Black Cat Press

12/11/2025

The Black Cat Press translations of Nestor Makhno's memoirs are now available on several internet platforms, including:
Archive.org
libcom.org
theanarchistlibrary.org

06/11/2025

In 1897 Peter Kropotkin visited Canada, where he received considerable assistance from James Mavor, professor of economics at the University of Toronto. Kropotkin presented Mavor's nine-year-old daughter Dora with a birchbark book which he had acquired somewhere in Canada. The book is now owned by the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections of the U of T. Dora grew up to become a famous actress and director.

The cover and dedication page of the book are shown. The dedication reads "To dear sweet Dora in remembrance of her friend Peter Kropotkin." Birchbark books were common in the 19th and early 20th centuries and are much prized today as examples of indigenous art.

[Thanks to Grant Hurley for information and graphics.]

07/12/2024

The final death knell of Black Cat Press took place on June 26 when remaining equipment and stock was destroyed by fire. Arson is indicated (the fire started outside the house).

06/24/2024

Kirsten Mayoh, graphic designer at Black Cat Press for several years (2009 - 2016), passed away on May 17, 2024, at the age of 43. A couple of examples of books designed by Kirsten are shown.

05/01/2022

01/24/2022

Hot off the press today:

"For Freedom We Will Fight: the Industrial Workers of the World in British Columbia 1905–1990"

by Larry Gambone

In his latest book, Larry Gambone describes the struggles of the IWW throughout the 20th century in British Columbia, the Canadian province where it enjoyed the most influence. The source base for his study includes IWW publications, local newspapers, personal interviews, and archival documents.

ISBN 978-1-926878-26-3 (paperback)
132 pp., index; 213x134x13mm, 183 g.

$15.95

Order from www.blackcatpress.ca.

10/11/2021

"The Makhnovshchina and Its Aftermath," (Edmonton, 2021), 214 pp. $22.95.

The Makhnovist movement, or Makhnovshchina, was an attempt by revolutionary peasants in southeastern Ukraine to construct an anarchist society during a savage civil war. The survivors of this failed project were forced to defend their movement from critics and also analyze their own shortcomings.

The present collection provides translations of a number of rare documents, including a substantial work by Nestor Makhno, responding to one of his Soviet critics and two diaries by participants of the movement. The diary of Galina Kuzmenko, Makhno’s wife, is of particular interest as it was used in Soviet times to discredit the Makhnovists.

Contents:
The Makhnovshchina and Its Erstwhile Allies—the Bolsheviks
by Nestor Makhno (1928)
The Death of My Father by Galina Kuzmenko (1937)
The Diary of Galina Kuzmenko (1920)
The Diary of Peter Rybin (1920)
Clarification by Vsevolod Voline (1929)
Appropos Voline’s “Clarification” by Nestor Makhno (1929)
Makhno: A Contribution to Studies of the Enigma
of Personality by Vsevolod Voline (1945)

05/15/2021

Arthur J. Miller passed away on May 4, 2021, after a life of struggle.

05/12/2021

"Young Rebels Against the Empire: The Youth Memoirs of Nestor Makhno and Voldemar Antoni"
Black Cat Press (2021)
ISBN 978-1-926878-24-9
20.2 cm x 12.8 cm; 160 g
174 pp, paperback
$14.95
http://blackcatpress.ca/Young%20Rebels.html

Nestor Makhno (1888—1934) is known mainly for his efforts to establish an anarchist society in southeastern Ukraine during the Russian Civil War (1918–1921). But the Makhnovist movement did not appear out of thin air – it had a pre-history that started a dozen years earlier in the steppe village of Gulyai-Polye with an organization called the Union of Poor Peasants. This Union, with a membership mainly of young people, engaged in an unequal struggle with the forces of law and order and was soon crushed.

Makhno himself spent many years in prison, including a harrowing 52 days on death row. His mentor during his earlier years in the movement, Voldemar Antoni (1886–1974), managed to escape abroad and survived to old age. Both anarchists left memoirs of their early years which deserve to be better known and are offered here in an English translation.

Translated from the Russian and annotated by Malcolm Archibald.