Disabled Anarchists - An Introduction

History

The Commoner

Featured in cover image from left to right: Aaron Bushnell, Alejandro Finisterre, Emma Goldman, Paul Goodman.

Written by the Disability Action Research Collective

Disabled people have been active parts of every liberatory movement. Yet when their histories are recounted, disability is often excluded to avoid tarnishing their reputations. This widespread and harmful practice strips away the full humanity of these figures and reinforces disability as a stigmatising characteristic. This essay aims to celebrate the lives of disabled anarchists by reclaiming their histories and framing disability not as an individual shameful failure that undermines one’s agency, legitimacy and personhood, but rather, as a neutral characteristic within the natural variation of humanity, one which likely deeply impacted their life experiences and perspectives. This essay will provide brief biographies of several disabled anarchists, briefly outline how ableism is foundational to other forms of oppression and provide an outline of The Social Model of Disability.

Aaron Bushnell (1998-2024) was an anarchist and anti-imperialist who protested against the invasion of Gaza by self-immolating himself outside of the Israeli Embassy. He was a cyber defence specialist in the United States Air Force and was autistic. He discouraged people from using words like crazy, insane, or lame, saying that they had their roots in ableism. His friends described him as kind, compassionate, and principled. He became increasingly critical of the military and US support for Israel’s actions in Gaza. In his livestream, he said that he could “no longer be complicit in genocide” and shouted “Free Palestine” as he set himself on fire. He died from his injuries later that day.

Albert Libertad (1875-1908) was a French individualist anarchist who advocated for the dissolution of all hierarchies. He was described as magnetically attractive, a one-man political demonstration, and the heart and soul of the liberation movement. Libertad did not have full use of his legs, but he skilfully wielded his walking sticks in fights against the authorities. He thought that one had to embody revolution oneself by living free, instead of waiting for a better future. Libertad was against conformity, work, marriage, military service, and voting.

Alejandro Finisterre (1919-2007) was an anarchist and poet who invented table football. He joined the Spanish Revolution (1936-1939) early on but was severely injured when his home was bombed. He spent the rest of the war in hospital and had mobility issues for the rest of his life. While in a hospital in Catalonia, he saw many injured children and worked with carpenters to build the first ‘foosball’ table for them. While exiled, he was arrested by fascist agents, but he hijacked the plane by wrapping a bar of soap in silver paper and pretending it was a bomb. He won over the support of the crew, who dropped him off in Panama.

Alex Comfort (1920-2000) was a sexologist, gerontologist, poet, and medical doctor who wrote The Joy of Sex (1972). He was an anarchist and a pacifist and was able to avoid being drafted due to his “crippled hand.” He lost several fingers as a child while trying to make gunpowder for fireworks. As an anti-war activist, he campaigned against the bombing of civilian areas during World War II. He was a prominent member of the nuclear disarmament movement and was arrested several times for his non-violent protests. In later life, he had paralysis due to a stroke and continued to write on a manual typewriter using his thumb.

Alexander Berkman (1870-1936) was a Russian-American writer and activist. He had chronic pain and depression, and often complained about fatigue in his letters. He believed that through direct action the ideas that would lead to revolution would become widespread. Berkman attempted to assassinate a business owner during a strike and was imprisoned. He wrote the book The ABC of Anarchism and edited the anarchist Journal Mother Earth with Emma Goldman. He was deported to Russia and became a vocal critic of the Soviet Union.

Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was a Lithuanian-born feminist, anarchist, public speaker, and writer who advocated free speech, free love, birth control, women’s equality, and labour rights. She had depression most of her life, as well as endometriosis, which caused her significant pain and made travel and work difficult. Goldman founded anarcha-feminism and was at one time considered the most dangerous woman in the U.S. by the federal government. Unfortunately, she was also a proponent of eugenics, which was extremely popular at the time and was influential on the anarchist movement. She was arrested and imprisoned multiple times for her revolutionary speeches and was eventually illegally stripped of her citizenship and deported.

Errico Malatesta (1853-1932) was an Italian anarchist and writer. His work is among the most accessible for people new to anarchist literature. He spent much of his life exiled, imprisoned, or under house arrest. Malatesta was sentenced to death three times and was involved in both the Spanish revolt and the Belgian general strike (1893). Malatesta had a chronic condition that caused inflammation of his lungs, suffering bronchial attacks for weeks at a time throughout his life. He eventually died of pneumonia.

Evgenia Iaroslavskaia-Markon (1902-1931) was an anti-Soviet revolutionary who had prosthetic legs. She worked as an anti-religious academic lecturer, and later as a fortune teller and thief. Markon was an active anti-government and anti-authoritarian activist who also helped storm a prison to release political prisoners. While imprisoned in a Siberian Gulag, she threw a stone at the head of the officer who had executed her husband and paid for that with her own life.

Leonard Augustine Motler (1888-1967) was a British anarchist-communist who wrote for a range of radical publications. He was an Esperantist (A proponent of the unified European language Esperanto) and described himself as deaf and without speech. He wrote regularly for radical left-wing publications such as The Clarion, The Women’s Dreadnought, Freedom, and The Voice of Labour. He was editor of Satire: A Paper of Social Criticism, “a worker’s paper, run by workers,” which was raided by the police during the First World War because of its anti-war and anti-capitalist messaging.

Lola Iturbe (1902-1990) was a Spanish anarchist who fought for the emancipation of women and for abortion rights. An untreated childhood fall left her with a permanent limp. Lola was a member of Spain’s anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labour (CNT) and an editor of anarchist publisher Tierra y Libertad (Land and Freedom). She also served as the distributor in Barcelona for the magazine of the anarchist women’s organisation Mujeres Libres (Free Women). During the Spanish Civil War, as a correspondent for Tierra y Libertad, she travelled back and forth to the front lines, where she would also accompany prolific US anarcha-feminist Emma Goldman on her Spanish tour.

Lucy Parsons (1851-1942) was an American labour organiser, public speaker and writer. She participated in the mass-strikes of 1877, and in the May Day movement for an eight-hour workday. Parsons believed in the use of violent direct action or the threat of it to help workers achieve their demands. Her husband Albert Parsons was executed after the Haymarket Massacre of May 1886. Lucy considered marriage, family structures, and children to be integral parts of life. This was in contrast to the ideas of having romantic relationships without marriage, which were popular in the anarchist movement. She lost her sight in later life but continued her activism, even joining the Communist Party of the USA in 1939. Lucy and her disabled son died in a house fire.

Manuel Escorza del Val (1912-1968) was the chief of the intelligence services for the anarchists during the Spanish Civil War against the fascists. He was considered the most powerful person in the CNT, where he oversaw executions, assassinations, interrogations, intelligence gathering and espionage. Manuel used a wheelchair and crutches; he had paralysis and restricted growth from childhood? polio. He was described as honest, reserved, austere, headstrong, highly educated, and efficient. After the war, he moved to Chile and became a cultural journalist. He was greatly feared by his ideological enemies, who only dared to defame him after his death. A friend described him as “An incorruptible and implacable revolutionary.”

Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He was involved in uprisings which led him to be imprisoned, sentenced to death, and finally exiled to Siberia. He had scurvy and lost his teeth from his imprisonment, which also ruined his stomach. He would vomit out any food except finely chopped cabbage. Bakunin foresaw the reformist nature of social democracy and the authoritarianism of state socialism. He had antisemitic ethnic prejudices which were at odds with his stated egalitarian principles.

Nestor Makhno (1842-1934) was a charismatic Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary general who led the Black Army during the Russian Civil War (1918-1920). He had a prominent facial scar, lived with tuberculosis and had continual problems with badly-healed wounds which affected his health and mobility. His army innovated new tactics such as adding mounted machine guns to carts pulled by horses (tachankas).

Nicolas Walter (1934-2000) was a British anarchist, atheist, writer, and anti-war activist. He was a member of Spies for Peace, which broke into a secret government bunker to expose plans for nuclear war. A radiotherapy treatment led to chronic pain and becoming a wheelchair user. Nicolas was imprisoned for his peaceful protests against the Vietnam War. He also campaigned against blasphemy laws and was involved with the secular-humanist movement. He had a long association with London-based Freedom Press (co-founded by Peter Kropotkin), and he was a regular contributor.

Paul Goodman (1911-1972) was a U.S.-American writer, bisexual, humanist, and anti-war activist. His writing covered a broad range of fields including decentralisation, psychology, arts, civil rights, and war. His work had particular influence on Gestalt therapy, the 1960s counterculture, and the free school movement. He actively protested war and promoted draft resistance such as draft-card burning. Goodman’s daughter had polio, and he had a prolonged depression much of his life, exacerbated by the death of his son. Goodman was extremely social, being described as having an eclectic and cantankerous presence. He loved to shock people and had an aggressive and sharp argumentative style.

Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) was a geographer and a leading Russian anarchist philosopher in his lifetime. He also had malaria, and scurvy, and lost his teeth while in a Siberian prison. Kropotkin’s work emphasised the importance of decentralised communist societies based on voluntary cooperation instead of centralised government control. He is best known for the books The Conquest of Bread and Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution.

Randolph Bourne (1886-1918) was a U.S.-American writer, radical, and anti-war activist. While not an anarchist, he is included here because his work was influential on the movement and because of his focus on individual liberty and critiques of state power. Randolph had a facial disfigurement as well as spinal tuberculosis, the latter of which stunted his growth and impacted his mobility. His essay “The Handicapped - By One of Them” is considered a foundational text in disability studies. He is most famous for saying, “War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense.”

Silvia Secchiari (1900-1959) was an Italian anti-fascist anarchist and self-taught musician. Her family were also anti-fascists, and her son set up the first partisan resistance group in the region. Her family was subject to many violent attacks by fascists, including homicides, beatings, and arson. One attack set fire to her house while her sisters slept, and another left her paralysed. She continued to write many songs about the partisan resistance, eventually becoming a symbol of the movement. Secchiari lived to see the end of the fascist regime. She was best known for the song “Canto della libertà” or “The Song of Freedom,” lines of which can be translated as “The fascists believed their regime was eternal, but their time has come and gone.”

Voltairine de Cleyre (1866-1912) was a U.S.-American anarcha-feminist writer and poet who experienced a lifelong chronic pain condition and had frequent recurring illnesses as well as depression and long-term injuries after being shot. She left a significant body of work in the form of speeches, essays, poems and stories, advocating for the abolition of capitalism and social hierarchies. De Cleyre was also a strong critic of the institution of marriage, believing that it was a trap for women, leaving them vulnerable to physical, emotional, sexual, and economic violence and exploitation.

While many anarchists are also disabled, modern anarchism and the disability movements have been considerably isolated from one another. Anarchist literature has not engaged with disability to the same degree as with other minority groups that experience exclusion and prejudice. Marxism, on the other hand, has considerable discussions of disability theory. One of the few modern sects of anarchism that mention disability is the anarcho-primitivists, who only do so while defending themselves from accusations of eugenics and ableism. Ableism serves a valuable function to capitalism and the State, which also actively encourages it, similar to other forms of prejudice. Disability theorists have explored the connections between capitalism and ableism, which may be of value to the anarchist movement:

‘Ableism is a system of assigning value to peoples’ bodies and minds based on societally constructed ideas of normalcy, productivity, desirability, intelligence, excellence and fitness. These constructed ideas are deeply rooted in eugenics, anti-blackness, misogyny, colonialism, imperialism and capitalism. This systemic oppression leads to people and society determining people’s value based on their culture, age, language, appearance religion, birth of living place, “health/wellness”, and/or their ability to satisfactorily re/produce, “excel” and “behave.” You do not have to be disabled to experience ableism’ (By Talila A. Lewis)

‘Ableism must be included in our analysis of oppression and in our conversations about violence, responses to violence and ending violence. Ableism cuts across all of our movements because ableism dictates how bodies should function against a mythical norm—an able-bodied standard of white supremacy, heterosexism, sexism, economic exploitation, moral/religious beliefs, age and ability. Ableism set the stage for queer and trans people to be institutionalized as mentally disabled; for communities of color to be understood as less capable, smart and intelligent, therefore “naturally” fit for slave labor; for women’s bodies to be used to produce children, when, where and how men needed them; for people with disabilities to be seen as “disposable” in a capitalist and exploitative culture because we are not seen as “productive;” for immigrants to be thought of as a “disease” that we must “cure” because it is “weakening” our country; for violence, cycles of poverty, lack of resources and war to be used as systematic tools to construct disability in communities and entire countries.’ (From Moving Toward the Ugly: A Politic Beyond Desirability by Mia Mingus)

'Since the political revolutions of the eighteenth century, social and political thinkers have challenged ostensibly rational justifications for inequalities based on gender, race, and ethnicity. Disability has been largely absent from that effort, despite its prominence in debates over equality. Not only has disability justified the inequality of disabled people but of other groups as well. In the three great citizenship debates of the 19th century and early 20th centuries: women’s suffrage, African American freedom, and immigration restriction, disability played a substantive role. Opponents of equality for women cited their supposed physical, intellectual, and psychological disabilities: physical frailty, irrationality, and emotional instability. Supporters of racial inequality and immigration restriction invoked the supposed disabilities of particular races and ethnic groups. Thus, while disabled people are one of the minority groups historically assigned inferior status, disability has functioned for all such groups as a justification of that status.' (From the Disability and the Justification of Inequality Essay by Douglas Baynton)

Disability is a minority group that anyone can join at any time, the definition of which is neither binary nor permanent. The environment a person lives in goes a long way to defining them as disabled. Many disabled people reject the definition ‘disabled.’ Accepting themselves as disabled results in social stigma, a redefined identity and often feelings of vulnerability and shame. Becoming disabled does not necessarily give a person direct access to disabled community, knowledge or culture. There is great debate on who has the authority to define disability; governments, individuals and political groups all have different reasons to define disability, and as such, different definitions.

The medical model of disability, which is widely used by non-disabled people, conceptualises disability as an individual failure or deviance that must be corrected or cured. This aims to redefine a systematic problem as a depoliticised personal failing. In contrast, the social model of disability posits that disability is an identity that is fundamentally political and socially constructed. It separates the idea of impairment from that of disability. People are disabled by exclusion, prejudice and infrastructural barriers that are imposed on them because of their impairments.

'It is widely assumed that most disabilities impose considerable restrictions, such as lack of mobility, limitations in finding and holding employment, isolation and difficulty in integrating with able-bodied people. People with disabilities do have to face all these restrictions, and others, but such restrictions are not imposed by their disabilities. They are imposed by a society which discriminates against people with disabilities, creating restrictions by denying people the means to exercise their capabilities.’ (From Disabled We Stand by Sutherland, 1981)

This essay was submitted to The Commoner by the Disability Action Research Kollective (DARK), which is a disabled-led group working to make disability perspectives, history, and research more accessible to a general audience. Our zines can be downloaded for free from our linktree, Seditionist or Libcom.org. Our zines include Disabled Radicals, Disabled Feminists, Disabled Gods, Wheelchair History, Disability Film Analysis Tools, Star Trek and Disability, Disability in Ancient Egypt and Batman V Disability, etc. This essay is primarily extracted from the zines Disabled Communists and Anarchists volumes 1 and 2, which had contributions from Richard Amm, Leslie Moon, Dai O’Brien, Michael Skyer, Steve Emery, Sophie Turbutt, Alexandra Morris, Benjamin Isitt, Ravi Malhotra, Cassandra Perry & Elif Aybas.

Bureaucratic Realism

What is the bureaucracy, that sphinx so tantalizing to the authoritarian mind? It is the naturalized, the realist, the alienated, the Spectacular form of life, against which we must resist.

Simoun Magsalin

Disabled Anarchists - An Introduction

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