CHAPTER VI

GERMANY, ENGLAND, AND AMERICA

Individualist and Communist Anarchism -- Arthur Muelberger --

Theodor Hertzka's _Freeland_ -- Eugen Duehring's "Anticratism"

-- Moritz von Egidy's "United Christendom" -- John Henry

Mackay -- Nietzsche and Anarchism -- Johann Most -- Auberon

Herbert's "Voluntary State" -- R. B. Tucker.

There is a well-marked geographical division, not only in the

Anarchism of agitation, but also in Anarchist theory. The Anarchist

Communism, to which the "propaganda of action" is allied, appears to

be almost exclusively confined to the Romance peoples, the French,

Spaniards, and Italians; while the Teutonic nations appear to incline

more towards individualist Anarchism. If this geographical division is

not quite exact, it must be remembered that these views themselves are

not so clearly separated, and that the ideas of Proudhon rarely

develop into pure Individualism as proclaimed by Stirner. The external

distinction between Individualists and Communists is certainly marked

most clearly by the condemnation of the foolish propaganda of action

of the former; and in order to prevent the disagreeable confusion of

their views with the perpetrators of bomb outrages, the theorists of

Germany and England give their systems more harmless names, such as

Free Land, Anticratism, United Christianity, Voluntarism, and so on.

It is perhaps owing to this circumstance that States which supervise

mental movements in the minds of their citizens so closely, so

anxiously, as do Austria and Germany, allow the extension of the

theoretical propaganda of a movement which is only distinguished from

the doctrines of Kropotkin, as explained above, by a difference in

formulating the common axiom on which they are based.

* * * * *

In the beginning of the seventies there appeared in Germany an eager

worshipper of Proudhon, named Arthur Muelberger, born in 1847, who has

practised since 1873 as a physician, and lately as medical officer in

Crailsheim, and who has explained with great clearness separate

portions of Proudhon's teaching in various articles in magazines and

reviews.[1] Muelberger's writings have certainly chiefly an historical

value; but he is one of the few who have not merely written about and

criticised Proudhon, but have thoroughly studied him. He is

accordingly, in spite of his somewhat partisan attitude as a supporter

of Proudhon, certainly his most trustworthy and faithful interpreter.

[1] Now collected as _Studien ueber Proudhon_, Stuttgart,

1893.

Of all modern phenomena, which, according to Proudhon's assumption

that complete economic freedom must absorb all political authority,

should introduce Anarchy by means of economic institutions, the most

important is undoubtedly the so-called "Free Land" movement, whose

"father" is Theodor Hertzka. Born on the 13th July, 1845, at Buda

Pesth, Hertzka studied law, but afterwards turned to journalism, in

which he gained the reputation of the most brilliant journalist in

Vienna. In the seventies he was editor of the _Neue Freie Presse_, and

in 1880 he founded the Vienna _Allgemeine Zeitung_; but since 1889 he

has been editor of the _Zeitschrift fuer Staatsund Volkwirthschaft_.

His book _Freeland_, a picture of the society of the future

(_Freiland, ein Sociales Zukunftsbild_), which appeared in 1889, had

an extraordinary success, and produced a movement for the realisation

of the demands and ideas therein expressed. The expedition which was

sent out to "Freeland," after years of agitation, prepared at great

expense and watched with the eager curiosity of all Europe, appears

to-day, however--as was hardly to be wondered at--to have failed.

"Freeland," as depicted by Hertzka in his social romance, is a

community founded upon the principle of unlimited publicity combined

with unlimited freedom. Everyone throughout "Freeland" must be able to

know at any time what commodities are in greater or less demand, and

what branches of work produce greater or less profit. Thus in

"Freeland" everybody has the right and the power to apply himself, as

far as he is capable, to those forms of production that are at any

time most profitable. A careful department of statistics publishes in

an easily read and rapid form every movement of production and

consumption, and thus the movement of prices in all commodities is

quickly brought to everyone's notice. But in order that everyone may

undertake that branch of production most suitable and profitable to

him, from the information thus obtained, the necessary means of

production, including the forces of nature, are freely at the disposal

of all, without interest, but a repayment has to be made out of the

result of production.

Each has a right to the full return from his labour; this is obtained

by free association of the workers. The entrance into each association

is free to everyone, and anyone can leave any association at any time.

Each member has a right to a share in the net product of the

association corresponding to the work done by him. The work done is

reckoned for each member in proportion to the number of hours worked.

The work done by the freely elected and responsible managers or

directors is reckoned, by means of free agreement made with each

member of the union, as equal to a certain number of hours' work per

day. The profit made by the community is reckoned up at the close of

each working year, and after deduction for repayment of capital, and

the taxes payable to the "Freeland" commonwealth, is divided amongst

its members. The members, in case of the failure or liquidation of the

association, are liable for its debts in proportion to their share of

the profits. This liability for the debts of the association

corresponds, in case of dissolution, to the claim of the guarantor

members on the property available. The highest authority of the

association is the General Assembly, in which every member possesses

the same voting power, active and passive. The conduct of the business

of the company is placed in the hands of a directorate, chosen by the

General Assembly for a certain period, whose appointment is, however,

revocable at any time. Besides this the General Assembly elects every

year an overseer who has to watch over the conduct of the directors.

There are neither masters nor servants; only free workers; there are

also no proprietors, only employers of the capital of the association.

The forms of capital necessary for production are therefore as free

from owners as is the land.

The most extensive publicity of all business proceedings is the prime

supposition for the proper working of this organisation, which can

only exist by the removal of all hindrances to the free activity of

the individual will guided by enlightened self-interest. There can and

need be no business secrets; on the contrary, it is the highest

interest of all to see that everyone's capacity for work is directed

to where it will produce the best results. The working-statements of

the producers are therefore published; the purchase and sale of all

imaginable products and commodities of "Freeland" trade takes place in

large warehouses, managed and supervised for the benefit of the

community.

The highest authority in "Freeland" is at the same time the banker of

the whole population. Not merely every association, but every person

has his account in the books of the Central Bank, which looks after

all payments inwards as well as all money paid out from the greatest

to the smallest by means of a comprehensive clearing system.

All the expenditure of the community is defrayed by all in common, and

by each person singly, exactly in proportion to its income; for which

purpose the Central Bank debits each with his share in the total.

The chief item in the budget of "Freeland" expenditure is

"maintenance"; which includes everything spent on account of persons

incapacitated for work or excused from it, and who therefore have a

right to free support, such as all women, children, sick persons,

defectives, and men over sixty years of age. On the other hand,

justice, police, military, and finance arrangements cost nothing in

"Freeland." There are no paid judges or police officials, still fewer

soldiers, and the taxes, as seen above, come in of their own accord.

There is not even a code of criminal or civil law. For the settlement

of any disputes that may arise, arbitrators are chosen, who make their

decisions verbally, and from whom there is an appeal to the Board of

Arbitrators. But they have practically nothing to do, for there is

neither robbery nor theft in "Freeland"; since "men who are normal in

mind and morals cannot possibly commit any violences against other

people in a community in which all proper interests of each member are

equally regarded." Criminals are therefore treated as people who are

suffering from mental or moral disease.

We need not point out that we here have to deal with an attempt to

revive Proudhon's thoughts and plans, and that our criticisms on these

apply equally to _Freeland_. If to-day extravagant praise is lavished

on Hertzka's originality, that only proves that people who criticise

and condemn Proudhon so readily have not read him; and even when

Archdukes give the "Freeland" project their moral and financial

support, that only proves again how little, even now, the real meaning

of Anarchism is understood, and how slavishly people submit to words.

* * * * *

Eugen Duehring has raved against "the State founded on force" as often

as against Anarchism, in his various writings; he has as often

pronounced a scornful judgment upon the literary connections of

Anarchism as he has sought to ally himself with the so-called

"honourable" Anarchists in his little paper (_The Modern Spirit--Der

Moderen Voelkergeist_, in Berlin) that is apparently brought out for

the sake of a Duehring cult. There appears at least to be a

contradiction between the theory of Anarchism and Duehring's

Anti-Semitism. Nevertheless, Duehring undoubtedly belongs to the

Anarchists, and has never very seriously defended himself against this

charge. His haughty and biassed criticisms of Proudhon, Stirner, and

Kropotkin (he excepts only Bakunin, the enemy of the "Hebrew" Marx)

are sufficiently explained by his own unexampled weakness and love of

belittling others, without seeking any further motives; "it must be

night where his own stars shine"; and as his followers have generally

read nothing else beside his lucubrations, it is very easy to explain

the great influence which Duehring exercises at present upon the youth

of Germany, and why he is regarded by some people as the only man of

genius since Socrates, and as a man of the most unparalleled

originality, which he is not, by a long way.

However much Duehring may belittle Proudhon, he is himself, at least as

a social politician, and certainly as an economist, merely a weak

dilution of Proudhon. In _The Modern Spirit_ Proudhon's Anarchism was

recently credited with the intention of abolishing not only all

government, but all organisation. Duehring, it was said, had reduced

this mistaken view to its proper origin, and in place of Anarchism had

set up "Anticratism," which does not intend to overthrow direction and

organisation, but merely to abolish all unjust force, "the State

founded on force." We who know Proudhon, know that what is here

ascribed to Duehring is exactly what Proudhon taught as "no-government"

(_An-arche_); and there was nothing left to the great Duehring but to

bluff his half-fledged scholars with a new word that means nothing

more or less than Anarchy. That which is Duehring's own, namely, the

so-called "theory of force," has not an origin of any great

profundity. He takes as the elements of society two human beings--not

at all the sexual pair--but the celebrated "two men" of Herr Duehring,

one of whom oppresses the other, uses force to him, and makes him work

for him. These "two men" explain, for him, all economic functions and

social problems; the origin of social distinctions, of political

privileges, of property, capital, betterment, exploitation, and so on.

By these two famous men he lets himself be guided directly into

Proudhon's path. "Wealth," declares Duehring, "is mastery over men and

things." Proudhon would never have been so silly--although Duehring

means the same as he does--as to call wealth the mastery over men and

things, and Engel formulates the proposition more correctly as:

"Wealth is the mastery over men, by means of mastery over things";

although this deserves the name of a definition neither in the logical

nor economic sense. But Duehring uses his ambiguous proposition in

order to be able to represent riches on the one hand as being

something quite justifiable and praiseworthy (the mastery over

things), and on the other as robbery (mastery over men), as "property

due to force." Here we have a miserable degradation and commonplace

expression of the antimony of Proudhon: "Property is theft," and

"Property is liberty." We also find Proudhon, again distorted, in

Duehring's statement that the time spent in work by various workers,

whether they be navvies or sculptors, is of equal value.

The "personalist Sociality" of Duehring, as its creator terms it

elsewhere, is the conception of arrangements and organisations

by means of which every individual person may satisfy all the

necessities and luxuries of life, from the lowest to the highest,

through the mutual working together and combination with every

other individual. This personalist Sociality is, of course,

anti-monarchical, and opposed to all privileges of position and birth;

it is also "anti-religionist," for it recognises no authorities that

are beyond control, except only conformity to nature. It starts from

the actual condition of the individual; but this can only be known by

its actions, and is not determined by birth. As regards public

affairs, positions that are technically prominent should be given by

universal, direct, and equal suffrage to persons who have shown by

their actions that they possess the necessary qualifications for them.

As regards the anti-religious element, which in Duehring's case really

implies Anti-Semitism, the place of all religion and everything

religious is taken by Duehring's philosophy of actuality or being.

Among the just claims of the individual person Duehring reckons not

only bodily freedom and immunity from injury, but also immunity from

economic injury. Just as on the one hand every kind of slavery or

limitation by united action or social forms must be unhesitatingly

rejected, so, on the other hand, unlimited power of disposal over the

means of production and natural capital must be limited by suitable

public laws in such a way that no one can be excluded from the means

supplied by nature, and reduced to a condition of starvation. The

right to labour, as well as freedom of choice in labour, must

everywhere be maintained.

The economic corner-stones of personalist Sociality are, as Duehring's

follower, Emil Doele,[2] explains, "metallic currency as the foundation

of all economic relationships, and individual property, especially

capital, as the necessary and inviolable foundation for every

condition that is not based on robbery and violence. The logic and

necessity of any form of society rests on private property, and that

is also the basis of Duehring's system; but his reforms are directed to

rejecting the ingredients of injustice, robbery, and violence towards

persons that are commingled with these fundamental forms. To bring

this about, the principle under which the merely economic mechanics of

values have free play must be rejected; and instead of it, the

original personal and political rights of men must be recognised.

Duehring therefore regards a general association of workers as far more

essential than strikes, and would wish political means (in the

narrower sense of politics) brought once more into the foreground, and

extended much farther than before. He certainly rejects the trickery

of Parliament, but not a representation of the working classes

seriously meant and honourably carried out. He also does not yield to

that logic of wretchedness which expects every reform to arise from

ever-increasing misery, but takes into account material and mental

progress and the condition of the masses."

[2] Doele, _Eugen Duehring, etwas von dessen Charakter,

Leistungen, und reformatorischen Beruf_, Leipzig, 1893.

Compare also Fr. Engel's, Duehring's _Umwaelzung der

Wissenschaft_, 3d ed. Stuttgart, 1894.

In all this it is easy to recognise Proudhon's views; even sometimes

his theory of property. And even if their views are not alike

formally, and Duehring does not quite understand Proudhon's

"Mutualism," yet he ought to have regarded the French social reformer

somewhat less condescendingly and confusedly. But he has also had a

very low opinion of Stirner; yet, however persistently he and his

followers may deny it, Duehring's "Personalism" is not only exactly the

same as Stirner's "individual" (_Einziger_), but Duehring himself is

the most repellent illustration of the egoist-individual of Stirner.

Both Stirner and Proudhon have assumed as the necessary

pre-supposition of the abolition of government, individuals who are

able to govern themselves, _i. e._, moral individuals, which means

"persons."

When, finally, Duehring apparently seeks to limit the Anarchist phrase

of the abolition of all government, by saying that Anticratism is the

denial of all unrighteous exercise of force and usurpation of

authority, this is palpable fencing. Duehring would tell the masses

which form of force is right and which wrong; which should be

maintained, and which not; and the masses will hasten to follow his

dictates. Duehring, the great opponent of all metaphysics and _a

priori_ conceptions, at once sets up, just like Jean Jacques Rousseau,

"the modern Hebrew," an absolute concept "justice," and transforms the

world according to it. Who can help laughing at this?

Duehring has tried to reconcile his prejudice against the Jews with the

foregoing doctrine, by distinguishing nations from the standpoint of

personalism, and regarding the existence of higher races side by side

with lower races as a hindrance--indeed the most serious hindrance--to

the realisation of "personalist Sociality."

"Nothing is easier than to make a wise grimace."

* * * * *

Perhaps the most peculiar of the circle of theoretical Anarchists is

Herr von Egidy. If Duehring has succeeded in enlivening Anarchism by an

admixture of Anti-Jewish persecution, Herr von Egidy has accomplished

the far greater success of enlivening Anarchism with a new religious

cult, called "United Christianity," added to the spirit of Prussian

militarism and squiredom. When the new Apostle stood as a candidate

for the Reichstag in 1893, supporting his new Christianity and the

military programme rejected by the dissolved Parliament, he was able

to secure 3000 votes. This is a piece of statistics that shows the

confusion of ideas existing in so-called intelligence.

Moritz von Egidy[3] was born at Mainz on 29th August, 1847, served in

the Prussian army, and reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

Afterwards he exchanged his military command for an apostleship, after

gaining knowledge by private study. His Christianity is a religion

without dogma or confession, _a lucus a non lucendo_, but deserves

respect as a social phenomenon in view of conditions in Germany.

[3] See, for a study of his views, the popular publication,

_Einiges Christenthum_, Berlin, 1893, and the weekly paper

(since 1894), _Versoehrung_ (_Reconciliation_).

The "United Christendom" is to be the union of all men in the idea of

time and applied Christianity, in the sense of a humanity that

approaches more nearly to God. The new religion only values and lays

stress on life, on "morality lived"; doctrine and dogma must be laid

aside; and thus Von Egidy arrives at the remarkable paradox of "a

religion without dogma or confession." The purpose of religion is

practical, and in dogmas he sees forms, among which each individual

may choose for himself, forms which (according to the main principle

of development which he places in the forefront of all his arguments)

are in a state of continual flux and change. What religion has to

offer is to be expressed not in dogmas, but only in points of view;

not in institutions, but in directions for guidance. For this purpose

it is not necessary that Egidy's disciples should form themselves into

a church, for that even contradicts the spirit of this religion; their

master rather tells them "to organise nothing, to actualise nothing."

Not parties, nor unions, but only persons and actions, is what he

wants, and these will each in his own way lead men into the earthly

paradise of which Egidy speaks with truly prophetic confidence.

The State, as we now know it, is for Egidy, who goes to work very

cautiously, no more and no less than a link in the eternal chain of

development; a stage, beyond which he looks into a divinely appointed

kingdom of the future, that will no longer rest upon the pillars of

force and fear, which "contradict the consciousness of God, wherein

there will be no difference between governed and government." He

quickly disposes of the objection that men are not fit for such an

ideal State. "Once we have created conditions in accordance with the

divine will, the men for them will be there. If there was a paradise

for the first primitive man, why should there not be one for civilised

man of to-day? We only need to create it for ourselves; and once we

have gained entrance to it we shall not be driven out of it a second

time--we have had our warning. Of course the 'old Adam' must be left

outside." Of course! But Egidy forgets in the ardour of inspiration

that it is not so easy to leave the old Adam outside, and that his

assumption of a primitive paradise for mankind, for the _homme

sauvage_ of the "social contract," directly contradicts the theory of

evolution which he has just unhesitatingly accepted. He also

contradicts himself when he at first maintains that the "conditions in

accordance with the divine will" will produce men fitted for them, and

afterwards says: "Do not let us trouble about programmes and systems,

or modes of execution; only get the right men, and we need not trouble

ourselves about how to realise our proposals."

As may be seen, his "United Christianity" not only has a Socialist

side, but it is sheer Socialism, the main basis of which is moral and

intellectual self-consciousness. Egidy has certainly not drawn up a

definite programme, and could not draw it up; "since we are all at the

present moment, without exception, undergoing a thorough

transformation of 'the inner man,' it is more reasonable to defer

single efforts till the general consciousness has become enlightened

on essential points." Egidy can thus only open up "points of view" on

the social question, leaving everything else to the individual and to

natural evolution. Hence a definite social doctrine is excluded.

Thus, upon the question of property, he says that property is "not so

much the source as the logical consequence of the immature ideas of

human rights and duties which we still hold. With the progressive

transformation of our ideas generally, with the adoption of a totally

different view of life, with the dawn of a new view of the world, our

conceptions of property will also alter; not sooner, but surely. This

new view of life will give a direction and aim to our endeavours for

improvement. The new treatment of the question of property, however,

will only be one of the results of the general new tendencies.

Certainly it will be one of the most important; but we do not need

beforehand to recognise any one of the manifold tendencies indicated

as a binding law; just as we may generally take what is called

Socialism into consideration, as soon as it is offered to us on a

firmly defined form, but never accept it without further demur as a

new law.

"Instead of the words 'equality' and 'freedom,' I say 'self-reliance'

and 'independence.' They express better that which concerns the

individual; and they also avoid the objection of being 'impossible.'

That even self-reliance and independence may experience a certain

limitation from the demands of our life in common one with another, I

know quite well; but they do not mislead us beforehand to the same

erroneous ideas and especially not to the same demands, so impossible

of fulfilment, as the word equality. The highest attainable is always

merely that we create for the individual equal, _i. e._, equally good,

conditions of existence. But owing to the inequality of individuals

similar conditions do not always produce by any means the same result

of well-being; the utilisation of the conditions is a matter for the

individual, and is unequal. Thus we should have to arrange these

conditions as _un_equal for each individual in order to give all

individuals really equal conditions of existence. Apart from the

fundamental impossibility in our human imperfection, of doing absolute

justice to these requirements, the equality thus restored would the

very next moment be impaired in a thousand different directions."

Egidy is a pure Anarchist, perhaps the purest of all, but he is

certainly not the wisest. "The greatest fault in Anarchism," he says,

"in the eyes of the opponent whom it has to overcome, is its name.

This, however, is not quite fair to the representatives of these

ideas; for why must everything have a name, and why must names be

sought which annihilate what at present exists, instead of choosing

names which indicate the highest connotation of meanings so far

recognised? Why say, 'without government'? Why not rather,

'self-discipline, self-government'? Discipline and government mean

things of great value; without which we could not imagine human

existence. The only question is, who exercises government over us, and

who wields the rod of discipline: whether it is others or we

ourselves?" To be sure, he draws a distinction between "Anarchists of

Blood" and "noble Anarchists"; he condemns the former and associates

himself with the latter. But that does not hinder this remarkable man

from having a Bismarckian patriotism, sullen prejudices against the

Jews, and, above all, incomprehensible zeal on behalf of Prussian

Militarism and Monarchy.

"The monarchical idea in itself," says this most remarkable of all

Anarchists, "by no means contradicts the idea of the self-reliance and

independence of the individual. The prince will not be lacking in the

comprehension necessary for a redrafting of the monarchical idea to

suit the people when they have attained their majority. The prince

belongs to the people; the prince the foremost of the people; the

prince in direct intercourse with the people. The prince neither

absolute ruler nor constitutional regent; but the prince a

personality, an ego; with a right to execute his will as equal as that

of any one of the people. No confused responsibility of ministers

thrust in between people and prince. There is no 'crown' as a

conception; there is only a living wearer of the crown--the king, the

prince--as responsible head of the people. The present servants of the

crown become commissioners of the people." Compare these expressions

with Proudhon's attitude in regard to the dynastic question described

above, and consider, in order to do justice to each, that Egidy as

well as Proudhon had in view when speaking a monarch who knew how to

surround himself at least with the appearance of "social imperialism."

If, indeed, Egidy were one day to be disillusioned by his "social

prince," just as Proudhon was by _his_ monarch, yet it should not be

forgotten that the "social prince" might also likewise be greatly

disillusioned some day as to the loyalty of Egidy's followers.

* * * * *

Germany possesses an honest and upright Anarchist of a strongly

individualist tendency in the naturalised Scot, John Henry Mackay, who

was born at Greenock on 6th February, 1864. In Mackay we find again

one of those numerous persons who have descended from that sphere of

society where want and distress are only known by name, into the

habitations of human pity, and have risen from these upon the wings of

poetic fancy and warmheartedness into the "regions where the happy

gods do dwell," and where Anarchy does not need to be brought into

being. Mackay is of an essentially artistic nature; like Cafiero, he

is also a millionaire, which means a completely independent man. Both

these circumstances are needed to explain his individualist Anarchism.

His novel, which created some sensation, entitled _The Anarchist: A

Picture of Society at the Close of the Nineteenth Century_,[4] which

appeared in 1891, is a pendant to Theodor Hertzka's novel, _Freeland_,

to which it is also not inferior in genuinely artistic effects, as

_e. g._, the development of the character of Auban, an egoist of

Stirner's kind, and in touching description, as that of poverty in

Whitechapel. The book does not contain any new ideas: but is

nevertheless important as making a thorough and clear distinction

between individualist and communist Anarchism; while, on the other

hand, the glaring colouring of the descriptions of misery possesses a

certain provocative energy which the author certainly did not intend,

for he rejects the "propaganda of action."

[4] _Die Anarchisten_, etc.; _Zuerich Verlagsmagazin_; a

popular edition has also appeared in Berlin; also an English

translation. Boston, 1891; and in French, Paris, 1892.

It is only to be expected as a matter of course that in Germany as in

France, that literary Bohemia, certain "advanced minds" should prefer

to give themselves out as Anarchists and Individualists, as _Einzige_;

but it must not therefore be concluded that it is our duty to concern

ourselves with writers such as Pudor, Bruno Wille, and others. We

might indeed utter a warning against extending too widely the

boundaries of Anarchist theory, and thus obliterating them altogether.

In our opinion it is quite incorrect to regard as a theoretical

Anarchist every author who, like Nietzsche,[5] preached a purely

philosophic individualism or egotism, without ever having given a

thought to the reformation of society. To what does this lead? Some

even include Ibsen among theoretical Anarchists because in a letter to

Brandes he exclaims: "The State is the curse of the individual. The

State must go. I will take part in this revolution. Let us undermine

the idea of the State; let us set up free will and affinity of spirit

as the only conditions for any union: that is the beginning of a

freedom that is worth something." Such expressions may certainly show

Ibsen's Anarchist tendencies, but they by no means elevate him to the

position of a teacher; for that position one might sooner quote one of

his own most powerful characters, Brand, that modern Faust after the

style of Stirner. But Brand is a gloomy figure, who would not make

many converts to individualism.

[5] Even in a philosophic sense, Nietzsche's Anarchism is a

mere fable. Schellwien truly remarks: "Max Stirner replaces

freedom by individuality, by the evolution of the individual

as such, but he cannot shew that anything else would happen

but the oppression of the weaker individuality by the

stronger; a state of things in which not individuality but

brute force would reign. Friedrich Nietzsche draws this

conclusion, and would have this oppression of the weak by the

strong; he would have the aristocratic will of the stronger,

who in his eyes are alone the good. He raises the 'will for

power' to a world-principle." Elsewhere Nietzsche positively

advocates, _e. g._, the reduction of some men to slavery for

the benefit of the aristocracy of the strong. This sort of

thing is hardly Anarchism.

* * * * *

We may here cursorily notice the position of Johann Most in the theory

of Anarchism, although this man, fateful and gloomy as has been his

role in the history of Anarchist action, can hardly be taken into

account as a theorist, and, moreover,--which is more important,--he is

not even a pure Anarchist. Johann Most forms the link between social

Democracy, to which he formerly attached himself, and Anarchism, to

which he now devotes his baleful talents. But, as a matter of fact,

Most goes no farther than ancient and modern followers of Baboeuf have

gone at all times; the "decision of society" is the authoritative

boundary which separates him from the communist Anarchists.

Land and all movable and immovable capital should, in his opinion, be

the property of the whole of society,--here we perceive a very

conservative notion as compared with Kropotkin,--but should be given

up for the use of the single groups of producers, which may be formed

by free agreement (_libre entente_) among themselves. The products of

industry should remain the property of those organisations whose work

and creation they are, thus becoming collective property. To determine

value and price, bureaux of experts should be formed by society--an

arrangement which Grave considers highly reactionary, because implying

authority,--and these bureaux are to calculate how much work is

represented in each community, and what is its value on this basis.

The price thus determined cannot be altered, because consumers will

also form free groups, for the purpose of buying, just as the

producers did. Other free groups will look after the bringing up of

children. Marriage becomes a free contract between man and woman, and

can be entered into or dissolved at pleasure. There are no laws, but

only a "decision of society" in each case.

If with these views Most must be regarded among Anarchist

theorists--if he is an Anarchist at all--as a representative of

extreme Conservatism, yet, on the other hand, there is not the

slightest doubt that he must be looked upon as the theorist of force,

the apostle of the most violent propaganda of action. In his notorious

journal, _Freiheit_ (_Freedom_), as well as in numberless pamphlets,

Johann Most has drawn up an inexhaustible compendium for "the men of

action." The little groups, which are to-day characteristic of

Anarchism, are his idea, and his, too, are the tactics of

bomb-throwing. In the pamphlet[6] on the scientific art of

revolutionary warfare and dynamiters, he explains exactly where bombs

should be placed in churches, palaces, ballrooms, and festive

gatherings. Never more than one Anarchist should take charge of the

attempt, so that in case of discovery the Anarchist party may suffer

as little harm as possible. The book contains also a complete

dictionary of poisons, and preference is given to.... Poison should be

employed against politicians, traitors, and spies. _Freedom_, his

journal, is distinguished from the rest of the Anarchist press--which

is mostly merely _doctrinaire_--by its constant provocation to a war

of classes, to murder and incendiarism. "Extirpate the miserable

brood!" says _Freedom_, speaking of owners of property--"extirpate the

wretches! Thus runs the refrain of a revolutionary song of the working

classes, and this will be the exclamation of the executive of a

victorious proletariate army when the battle has been won. For at the

critical moment the executioner's block must ever be before the eyes

of the revolutionary. Either he is cutting off the heads of his

enemies or his own is being cut off. Science gives us means which make

it possible to accomplish the wholesale destruction of these beasts

quietly and deliberately." Elsewhere he says, "Those of the reptile

brood who are not put to the sword remain as a thorn in the flesh of

the new society; hence it would be both foolish and criminal not to

annihilate utterly this race of parasites," and so forth.

[6] Die _wissenschaftliche revolutionaere Kriegskunst und der

Dynamit Fuehrer._

These are only a few specimens of the jargon of "Anarchism of action,"

of which Johann Most is the classic representative; we shall refer

elsewhere to his varied activity as such.

* * * * *

Most, whose special Anarchist influence is exercised on English soil,

is also the link between German and English Anarchism.

England possesses a theorist of a higher type in Auberon Herbert, who,

like Bakunin and Kropotkin, is a scion of a noble house. Herbert began

as a representative of Democracy in the seventies, and to-day edits in

London a paper called _The Free Life_, in which he preaches an

individualist Anarchism of his own, or, as he himself calls it,

"Voluntarism." He does not wish constituted society, as such, to be

abolished; his "voluntary State" is distinguished from the present

compulsory State in that it is absolutely free to any individual to

enter or leave the State as he wishes.

"I demand," says Herbert,[7] "that the individual should be

self-owner, the actual owner of his bodily and mental capacities, and

in consequence owner of all that he can acquire by these capacities,

only assuming that he treats his fellow-men as his equals and as

owners of their own capacities."

[7] Anarchy and Voluntarism (_The Free Life_), vol. ii., p.

99, October, 1894.

"If thus the individual is legally master of himself and legally owner

of all that he has won by the aid of his own capabilities, then we

must further conclude that the individual as such has the right to

defend what is his own, even by force against force (understanding by

force those forms of deception which are in reality only an equivalent

of force); and since he now has this right of defence by force, he can

transfer it to a corporation and to men who undertake to watch over

the practical application of this right on his behalf; which

corporation may be denoted by the practical term of 'State.' The State

is rightfully born, only if the individuals have the choice of handing

over to it their right of defence, and that no individual is compelled

to take part in it when once formed, or to maintain it. When we

consider that every force must be set in action for some definite

purpose, the State or the sphere of society's force must be organised;

yet every individual must retain his natural right of deciding for

himself whether he will join the State and maintain it or not. If then

the State is legitimate as an agreement to defend one's self-ownership

against all attacks, there are sufficient reasons for creating such an

organisation and placing the exercise of the forces mentioned in its

hands, instead of keeping them in our hands as individuals.... I fully

admit that the right of exercising force in self-defence belongs to

the individual and is transferred by him to the State; but the moral

pressure on the individual to transfer this right is overwhelming. Who

of us would care to be judge and executioner at once in one's own

person? Who would wish to exercise Lynch law?[8] What is to be gained

thereby? It is not a question of right, for, as we have seen, the

individual, who may exercise force in self-defence, can also transfer

this exercise of his power, and if he can do this legally, is it not a

hundred times better if he also does so actually? I willingly admit

that, when it is solely a question of a group, even the group, as the

source of law, may, if it wishes, organise its own defence, and

isolate itself from the general organisation of other groups. But I do

not admit that the group can also separate itself, when the question

directly concerns other groups besides itself. I would not, for

example, allow a group the right to conduct its sewers to a certain

point in a stream, because this directly affects the interests of

other groups at other points of the stream. The first group must come

to an understanding with the other groups concerned; in other words,

it must enter into a common organisation with other groups. Or again:

group A decides to punish those who instigate to murder, while group B

is of opinion that one need not trouble about words, but only about

deeds. Such a difference of views and procedure is unimportant, so

long as the members of group A merely associate with one another; but

suppose a member of group B were to incite a person to murder a member

of group A, it is clear that we should be confronted by a civil war

between the two groups the moment that group A seeks to seize and

punish the instigator. It also happens that in all cases where force

has to be exercised against persons outside their own group as well as

in it, some organisation must exist between the groups--a State--in

order to determine the conditions under which force can be

exercised.... For these reasons I consider pure Anarchy an

impossibility; it rests upon a misunderstanding, and is founded upon

the mingling of two things which are by nature entirely different....

Anarchy is the rule of an individual over himself; but the actions of

an individual in self-defence, however just they may be, are not

founded entirely upon self-ownership, but are of a mixed nature, since

they include rule over one's self and over others. The object of

Anarchy is self-government, but we exceed the sphere of

self-government as soon as we stretch out our hand to exercise force.

The error which pure Anarchists commit lies in the fact that they

apply the ideas of self-government, self-ownership, or freedom to

force. Between actions of freedom and actions involving force a line

must necessarily be drawn, which separates them for ever. As far as

concerns a question of free will, _e. g._, the posting of letters,

arrangements for education, all contracts of labour and capital, we

can dispense with any authority; we can be Anarchists, because in

these cases it is not necessary for me or for you to exercise or to

undergo compulsion. We may leave the group whose actions we do not

approve of, we may stand alone as individuals, we may follow

exclusively the law of our nature; but the moment we proceed to

measures of defence, to actions implying limitation or discipline, to

actions which encroach upon the self-ownership of others, the whole

state of things is altered. The moment force has to be exercised, an

apparatus of force must be set up; if we wish to exercise force, it

must be publicly proclaimed, and we must publicly agree upon what

conditions it is to be applied; it must be surrounded by guarantees

and so on. Force and the unconditional freedom of the individual, or

Anarchy, are incompatible ideas, and therefore I am a Voluntarist, not

an Anarchist--a Voluntarist in all questions where Voluntarism is

admissible; but I return into the State when by the nature of things

some organisation is necessary."

[8] The answer is obvious: the inhabitants of Texas.

Practically Auberon Herbert's distinction of terms is merely playing

with words; for the "voluntary State," which I can leave at any

moment, from which I can withdraw my financial support if I do not

approve of its actions, is Proudhon's federation of groups in its

strictest form; perhaps it is even the practical outcome of Stirner's

_Union of Egoists_; at any rate Herbert, like Stirner, prefers the

unconditional acceptance of the principle of _laisser faire_, without

reaching it, like Proudhon, by means of the thorny circumlocution of a

complicated organisation of work. Carried into practice, Voluntarism

would be as like Anarchism as two peas. None the less we must not

undervalue the theoretical progress shown in the distinction quoted

above. Herbert approaches within a hair's-breadth of the standpoint of

Sociology, and what separates him from it is not so much the logical

accentuation of the social-contract theory as the indirect assumption

of it.

* * * * *

In America we find views similar to Auberon Herbert's.

The traces of Anarchist ideas in the United States go back as far as

the fifties. Joseph Dejacque, an adherent of Proudhon, and compromised

politically in 1848, edited in New York, from 1858-61, a paper, _Le

Libertaire_, in which he at first preached the collective Anarchism of

his master, but later--though long before Kropotkin--drifted into

communist Anarchism.

Side by side there also arose, almost, as it seems, independently of

Europe, an individualist school, the origin of which goes back

somewhere to the beginning of the century. Here the ideas of a free

society, such as Thompson had imagined and taught, found rapid and

willing acceptance, and were expanded, by men like Josiah Warren,

Stephen Pearl Andrews, Lysander Spooner, and others, to the idea of

"individual sovereignty," which to-day possesses its most important

champion in R. B. Tucker, the editor of the journal, _Liberty_, in

Boston, and which approaches most closely to Herbert's idea of the

"voluntary State."

PART III

THE RELATION OF ANARCHISM TO SCIENCE AND POLITICS

CHAPTER VII

ANARCHISM AND SOCIOLOGY: HERBERT SPENCER

Spencer's Views on the Organisation of Society -- Society

Conceived from the Nominalist and Realist Standpoint -- The

Idealism of Anarchists -- Spencer's Work: _From Freedom to

Restraint_.

When Vaillant was before his judges he mentioned Herbert Spencer,

among others, as one of those from whom he had derived his Anarchist

convictions. Anarchists refer not seldom to the gray-headed Master of

Sociology as one of themselves; and still more often do the Socialists

allude to him as an Anarchist. People like Laveleye, Lafarque, and

(lately) Professor Enrico Ferri,[1] have allowed themselves to speak

of Spencer's Anarchist and Individualist views in his book, _The

Individual versus the State_. If Vaillant, the bomb-thrower, rejoiced

in such ignorance of persons and things as to quote Spencer, without

thinking, as a fellow-thinker, we need hardly say much about it; but

when men who are regarded as authorities in so-called scientific

Socialism, do the same, we can only perceive the small amount either

of conscientiousness or science with which whole tendencies of the

social movement are judged, and judged too by a party which, before

all others, is interested in procuring correct and precise judgments

on this matter. For those who number Herbert Spencer among the

Anarchists, either do not understand the essence of Anarchism, or else

do not understand Spencer's views; or both are to them a _terra

incognita_.

[1] _Socialismus und Moderne Wissenschaft_, p. 129. Leipsic,

1895.

As far as concerns the book, _The Individual versus the State_

(London, 1885), this is really only a closely printed pamphlet of some

thirty pages, in which Spencer certainly attacks Socialism severely as

an endeavour to strengthen an organisation of society, based on

compulsion, at the expense of individual freedom and of voluntary

organisations already secured; but not a single Anarchist thought is

to be found in his pages, unless any form of opposition to forcing

human life into a social organisation of regimental severity is to be

called Anarchism. We may remark _en passant_ that here we have a

splendid example of freedom of thought as understood by the

Socialists; in their (so-called) free people's State the elements of

Anarchism would assume a much more repulsive form than under the

present _bourgeois_ conditions. And that is just what Spencer

prophesies in his little book.

Spencer appeals in this work to his views upon a possible organisation

of society better than the present, as he has indicated in _The Study

of Sociology_, _Political Institutions_, and elsewhere; and we think

we ought to permit the appeal and present Spencer's views, not for the

sake of Herbert Spencer--for we cannot undertake to defend everyone

who is suspected of Anarchism,--but because he is the most important

representative of a school of thought which some day or other will be

called upon to say the last word in the scientific discussion of the

so-called social question, and because we now wish to set forth

clearly, once for all, what Anarchism is, in whatever disguise it may

cloak itself, and what Anarchism is not, however far it may go in

accentuating freedom of development.

* * * * *

The quintessence of Spencer's views upon the organisation of

society--the point from which the pamphlet so misused by Ferri

proceeds--is something like this. The organisation which is the

necessary preliminary to any form of united social endeavour is,

whether regarded historically or _a priori_, not of a single but of a

twofold nature, a nature essentially different both in origin and

conditions. The one arises immediately from the pursuit of individual

aims, and only contributes indirectly to the social welfare; it

develops unconsciously, and is not of a compulsory character. The

other, which proceeds directly from the pursuit of social aims, and

only contributes indirectly to the welfare of the individual, develops

consciously, and is of a compulsory character (_cf. Principles_, iii.,

p. 447). Spencer calls the first, voluntary, organisation the

industrial type, because it always accompanies the appearance of

industrial and commercial interests; but the second, compulsory,

organisation the warlike type, because it is a consequence of the need

of external defence for the community. The industrial type of Spencer,

based upon the individualist sentiment, results in what we have come

to know as convention; the military or warlike type, which addresses

itself exclusively to altruistic feelings, leads to the State

(status). The "social" question, when solved exclusively by the first

method, we know already as Anarchy; solved by the second, it is

Socialism in the narrower sense.

However much these two types may seem to exclude each other in their

conception, and actually do so when translated into the jargon of

party, in reality they are by no means mutually exclusive. Those forms

of human society which we see both in the present and the past are by

no means pure types, but show the most varied gradation and

interpenetration of both types; according as the need for common

defence or for individual interests comes to the fore, the military

type, that rules and regulates everything, or the industrial, that

aims at free union, will preponderate. The vast majority of all forms

of society, including the modern Great Powers, are still of the

military type, for obvious reasons. The "idea of the State" is

powerful within them, but only some of the most advanced, which from

their peculiar circumstances are less threatened by the danger of war,

and therefore devote themselves more largely to industry and commerce,

such as England and America, are now inclining more to the industrial

type.

Which of the two forms deserves the preference cannot, of course, be

determined _a priori_. Spencer gives it evidently to the industrial

type, as being a higher form of development, and he thinks that, in

the more or less distant future, this will acquire the supremacy

(_Principles_, iii., Sec. 577). But he recognises also, as was only to be

expected, that it has only rarely been possible to dispense with the

military and compulsory organisation, whether in the present or the

past, and that even in the future it will still in many cases be

necessary for social development according to local conditions; and

that accordingly a universal acceptance of co-operative work by

convention, on the Anarchist's plan, cannot be imagined as possible,

because, in social organisms as well as in individual organisms, the

development of higher forms by no means implies the extirpation of

lower forms. If we miss already, at this point, one of the most

essential traits of Anarchist doctrine, viz., its absolute character,

Spencer's so-called Anarchism shrinks still more into nothingness,

when we approach the industrial type as he describes it in its

complete state.

While the requirements of the industrial type (he says) simply exclude

a despotic authority, they demand on the other hand, as the only

suitable means of carrying out the requisite actions of common

benefit, an assembly of representatives to express the will of the

whole body. The duty of this controlling agency, which may be denoted

in general terms as the administration of justice, merely consists in

seeing that every citizen receives neither more nor less benefit than

his own efforts normally afford him. Hence public efforts to effect

any artificial division of the result of labour is of itself excluded.

When the _regime_ peculiar to militarism, the status, has disappeared,

the _regime_ of convention appears in its stead, and finds more and

more general acceptance, and this forbids any disturbance of the

relations of exchange between the performance and the product of

labour by arbitrary division. Looked at from another standpoint, the

industrial type is distinguished from the military by the fact that it

has a regulating influence, not simultaneously, both positive and

negative, but only negative (_cf. Principles_, iii., Sec. 575). In this

ever-increasing limitation of the influence of constituted society

lies another sharply defined line of demarcation, from even the most

conservative forms of Anarchism, whether it be Proudhon's federal

society or Auberon Herbert's "voluntary State." For Spencer recognises

even for the most perfect form of his society the necessity of some

administration of law; he speaks of a Head of the State, even though

he be merely elected (_Principles_, Sec. 578); he would like to see

development continued along the beaten track of the representative

system (which the Anarchists mainly reject), and even in certain

circumstances would retain the principle of a second chamber (_ib._,

p. 770). For however high may be the degree of development reached by

an industrial society, yet the difference between high and low,

between rulers and ruled, can never be done away with. All the new

improvements which the coming centuries may have in store for industry

cannot fail to admit the contrast between those whose character and

abilities raise them to a higher rank and those who remain in a lower

sphere. Even if any mode of production and distribution of goods was

carried out exclusively by corporations of labourers working together,

as is done even now in some cases to a certain extent, yet all such

corporations must have their chief directors and their committees of

administration. A Senate might then be formed either from an elective

body that was taken, not from a class possessing permanent privileges,

but from a group including all leaders of industrial associations, or

it might be formed from an electorate consisting of all persons who

took an active share in the administration; and finally it might be so

composed as to include the representatives of all persons engaged in

governing, as distinguished from the second chamber of representatives

of the governed.

Moreover, Spencer himself claims no sort of dogmatic obligatory force

for these deductions with regard to the most favourable possible form

of future organisation; rather he expressly warns us that different

organisations are possible, by means of which the general agreement of

the whole community in sentiment and views might make itself felt, and

declares that it is rather a question of expediency than of principle

which of the different possible organisations should finally be

accepted (_Principles_, p. 766).

* * * * *

Incomprehensible as it may seem that Spencer, holding such views,

should be regarded as an Anarchist, and that too by men who ought to

have understood him as well as the Anarchists, yet this has been the

case. Therefore we must guard against his lack of Radicalism (as shown

in the foregoing remarks) being regarded by various parties less as a

necessary result of his first premises than as the result of personal

qualities of opportunism, of a lack of courage in facing the ultimate

consequences of his reasoning. We should like, therefore, briefly to

note the wide differences which separate the purely sociological

standpoint of Spencer from the unscientific standpoint of the

Anarchists.

It may be considered as indifferent whether we are accustomed to

regard society as a natural thing or only as a product of my thought,

as something real and concrete or as a mere conception, and yet the

range of this first assumption far surpasses the value of academic

contention. No bridge leads from one of these standpoints to the

other, and as deep a gulf separates the conclusions which are drawn

from these premises. If society is a thing, something actual like the

individual, then it is subject to the same laws as the rest of nature;

it changes and develops, grows and decays, like all else. If, on the

other hand, it is a mere conception, then it stands and falls with

myself, with my wish to set it up or destroy it. Indeed, if society is

nothing but an idea, a child of my thought, what hinders me from

throwing it away as soon as I have recognised its nothingness, since

it is no more use to me? Have not some already done so with the idea

of God, because they thought it merely a product of their own mind?

Here we may remember Stirner's argument, which was only rendered

possible because he placed society upon exactly the same level as the

Deity, _i. e._, regarding both as mere conceptions. But, on the other

hand, if society exists apart from me, apart from my thought about it,

then it will also develop without reference to my personal opinions,

views, ideas, or wishes. In other words: if society is nothing but the

summary idea of certain institutions, such as the family, property,

religion, law, and so on, then society stands or falls with their

sanctity, expediency and utility; and to deny these institutions is to

deny society itself. On the other hand, if society is the aggregate of

individuals forming it, then the institutions just mentioned are only

functions of this collective body, and the denial or abolition of them

means certainly a disturbance, though not an annihilation of society.

Society then can no more be got rid of, as long as there are

individuals, than matter or force. We can destroy or upset an

aggregation, but can never hinder the individuals composing it from

again uniting to form another aggregation.

From these two divergent points of view follows the endless series of

irreconcilable divergencies between Realists and Idealists. For the

former, evolution is a process that is accomplished quite

unconsciously, and is determined exclusively by the condition at any

time of the elements forming the aggregate, and their varying

relations. The Idealist also likes to talk of an evolution of

society, but since this is only the evolution of an idea, there can be

no contradiction, and it is only right and fair for him to demand that

this evolution should be accomplished in the direction of other and

(as he thinks) higher ideas, the realisation of which is the object of

society. So he comes to demand that society should realise the ideas

of Freedom, Equality, and the like. A society which does not wish, or

is unfitted to do this, can and must be overthrown and annihilated.

When we hear these destructive opinions, which are continually

spreading, characterised as a lack of idealism, we cannot restrain a

smile at the confusion of thought thus betrayed. As a matter of fact,

the social revolutionaries of the present day, and especially the

Anarchists, are idealists of the first rank, and that too not merely

because of their nominalist way of regarding society, but they are

idealists also in a practical sense. The society of the present is in

their eyes utterly bad and incapable of improvement, because it does

not correspond to the ideas of freedom and equality. But the fault of

this does not lie in men as such, or in their natural attributes and

defects, but in society, that is (since it is merely an idea), in the

faulty conceptions and prejudices which men have as to the value of

society. Men in themselves are good, noble, and possess the most

brotherly sentiments; and not only that, but they are diligent and

industrious from an innate impulse; society alone has spoiled them.

These assumptions we have seen in all Anarchists; they are the

inevitable premises of their ideal of the future, an ideal of a free,

just, and brotherly form of society; but they are the necessary

consequence of the first assumption, of the idealist conception of

society itself, which is common to all Anarchists, with the single

exception of Proudhon, whose peculiarities and contradictions we have

dealt with above.

Herbert Spencer, and with him the sociological school generally,

cannot of course accept the conclusions of a premise which they do not

assume. Comparative study of the life of primitive races, scientific

anthropology, and exact psychology, all show this well-meaning

assumption to be a mere delusion. Philoneism may be nobler and more

humane, but, unfortunately, it is only misoneism that is true.

Generally speaking, every man only works in order to avoid

unpleasantness. One man is urged on by his experience that hunger

hurts him, the other by the whip of the slave-driver. What he fears is

either the punishment of circumstances, or the punishment given by

someone set over him (_cf._ Spencer, _From Freedom to Restraint_, p.

8). Work is the enemy of man; he struggles with it because he must do

so in order to live; his life is a continual struggle but not (as all

the Anarchists from Proudhon down to Grave try to persuade themselves

and others) a united struggle of man against nature, but a struggle of

men one against the other, a murderous, fratricidal conflict, from

which in the end only the most suitable and capable emerges ("the

survival of the fittest"). Short-sighted people and one-sided

doctrinaires can never be convinced of the fact that in this brutal

fact lies not only the end but also the proper beginning of unfeigned

morality. And so too in social relations. Conflict, war, and

persecution stand at the beginning of every civilisation and every

social development; but the ceaseless hostilities of man with man have

populated the earth from pole to pole with those who are most capable,

powerful, and most fitted for evolution; we owe to man's hatred and

fear of work the rich blessings of civilisation; and only from the

swamp of servitude can spring the flower of freedom.

But we must return once more to our idealists.

According to the view common to all Anarchists, the fault of our

present circumstances, which scorn freedom and equality, lies not in

the natural limitation of mankind, but in the limitation entailed upon

him by society, that is, by his own faulty conceptions and ideas. It

is therefore only a question of convincing men that they hitherto have

erred, that they should see in the State their enemy and not their

protector and champion--and the world is at once turned upside down

"like an omelet," society as now constituted is annihilated, and

Anarchy is triumphant. Anarchists since Bakunin are of the opinion

that, in order to reach this end, there is no need of weary evolution

or of an education of the human race for Anarchy; on the contrary, it

can be set up at once, immediately, with these same men; it merely

requires the trifling circumstance that men should be convinced of its

truth. Therefore they despise every political means, and their whole

strategy, not excepting the propaganda of action, only aims at

convincing men of the nothingness of society as such, and of the harm

done by its institution. This fact can only be understood in view of

the purely idealist starting-point from which the Anarchists proceed.

The man to whom society is a fact, a reality, only recognises an

evolution that excludes any sudden leap, and above all, the leap into

annihilation.

A radical error (as Herbert Spencer remarks in the very book which

Ferri adduces as a proof of his Anarchist tendency) which prevails in

the mode of thought of almost all political and social parties, is the

delusion that there exist immediate and radical remedies for the evils

that oppress us. "Only do thus, and the evil will disappear"; or "act

according to my method and want will cease"; or "by such and such

regulations the trouble will undoubtedly be removed"--everywhere we

meet such fancies, or modes of action resulting from them. But the

foundation of them is wrong. You may remove causes that increase the

evil, you may change one evil into another, and you may, as frequently

occurs, even increase the evil by trying to cure it: but an immediate

cure is impossible. In the course of centuries mankind, owing to the

increase of numbers, has been compelled to expand from the original,

ancient condition, wherein small groups of men supported themselves

upon the free gifts of nature, into a civilised condition, in which

the things necessary to support life for such great masses can only be

acquired by ceaseless toil. The nature of man in this latter mode of

existence is very different from what it was in the first period; and

centuries of pain have been necessary to transform it sufficiently. A

human constitution that is no longer in harmony with its environment

is necessarily in a miserable position, and a constitution inherited

from primitive man does not harmonise with the circumstances to which

those of to-day have to adapt themselves. Consequently it is

impossible to create immediately a social condition that shall bring

happiness to all. A state of society which even to-day fills Europe

with millions of armed warriors, eager for conquest or thirsting for

revenge; which impels so-called Christian nations to vie with one

another all over the world in piratical enterprises without any regard

to the rights of the aborigines, while thousands of their priests and

pastors watch them with approval; which, in intercourse with weaker

races, goes far beyond the primitive law of revenge, "a life for a

life," and for one life demands seven--such a state of human society,

says Spencer, cannot under any circumstances be ripe for a harmonious

communal existence. The root of every well-ordered social activity is

the sense of justice, resting, on the one hand, on personal freedom,

and, on the other on the sanctity of similar freedom for others; and

this sense of justice is so far not present in sufficient quantity.

Therefore a further and longer continuance of a social discipline is

necessary, which demands from each that he should look after his own

affairs with due regard to the equal rights of others, and insists

that everyone shall enjoy all the pleasures which naturally flow from

his efforts, and, at the same time, not place upon the shoulders of

others the inconveniences that arise from the same cause, in so far as

others are not ready to undertake them. And therefore it is Spencer's

conviction that the attempts to remove this form of discipline will

not only fail, but will produce worse evils than those which it is

sought to avoid.

We need not discuss Spencer's views further in a book about Anarchism.

But to those representatives of so-called scientific Socialism, as

well as to those Liberals who are so ready to condemn as "Anarchist"

any inconvenient critic of their own opinions, we should like to

remark that Anarchism will only be overcome by free and fearless

scientific treatment, and not by violent measures dictated by

stupidity and hatred.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SPREAD OF ANARCHISM IN EUROPE

First Period (1867-1880) -- The Peace and Freedom League --

The Democratic Alliance and the Jurassic Bund -- Union with

and Separation from the "International" -- The Rising at

Lyons -- Congress at Lausanne -- The Members of the Alliance

in Italy, Spain, and Belgium -- Second Period (from 1880) --

The German Socialist Law -- Johann Most -- The London

Congress -- French Anarchism since 1880 -- Anarchism in

Switzerland -- The Geneva Congress -- Anarchism in Germany

and Austria -- Joseph Penkert -- Anarchism in Belgium and

England -- Organisation of the Spanish Anarchists -- Italy --

Character of Modern Anarchism -- The Group -- Numerical

Strength of the Anarchism of Action.

It is the custom to represent Bakunin as the St. Paul of modern

Anarchism. It may be so. The Anarchism of violence only acquired

significance, owing to later circumstances in which Bakunin had no

share; but the kind of prelude of the Anarchist movement, which was

noticeable at the end of the sixties and beginning of the seventies,

may certainly be attributed to the influence of Bakunin.

With the growth of the organisation of the proletariat in its

international relations in the second half of the sixties, it was only

too readily understood that a part of this organisation rested upon an

Anarchist basis, especially as the opposition to the social democratic

tendency had not yet been developed in practice. Among workmen using

the Romance languages, the free-collectivist doctrines of Proudhon

gained much ground; prominent labour journals, such as the Geneva

_Egalite_, the _Progres du Locle_, and others, often represented these

views, and Switzerland especially was the chief country in which the

working classes had always inclined to radical opinions. We call to

mind, for example, the union of handicraftsmen of the forties, the

Young Germany, and the _Lemanbund_ (Lake of Geneva Union) which had

been led by Marr and Doeleke, to however small an extent, into an

Anarchist channel. The same field was open to Bakunin as suitable for

his operations, after he had long enough sought for one.

After his return from his Siberian exile, Bakunin had looked out for

an organisation, by the help of which he could translate his Anarchist

ideas into action and agitation, the which were the proper domain of

his spirit. When, after restless wanderings, he came from Italy into

Switzerland, it appeared as if this wish were to be fulfilled.

In Geneva there happened to be a meeting of the Peace Congress, which

then had merely philanthropic aims, and was attended by members of the

most diverse classes of society and most different nations. Bakunin

hoped to win over to his ideas this company, consisting for the most

part of amiable enthusiasts, doctrinaires and congress haunters, and

to create in it a background for his own activity. He, therefore,

appeared at the Congress and made a speech that was highly applauded

in which he came to the conclusion that international peace was

impossible as long as the following principle, together with all its

consequences, was not accepted; namely: "Every nation, feeble or

strong, small or great, every province, every community has the

absolute right to be free and autonomous, to live according to its

interests and private needs and to rule itself; and in this right all

communities and all nations have a certain solidarity to the extent

that this principle cannot be violated for one of them without at the

same time involving all the others in danger. So long as the present

centralised States exist, universal peace is impossible; we must,

therefore, wish for their dismemberment, in order that, on the ruins

of these unities based on force and organised from above downwards by

despotism and conquest, free unities organised from below upwards may

develop as a free federation of communities with provinces, provinces

with nations, and nations with the united States of Europe." In

another speech at the same Congress he sums up the principles upon

which alone peace and justice rest, in the following:--(1) "The

abolition of everything included in the term of 'the historic and

political necessity of the State,' in the name of any larger or

smaller, weak or strong population, as well as in the name of all

individuals who are said to have full power to dispose of themselves

in complete freedom independently of the needs and claims of the

State, wherein this freedom ought only to be limited by the equal

rights of others; (2) Annulling of all the permanent contracts between

the individual and the collective unity, associations, departments or

nations; in other words, every individual must have the right to break

any contract, even if entered into freely; (3) Every individual, as

well as every association, province and nation, must have the right to

quit any union or alliance, with, however, the express condition that

the party thus leaving it must not menace the freedom and independence

of the State which it has left by alliance with a foreign power."

Although these utterances of the wily agitator implied a complete

diversion of the views of the Congress from purely philanthropic

intentions to open Collectivist Anarchism, yet they found support in

the numerous radical elements which took part in the Congress.

Bakunin, who now settled in Switzerland, was elected a permanent

member of the Central Committee of the newly-founded "Peace and

Freedom League," with its headquarters in Bern, and he prepared for it

his "proposal" already mentioned. Bakunin was feverishly active in

trying to lead the League into an Anarchist channel. Already in the

session of the Bern Central Committee, he proposed to the committee,

with the support of Ogarjow, Jukowsky, the Poles Mrockowski and

Zagorski, and the Frenchman Naquet, to accept a programme similar to

that which he had laid before the Geneva Congress. Then he carried,

by the aid of this submissive committee, a resolution, demanding the

affiliation of the League with the International Union of Workers. But

this demand of the League was refused by the congress of the

"International" at Brussels; but, already greatly compromised by its

position in regard to the League, the "International" still further

left the path of safety when Bakunin recommended his Socialist

programme to the congress of the League which sat at Bern in 1868.

Bakunin found himself in the minority, retired from the congress, and,

with a small band of faithful adherents, including the brothers

Reclus, Albert Richard, Jukowsky, mentioned above, and others, betook

himself to Geneva.

These faithful followers formed the nucleus of the Socialist

Democratic Alliance formed in Geneva in 1868, the first society with

avowedly Anarchist tendencies. We have already quoted its official

programme. It is an unimportant variation of Proudhon's Collectivism.

The "Alliance" was a union of public societies, as far as possible

autonomous federations, such as the Jurassic Bund; and, like the

"International," it was divided into a central committee and national

bureaus. But together with this division went a secret organisation.

Bakunin, the pronounced enemy of all organisations in theory, created

in practice a secret society quite according to the rules of

Carbonarism--a hierarchy which was in total contradiction to the

anti-authority tendencies of the society. According to the secret

statutes of the "Alliance" three grades were recognised--(1) "The

International Brethren," one hundred in number, who formed a kind of

sacred college, and were to play the leading parts in the soon

expected, immediate social revolution, with Bakunin at their head.

(2) "The National Brethren," who were organised by the International

Brethren into a national association in every country, but who

were allowed to suspect nothing of the international organisation.

(3) Lastly came the secret international alliance, the pendant to the

public alliance, operating through the permanent Central Committee.

If the "Alliance" made rapid progress in the first year of its

existence, and quickly spread into Switzerland, the South of France,

and large parts of Spain and Italy, and even found adherents in

Belgium and Russia, this was certainly not due to the playing at

secret societies affected by the International Brethren. It is

probably not a mistake to see in the growth of the first Anarchist

organisation first and foremost a natural reaction against the stiff

rule of the London General Council; but at the same time the Anarchism

of Proudhon contained (contradictory as it may sound) in many respects

an element of moderation, and was far more adapted to the limits of

the _bourgeois_ intellect than the tendencies of the Social Democracy,

which demand a full participation in party interests and party life.

Just as we find later, so also we find now at the time of the

"Alliance," numerous elements in the Anarchist ranks belonging to the

superior artisan and lower middle class. We therefore find strong

Anarchist influences even within the "International" before the

"Alliance" flourished. Thus one of the main events of the Brussels

Congress early in September, 1868, was a proposal of Albert Richard, a

follower of Bakunin, to found a bank of mutual credit and exchange

quite after the manner of Proudhon. In the discussion upon it

prominent representatives of Anarchist ideas took part, such as

Eccarius, Tolain, and others. The Congress, however, buried the

proposed statute in its sections--the last honor for Proudhon's much

harassed project.

But in the congress of the next year the Anarchists made quite another

kind of influence felt. In the meantime the "Alliance" had been

absorbed in the "International." A first attempt of Bakunin to

affiliate the "Alliance" to the great international association of

workmen, and thereby to secure for himself a leading part in it, was a

failure. The General Council, in which the influence of the clever

agitator was evidently feared, refused in December, 1868, to associate

itself with the "Alliance." Some months later the "Alliance" again

approached the General Council upon the question of affiliation, and

declared itself ready to fulfil all its conditions. The chief of these

was the dissolution of the "Alliance" as such and the division of its

sections into those of the "International," as well as the abolition

of its secret organisation. Thereupon the Bakuninist sections were in

July, 1869, declared to be "International," although in London it was

never believed that the members of the "Alliance" would keep the

conditions. Not only the Central Committee continued as before, but

also the secret organisation and Bakunin's leadership. If the

amalgamation of both parties was at length completed, it only happened

because at this stage each was in need of the other, and perhaps

feared the other. But the very origin of the union, as will readily be

understood, did not permit it to work together very harmoniously. And,

moreover, apart from the main points of difference, there were also a

series of minor divergencies of opinion, chiefly on the subject of

tactics. The followers of Marx strove for greater centralisation of

the directorate, the Bakuninists more for the autonomy of the separate

sections. The men of the General Council eagerly urged the adoption of

universal suffrage as the most prominent means of agitation for the

purpose of proletariat emancipation; Bakunin entirely rejected any

political action, including the exercise of the suffrage, since, in

his opinion, this would only become an instrument of reaction, and

since the workers could only use their rights by force and not votes.

It will be easily understood that the result of such differences of

opinion was a sharp divergence inside the "International" between the

"Marxists" and "Bakuninists"--a divergence that became irremediable at

the Basle Congress of 1869. At this Congress the "Alliance" succeeded,

if not in securing a decisive majority, yet in obtaining sufficient

influence to give the Congress a decidedly Anarchist character.

As the first item on the programme, the Belgian Proudhonist, De Paepe,

proposed to the Congress to declare (1) that society had the right to

abolish individual ownership in the land, and give it back to the

community; (2) that it was necessary to make the land common property.

Albert Richard vehemently opposed individual ownership as the source

of all social inequalities and all poverty. "It arose from force and

from unlawful seizure, and it must disappear: and property in land

must be regulated by the federally organised communes." Bakunin

himself supported De Paepe's proposal; but it is not hard to understand

that opposition made itself felt in the Anarchist ranks. Several

pronounced Anarchists, especially Murat and Tolain, supported

individual property with great decision and warmth. Nevertheless De

Paepe's Collectivist proposal was accepted by fifty-four (or

fifty-three) votes to four.

But the Bakuninists did not gain the same success in the next

question, concerning the right of inheritance. This was a question

quite characteristic of Bakunin. The proposal ran:

"In consideration of the fact that inheritance as an inseparable

element in individual ownership contributes to the alienation of

property in land and of social riches for the benefit of the few and

the hurt of the majority; that consequently inheritance hinders land

and social wealth from becoming common property: that, on the other

hand, inheritance, however limited its operation may be, forms a

privilege, the greater or lesser importance of which does not remove

injustice, and continually threatens social rights; that, further,

inheritance, whether it appears either in politics or economics, forms

an essential element in all inequalities, because it hinders the

individual having the same means of moral and material development;

considering, finally, that the Congress has pronounced in favour of

collective property in land, and that this declaration would be

illogical if it were not strengthened by this following declaration:

the Congress recognises that inheritance must be completely and

absolutely abolished, and its abolition is one of the most necessary

conditions of the emancipation of labour."

One might have believed that a congress which had calmly agreed to the

abolition of individual property in land could have no objection to

make to the abolition of such an "unequal" and "feudal" institution as

inheritance. But it appears that it was desired to let Bakunin (whose

hobby the struggle against inheritance was well known to be) plainly

see that the Congress wished to have none of him, although they had

not ventured to oppose the views of his adherents upon the far more

important question. The proposal only received thirty-two votes for

it, twenty-three against it, and seventeen delegates refrained from

voting. Therefore the resolution was lost, since it could not obtain a

decisive majority.

This procedure of the Basle Congress was calculated to embitter both

parties. Open rupture could not be long delayed. Already, at the

Romance Congress[1] at Chaux-de-Fonds on April 4, 1870, the admission

of the Bakuninist sections had raised a veritable storm--twenty-one

delegates voting for the admission, and eighteen against it, and the

latter withdrew immediately from the Congress in consequence of the

decision. Nevertheless, at this Congress Bakunin's views practically

prevailed, for the Congress declared in favour of taking part in

politics, and putting up working-men candidates at elections as a

means of agitation.

[1] The first groups of the "International" in the

Romance-speaking portions of Switzerland had increased so

quickly that at a congress in Geneva in 1869 they united

themselves into a league of their own, the "Romance

Federation," in harmony with the "International," to which

members of the "Alliance" and Marxists belonged in almost

equal numbers.

The day on which the Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris (the 4th

September, 1870) was considered by the "Alliance" to be the right

moment "to unchain the hydra of Revolution." This was first done in

Switzerland, where manifestoes were issued calling to the formation of

a free corps against the Prussians. The manifestoes were seized, and

the head of the revolutionary hydra cut off, as far as Switzerland was

concerned. On September 28th, Bakunin tried to organise a riot at

Lyons. Albert Richard, Bastelica, and Gaspard Blanc began it; the mob

took possession of the Town Hall; Bakunin installed himself there, and

decreed "abolition of the State." He had perhaps hoped that the

example of Lyons would encourage other cities in the circumstances

then prevailing, and these would likewise declare themselves to be

free communes, and the State to be abolished. But the State,--as the

opponents of the "Alliance" maliciously said,--in the shape of two

companies of the National Guard, found a way into Lyons through a gate

which the rioters had forgotten to watch, swept the Anarchists out of

the Town Hall, and caused Bakunin to seek his way back to Geneva in

great haste.

This intermezzo, the only historical moment which the "Alliance" had,

did not, of course, contribute to strengthen any friendship between

the Bakuninists and Marxists. The latter had a suitable excuse for

shaking off Bakunin, and making the Anarchists subservient to them. In

the conference at London (September, 1871) the sections of the Jura

were recommended to join the "Romance Union," and in case this was not

done, the conference determined the mountain sections should unite

into the Jurassic Federation. The conference passed a severe

resolution against Bakunin's tactics, and a resolution against

Netschajew's proceedings was also really directed against the leader

of the "Alliance."

Bakunin was right in taking this as a declaration of war, and his

followers accepted the challenge. On November 12, 1871, the Jura

sections met at a congress in Souvillier, in which they certainly

accepted the name "Jurassic Union," but declared the "Romance Union"

to be dissolved; appealed against the decisions of the London

Conference as well as against their legality, and appealed to a

general congress, to be called immediately.

These endless disputes came to a climax at the congress held at The

Hague in 1872, when Bakunin was excluded from the "International";

whereupon the Anarchist sections finally separated from the Social

Democrats, and in the same year called an "International Labour

Congress" at St. Imier. Here a provisional union of "Anti-Authority

Socialists" was resolved upon, and it was decided (1) that the

annihilation of every political power was the first duty of the

proletariat; (2) that every organisation of the political power, both

provisory and revolutionary, was merely a delusion, and was as

dangerous for the proletariat as any of the Governments now existing.

In the following year, 1873, another congress took place at Geneva,

which founded a new "International," which placed all power completely

in the hands of the sections, while the "Bureau" only was to serve as

a link between the autonomous unions, and to give information.