Liberating Society from the State and Other Writings

Erich Mühsam

Description

Erich Mühsam (1878–1934), poet, bohemian, revolutionary, is one of Germany’s most renowned and influential anarchists. Born into a middle-class Jewish family, he challenged the conventions of bourgeois society at the turn of the century, engaged in heated debates on the rights of women and homosexuals, and traveled Europe in search of radical communes and artist colonies. He was a primary instigator of the ill-fated Bavarian Council Republic in 1919 and held the libertarian banner high during a Weimar Republic that came under increasing threat by right-wing forces. In 1933, four weeks after Hitler’s ascension to power, Mühsam was arrested in his Berlin home. He spent the last sixteen months of his life in detention and died in the Oranienburg Concentration Camp in July 1934.

Mühsam wrote poetry, plays, essays, articles, and diaries. His work unites a burning desire for individual liberation with anarcho-communist convictions, and bohemian strains with syndicalist tendencies. The body of his writings is immense, yet hardly any English translations have been available before now. This collection presents not only Liberating Society from the State: What Is Communist Anarchism?, Mühsam’s main political pamphlet and one of the key texts in the history of German anarchism, but also some of his best-known poems, unbending defenses of political prisoners, passionate calls for solidarity with the lumpenproletariat, recollections of the utopian community of Monte Verità, debates on the rights of homosexuals and women, excerpts from his journals, and essays contemplating German politics and anarchist theory as much as Jewish identity and the role of intellectuals in the class struggle.

An appendix documents the fate of Zenzl Mühsam, who, after her husband’s death, escaped to the Soviet Union where she spent twenty years in Gulag camps.

Sujets

• Working class
• Left-libertarianism
• Lumpenproletariat
• Socialism

Informations

• Publié par: PM Press
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781604866131
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Liberating Society from the State and Other Writings: A Political Reader
Erich Mühsam
Edited and translated by Gabriel Kuhn
ISBN: 978-1-60486-055-9
LCCN: 2010927794
This edition copyright ©2011 PM Press
All Rights Reserved
PM Press
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Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org
Cover by John Yates/stealworks.com
Layout based on design by Daniel Meltzer
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Published in the EU by The Merlin Press Ltd.
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ISBN: 978-0-85036-683-9
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editor’s Note
Introduction
Childhood and Youth
Autobiography
"Father’s 72nd Birthday"
1900–1904: Literary and Anarchist Awakening
The "Homosexuality" Pamphlet
1904–1909: Traveling Years
"Johannes Nohl"
Excerpts from "Ascona"
Bohemia
1909–1914: Munich I, Socialist Bund and Kain
New Friends
The Fifth Estate
My Secret Society
"Riot in Berlin"
Women’s Rights
The Moroccan War
Anarchy
The Suffragette Amazons
Culture and the Women’s Movement
The Blessing of Children
Ritual Murder
1914–1918: Munich II, The War
The Great Slaughter
Kain Letter
"The Typical German"
"Discharged"
"Plans for Anti-War Protests"
"Riot in Munich"
"Bernhard Köhler"
1918–1919: Munich III, Revolution and Council Republic
Karl Liebknecht–Rosa Luxemburg
Excerpts from "From Eisner to Leviné"
"Gustav Landauer’s Death"
"Zenzl"
Final Court Statement
"Sentenced"
1919–1924: Imprisonment
"The Ebrach Prison Commune"
On the Jewish Question
The Intellectuals
"Max Hoelz"
"Hitler and the Fledgling Nazi Movement"
"Free!"
1924–1933: Berlin
Germany Needs Colonies
Bismarxism
The Anarchists
Sacco and Vanzetti
Leaving the Rote Hilfe
Liberating Society from the State: What Is Communist Anarchism?
Preface
I. The Worldview of Anarchism
II. The Way of Anarchism
Appendix I
Additional Diary Entries
Additional Letters
Appendix II
The Fate of Zenzl Mühsam
Bibliography
German
English
Index
E DITOR’S N OTE
N EXT TO G USTAV L ANDAUER, E RICH M ÜHSAM H AS B EEN Germany’s most influential anarchist. Johann Most and Rudolf Rocker had a bigger international impact, but Landauer and Mühsam have left the biggest mark on anarchist history in the country itself. Mühsam’s Die Befreiung der Gesellschaft vom Staat. Was ist kommunistischer Anarchismus? , included in this volume as Liberating Society from State: What Is Communist Anarchism? , is arguably the most widely read anarchist text in Germany.
Die Befreiung der Gesellschaft vom Staat was the programmatic summary of Mühsam’s political beliefs, penned one year before his death. It is presented in this book alongside numerous essays, letters, and diary entries, documenting the life of a unique personality straddling the lines between bohemia and proletarian organizing. The volume’s selection contains Mühsam’s best-known and most frequently reprinted essays, such as "Bohemia" and "Bismarxism," as well as texts chosen particularly with an English readership in mind, such as his articles on Sacco and Vanzetti. With few exceptions, the texts appear in chronological order, hopefully providing a comprehensive overview of the intersections of Mühsam’s life, thought, and politics. The order of the chapters follows the structure of the Introduction. Two appendixes provide additional material: the first contains supplementary diary entries and letters; the second documents the fate of Erich’s wife, Kreszentia "Zenzl" Mühsam, who spent twenty years imprisoned and exiled in the Soviet Union after her husband’s death–a horrendous tale of Stalinist persecution.
Apart from political essays and articles, Mühsam wrote plays and hundreds of poems. Both his work as a playwright and as a poet deserve detailed study, which has been conducted by some scholars, even in English 1 This volume, however, focuses on Mühsam as a political thinker and activist, reflecting both the editor’s and the publisher’s main interest and providing an addition to the Gustav Landauer reader, Revolution and Other Writings , published by PM Press in 2010.
All of the texts in this volume are published in print in English for the first time and have been translated by Gabriel Kuhn, with the translation of Die Befreiung der Gesellschaft vom Staat borrowing elements from the online translation made available by Chris Edmonston on erichinenglish.org in 2008. 2
Translating Erich Mühsam
Translating texts that are roughly a hundred years old poses certain challenges. Mühsam’s German is antiquated and many sentences extremely long-winded. They are not always easy to read, even for native German speakers. However, readability was a priority in the translation process in order to make this book relevant for a contemporary English-speaking audience. In cases where this demanded that the original text be treated in a liberal rather than a literal way, that was the chosen path. Needless to say, no liberties were taken that, in the translator’s judgment, would have jeopardized the intentions or contents of the original.
The number of untranslated German terms has been kept to a minimum. Where it seemed important or inevitable to retain the original terms, explanations are provided in footnotes. Sometimes, the original German term, German name, or essay or book title follows the translation in parentheses. English translations of German names and titles follow in square brackets.
There are some terms frequently used by Mühsam that ought to be introduced with an explanation:
Geist–spirit : Geist is a notoriously difficult German term to translate. "Spirit" is the most common English translation, and I have adapted to this. However, the philosophical notion of Geist –for example in Hegel–lies somewhere between "intellect" and "soul;" as such, it can apply to an individual (in which case it might also be understood as an individual’s "essence") as well as to a community, a people, an era, even a place; it defines individual or collective identity beyond its mere physicality (hence the major attacks on the term by materialists). Mühsam uses Geist much in this sense, being strongly influenced by Gustav Landauer, who offered the following explanation in a speech shortly before his death: "Geist is when knowledge, emotion, and will unite and become an active force." 3 In a less philosophical context, Geist can also be a close equivalent to "mind" or "reason." On the few occasions Mühsam uses the term in this sense, it has been translated accordingly. "Ghost," another meaning of Geist , plays no role in Mühsam’s usage.
Philister–philistine : Mühsam makes frequent use of the term Philister , popularized as a pejorative for bourgeois scholars by Friedrich Nietzsche. As "philistine" (or "cultural philistine") has been the most common translation of the Nietzschean term, it will be used here too. It must be understood as a term for scholars bereft of soul and spirit, however, and not as a term indicating mere lack of education, culture, or taste.
Mühsam’s language–like that of all German writers at the time, male and female–was marked by an inclusive use of male terms. Given the many problematic implications of a "modern cleansing" of Mühsam’s language, this has been reproduced in the translations.
Acknowledgments
As always, it is impossible to thank everyone who has helped in the course of compiling this book, so I will limit myself to naming the following projects and organizations without which independent scholarly research would be near impossible:
Lausanne’s Centre International de Recherches sur l’Anarchisme [International Center for Anarchist Research] (CIRA) and the wonderful Marianne Enckell.
The International Institute for Social History (IISH) in Amsterdam and its extremely accommodating staff.
Stockholm’s Arbetarrörelsens arkiv , Kungliga biblioteket , and their many generous volunteers and employees.
Berlin’s Bibliothek der Freien [Library of the Free], including computer wizard Sven-Oliver Buchwald and anarchist historian extraordinaire Wolfgang Eckhardt.
Lübeck’s Erich-Mühsam-Gesellschaft [Erich Mühsam Society], under the longtime guidance of Johann-Wolfgang Goette and Sabine Kruse.
Special thanks also to Michael Ryan and Gregory Nipper for precious copyediting, to Chris Edmonston, the host of erichinenglish.com , for vital editorial assistance, to Chris Hirte for providing crucial information, and to Siegbert Wolf for steadfast support!

1 . See the bibliography at the end of the book.
2 . Edmonston’s translation is an excellent rendition. The reason for using an altered version in this