Now and After

Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism

Title page of the first edition.
Author	Alexander Berkman
Subject	Anarchism Anarchist communism
Genre	Political philosophy
Published	1929 (Vanguard Press)
Media type	Print
OCLC	83572649
Preceded by	The Bolshevik Myth

Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchismis an introduction to the principles ofanarchismandanarchist communismwritten byAlexander Berkman.First published in 1929 byVanguard Press,Now and Afterhas been reprinted many times, often in partial or abbreviated versions, under the titlesWhat Is Communist Anarchism?,What Is Anarchism?orThe ABC of Anarchism.

Because of its presentation of anarchist philosophy in plain language,Now and Afterhas become one of the best-known introductions to anarchism in print. AnarchistStuart Christiewrote thatNow and Afteris "among the best introductions to the ideas of anarchism in the English language".HistorianPaul Avrichdescribed it as "a classic" and wrote that it was "the clearest exposition of communist anarchism in English or any other language".

History

The anarchist movement was under siege during the 1920s. The United States had deported hundreds of anarchists, including Berkman andEmma Goldman,in 1919. In the newly createdSoviet Union,Russian anarchistswere being arrested by theChekaand imprisoned or executed.InUkraine,ananarchist armyled byNestor Makhnohad been defeated by theRed Army.Hundreds of Russian anarchists were fleeing to exile in Germany and France.

In an effort to revive the movement, theJewish Anarchist FederationinNew Yorkasked Berkman in 1926 to write an introduction to anarchism intended for the public.By presenting the principles of anarchism in plain language, the New York anarchists hoped that readers might be swayed to support the movement or, at a minimum, that the book might improve the image of anarchism and anarchists in the public's eyes. Parts of the work initially appeared in theYiddishanarchist newspaper,Freie Arbeiter Stimme.

Versions

In May 1929, Berkman's complete work was first published by Vanguard Press in New York (jointly with theJewish Anarchist Federation) under the titleNow and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism,consisting of 31 chapters grouped into three sections: "Now", "Anarchism" and "The Social Revolution". Simultaneously, they also printed a cheaper edition in smaller format using the titleWhat Is Communist Anarchism?as an instalment oftheir running series on "social philosophies".

After Berkman's death in 1936, a second edition using the original title was reissued in August 1937 by Freie Arbeiter Stimme with a preface by Emma Goldman.

In May 1942 – duringWorld War II–Freedom PressinLondonpublished the first British edition, using the nameABC of Anarchism,opting on grounds of expense to leave out the first of the three sections of the original work, titled "Now", consisting of 18 chapters dealing primarily with the ills of contemporary capitalist society, criticism of socialist parties and of theRussian Revolution.

Since then, the book – most frequently the abridged version – has been reprinted many times and translated into many languages.In 1989, Phoenix Press published the 18 chapters left out of the Freedom Press version, and many subsequent printings, in a separate volume, titledWhat is Communist Anarchism?Complete unabridged reprints of the first edition from 1929 (supplemented by Goldman's preface from the 2nd edition) have been put out byDover Publicationsin 1972, reprinted in 2005 asThe ABC of Anarchism.

The book

Berkman's work explains anarchist philosophy in terms that uninitiated readers can understand. The book's chapters are brief, and many of them begin with questions (e.g.,"Is Anarchism Violence?", "Will Communist Anarchism Work?" ). A number of the ideas he discusses are similar to those proposed inThe Conquest of BreadbyPeter Kropotkin,whom Berkman cites throughout. Berkman avoids the sort of jargon and technical language that is often used by political writers in favour of plain language. As he writes in his foreword:

Anarchist books, with few exceptions, are not accessible to the understanding of the average reader. It is the common failing of most works dealing with social questions that they are written on the assumption that the reader is already familiar to a considerable extent with the subject, which is generally not the case at all. As a result there are very few books treating of social problems in a sufficiently simple and intelligible manner. For the above reason I consider a restatement of the Anarchist position very much needed at this time—a restatement in the plainest and clearest terms which can be understood by every one. That is, an ABC of Anarchism.

References

Works cited

• Avrich, Paul.Anarchist Portraits.Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.ISBN0-691-00609-1.
• Berkman, Alexander.What is Anarchism?Oakland: AK Press, 2003.ISBN1-902593-70-7.
• Kenez, Peter.A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.ISBN0-521-86437-2.
• Raleigh, Donald J.Experiencing Russia's Civil War: Politics, Society, and Revolutionary Culture in Saratov, 1917-1922.Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.ISBN0-691-11320-3.

External links

Online editions ofNow and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism:

• HTMLatAnarchy Archives
• PDFatAnarchy Archives
• PDFat Anarchy is Order
• HTMLat Libcom
• Multiple formats, including ePubat RevoltLib