Black flag 232: The Preview

The latest version of Black Flag is out [here] and with it comes our bi-annual free article.
It's available at libcom.org [here].

Issue 232: The launch

The new issue is nearly here! We're set to be launching at the London anarchist bookfair, so if you're in the city on October 23rd, come down and have a look around, chat to people, look at the stalls and talks, and buy this top notch magazine which features:
 Exposé: A US citizen exposes the ever-changing landscape for getting visas and the games played with people’s lives by politicians grubbing for votes
Cover story: Ed Goddard pulls on the links between traditional trade unionism and the state – do union bureaucracies deliberately dampen militancy?
Analysis: A journalist who has worked the Somali coast gives a different view on ‘progressive’ piracy in the Indian Ocean   
Reportage: Joe Hell looks at the latest action in a wave of desperate measures by cleaning staff   
In Focus: The Anarchist Federation on cuts
Breathing Utopia: A former international development worker explains the industry and why it shouldn’t exist  
Interview: A Cenetista talks on the beginnings of the Spanish anarchists’ trade union    
Reportage: The Zapatistas are under attackIn focus: Proudon, the first anarchist 
Radical Reprint: Proudhon vs Leroux   
Analysis: Kropotkin’s social revolution    
Analysis: Willis’s “history of historians”  
Review: Pistoleros! one and two   
Hob’s Choice: The newest pamphlets   
Review: Lenny Flank and Marxism   
Review: Dave Douglass – the trilogy 

Coming this October: Black Flag 232

After an influx of interest from writers (if not, alas, from people who's first love is phoning up shops to get us stocked, chasing payments and generally getting down to the nitty gritty of admin and distro) it looks like we're filling up our pages nicely. Among some of our prospective articles are:

- A US citizen in London tells of her constant battle and the high price of staying in Britain against ongoing state hostility

- Ed Goddard of libcom.org taking on the thorny question of why trade unionism is failing working people in a time of crisis.

- A genuinely alternative take on Somali piracy from a journalist who has been there and seen first-hand the realities on the ground.

- Brian Morris analysing the politics of historic anarchist-communist figure Peter Kropotkin.

- Iain McKay's in-depth study of founding father of the movement Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.

Plus reviews of Farquhar Mcharg's Pistoleros! books, Dave Douglass's autobiographical trilogy, Anarcho-Syndicalism in the 20th Century and our unique Hob's choice pamphlet review column.

The magazine officially launches at the London Anarchist Bookfair on October 23rd, don't miss out!

40 Years of Black Flag

 2010 is a year of anniversaries. It is 170 years since Proudhon proclaimed himself an anarchist and that “property is theft!” It is 20 years since the poll-tax riot. It is 40 years since Black Flag first came out.

Originally associated with the Anarchist Black Cross, Black Flag has been an independent magazine for some decades. It was born of a time of intense class struggle and its founders, Stuart Christie and Albert Meltzer, aimed to give revolutionary anarchists a forum. That is still its aim and it is still, we think, Britain’s leading anarchist magazine.

We hope to present a lively journal which will interest those seeking to discover more about anarchist ideas and activity but also has something for long-standing activists. Our aim is to produce a mix of analysis of current events, theoretical contributions, articles on key moments of our history and reviews. We hope to produce a magazine for current activists as well as link to the voices from our past (our “revolutionary reprint” feature which has, so far, included Errico Malatesta, Murray Bookchin, Ethel MacDonald, Emma Goldman and John Most).

Malatesta

McDonald

Issue 231 is currently on-sale now (available from Freedom and many other radical bookshops as well as on-line at www.akuk.com). As well as an interview with Stuart Christie, we have a mix of articles and reviews on subjects and books of interest to all radicals. It discusses electorial abstentionism, libertarian approaches to health, includes tributes to both Colin Ward and Howard Zinn and celebrates the 1990 anti-poll-tax riot. We also mark the 100^th anniversary of Kropotkin’s entry on anarchism for the Encyclopaedia Britannica with a discussion of this classic introduction and summary of our ideas and movement. And lots more.

Most

Goldman

 Issue 232 is being prepared now and we are seeking help from those who wish Black Flag to continue. We aim to be a non-sectarian forum for discussion and analysis for all revolutionary libertarians, although with a firm focus on revolutionary anarchism (communist-anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, etc.). We also aim to increase our frequency and distribution.

However, we still need help to produce Black Flag. We are a small collective and we are always looking for comrades to write, edit and otherwise get involved. 

We have formed links with the Anarchist Federation (which contributes articles to their own dedicated pages) and aim to extend that to other organisations. 

Bookchin

We need people to write, take bundles to sell, to proof-read, maintain our webpage and a host of other tasks which are required to make a magazine not only survive but to grow.

We are aiming to become quarterly but that goal depends on our readers actively participating rather than passively consuming a product. If you are a class struggle anarchist, like Black Flag and wish it to not only continue but flourish into the regular and frequent magazine of our movement needs, please get in touch.

Back through the archives

Before getting to the more recent stuff, some of Black Flag's old issues have been put online around the place, including on the collective's previous website.

At the libcom.org website, papers from between 1976 and 1979 are being made available. Currently up as PDF downloads are:

IV 7 (March 1976)
IV 8 (May 1976)
IV 9 (July 1976)
IV 10 (September 1976)

And more are due to go up in the near future. Meanwhile on the old Black Flag website are more recent issues from between 1996 and 2000:

210 Drugs, Death and Kroptotkin (from around 1996)

211 Chomsky, Albania and the CNT/FAI/IWA

212 Race, organisation and class

213 End of work

214 Never forget, Never Forgive

215 Money has only one face, that of the boss

216 121, Chile, Indonesian anarchism

217 Welfare warfare

218 In the City, J18

219 Shooting to Kill! (from around 2000)

If you know of any other sources for our archive, or have some old hardcopies you can scan in, let us know!

Welcome to Black Flag magazine

This blog is being set up as a dedicated space for the magazines put out by the Black Flag collective, a group of anarchist-communists based primarily in London, England.

Published since 1970, Black Flag is one of Britain's longest-running anarchist magazines and publishes bi-annually, concentrating on providing a voice for thought-provoking theoretical, investigative and historical work.

As an independent collective, we welcome submissions of between 800-3,200 words from anyone of a left-libertarian perspective.