Albert Meltzer

Albert Meltzer (7 January 1920 – 7 May 1996) was an English anarcho-communist activist and writer.

Meltzer was born in London, and attracted to anarchism at the age of fifteen as a direct result of taking boxing lessons where he met Billy Campbell, seaman, boxer and anarchist. The Labour MP for Edmonton, Edith Summerskill, was virulently anti-boxing and his school governors at The Latymer School considered it "common". At his first anarchist meeting in 1935, he contradicted Emma Goldman's comments on boxing. As the Spanish Revolution turned into the Spanish Civil War Meltzer became active organising solidarity appeals. He involved himself with smuggling arms from Hamburg to the CNT in Spain and acted as a contact for the Spanish anarchist intelligence services in Britain. At this time he had a part as an extra in Leslie Howard's film Pimpernel Smith, as Howard wanted more authentic actors playing the anarchists.

Meltzer believed that the only true type of anarchism was communistic. He opposed the individualist anarchism of people such as Benjamin Tucker, believing that the private police that individualists support would constitute a government.

Albert Meltzer was a contributor in the 1950s to the long-running anarchist paper Freedom before leaving in 1965 to start his own venture Wooden Shoe Press. Soon Meltzer was to be involved in a long and bitter dispute with fellow anarchist and former comrade at Freedom Press Vernon Richards which entangled many of their associates and the organisations with which they were involved and continued after both their deaths. Although the feud started in a dispute arising from the possibility of Wooden Shoe moving into Freedom premisses, there were also political differences. Meltzer advocated a more firebrand and proletarian variety of anarchism than Richards and often denounced him and the Freedom collective as "liberals".

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