It’s been a bleak beginning to the year 2010. Not only has January been the coldest month in over twenty years, right in the middle of a global recession and continuing financial crisis, but we have lost, in quick succession, some of the greatest political minds, radical thinkers and inspired anarchist comrades of our lifetime.

Both Anna Mendelssohn and Jake Prescott died within months of each other, and while both had retired from the political scene, their actions and activities during their time in the Angry Brigade brought a certain dynamism and daring to anarchist politics, not witnessed before or since, and raised the bar in terms of how we confront the state.
Howard Zinn, who for many a young anarchist was the introduction to a new way of thinking – the original politics from below – with his seminal A People’s History of the United States. The scope, clarity and sheer magnitude of his work still cast a long and impressive shadow across the political spectrum despite his untimely demise.

The most recent deaths of John Rety and Colin Ward perhaps resonate most with Freedom and its readership. Both contributed enormously to the paper, Freedom publishing, and to the anarchist movement in general. It is a testament to both that their works still play an important role in our political thinking. They were great men whose commitment and fearless passion for anarchism was informed by their humanity and desire for a better world.

How anarchists treat their comrades in both life and in death will always reflect, in microcosm, the society we wish to see develop. It is a great shame that neither man will have the opportunity to see that society come into being. It is up to us to ensure their lives were not lived out in vain. Freedom as a paper, as a publishers and as a bookshop continues to provide the traditions both Colin Ward and John Rety so ably contributed to.

With the general and local elections looming it will become the job of anarchists to ensure the spectre of capitalism and the state doesn’t monopolise the discourse, and that our ideas become relevant and necessary, and most importantly heard, above the clatter of clashing ideologies. Social change can never be mediated through the very institutions that are actively preventing that change. As such Freedom is compiling an ‘election special’ in the run up to the general election. We need to reclaim the agenda and express anarchism as a real and achievable goal. John and Colin, I’m sure, wouldn’t have it any other way.