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_ CHAPTER II - BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM
IN the popular mind, an Anarchist is a person
who throws bombs and commits other outrages,
either because he is more or less insane, or because
he uses the pretense of extreme political opinions as
a cloak for criminal proclivities. This view is, of
course, in every way inadequate. Some Anarchists
believe in throwing bombs; many do not. Men of
almost every other shade of opinion believe in throwing
bombs in suitable circumstances: for example,
the men who threw the bomb at Sarajevo which
started the present war were not Anarchists, but
Nationalists. And those Anarchists who are in
favor of bomb-throwing do not in this respect differ
on any vital principle from the rest of the community,
with the exception of that infinitesimal portion
who adopt the Tolstoyan attitude of non-resistance.
Anarchists, like Socialists, usually believe
in the doctrine of the class war, and if they use
bombs, it is as Governments use bombs, for purposes
of war: but for every bomb manufactured by an
Anarchist, many millions are manufactured by Governments,
and for every man killed by Anarchist
violence, many millions are killed by the violence of
States. We may, therefore, dismiss from our minds
the whole question of violence, which plays so large
a part in the popular imagination, since it is neither
essential nor peculiar to those who adopt the Anarchist
position.
Anarchism, as its derivation indicates, is the
theory which is opposed to every kind of forcible
government. It is opposed to the State as the
embodiment of the force employed in the government
of the community. Such government as Anarchism
can tolerate must be free government, not merely in
the sense that it is that of a majority, but in the sense
that it is that assented to by all. Anarchists object
to such institutions as the police and the criminal
law, by means of which the will of one part of the
community is forced upon another part. In their
view, the democratic form of government is not very
enormously preferable to other forms so long as
minorities are compelled by force or its potentiality
to submit to the will of majorities. Liberty is the
supreme good in the Anarchist creed, and liberty
is sought by the direct road of abolishing all forcible
control over the individual by the community.
Anarchism, in this sense, is no new doctrine. It
is set forth admirably by Chuang Tzu, a Chinese philosopher,
who lived about the year 300 B. C.:--
Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow;
hair, to protect them from wind and cold. They eat grass
and drink water, and fling up their heels over the champaign.
Such is the real nature of horses. Palatial
dwellings are of no use to them.
One day Po Lo appeared, saying: "I understand the
management of horses."
So he branded them, and clipped them, and pared
their hoofs, and put halters on them, tying them up by
the head and shackling them by the feet, and disposing
them in stables, with the result that two or three in
every ten died. Then he kept them hungry and thirsty,
trotting them and galloping them, and grooming, and
trimming, with the misery of the tasselled bridle before
and the fear of the knotted whip behind, until more than
half of them were dead.
The potter says: "I can do what I will with Clay.
If I want it round, I use compasses; if rectangular, a
square."
The carpenter says: "I can do what I will with
wood. If I want it curved, I use an arc; if straight, a
line."
But on what grounds can we think that the natures
of clay and wood desire this application of compasses and
square, of arc and line? Nevertheless, every age extols
Po Lo for his skill in managing horses, and potters and
carpenters for their skill with clay and wood. Those
who govern the empire make the same mistake.
Now I regard government of the empire from quite
a different point of view.
The people have certain natural instincts:--to weave
and clothe themselves, to till and feed themselves. These
are common to all humanity, and all are agreed thereon.
Such instincts are called "Heaven-sent."
And so in the days when natural instincts prevailed,
men moved quietly and gazed steadily. At that time
there were no roads over mountains, nor boats, nor
bridges over water. All things were produced, each for
its own proper sphere. Birds and beasts multiplied,
trees and shrubs grew up. The former might be led by
the hand; you could climb up and peep into the raven's
nest. For then man dwelt with birds and beasts, and
all creation was one. There were no distinctions of good
and bad men. Being all equally without knowledge,
their virtue could not go astray. Being all equally
without evil desires, they were in a state of natural
integrity, the perfection of human existence.
But when Sages appeared, tripping up people over
charity and fettering them with duty to their neighbor,
doubt found its way into the world. And then, with
their gushing over music and fussing over ceremony, the
empire became divided against itself.[11]
[11] "Musings of a Chinese Mystic." Selections from the Philosophy
of Chuang Tzu. With an Introduction by Lionel Giles,
M.A. (Oxon.). Wisdom of the East Series, John Murray, 1911.
Pages 66-68.
The modern Anarchism, in the sense in which we
shall be concerned with it, is associated with belief
in the communal ownership of land and capital, and
is thus in an important respect akin to Socialism.
This doctrine is properly called Anarchist Com-
munism, but as it embraces practically all modern
Anarchism, we may ignore individualist Anarchism
altogether and concentrate attention upon the
communistic form. Socialism and Anarchist Communism
alike have arisen from the perception that private
capital is a source of tyranny by certain individuals
over others. Orthodox Socialism believes that the
individual will become free if the State becomes the
sole capitalist. Anarchism, on the contrary, fears
that in that case the State might merely inherit the
tyrannical propensities of the private capitalist.
Accordingly, it seeks for a means of reconciling communal
ownership with the utmost possible diminution
in the powers of the State, and indeed ultimately with
the complete abolition of the State. It has arisen
mainly within the Socialist movement as its extreme
left wing.
In the same sense in which Marx may be regarded
as the founder of modern Socialism, Bakunin may
be regarded as the founder of Anarchist Communism.
But Bakunin did not produce, like Marx, a finished
and systematic body of doctrine. The nearest
approach to this will be found in the writings of his
follower, Kropotkin. In order to explain modern
Anarchism we shall begin with the life of Bakunin[12]
and the history of his conflicts with Marx, and shall
then give a brief account of Anarchist theory as set
forth partly in his writings, but more in those of
Kropotkin.[13]
[12] An account of the life of Bakunin from the Anarchist
standpoint will be found in vol. ii of the complete edition of
his works: "Michel Bakounine, OEuvres," Tome II. Avec une
notice biographique, des avant-propos et des notes, par James
Guillaume. Paris, P.-V, Stock, editeur, pp. v-lxiii.
[13] Criticism of these theories will be reserved for Part II.
Michel Bakunin was born in 1814 of a Russian
aristocratic family. His father was a diplomatist,
who at the time of Bakunin's birth had retired to his
country estate in the Government of Tver. Bakunin
entered the school of artillery in Petersburg at the
age of fifteen, and at the age of eighteen was sent as
an ensign to a regiment stationed in the Government
of Minsk. The Polish insurrection of 1880 had just
been crushed. "The spectacle of terrorized Poland,"
says Guillaume, "acted powerfully on the heart of
the young officer, and contributed to inspire in him
the horror of despotism." This led him to give up
the military career after two years' trial. In 1834
he resigned his commission and went to Moscow,
where he spent six years studying philosophy. Like
all philosophical students of that period, he became
a Hegelian, and in 1840 he went to Berlin to continue
his studies, in the hope of ultimately becoming a
professor. But after this time his opinions underwent
a rapid change. He found it impossible to
accept the Hegelian maxim that whatever is, is
rational, and in 1842 he migrated to Dresden, where
he became associated with Arnold Ruge, the publisher
of "Deutsche Jahrbuecher." By this time he had
become a revolutionary, and in the following year
he incurred the hostility of the Saxon Government.
This led him to go to Switzerland, where he came in
contact with a group of German Communists, but, as
the Swiss police importuned him and the Russian
Government demanded his return, he removed to
Paris, where he remained from 1843 to 1847. These
years in Paris were important in the formation of his
outlook and opinions. He became acquainted with
Proudhon, who exercised a considerable influence on
him; also with George Sand and many other well-
known people. It was in Paris that he first made
the acquaintance of Marx and Engels, with whom he
was to carry on a lifelong battle. At a much later
period, in 1871, he gave the following account of his
relations with Marx at this time:--
Marx was much more advanced than I was, as he
remains to-day not more advanced but incomparably more
learned than I am. I knew then nothing of political
economy. I had not yet rid myself of metaphysical
abstractions, and my Socialism was only instinctive. He,
though younger than I, was already an atheist, an
instructed materialist, a well-considered Socialist. It
was just at this time that he elaborated the first foundations
of his present system. We saw each other fairly
often, for I respected him much for his learning and his
passionate and serious devotion (always mixed, however,
with personal vanity) to the cause of the proletariat,
and I sought eagerly his conversation, which was always
instructive and clever, when it was not inspired by a
paltry hate, which, alas! happened only too often. But
there was never any frank intimacy between as. Our
temperaments would not suffer it. He called me a
sentimental idealist, and he was right; I called him a
vain man, perfidious and crafty, and I also was right.
Bakunin never succeeded in staying long in one
place without incurring the enmity of the authorities.
In November, 1847, as the result of a speech
praising the Polish rising of 1830, he was expelled
from France at the request of the Russian Embassy,
which, in order to rob him of public sympathy, spread
the unfounded report that he had been an agent of
the Russian Government, but was no longer wanted
because he had gone too far. The French Government,
by calculated reticence, encouraged this story,
which clung to him more or less throughout his life.
Being compelled to leave France, he went to
Brussels, where he renewed acquaintance with Marx.
A letter of his, written at this time, shows that he
entertained already that bitter hatred for which
afterward he had so much reason. "The Germans,
artisans, Bornstedt, Marx and Engels--and, above
all, Marx--are here, doing their ordinary mischief.
Vanity, spite, gossip, theoretical overbearingness
and practical pusillanimity--reflections on life, action
and simplicity, and complete absence of life,
action and simplicity--literary and argumentative
artisans and repulsive coquetry with them: `Feuerbach
is a bourgeois,' and the word `bourgeois' grown
into an epithet and repeated ad nauseum, but all of
them themselves from head to foot, through and
through, provincial bourgeois. With one word, lying
and stupidity, stupidity and lying. In this society
there is no possibility of drawing a free, full breath.
I hold myself aloof from them, and have declared
quite decidedly that I will not join their communistic
union of artisans, and will have nothing to do
with it."
The Revolution of 1848 led him to return to Paris
and thence to Germany. He had a quarrel with
Marx over a matter in which he himself confessed
later that Marx was in the right. He became a member
of the Slav Congress in Prague, where he vainly
endeavored to promote a Slav insurrection. Toward
the end of 1848, he wrote an "Appeal to Slavs,"
calling on them to combine with other revolutionaries
to destroy the three oppressive monarchies, Russia,
Austria and Prussia. Marx attacked him in print,
saying, in effect, that the movement for Bohemian
independence was futile because the Slavs had no
future, at any rate in those regions where they hap-
pened to be subject to Germany and Austria.
Bakunin accused Mars of German patriotism in
this matter, and Marx accused him of Pan-Slavism,
no doubt in both cases justly. Before this dispute,
however, a much more serious quarrel had taken
place. Marx's paper, the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung,"
stated that George Sand had papers proving
Bakunin to be a Russian Government agent and one
of those responsible for the recent arrest of Poles.
Bakunin, of course, repudiated the charge, and
George Sand wrote to the "Neue Rheinische
Zeitung," denying this statement in toto. The denials
were published by Marx, and there was a nominal
reconciliation, but from this time onward there was
never any real abatement of the hostility between
these rival leaders, who did not meet again until 1864.
Meanwhile, the reaction had been everywhere
gaining ground. In May, 1849, an insurrection in
Dresden for a moment made the revolutionaries masters
of the town. They held it for five days and
established a revolutionary government. Bakunin
was the soul of the defense which they made against
the Prussian troops. But they were overpowered,
and at last Bakunin was captured while trying to
escape with Heubner and Richard Wagner, the last
of whom, fortunately for music, was not captured.
Now began a long period of imprisonment in
many prisons and various countries. Bakunin was
sentenced to death on the 14th of January, 1850, but
his sentence was commuted after five months, and he
was delivered over to Austria, which claimed the
privilege of punishing him. The Austrians, in their
turn, condemned him to death in May, 1851, and
again his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for
life. In the Austrian prisons he had fetters on hands
and feet, and in one of them he was even chained to the
wall by the belt. There seems to have been some
peculiar pleasure to be derived from the punishment
of Bakunin, for the Russian Government in its turn
demanded him of the Austrians, who delivered him
up. In Russia he was confined, first in the Peter and
Paul fortress and then in the Schluesselburg. There
be suffered from scurvy and all his teeth fell out.
His health gave way completely, and he found almost
all food impossible to assimilate. "But, if his body
became enfeebled, his spirit remained inflexible. He
feared one thing above all. It was to find himself
some day led, by the debilitating action of prison,
to the condition of degradation of which Silvio Pellico
offers a well-known type. He feared that he might
cease to hate, that he might feel the sentiment of
revolt which upheld him becoming extinguished in
his hearts that he might come to pardon his persecutors
and resign himself to his fate. But this fear
was superfluous; his energy did not abandon him a
single day, and he emerged from his cell the same
man as when he entered."[14]
[14] Ibid. p. xxvi.
After the death of the Tsar Nicholas many political
prisoners were amnested, but Alexander II with
his own hand erased Bakunin's name from the list.
When Bakunin's mother succeeded in obtaining an
interview with the new Tsar, he said to her, "Know,
Madame, that so long as your son lives, he can never
be free." However, in 1857, after eight years of
captivity, he was sent to the comparative freedom of
Siberia. From there, in 1861, he succeeded in escaping
to Japan, and thence through America to London.
He had been imprisoned for his hostility to
governments, but, strange to say, his sufferings had
not had the intended effect of making him love those
who inflicted them. From this time onward, he
devoted himself to spreading the spirit of Anarchist
revolt, without, however, having to suffer any further
term of imprisonment. For some years he lived in
Italy, where he founded in 1864 an "International
Fraternity" or "Alliance of Socialist Revolutionaries."
This contained men of many countries, but
apparently no Germans. It devoted itself largely to
combating Mazzini's nationalism. In 1867 he moved
to Switzerland, where in the following year he
helped to found the "International Alliance of So-
cialist Democracy," of which he drew up the program.
This program gives a good succinct resume of
his opinions:--
The Alliance declares itself atheist; it desires the
definitive and entire abolition of classes and the political
equality and social equalization of individuals of both
sexes. It desires that the earth, the instrument of labor,
like all other capital, becoming the collective property of
society as a whole, shall be no longer able to be utilized
except by the workers, that is to say, by agricultural and
industrial associations. It recognizes that all actually
existing political and authoritarian States, reducing
themselves more and more to the mere administrative functions
of the public services in their respective countries,
must disappear in the universal union of free
associations, both agricultural and industrial.
The International Alliance of Socialist Democracy
desired to become a branch of the International
Working Men's Association, but was refused admission
on the ground that branches must be local, and
could not themselves be international. The Geneva
group of the Alliance, however, was admitted later,
in July, 1869.
The International Working Men's Association
had been founded in London in 1864, and its statutes
and program were drawn up by Marx. Bakunin at
first did not expect it to prove a success and refused
to join it. But it spread with remarkable rapidity
in many countries and soon became a great power
for the propagation of Socialist ideas. Originally
it was by no means wholly Socialist, but in successive
Congresses Marx won it over more and more to his
views. At its third Congress, in Brussels in September,
1868, it became definitely Socialist. Meanwhile
Bakunin, regretting his earlier abstention, had
decided to join it, and he brought with him a
considerable following in French-Switzerland, France,
Spain and Italy. At the fourth Congress, held at
Basle in September, 1869, two currents were strongly
marked. The Germans and English followed Marx
in his belief in the State as it was to become after the
abolition of private property; they followed him also
in his desire to found Labor Parties in the various
countries, and to utilize the machinery of democracy
for the election oœ representatives of Labor to
Parliaments. On the other hand, the Latin nations in
the main followed Bakunin in opposing the State and
disbelieving in the machinery of representative
government. The conflict between these two groups grew
more and more bitter, and each accused the other
of various offenses. The statement that Bakunin
was a spy was repeated, but was withdrawn after
investigation. Marx wrote in a confidential
communication to his German friends that Bakunin was
an agent of the Pan-Slavist party and received from
them 25,000 francs a year. Meanwhile, Bakunin
became for a time interested in the attempt to stir
up an agrarian revolt in Russia, and this led him
to neglect the contest in the International at a crucial
moment. During the Franco-Prussian war Bakunin
passionately took the side of France, especially after
the fall of Napoleon III. He endeavored to rouse
the people to revolutionary resistance like that of
1793, and became involved in an abortive attempt at
revolt in Lyons. The French Government accused
him of being a paid agent of Prussia, and it was
with difficulty that he escaped to Switzerland. The
dispute with Marx and his followers had become
exacerbated by the national dispute. Bakunin, like
Kropotkin after him, regarded the new power of
Germany as the greatest menace to liberty in the
world. He hated the Germans with a bitter hatred,
partly, no doubt, on account of Bismarck, but probably
still more on account of Marx. To this day,
Anarchism has remained confined almost exclusively
to the Latin countries, and has been associated with, a
hatred of Germany, growing out of the contests
between Marx and Bakunin in the International.
The final suppression of Bakunin's faction
occurred at the General Congress of the International
at the Hague in 1872. The meeting-place was
chosen by the General Council (in which Marx was
unopposed), with a view--so Bakunin's friends contend--
to making access impossible for Bakunin (on
account of the hostility of the French and German
governments) and difficult for his friends. Bakunin
was expelled from the International as the result of
a report accusing him inter alia of theft backed; up
by intimidation.
The orthodoxy of the International was saved,
but at the cost of its vitality. From this time onward,
it ceased to be itself a power, but both sections continued
to work in their various groups, and the Socialist
groups in particular grew rapidly. Ultimately
a new International was formed (1889) which continued
down to the outbreak of the present war. As
to the future of International Socialism it would be
rash to prophesy, though it would seem that the
international idea has acquired sufficient strength to
need again, after the war, some such means of expression
as it found before in Socialist congresses.
By this time Bakunin's health was broken, and
except for a few brief intervals, he lived in retirement
until his death in 1876.
Bakunin's life, unlike Marx's, was a very stormy
one. Every kind of rebellion against authority
always aroused his sympathy, and in his support he
never paid the slightest attention to personal risk.
His influence, undoubtedly very great, arose chiefly
through the influence of his personality upon important
individuals. His writings differ from Marx's as
much as his life does, and in a similar way. They are
chaotic, largely, aroused by some passing occasion,
abstract and metaphysical, except when they deal
with current politics. He does not come to close
quarters with economic facts, but dwells usually in
the regions of theory and metaphysics. When he
descends from these regions, he is much more at the
mercy of current international politics than Marx,
much less imbued with the consequences of the belief
that it is economic causes that are fundamental. He
praised Marx for enunciating this doctrine,[15] but
nevertheless continued to think in terms of nations.
His longest work, "L'Empire Knouto-Germanique et
la Revolution Sociale," is mainly concerned with the
situation in France during the later stages of the
Franco-Prussian War, and with the means of resisting
German imperialism. Most of his writing was
done in a hurry in the interval between two insurrections.
There is something of Anarchism in his lack
of literary order. His best-known work is a fragment
entitled by its editors "God and the State."[16]
In this work he represents belief in God and belief in
the State as the two great obstacles to human liberty.
A typical passage will serve to illustrate its style.
[15] "Marx, as a thinker, is on the right road. He has established
as a principle that all the evolutions, political, religious,
and juridical, in history are, not the causes, but the effects of
economic evolutions. This is a great and fruitful thought, which
he has not absolutely invented; it has been glimpsed, expressed
in part, by many others besides him; but in any case to him
belongs the honor of having solidly established it and of having
enunciated it as the basis of his whole economic system. (1870;
ib. ii. p. xiii.)
[16] This title is not Bakunin's, but was invented by Cafiero
and Elisee Reclus, who edited it, not knowing that it was a
fragment of what was intended to he the second version of
"L'Empire Knouto-Germanique" (see ib. ii. p 283).
The State is not society, it is only an historical form
of it, as brutal as it is abstract. It was born historically
in all countries of the marriage of violence, rapine, pillage,
in a word, war and conquest, with the gods successively
created by the theological fantasy of nations.
It has been from its origin, and it remains still at present,
the divine sanction of brutal force and triumphant
inequality.
The State is authority; it is force; it is the ostentation
and infatuation of force: it does not insinuate
itself; it does not seek to convert. . . . Even when
it commands what is good, it hinders and spoils it, just
because it commands it, and because every command provokes
and excites the legitimate revolts of liberty; and
because the good, from the moment that it is commanded,
becomes evil from the point of view of true morality, of
human morality (doubtless not of divine), from the point
of view of human respect and of liberty. Liberty, morality,
and the human dignity of man consist precisely
in this, that he does good, not because it is commanded,
but because he conceives it, wills it and loves it.
We do not find in Bakunin's works a clear picture
of the society at which he aimed, or any argument
to prove that such a society could be stable.
If we wish to understand Anarchism we must turn
to his followers, and especially to Kropotkin--like
him, a Russian aristocrat familiar with the prisons
of Europe, and, like him, an Anarchist who, in spite
of his internationalism, is imbued with a fiery hatred
of the Germans.
Kropotkin has devoted much of his writing to
technical questions of production. In "Fields,
Factories and Workshops" and "The Conquest of
Bread" he has set himself to prove that, if production
were more scientific and better organized, a
comparatively small amount of quite agreeable work
would suffice to keep the whole population in comfort.
Even assuming, as we probably must, that he
somewhat exaggerates what is possible with our
present scientific knowledge, it must nevertheless be
conceded that his contentions contain a very large
measure of truth. In attacking the subject of production
he has shown that he knows what is the really
crucial question. If civilization and progress are to
be compatible with equality, it is necessary that
equality should not involve long hours of painful
toil for little more than the necessaries of life, since,
where there is no leisure, art and science will die and
all progress will become impossible. The objection
which some feel to Socialism and Anarchism alike on
this ground cannot be upheld in view of the possible
productivity of labor.
The system at which Kropotkin aims, whether or
not it be possible, is certainly one which demands a
very great improvement in the methods of production
above what is common at present. He desires
to abolish wholly the system of wages, not only, as
most Socialists do, in the sense that a man is to be
paid rather for his willingness to work than for the
actual work demanded of him, but in a more fundamental
sense: there is to be no obligation to work,
and all things are to be shared in equal proportions
among the whole population. Kropotkin relies upon
the possibility of making work pleasant: he holds
that, in such a community as he foresees, practically
everyone will prefer work to idleness, because work will
not involve overwork or slavery, or that excessive
specialization that industrialism has brought about,
but will be merely a pleasant activity for certain
hours of the day, giving a man an outlet for his
spontaneous constructive impulses. There is to be no
compulsion, no law, no government exercising force;
there will still be acts of the community, but these
are to spring from universal consent, not from any
enforced submission of even the smallest minority.
We shall examine in a later chapter how far such
an ideal is realizable, but it cannot be denied that
Kropotkin presents it with extraordinary persuasiveness
and charm.
We should be doing more than justice to Anarchism
if we did not say something of its darker side,
the side which has brought it into conflict with the
police and made it a word of terror to ordinary citizens.
In its general doctrines there is nothing essentially
involving violent methods or a virulent hatred
of the rich, and many who adopt these general doctrines
are personally gentle and temperamentally
averse from violence. But the general tone of the
Anarchist press and public is bitter to a degree that
seems scarcely sane, and the appeal, especially in
Latin countries, is rather to envy of the fortunate
than to pity for the unfortunate. A vivid and readable,
though not wholly reliable, account, from a
hostile point of view, is given in a book called "Le
Peril Anarchiste," by Felix Dubois,[17] which
incidentally reproduces a number of cartoons from anarchist
journals. The revolt against law naturally leads,
except in those who are controlled by a real passion
for humanity, to a relaxation of all the usually
accepted moral rules, and to a bitter spirit of
retaliatory cruelty out of which good can hardly come.
[17] Paris, 1894.
One of the most curious features of popular
Anarchism is its martyrology, aping Christian forms,
with the guillotine (in France) in place of the cross.
Many who have suffered death at the hands of the
authorities on account of acts of violence were no
doubt genuine sufferers for their belief in a cause,
but others, equally honored, are more questionable.
One of the most curious examples of this outlet for
the repressed religious impulse is the cult of Ravachol,
who was guillotined in 1892 on account of
various dynamite outrages. His past was dubious,
but he died defiantly; his last words were three lines
from a well-known Anarchist song, the "Chant du
Pere Duchesne":--
Si tu veux etre heureux,
Nom de Dieu!
Pends ton proprietaire.
As was natural, the leading Anarchists took no part
in the canonization of his memory; nevertheless it
proceeded, with the most amazing extravagances.
It would be wholly unfair to judge Anarchist
doctrine, or the views of its leading exponents, by
such phenomena; but it remains a fact that Anarchism
attracts to itself much that lies on the borderland
of insanity and common crime.[18] This must be
remembered in exculpation of the authorities and
the thoughtless public, who often confound in a common
detestation the parasites of the movement and
the truly heroic and high-minded men who have elaborated
its theories and sacrificed comfort and success
to their propagation.
[18] The attitude of all the better Anarchists is that expressed
by L. S. Bevington in the words: "Of course we know that
among those who call themselves Anarchists there are a minority
of unbalanced enthusiasts who look upon every illegal and sensational
act of violence as a matter for hysterical jubilation.
Very useful to the police and the press, unsteady in intellect
and of weak moral principle, they have repeatedly shown themselves
accessible to venal considerations. They, and their violence,
and their professed Anarchism are purchasable, and in
the last resort they are welcome and efficient partisans of the
bourgeoisie in its remorseless war against the deliverers of the
people." His conclusion is a very wise one: "Let us leave
indiscriminate killing and injuring to the Government--to its
Statesmen, its Stockbrokers, its Officers, and its Law." ("Anarchism
and Violence," pp. 9-10. Liberty Press, Chiswick, 1896.)
The terrorist campaign in which such men as
Ravachol were active practically came to an end in
1894. After that time, under the influence of Pelloutier,
the better sort of Anarchists found a less
harmful outlet by advocating Revolutionary Syndicalism
in the Trade Unions and Bourses du Travail.[19]
[19] See next Chapter.
The ECONOMIC organization of society, as conceived
by Anarchist Communists, does not differ
greatly from that which is sought by Socialists.
Their difference from Socialists is in the matter of
government: they demand that government shall
require the consent of all the governed, and not only
of a majority. It is undeniable that the rule of a
majority may be almost as hostile to freedom as the
rule of a minority: the divine right of majorities is a
dogma as little possessed of absolute truth as any
other. A strong democratic State may easily be led
into oppression of its best citizens, namely, those
those independence of mind would make them a force
for progress. Experience of democratic parliamentary
government has shown that it falls very far
short of what was expected of it by early Socialists,
and the Anarchist revolt against it is not surprising.
But in the form of pure Anarchism, this revolt has
remained weak and sporadic. It is Syndicalism, and
the movements to which Syndicalism has given rise,
that have popularized the revolt against parliamentary
government and purely political means of emancipating
the wage earner. But this movement must
be dealt with in a separate chapter.
_____
Content of PART I - HISTORICAL. CHAPTER II - BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM [Bertrand Russell's book: Proposed Roads To Freedom] _
Read next: PART I - HISTORICAL: CHAPTER III - THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT
Read previous: PART I - HISTORICAL: CHAPTER I - MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE
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