The March To Death, Drawings By John Olday. 1943

The March To Death, Drawings By John Olday. 1943
The March to death, Drawings by John Olday (First Published  by Freedom Press  in 1943)

 84 pages.  14.5cm by 21cm

This book is a collection of anti-war, anti-state, anti-capitalist cartoons by the artist John Olday, and were originally published during the Second World War. The cartoons that appear in this book are supplemented by quotations from contemporary newspapers and other sources, selected by Marie Louise Berneri.

John Olday led a fascinating and eventful life. Born in London in 1905, he was taken to Hamburg as a child and was subsequently raised by his grandmother, staying in Germany until 1938. Whilst living in Germany he was active in politics, participating in the turbulent workers uprisings that followed the First World War, and later in the Spartacist movement. When the nazi's came to power in 1933 he became close to several leading members of the Nazi party in Hamburg, using his position to gather information on them and warn friends of moves to arrest them, before he himself became wanted by the Gestapo in 1938, when he had no choice but to flee to England.

Refusing to fight in the imperialist war, Olday deserted from the British Army after being called up to fight in the Second World War, and spent most of the war underground, producing newspapers and articles denouncing imperialism, and promoting the cause of workers and soldiers councils, who would then work for the establishment of a libertarian communist reorganization of society! With the assistance of friends he was able to publish a collection of anarchist anti-militarist cartoons in 1943.

He was arrested in 1944 and sent to prison, and after the war he continued to work in the anarchist movement, before emigrating to Australia in 1950.