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introduction

Philip Josephs—a Latvian-born Jewish tailor, recent arrival to New Zealand by way of Scotland, and self-proclaimed anarchist—took to the floor of the 1906 Wellington May Day demonstration amidst orchestral outbursts and a flurry of motions. “This meeting,” moved Josephs, “sends its fraternal greetings to our comrades engaged in the universal class war, and pledges itself to work for the abolition of the capitalistic system and the substitution in New Zealand of a co-­operative commonwealth, founded on the collective ownership of the land and the means of production and distribution.”1 The motion, as well as highlighting his involvement in the radical milieu of New Zealand’s capital, conveys the key concepts of his anarchism: internationalism, class struggle, and free communism.

However, if readers were to form an understanding of anarchism based on the newspapers of the day or from the accounts of New Zealand’s labour movement by certain historians, a very different conclusion would be drawn. On the occasions it is mentioned, anarchism is used hysterically by the press to denounce or decry; by labour leaders in order to show the fallacy of their opponents’ positions; and by Labourist historians to symbolise wayward ideas or acts of extremism—painting a nightmarish picture of anarchist practice in the vein of Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday.2

Unfortunately, this is not a trend restricted to New Zealand. Anarchism as a philosophy and a movement has long been misrepresented,as French anarchist Daniel Guérin notes:

Those who would slander anarchism serve up a tendentious interpretation of its doctrine. Anarchism is essentially individualistic, particularistic, hostile to any form of organization. It leads to fragmentation, to the egocentric withdrawal to small local units of administration and production. It is incapable of centralizing or of planning. It is nostalgic for the ‘golden age.’ It tends to resurrect archaic social forms. It suffers from childish optimism; its ‘idealism’ takes no account of the solid realities of the material infrastructure. It is incurably petit-bourgeois; it places itself outside of the class movement of the modern proletariat… and finally, certain commentators take care to rescue from oblivion and to draw attention only to its most controversial deviations, such as terrorism, individual assassinations, propaganda by explosives.3

Yet as Vadim Damier illustrates, anarchism was a global working class movement, one “that spread to countries as different as Spain and Russia, France and Japan, Argentina and Sweden, Italy and China, Portugal and Germany,” and “was able to attract hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, of wage workers.” Anarchists “not only took an active part in the most important social upheavals and conflicts of the twentieth century, often leaving their own indelible imprint on these events, but also in many countries they formed the centre of a special, inimitable, working class culture with its own values, norms, customs, and symbols.”4 Against this reality of anarchism as a socialist movement, a focus on ‘its most controversial deviations’ reaffirms the stereotype of the anarchist terrorist, dressed in black and wielding a bomb—dangerous, mal-content, and against civilisation itself. “‘God’s Own Country’ is not safe from the vagaries of the person who believes in the bomb as opposed to argument,” bellowed one New Zealand daily paper in 1907.5

Although highly exaggerated, this newspaper article contained one truth: God’s Own Country—the ‘Workingman’s Paradise’ that was New Zealand in the early years of the twentieth century—had anarchists in its midst. To describe them as a coherently organized movement would be another exaggeration, but nonetheless, those that subscribed to anarchism in New Zealand were a valid part of the wider labour movement, imparting uncredited ideas, tactics, and influence. Likewise, anarchist agitation and the circulation of radical literature contributed significantly to the development of a radical working-class counterculture in New Zealand.

Yet unfortunately, these radicals have fared badly in labour historio­graphy—even more so than their communist counterparts who, at least, are mentioned, even if they are “frequently dealt with by a very brief, generally dismissive, characterisation, often little more than a caricature.”6 New Zealand anarchists and their commitment to social change deserve more than the relative silence that currently represents their struggle.

Indeed, the most substantial work to date on anarchism in New Zealand during the twentieth century’s turbulent teens is the indispensable thirty-two-page pamphlet, “‘Troublemakers’ Anarchism and Syndicalism: The Early Years of the Libertarian Movement in Aotearoa/New Zealand,” by Frank Prebble. Drawing on snippets of primary and secondary sources, his research was pioneering in that it was the first work specifically on anarchism—highlighting a definite strand of libertarian praxis in New Zealand that has long been overlooked. Yet as Prebble notes in the introduction, “this pamphlet is not complete, much of the information is very fragmentary and a lot more work needs to be done.”7

Apart from the relatively small number of its adherents, one of the reasons that early anarchism in New Zealand has been inadequately studied, and why further research is difficult, is due to the lack of ­historical records:

a great deal of material has simply been lost due to the transitory characteristics of events. Those who were active in personal discussions and other forms of activism in their dynamic, often convulsing, and ever changing world often did not see the need or lacked the literacy to be able to document their ideas… what is left as source material are the thoughts only of those who were literate, who spoke loudly enough to be documented by others, or who wished to make themselves heard in a more durable way.8

Another factor that has limited some past anarchist historiography is the tendency to view its subject/s solely within national boundaries. Anarchism was a transnational movement—built upon global economic integration and both formal and informal networks crossing national lines.9 When framed within geographical limits, anarchism in New Zealand certainly appears submerged in a sea of ‘pink’ socialism, even insignificant. Yet a transnational lens allows New Zealand anarchists to be viewed as part of a wider, international movement, spurred on by transoceanic migration, doctrinal diffusion, financial flows, ­transmission of information and symbolic practices, and acts of solidarity.10 The role of New Zealand anarchism, both in the New Zealand labour movement and its own international movement, increases in scope when placed in such a context.

With that in mind, and by drawing on the work of Prebble and others, this contribution will explore early anarchism in New Zealand through a biography of one of its key players.11 The transnational nature of anarchism in the period between its emergence in the workers’ movement of the late 1860s and the interwar years can be seen in the migration and activity of Philip Josephs (1876–1946). His sustained activism, whether from the soapbox or through the mailbox, and his involvement in the class struggle that swept through the country, makes Josephs one of New Zealand’s most important and pioneering anarchists.

As well as providing previously unpublished biographical information on Josephs, I hope to convince the reader of three main claims. Firstly, before the arrival of Josephs in New Zealand, the “broad anarchist tradition”—defined by Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt as a revolutionary form of libertarian socialism against social and economic hierarchy (specifically capitalism and the state), in favour of international class struggle and revolution from below, in order to create a socialist, stateless social order—had next to no organized presence.12 There were anarchists and various forms of anti-authoritarian ideas in New Zealand before Josephs, but it was his activity within the New Zealand Socialist Party and his formation of one of New Zealand’s first anarchist collectives, the Freedom Group, that ensured a level of organized anarchism previously lacking in the wider labour movement.

The second point is one of legitimacy. Anarchism was a valid part of the New Zealand labour movement and its working-class counter-culture—directly through the activity of Philip Josephs and other anarchists, or indirectly due to anarchist literature and ideas. Although often missing from the indices of New Zealand labour histories, Erik Olssen notes that anarchism was “more influential than most have realised.”13 Josephs’ anarchist communism reflects the rejection of violent individualism (known as propaganda by the deed) and the move back to collective action taken by the majority of anarchists in the late 1890s. His tireless distribution of anarchist literature, numerous public speeches and his tailor-shop-cum bookshop helped to create a radical counter-culture in New Zealand, while his support of syndicalist class struggle and the general strike, and his activity alongside the local branches of the Industrial Workers of the World highlights the relationship of anarchism with revolutionary syndicalism. Indeed, if one went so far as employing Schmidt and van der Walt’s definition of syndicalism being a variant and strategy of the broad anarchist tradition, the era of the New Zealand Federation of Labor of 1908–1913 could be seen in a whole new light.14

Finally, New Zealand anarchists, and Josephs in particular, were rooted in the international anarchist movement. Josephs’ birth in Latvia, his ongoing radicalisation in Glasgow, Scotland, and his almost two decades in New Zealand before he left for Australia, highlights the transient nature of labour. His distribution of international anarchist literature, and personal networking with overseas revolutionaries and groups such as Freedom Press (UK) and the Mother Earth Publishing Association (USA), illustrates the doctrinal diffusion and sharing of information so vital to informal, intercontinental anarchist networks. This sharing went both ways. Josephs’ activities, the perceived bankruptcy of the Liberal Government’s state-socialist legislation, and accounts of New Zealand strikes popped up on the pages of various anarchist journals abroad, lending weight to the notion that anarchism

was not a Western European doctrine that diffused outwards, perfectly formed, to a passive ‘periphery.’ Rather, the movement emerged simultaneously and transnationally, created by inter-linked activists on many continents—a pattern of interconnection, exchange and sharing, rooted in ‘informal internationalism.’15

Josephs played a key role in the establishment of a distinct anarchist identity and culture (in New Zealand and abroad), a culture that emerged around and enveloped the globe simultaneously. His New Zealand activity personifies the transnationalism of the day, and illustrates how interlinked (and often unrecognized) activists operating within small local scenes, but with an eye towards international developments, advanced the anarchist project worldwide. As a result, Josephs’ struggle for social change linked the South Pacific nation to the global movement, and furthered anarchism in New Zealand itself—the Freedom Group of 1913 being one of the first of many anarchist collectives to play a vibrant part in the history of the New Zealand left.