Mitchell Abidor

Mitchell Abidor is the principal French translator for the Marxists Internet Archive. PM Press’s collections of his translations include Anarchists Never Surrender by Victor Serge, Voices of the Paris Commune, and Death to Bourgeois Society. His other published translations include The Great Anger: Ultra-Revolutionary Writing in France from the Atheist Priest to the Bonnot Gang; Communards: The  Paris Commune of 1871 as Told by Those Who Fought for It; A Socialist History of the French Revolution by Jean Jaurès; and May Made Me: An Oral History of the 1968 Uprising in France.

• Book events
• Reviews
• More from Mitchell

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Praise

“Over six decades Daniel Guérin had a record of willingness to cooperate with any section of the French left that shared his fundamental goals of proletarian self-emancipation, colonial liberation, and sexual freedom. He was a vigorous polemicist but saw no fragment of the left, however obscure, as beneath his attention. He was also typically generous, never seeking to malign his opponents, however profoundly he disagreed with them. He was always willing to challenge orthodoxy, whether Marxist or anarchist. Yet behind the varying formulations one consistent principle remained: ‘The Revolution of our age will be made from below—or not at all.’”
—Ian Birchall, author of The Spectre of Babeuf, Sartre Against Stalinism, and A Rebel’s Guide to Lenin

“Guérin provides an eloquent history of libertarian socialist practice that is not just insightful but also an exemplary display of straightforward writing, passion, and balance. The book is highly valuable as a history of thought and action, to be sure, but, even more important, as an exploration of issues and ideas directly relevant to today’s world.”
—Michael Albert, author of Parecon: Life after Capitalism

“With the continual debasing of ‘libertarian’ to mean free-market capitalist, the publication in English of Daniel Guérin’s classic For a Libertarian Communism is very welcome. It shows why Guérin was one of France’s leading libertarian thinkers and activists, for it discusses what remain the key issues for socialists of all schools. His deep knowledge of both anarchism and Marxism makes this book essential reading for all radicals: Marxists will get their false notions of anarchism challenged while those interested in anarchism will see that it is libertarian socialism rather than some incoherent lifestyle choice.”
—Iain McKay, author of An Anarchist FAQ, Property Is Theft! A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Reader, and Direct Struggle Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology

“Daniel Guérin is the creator of a unique synthesis between Marxism and anarchism: libertarian communism. His reflections are more than ever relevant for the 21th century.”
—Michael Löwy, author of Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe

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Praise

“This valuable collection offers a glimpse of the radical edges of the French Revolution, and of the popular anger and resolve that alone made it possible.”
—Peter Hallward, professor of modern European philosophy, Kingston University

“The Great French Revolution was, as Peter Kropotkin put it, ‘the source and origin of all the present communist, anarchist, and socialist conceptions,’ and the sans culottes were the popular driving force behind all its most radical developments. Mitchell Abidor and PM Press are therefore to be congratulated for making available these inspiring texts in English translation.”
—David Berry, author of A History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917 to 1945

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Praise

“It is quite wrong and anachronistic to call the practitioners of ‘propaganda by the deed’ at the end of the nineteenth century ‘lifestyle anarchists.’ They were part and product of a social movement which was consciously anarchist and socialist.”
—Peter Marshall, author of Demanding the Impossible

“Excellently edited collection of inspired and thoughtful reflections.”
—Andrej Grubacic, coauthor of Wobblies & Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History

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Praise

“The Paris Commune of 1871 has been the subject of much ideological debate, often far removed from the experiences of the participants themselves. If you really want to dig deep into what happened during those fateful weeks, reading these eyewitness accounts is mandatory.”
—Gabriel Kuhn, editor of All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution of 1918–1919

“The Paris Commune holds a place of pride in the hearts of radicals—heroically created from the bottom up and tragically crushed by the forces of reaction. Yet, as this collection illustrates, the lessons of the Commune, as debated by the Communards themselves, are as enduring and vital as that briefly liberated society was inspiring.”
—Sasha Lilley, author of Capital and Its Discontents

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Praise

“One of the most compelling of twentieth-century ethical and literary heroes.”
—Susan Sontag

“I can’t think of anyone else who has written about the revolutionary movement in this century with Serge’s combination of moral insight and intellectual richness.”
—Dwight Macdonald

“To me he has seemed a model of the independent intellectual in Europe between the wars: leftist but not dogmatic, political yet deeply involved with issues of cultural life, and a novelist of very considerable powers.”
—Irving Howe

“I believe indeed that to rescue the humanist tradition of the last decades is of the utmost importance, and that Victor Serge is one of the outstanding personalities representing the socialist aspect of humanism.”
—Erich Fromm

“Victor Serge died in exile and obscurity, apparently no more than a splinter of a splinter in the Marxist movement. But with the passage of the years, he looms up as one of the great moral figures of our time, an artist of such integrity and a revolutionary of such purity as to overshadow those who achieved fame and power. His failure was his success. I know of no participant in Russia’s revolution and Spain’s agonies who more deserves the attention of our concerned youth.”
—I.F. Stone

“I know of no other writer with whom Serge can be very usefully compared. The essence of the man and his books is to be found in his attitude toward the truth. . . . His life and its choices demonstrate an exemplary truth to which he was prophetically sensitive and which we should now accept as axiomatic. Institutions can be defended by lies, revolutions never.”
—John Berger, New Society

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Book Events

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Reviews

• For a Libertarian Communism Reviewed in Anarchist Studies
• The Permanent Guillotine: Writings of the Sans-Culottes on New Politics
• Anarchism, Marxism and Victor Serge on Counterpunch
• The Uncivil Servant: An International Poetry Tour
• Anarchists Never Surrender Reviewed on Anarchist Writers
• Anarchists Never Surrender: Review 31

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Interviews

• Uncontrollable Serge w/ Mitch Abidor on The Antifada Podcast
• An Interview with Mitchell Abidor in Bookslut

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Mentions

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Blog

• Paris Commune 150: From the 1871 Commune to Contemporary Communalism (full event video)
• Mitch Abidor talks about the Paris Uprising, May 1968— On Contact with Chris Hedges
• Uncontrollable Serge w/ Mitch Abidor on The Antifada Podcast