Nick Heath's riproaring short journey through the escapades and intrigues of the French anarchist exile community in London's Fitzrovia in the late 1800's.
An essay on the relative influence exercised by the First International (the Spanish Regional Federation of the IWA), the Second International, French revolutionary syndicalism (the CGT and the Bourses du Travail), and Italian syndicalism (the USI), respectively, on the origin and development of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, with extensive discussion of the internal debates that took place between 1880 and 1920 in the European anarchist milieu on the general strike and the nature and purpose of trade unionism.
Author
In 1870s London, at 67 Charlotte Street, there was a grocery shop called
le Bel Épicier, run by the Frenchman Victor Richard. Here, a London shopper could find French coffee, mustards, pâtes, cornichon and wines particularly those from Richard’s native Burgundy. As well as providing much-needed epicurean relief, Richard’s shop was “for many years a head centre, where political refugees, as they arrive from the Continent, go for advice and help in finding lodgings or work, and where, of course, the continental police agents also flock so as to spy upon the land.”
Richard was a prosperous and entrepreneurial grocer. He was also a member of the International Workingmen’s Association (IWMA), a socialist and a Communard; his relocation from Paris to London was the result of his militant defense of the Paris Commune of 1871. Arriving as a political refugee in London in June 1871, Richard became a very well connected and locally celebrated revolutionary; apparent