Black Flame has been heralded for years as a defining book on anarchism for syndicalist and platformist trends. Its two co-authors, Lucien Van der Walt and Michael Schmidt, are South Africans associated with the Zabalaza Anarchist Communist Front, and well known in Europe, South America, and the U.S. AK Press has just announced that they will be pulling all Michael Schmidt´s books from publications and canceling his new book, Global Fire, the sequel to Black Flame. The reason being that he was outed as a fascist and white nationalist going under anarchist cover, mixing the anarchist politics he wrote about with open racialism. This was revealed by author Alexander Reid Ross, who has been covering neo-fascism for Counter Punch and is working on the book Creeping Fascism for AK Press.
In a statement just released, AK Press said:
We have some ugly and upsetting news…
About six months ago, we started hearing some disturbing rumors that one of our authors, Michael Schmidt, was an undercover fascist. Soon after, another one of our authors, Alexander Reid Ross, provided us with actual evidence. We helped him investigate further for several weeks and then put him in touch with another writer.
Over the past months, we have received and compiled what we consider to be incontrovertible evidence that Michael Schmidt is a white nationalist trying to infiltrate the anarchist movement.
Alexander will soon be publishing an article that presents all the details in a more comprehensive manner, but we are not comfortable sitting on this information any longer. We have always drawn strength from the history of anarchism as an internationalist movement concerned with the destruction of capitalism, the state, and hierarchal social relations. Those social relations clearly include racism and white supremacy. We are committed enemies of fascists and their sympathizers. The anarchist movement won’t tolerate their sick credo and, when they are found hiding in our midst, they must be dragged from the shadows.
We have cancelled Schmidt’s upcoming book and have put the two books of his that we’ve already published out of print. Please stay tuned for the whole story.
In Solidarity,
The AK Press Collective
Ross is still working on the article that will outline the story, but it has been made clear from many, not just Ross, that Schmidt has been active in white nationalist politics and this may have been information suppressed by associates.
For those who may not know who he is, or if he is going under your radar but on your news feed, his covert facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/feyd.saifulisaan?fref=ts
Anti-Fascist News 
Despite the obscene shaved headed swastika tattooed little Hitler wannabes from the likes of the NSM running around displaying to the world what violent simple minded morons they are it should be noted that as a political force fascism has not existed since 1945. Of course reactionary political ideologies continue to exist and need to be opposed but to do so it is not necessary to refer to them by using mystifying terminology like ‘fascism’.
Perhaps, if the allegations against MS turn out to have merit, then it can in honesty be said that the guy is a racist, and perhaps a militant white separatist, with the nutty idea that such reactionary ideals are somehow compatible with the class-struggle theory of anarchism, but still the simple fact of one having and promoting messed up racist ideas does not a fascist make.
If the allegations against MS turn out to be true, then screw him for being a racist and for betraying the anarchist community, but still, as messed up as it may be it is hardly the second coming of Hitler.
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So, in a lot of situations I would say that you are right about mislabeling, but the accusations are directly of him holding third positionist white nationalist views. Really it is much more than casual racism, it is more of a forward pushing racial nationalism, which today is useful to discuss as part of a sort of “broad fascist” tradition. It is certainly different than interwar European fascism, but it certainly takes the key ideas of racialism, ultra nationalism, inequality, anti-democracy, etc., and utilize them in a 21st century context.
We will really have to wait and see how this all comes together, and while we trust those making the accusations, we certainly hope it isn’t true!
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