wait until the last moment!
      • 9. To prevent is better than to cure.
      • 10. Moral education.
      • 11. Now or never!
      • 12. The most vulnerable points of the war system.
      • 13. Key industries and companies.
      • 14. The intellectuals and the war.
      • 15. Nationalized war industries?
      • 16. No money, no war!
      • 17. Our chances.
      • 18. Technical fight against war [aka Sabotage].
      • 19. Necessity to decentralize the war against war.
      • 20. Necessity to spread the Battle Plan against mobilization and war in all countries and all circles.
      • POSTCRIPT
    • B. DRAFT OF “Battle Plan AGAINST ALL WAR AND ALL PREPARATION FOR WAR”, PROPOSED TO THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF THE WAR RESISTERS’ INTERNATIONAL, HELD AT WELWYN (HERTS, ENGLAND), JULY 1934
  • 10. The conquest of violence (1935)
    • 1. The religion of violence.
    • 2. Violence and war in history
    • 3. The violence of the bourgeoisie.
    • 4. Unsustainability of bourgeois pacifism.
    • 5. Violence and proletariat
    • 6. Efficiency of supra-violent means of struggle.
    • 7. Violence and revolution.
    • 8. Armed defence against Germany?
    • 9. The Japanese danger.
  • FURTHER READING.

II. THE CONQUEST OF VIOLENCE

– New and Enlarged edition –

with new translations of previously unpublished texts . Bart de Ligt, anarchist, syndicalist, anti-militarist, activist, organizer – and his context.

More relevant than ever in these crucial times.

1.. Introduction

A. Bart de Ligt

  • Place of ‘Conquest’ in the life and thinking of BdL
  • Root causes not just MRXian reductionism.
  • some of his analysis wrong (Hitler Germany and war) or outdated now (Japanese question) but PARALLELS (Abessinia=Syria, Algeria=Palestine, Rojava/Chiapas=Spain ’36, Russia=Germany, Ukraine=Poland, EU&US=EU&US ‘democracies’ of his day)
  • Non/violence, Anti/militarism, pacifism
  • A. Some of Bart’s comrades speaking:
    • 1. Arthur Lehning – By means of introduction (1939)
    • 2. Albert de Jong – Bart de Ligt and his importance for the IAMV and IAMB (1939)
    • 3. C.L. Van Rossem – On Bart de Ligt (1951) 18
    • 4.Gé Nabrink – Bart de Ligt about woman and education (1958).
    • 5. Arthur Lehning: ‘Bart de Ligt’ (1980)
    • 6. Arthur Lehning – Peace as Act. On the relevance of Bart de Ligt. An interview by Toke van Helmond (1983).

B. Albert de Jong – Revolutionary anti-militarism in the Netherlands (1954)

  • 1. Revolutionary anti-militarism in the Netherlands,
  • 1.1 Anarchism and anti-militarism
  • 1.2 Anarchists and soldiers
  • 1.3 Founding the IAMV
  • 1.4 The IAMV in the Netherlands
  • 1.5 The activity of the Dutch IAMV section
  • 1.6 Legal Persecutions
  • 1.7 The principles of the IAMV.
  • 1.8 Indonesia free from Holland
  • 1.9 The IAMV and violence.
  • 1.10 Non-violent people become members of the IAMV
  • 1.11 Activity during and after the first World War
  • 1.12 The ‘Groenendaal’ action
  • 1.13 The IAMB and the IAK
  • 2. The Spanish revolution and violence
  • 3. Conclusion 

C. What the red international wants (second edition, 1917)

  • IAMV Declaration of Principles, The I.A.M.V., A word in advance., The Creation. The Founding. Neither a people’s army[…] […nor ] any army at all Non-violence, About the labor movement, The attitude of the anti-militarists in case of war, An objection, No patriotism. , Conclusion.
  • APPENDIX for the second edition
  • RESOLUTION (Congress May 25, 1917)
  • RESOLUTION (Congress December 26, 1917)
  • STATUTES OF THE IAMV

2. ConTEXTS

  • A) How and why de Ligt incites. (1921)
  • B) Anarchism and revolution, Reflections in light of the anarchist congres in Berlin December 25 to 31, 1921
    • Introduction.
    • 1. Marxism and Anarchism
    • 2. Anarchism since 1914
    • 3. The anarchists at the Berlin congress.
    • 4. Anarchism and Organisation.
    • 5. The task of anarchists in the economic struggle organisations of the workers.
    • 6. Anarchism and Anti-militarism.
    • 7. Anarchism and dictatorship.
    • 8. Anarchism and Revolution.
  • C) Direct Action! The anti-militarists of the deed at the IFTU peace congress 10 – 15 December 1922, A voice in the desert.(1922
  • D) Revolution, anarchism and antimilitarism (1924)
  • E) Tolstoy and Gandhi (1930)
  • F) Clara-Meijer-Wichmann as defender of humanity (1931)
  • G) Proudhon Revives (1932)
  • H) Societal democracy (1933)
  • I) What stops fascism (1934)
    • different forms, In Italy, messianinsm., In Germany, democracy, feudal means of power, worship of the state., essential element of fascism, in the Netherlands., a normal phenomenon, Führerprinzip, Parteiprinzip, nationalize, ideological resistance, the practice of christian parties., freethinking democrats, social-democrats, Colijn trying?, fascism can never internationalise:, the realm of economy, capital and labor, human nature., direct action, its second utopia,
    • DEBATE.
    • a new kind of romanticism, our own world view, other currents in the labor movement, leader worship, spirit of unity, worship of France, the economic factor, what fascism wants, internationalization, peoples of the East, what needs to be done, fascism in your own circles, marxism
    • REPLIES.
    • romantic reaction, unhappy awareness, a guiding principle, the experience, reorientation, other currents, Every leader is fallible, direct action, revered economic ideas of fascism, What fascism wants, Can fascism internationalize?, the colored races, shoulder to shoulder, Marxism, the national tradition
  • J) National socialism or free socialism (1935)
    • main causes, feudal and pre-feudal means of violence and seduction, by virtue of their positions [functions], romantic reaction, liberal-democracy, the social-democrats, the 3rd International, inferiority complexes everywhere, autarchy, national solidarity, national capitalism, cannot internationalise, cultural competition, economically, June 30, 1934, bolshevism, serve a different purpose, deepest tendency of social life, state-capitalism, state-capitalism is the biggest enemy, not just the means of production but the products as well, salaried people, by the masses themselves rising up, here in the West, Principles of the communist production and distribution, a new education, only revolutionaries, before a decision, national-capitalism
    • DEBATE.
    • strive for simplicity, the syndicalists and the international communists, psychology, national-boshevism, the State will wither away, violence was wrong, bad methods for a good cause, unemployed youngsters,
    • REPLIES.
    • abolishing the wage system, simplicity, the syndicalists, the international communists, the free council system, psychology, in Russia, the revolution of the revolution, that this state would wither away all by itself, direct action, violence, revolutionary anti-militarists as well, the good means and the good goals? , on a different level, unemployed youth, more contact with the mass than ever before.
  • K) The problem of the civil war (Bevrijding 1938)
  • + POSTSCRIPT Bart de Ligt (in ‘Le problème de la guerre civile’, Pensée et Action, Hem DAY, Bruxelles, October 1937)
  • 3. Bart de Ligt – THE CONQUEST OF VIOLENCE (250p)
  • 4. From anti-militarism of the deed to social defence (Bibliographic essay).
  • 5. Further Reading: