Kropotkin enunciates a theory which few radicals accept--the
Decentralisation of Industries. Briefly stated, the doctrine is this: It
is untrue that certain nations are specialised either for industry or
for agriculture. Countries which economists have declared to be merely
agricultural lands, have recently advanced so rapidly in industries that
the supremacy of the champions is seriously threatened. No one or two
nations can again secure a monopoly of industry, for the tendency of
modern civilization is towards a spreading and scattering of industries
all over the earth. Not a mere shifting of the center of gravity from
one country to another, as formerly happened in Europe when the
commercial hegemony migrated from Italy to Spain, then to Holland, and
finally to Britain, but an actual and permanent decentralisation of
industry, by its very nature making it impossible for any nation to gain
industrial ascendancy. Even the most backward nations will soon
manufacture almost everything they need. There is much advantage in this
combination of industrial with agricultural pursuits. It is well to have
production for home use--each region producing and consuming its own
manufactured goods and its own agricultural product.----Of course the
Socialists are diametrically opposed to this contention, and they answer
it with one word--the trusts.--When I spoke with Leonard D. Abbott about
Kropotkin, he told me his high opinion of him, but soon referred to this
hypothesis, and laughed. It was the same when I mentioned the point to
Dr. Antoinette Konikov, etc. See Abbott's "A Visit to Prince Kropotkin,"
(Twentieth Century, October 2, 1897).
[50] My friend Elmer Littlefield has demonstrated the same thing on his
acre on Fellowship Farm, Westwood, Mass. His magazine, Ariel, is an
enthusiastic advocate of intensive agriculture.
[51] Bolton Hall's "Three Acres and Liberty" is based to a great extent
on this work of Kropotkin's.
[52] After finishing the "Memoirs," my friend, Miss Margaret Scott wrote
me: "As a system of ethical training it might be advisable to have our
police lieutenants read one chapter a day of Kropotkin, while lawyers,
mayors and such, should have to get thru three. Think of the mental
upheaval!"
[53] Spargo the Socialist--always a vehement foe of the
Anarchists--calls this "a wonderful book." See his "The Socialists."
[54] This book is not permitted in Russia--when Kellogg Durland traveled
there, he had to rip off the cover and wrap the pages around his body.
[55] Several intelligent Russians tell me Nadson is their favorite poet;
therefore this must be considered a serious omission. One exclaimed,
"What, he writes about Fet and not Nadson!"
[56] On this subject see "Russia and the Russians," by Edmund Noble.
[57] "The history of Russian Literature is a martyrology." See "Russian
Traits and Terrors," by E. B. Lanin, the collective signature of several
writers in the Fortnightly Review. The Twentieth Century (June 26, 1897)
ends its review of this volume with this sentence: "Concerning Russian
prisons the book makes revelations so sickening that language is
polluted by the recital of them. Swinburne's fierce ode is mild in its
characterization of their brutal infamy, and it is possible, after
reading these pages to agree with Ernest Belfort Bax's assertion that
any sane man, knowing the facts, who pronounces it wrong to assassinate
the Czar, deliberately lies."--Swinburne's poem, "Russia: An Ode," altho
it contains a few weak lines, is certainly one of the most fiery
outbursts in the language, and is clearly the work of a master. Here is
a representative passage:
"Hell recoils heart-stricken: horror worse than hell
Darkens earth and sickens heaven; life knows the spell,
Shudders, quails, and sinks--or, filled with fierier breath,
Rises red in arms devised of darkling death.
Pity mad with passion, anguish mad with shame,
Call aloud on justice by her darker name;
Love grows hate for love's sake; life takes death for guide.
Night hath none but one red star--Tyrannicide."
[58] Imagine the United States of America if Franklin had been murdered,
if Irving had been knouted, if Bryant had been exiled, if Emerson had
been imprisoned, if Longfellow had been starved, if Whittier had been
hanged, if Holmes had been flogged, if Thoreau had been shot, if Whitman
had been poisoned, if Hawthorne had been chained with iron, if Lowell
had been kept in a secret dungeon, if Motley had spent his life in a
mine, if Parkman had been tortured, etc., etc., etc.
[59] See "Russian Novelists" by Viscount Vogue. But the statements of
this virulent French reactionary must be received with extreme caution
as his perverted brains frequently prevent him from stating the truth.
For example, in speaking of Turgenev, he says, "But, tho always ready to
help others, he certainly never gave his aid to any political intriguer.
Was it natural that a man of his refinement and high culture should have
aided the schemes of wild and fruitless political conspiracies?" By
'political intriguer' he means an 'enemy to the empire, a revolutionist.
Now the facts are that no one was of greater use to Herzen the
arch-revolutionist and his thundering Kolokol, than Turgenev. Herzen was
in England and often it was impossible to explain how he knew some of
the events which he described. It was Turgenev who furnished him this
information. All this is revealed by the published correspondence of
Herzen and Turgenev. Turgenev was fully and entirely in sympathy with
the Russian Revolution. He earnestly desired to meet Ippolit Mishkin,
and begged Kropotkin to tell him all he knew about this defiant
revolutionary orator. Turgenev deeply loved his own Bazaroff, and in
explaining him says, "If the reader is not won by Bazaroff,
notwithstanding his roughness, absence of heart, pitiless dryness and
terseness, then the fault is with me--I have missed my aim; but to
sweeten him with syrup (to use Bazaroff's own language), this I did not
want to do, altho perhaps thru that I would have won Russian youth at
once to my side.... When he calls himself nihilist, you must read
revolutionist."
[60] This does not include obsequious authors like Derzhavin and
Karamzin. Masters are usually willing to fling a few crumbs to their
fawning dogs.
IN LATER LIFE
There are at this moment only two great Russians who think for the
Russian people, and whose thoughts belong to mankind,--Leo Tolstoy
and Peter Kropotkin.--GEORG BRANDES
A storm careered madly over the Northern Sea, its impatient waves
heaving and howling, leaping with a burning frenzy, the fuming raging
billows surging and swelling, calling and crying, roaring louder and
louder, vaulting higher and higher.
The steamer shook and swayed and struggled; the frightened passengers
sought shelter in their state-rooms, but one of them sat for hours upon
the stem of the deck, enjoying the tempest intensely, putting out his
face so it could be watered by the foam of the dashing waves. This was
Kropotkin. After the years he had spent in the charnel cell, no wonder
every fibre in his body was trembling and throbbing to meet the force
and passion of the sea-storm.
He landed safely in the country where Herzen founded _The Bell_, where
Lavrov edited _Forward_, where Felix Volkhovsky was to conduct _Free
Russia_, and where he himself was to start _Freedom_.
For over thirty years he has remained abroad. He never returned to
Russia. He is one of the few revolutionists who never went back to that
sunken swamp where liberty's wrapped in her winding-sheets, while
tyranny's robed in ermine. There are two reasons for this. In the first
place he became interested in a new-born idea--Anarchism--and felt he
could be more useful as an apostle of this movement than as a rebel in
Trepovdom. As is well-known, his lectures and writings on the subject
have earned him the title, "Father of Anarchist-Communism." Secondly,
when the Nihilists were changed (by purple butchers) into Terrorists,
they dropped their propaganda of pamphlets to study the properties of
petroleum, and thus were forced to neglect the varletry. However,
Kropotkin's sympathies drew him more and more towards those human
machines who toil so hard for their bread that if you cut their pennies
open, the blood would gush from them.
About a year after his escape, Kropotkin attended an important labor
congress in Belgium (1877). A few days later the police received an
order to arrest him. At this time the theologians were in power, and
the Belgian comrades knowing a clerical ministry would be only too
willing to turn him over to the blood-sucking czar, insisted upon his
leaving the country. On returning to his hotel, he found his good friend
James Guillaume--small physically, big in all other respects--barring
the way to his room, and sternly announcing that Kropotkin could enter
only by using force against him.
The next morning the ejected delegate sailed for London, but soon went
to Paris where he helped to form radical groups. Again he was wanted by
the police, but by mistake they arrested a Russian student (1878). Later
he left for Switzerland where he founded an anarchistic paper, _Le
Revolte_ (1879).
Two years later Alexander II. was assassinated. The government hanged
the revolutionists at home, but pretended the exiles abroad were
responsible for the deed. The Holy League was formed to execute the
refugees. An officer who knew Kropotkin when he was a page de chambre,
was appointed to kill him. A woman was sent from Petersburg to Geneva to
lead the conspiracy. Kropotkin took matters coolly, collected a pile of
threatening letters--of which the police later relieved him--and
nothing happened except that Helvetia was told if it did not expel the
agitator, then Alexander III., the Lord's Anointed, would drive out from
Russia all the Swiss governesses and ladies' maids, while the czarina
would refuse to eat Swiss cheese. This was more than the little republic
could stand, and Kropotkin was told to go. He says he did not take
umbrage at this.
He went once more to London, where he met his old comrade Chaykovsky,
and together they began to preach their gospel of freedom. Always to
work for the liberation of humanity--that isn't such a bad idea, is
it?[61]
At this time there was no movement in the Island which had imbibed the
narcotic of reaction and lay in a wakeless torpor, and Kropotkin and his
devoted wife felt so lonely among the napping Britons that they decided
to cross the channel. "Better a prison in France than this grave," they
said. They were followed by an army of informers, freely furnished by
the loving Russian Government which cannot bear to see its children
travel without suitable protection. Not to be outdone in courtesy, the
French police soon escorted him to the official lodging-house.
Kropotkin was incarcerated in the central prison of Clairvaux where had
been confined old Blanqui--the communard at whose burial Louise Michel
spoke words which will have no funeral. Kropotkin was well-treated, the
officials were polite, and he was permitted to give his fellow-prisoners
instruction in physics, languages, geometry and cosmography.
Unfortunately, Clairvaux is built on marshy ground, and Kropotkin fell
sick from malaria. His wife who was studying in Paris, preparing for the
degree of Doctor of Science, hastened from Wurtz's laboratory to the
prison-town. She remained there until her iconoclast was released. This
event occurred after three years' imprisonment. He then went to the
capital, lectured to an audience of several thousand, and left France
immediately to avoid a forcible expulsion.
Such are some of the scenes in the life of Peter Kropotkin--imprisoned
by governments, pursued by police, followed by spies,[62] hounded by
agents of autocracy.
This peace-loving man whose name is synonym for kindness, this tender
soul as modest as Newton, as gentle as Darwin, has been hunted from
frontier to border-line. Against none of his persecutors does he utter a
single invective. He is the epitome of mildness, the incarnation of
humaneness.[63]
Ask anyone who has seen Kropotkin for an hour or has known him for a
generation, to describe his most characteristic trait, and the
invariable answer will be: simplicity. His is a great spirit--it has
cast out flam. "Kropotkin is one of the most sincere and frank of men,"
says Stepniak. "He always says the truth, pure and simple, without any
regard for the _amour propre_ of his hearers, or for any consideration
whatever. This is the most striking and sympathetic feature of his
character. Every word he says may be absolutely believed. His sincerity
is such, that sometimes in the ardour of discussion an entirely fresh
consideration unexpectedly presents itself to his mind, and sets him
thinking. He immediately stops, remains quite absorbed for a moment, and
then begins to think aloud, speaking as tho he were an opponent. At
other times he carries on this discussion mentally, and after some
moments of silence, turning to his astonished adversary, smilingly says,
'You are right.' This absolute sincerity renders him the best of
friends, and gives especial weight to his praise and blame."
[Illustration: THE COSSACKS
Indulging in a favorite Russian pastime.]
Most of Kropotkin's Russian revolutionary comrades--using the term
Comrade in its broad sense--ended their days in misery. Kroutikoff
strangled himself with a piece of linen; Stransky poisoned himself;
Zapolsky cut his throat with a pair of scissors; Leontovitch and
Bogomoloff hacked theirs with a bit of glass; Zhutin died in chains
bound to the wall; Kolenkin perished from wounds torn open by fetters;
Rodin poisoned himself with matches; Nathalie Armfeldt died of prison
consumption; Beverly was wounded with bullets and murdered with
bayonet-thrusts; Ivan Cherniavsky and wife and child were transported to
Irkutsk, the temperature was thirty degrees below zero, and the baby
died, while the mother went mad, howled, laughed, prayed, cursed,
rocked the dead infant in her arms and sang nursery songs;[64]
Semyonovsky shot himself; Uspensky hanged himself; Martinova was dragged
to the police station on the very day that she expected to become a
mother; Gratchevsky threw kerosene from his lamp over himself, set it on
fire and died shrieking--but at least he escaped from Schlusselburg;
Edelson was marched to the Arctic zone even after he had become insane;
Mukhanov was killed with a volley of balls; Sergius Pik was struck in
the head, his jaw was smashed by the gendarmes' guns, a ghastly hole was
made above his eye, his blood and brains oozed and fell on his
chest;[65] Sophia Gurevitch was ripped open with bayonets; Sherstnova
was shot to death for signaling with a hand-mirror; the young wife of
Felix Volkhovsky shot herself thru the head; the wonderful Kuprianov
died in prison at the age of nineteen; Shtchedrin was chained to the
barrow, became insane and so perished; Nadyeshda Sigida was flogged to
death;[66] Marie Vetrova was raped and murdered;[67] Jessy Helfman was
tortured indescribably; Bobohov swallowed a handful of opium; Ossinsky's
hair turned white in five minutes; Maria Kovalevskaya--cover thy face,
freedom--suffered, took poison and died in the prison infirmary;
Yakimova stayed up nights in the Trubetzkoi Ravelin to prevent the rats
from devouring her baby; Olga Lubatovitch was stripped naked by men and
beaten; Malyovany died in exile; the student Schmidt was murdered in his
cell by his jailers; Spiridonova was violated by a cossack officer and
by a police chief; the high-minded Plotnikoff ended his days in an
asylum; Bogulubov became a raving lunatic; Serdukov was so broken that
he shot himself after his release; the poet Polivanoff also committed
suicide thus--(Ah, those twenty long years in Schlusselburg!); the noble
Balmaschoff was hanged; the beautiful Zinaida too; Isaiev, Okladsky,
Zubkovsky went mad; Kviotkovsky, Presniakoff, Soukanoff died in Skipper
Peter's Prison; Buzinsky, Gellis, Ignatius Ivanoff succumbed in the
Key-Town Fortress; to Federoff was reserved a fate worse than death,
worse than torture, worse than madness, for it was his destiny to become
a dupe of the Black Hundreds and unwittingly slay Georg Iollos--lover of
liberty;[68] Ludmila Volkenstein,--but why continue an unhappy list
which has neither beginning nor end? I could fill a library with such
cases.
Such individual torments fell not to the lot of Peter Kropotkin.
Personally he has been favored by fortune. He has touched existence on
every side and lived every life. The wisdom of the world is in his
brain, and within his heart is lodged all its goodness. His experience
has been unusually wide. He has been on intimate terms with czar and
serf, he has met millionaire and mendicant, he has hobnobbed with prince
and pauper. He has lectured to aristocratic audiences who gazed calmly
at him thru gilded lorgnettes and foppish monocles, and to
empty-stomached workmen who cried loudly, "Pierre! Pierre! Notre
Pierre!"[69]
The finest men of all nations have honored him. When a prisoner at
Clairvaux, a petition for his release was signed by such geniuses as
Herbert Spencer, Victor Hugo and Algernon Swinburne. When he required
books, Ernest Renan put his library at his service. While at Paris,
Turgenev--who won immortality by a single word--wished to be introduced
to him and celebrate his escape by a little banquet. When Catherine
Breshkovskaya journeyed for the first time to Petersburg, Kropotkin was
on the same train; they discussed problems, and this extraordinary woman
says his words thrilled like fire.[70] Elie Reclus was his brother.
Elisee published his writings and asked him to contribute to his
Geography--the greatest in existence. Jean Grave is his disciple. Ernest
Crosby loved him. Georg Brandes praises him lavishly. Zola paid his work
a high compliment. Elizabeth Cady Stanton spent an interesting day at
his home. J. Scott Keltie, the eminent authority on African history, is
one of his warmest friends. Bates, the Naturalist on the Amazons whom
Darwin mentions so often, appreciated his scientific ability. Enrico
Ferri closely studied his works. The learned Lavrov was his comrade.
Denjiro Kotoku, the Japanese essayist who founded the radical
_Heiminshimbun_, considers him one of the greatest humanitarians of the
nineteenth century.[71] At the home of Edward Clodd he argued with Grant
Allen. When at East Aurora, I saw only one picture over the desk of
Elbert Hubbard, and that was Kropotkin. Those who have read _De
Profundis_ will recall in what high pure words Oscar Wilde speaks of
him. Tolstoy calls him a learned man.[72] The authors of _Russian Traits
and Terrors_ speak of him as "one whose scientific accuracy and
objectivity is beyond praise." James Knowles so respected him that he
allowed him to write anarchistic articles for his high-toned _Nineteenth
Century_. Laurence Gronlound gives him as a type of the ideal anarchist.
In the soul of every libertarian swings a fragrant censer which offers
up olibanum to the stainless character of the great revolutionist. Put
those who love Kropotkin on one side, and those who don't on the other,
and you will have separated the heralds of the morning from the spooks
of the night. It is no more necessary to be an anarchist-communist to
have a warm spot in your heart for Peter Kropotkin, than it is necessary
to believe in Adam and Eve to enjoy Milton's _Paradise Lost_.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] Kropotkin is still able to cross London Bridge, but his comrade is
missing. For many years Chaykovsky kept away from Russia. During a whole
generation the man who taught Perovskaya was a wanderer in other lands.
Some months ago he went back--he could control his yearning no longer.
He is now in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. The Father of the
Revolution will sleep among his children.
P. S. As this book goes to press, the happy news comes that Chaykovsky
has been liberated on a heavy bail, but it is not yet known what the
government intends to do with him.
[62] Some types are depicted in Gorky's latest work, "The Spy,"
translated by Thomas Seltzer. Because of its subject-matter this book
acts as an emetic.
[63] remember hearing James F. Morton, A. M.--author of the excellent
essay "The Curse of Race Prejudice"--speak to Elbert Hubbard about
Catherine Breshkovskaya whom he had seen at the Sunrise Club, and in
wishing to illustrate her gentleness and lack of resentment for those
who ill-treated her, he called her "a female Kropotkin."
[64] When George Kennan heard this woman's story, his face became wet
with tears almost for the first time since boyhood. See his admirable
but terrible "Siberia and the Exile System."
[65] See the letter by the eye-witness Nicholas Zotoff (hanged August 7,
1889). It is published in "King Stork and King Log," a two-volume work
by Stepniak.
[66] Leo Deutsch was a prisoner at Kara at the time of this tragedy, and
he describes it in his "Sixteen Years in Siberia."
[67] See "Woman, the Glory of the Russian Revolution" (Altruria, July
1907), by Dr. Sonia Winstan. Note this sentence: "In arrests the police
are always more cruel to women than to men, and I have seen women
dragged by the hair to jail thru the streets of St. Petersburg, while
men in the same group were led along in the ordinary way. In the prisons
innocent young women are often placed with the lowest murderers."
[68] In Robert Crozier Long's "The Black Hundreds," in The Cosmopolitan,
January 1908.
[69] "He is an incomparable agitator. Gifted with a ready and eager
eloquence, he becomes all passion when he mounts the platform. Like all
true orators, he is stimulated by the sight of the crowd which is
listening to him. Upon the platform this man is transformed. He trembles
with emotion; his voice vibrates with that accent of profound
conviction, not to be mistaken or counterfeited, and only heard when it
is not merely the mouth which speaks, but the innermost heart. His
speeches, altho he cannot be called an orator of the first rank, produce
an immense impression; for when feeling is so intense it is
communicative, and electrifies an audience. When, pale and trembling, he
descends from the platform, the whole room throbs with
applause."--STEPNIAK.
[70] In Ernest Poole's "Catherine Breshkovskaya" in the Outlook. See
also Kennan. After being a Siberian exile for over twenty-two years she
came to America to collect funds for the Revolution, and immediately
went back to Russia. She was captured, and like Chaykovsky is now in the
fortress of Peter and Paul. She often said it was a shame for a
Revolutionist to die in bed.
[71] In my "Symposium on Humanitarians." For several other contributors
who mentioned Kropotkin as one of their favorites, see this "Symposium,"
now published in book form by The Altrurians.
[72] In the "Russian Revolution," a senseless pamphlet, edited by V.
Tchertkoff who is talented enuf to be doing better things. When it comes
to a question of righteous resistance, Leo Tolstoy is unbearable. A man
who can say in effect, "Let the officials do whatever they want to do,
let them shoot you down as often as they please, let them fill every
prison in vast Russia with your bodies, let them rape your mothers and
daughters and wives, let them hang your young children, but never resist
in any way, only think of Jesus and read the Gospels,"--such a man is
what the doctors call non compos mentis. No wonder the Russian
Government does not molest him. The gentle Kropotkin says, "I am in
sympathy with most of Tolstoy's work, tho there are many of his ideas
with which I absolutely disagree--his asceticism, for instance, and his
doctrine of non-resistance. It seems to me, too, that he has bound
himself, without reason or judgment, to the letter of the New
Testament."
THE HISTORIAN OF THE REVOLUTION
The heroism of our Russian comrades in the face of torture and
death will be told in days to come by generations made rich by
their sacrifices. History will pay an eternal homage to the victims
of the bloody tyranny which now rules Russia.--J. RAMSAY
MACDONALD, M. P.
To the present generation of Russian Revolutionists Kropotkin is not an
influence, but an inspiration. He is not a leader but an elder brother.
He is to them a type of the man who without a moment's hesitation leaves
everything for the Cause. He is a powerful voice crying out loudly
against the oppressors of mankind. Voices like these they hear
distinctly, and follow eagerly, tho they lead to a cold Siberian grave.