ANARCHISM.
The latest offspring of revolutionary opinion--and the most
misshapen--is anarchism. Seven or eight years ago the word was scarcely
known; but then, as if on a sudden, rumours of the anarchists and their
horrid "propaganda of deed" echoed in, one upon another, from almost
every country in the old world and the new. To-day they were haranguing
mobs of unemployed in Lyons and Brussels under a black flag--the black
flag of hunger, which, they explained, knows no law. To-morrow they were
goading the peasants of Lombardy or Naples to attack the country houses
of the gentry, and lay the vineyards waste. Presently they were found
attempting to assassinate the German Emperor at Niederwald, or laying
dynamite against the Federal Palace at Bern; or a troop of them had set
off over Europe on a quixotic expedition of miscellaneous revenge on
powers that be, and were reported successively as having killed a
_gendarme_ in Strasburg, a policeman in Vienna, and a head of the
constabulary in Frankfort. Before these reports had time to die in our
ears, fresh tales would arrive of anarchists pillaging the bakers' shops
in Paris, or exulting over the murder of a mining manager at
Decazeville, or flinging bombs among the police of Chicago; and it
seemed as if a new party of disorder had broke loose upon the world,
busier and more barbarous than any that went before it.
It is no new party, however; it is merely the extremer element in the
modern socialist movement. Mr. Hyndman and other socialists would fain
disclaim the anarchists altogether, and are fond of declaring that they
are the very opposite of socialists--that they are individualists of the
boldest stamp. But this contention will not stand. There are
individualist anarchists, no doubt. The anarchists of Boston, in
America, are individualists; one of the two groups of English anarchists
in London is individualist; but these individualist anarchists are very
few in number anywhere, and the mass of the party whose deeds made a
stir on both sides of the Atlantic is undoubtedly more socialist than
the socialists themselves. I have said in a previous chapter that the
socialism of the present day may be correctly described in three words
as Revolutionary Socialist Democracy, and in every one of these three
characteristics the anarchists go beyond other socialists, instead of
falling short of them. They are really more socialist, more democratic,
and more revolutionary than the rest of their comrades. They are more
socialist, because they are disposed to want not only common property
and common production, but common enjoyment of products as well. They
are more democratic, because they will have no government of any kind
over the people except the people themselves--no king or committee, no
representative institutions, either imperial or local, but merely every
little industrial group of people managing its public affairs as it will
manage its industrial work. And they are more revolutionary, for they
have no faith, even temporarily, in constitutional procedure, and think
making a little trouble is always the best way of bringing on a big
revolution. Other socialists prepare the way for revolution by a
propaganda of word; but the anarchists believe they can hasten the day
best by the propaganda of deed. Like the violent sections of all other
parties, they injure and discredit the party they belong to, and they
often attack the more moderate section with greater bitterness than
their common enemy; but they certainly belong to socialism, both in
origin and in principle. There were anarchists among the Young Hegelian
socialists of Germany fifty years ago. The Anti-socialist Laws bred a
swarm of anarchists among the German socialists in 1880, who left under
Most and Hasselmann, and carried to America the seed which led to the
outrages of Chicago. The Russian nihilists were anarchists from the
beginning; they broke up the International with their anarchism twenty
years ago, and they are among the chief disseminators of anarchism in
England and France to-day, because to the Russians anarchism is only the
socialism and the democracy of the rural communes in which they were
born. Socialists themselves are often obliged to admit the embarrassing
affinity. Dr. and Mrs. Aveling complain, in their "Labour Movement in
America," that while "the Chicago capitalist wanted us to be hanged
after we had landed, Herr Most's paper, _Die Freiheit_, was for shooting
us at sight"; that "anarchism ruined the International movement, threw
back the Spanish, Italian, and French movements for many years, has
proved a hindrance in America, and so much or so little of it as exists
in England is found by the revolutionary socialist party a decided
nuisance"; but they admit that "well nigh every word spoken by the chief
defendants at the Chicago trial could be endorsed by socialists, for
they then preached not anarchism, but socialism. Indeed," they add, "he
that will compare the fine speech by Parsons in 1886 with that of
Liebknecht at the high treason trial at Leipzig will find the two
practically identical."
So far, then, as their socialism goes, there is admittedly no real
difference between Parsons, the Chicago anarchist, and Liebknecht, the
leader of the German socialists. Indeed, as I have said, the anarchists
seem to show a tendency even to outbid the socialists in their
socialism. Socialists generally say that, while committing all
production to the public authority, they have no idea of interfering
with liberty of consumption. Their opponents argue, in reply, that they
would find an interference with consumption to be an inevitable result
of their systematic regulation of production; but they themselves always
repudiate that conclusion. They would make all the instruments of
production common property, but leave all the materials of enjoyment
individual property still. Ground rents, for example, would belong to
the public; but every man would own his own house and furniture, at
least for life, if he had built it by his own labour, or bought it from
his own savings, because a dwelling house is not an instrument of
production, but an article of enjoyment or consumption. But some of the
more representative spokesmen of the anarchists would not leave this
last remnant of private property standing, and strongly contend for the
old primitive plan, still in use among savage tribes, of giving those
who are in want of anything a claim--a right--to share the enjoyment of
it with those who happen to have it. They would municipalize the houses
as well as the ground rents, and no one should be allowed a right to a
spare bed or a disengaged sofa so long as one of the least of his
brethren huddled on straw in a garret in the slums, or slept out on a
bench in Trafalgar Square. In a recent number of _Freedom_, for example,
Prince Krapotkin announces that "the first task of the Revolution will
be to arrange things so as to share the accommodation of available
houses according to the needs of the inhabitants of the city, to clear
out the slums and fully occupy the villas and mansions." Anarchist
opinions are no doubt capricious and variable. There are as many
anarchisms as there are anarchists, it has been said. But this tendency
to go further than other socialists, in superseding individual by common
property, has repeatedly appeared in some of their most representative
utterances.
The Jurassian Federation of the International adopted a resolution at
their Congress in 1880, in which they say: "We desire collectivism, with
all its logical consequences, not only in the sense of the collective
appropriation of instruments of production, but also of the collective
enjoyment and consumption of products. Anarchist communism will in this
way be the necessary and inevitable consequence of the social
revolution, and the expression of the new civilization which that
revolution will inaugurate."
Their principal difference with the other branch of the socialists,
however,--and that from which they derive their name--is upon the
government of the socialistic society. Anarchy as a principle of
political philosophy was first advocated by Proudhon, and he meant by
it, not of course a state of chaos or disorder, but merely a state
without separate political or civil institutions,--"a state of order
without a set government." "The expression, anarchic government," he
says, "implies a sort of contradiction. The thing seems impossible, and
the idea absurd; but there is really nothing at fault here but the
language. The idea of anarchy in politics is quite as rational and
positive as any other. It consists in this,--that the political function
be re-absorbed in the industrial, and in that case social order would
ensue spontaneously out of the simple operation of transactions and
exchanges. Every man might then be justly called autocrat of himself,
which is the extreme reverse of monarchical absolutism" ("Die Princip
Federatif," p. 29). He distinguishes anarchy from democracy and from
communistic government, though his distinctions are not easy to
apprehend exactly. Communism, he says, is the government of all by all;
democracy, the government of all by each; and anarchy, the government of
each by each. Anarchy is, in his opinion, the only real form of
self-government. People would manage their own public affairs together
like partners in a business, and no one would be subject to the
authority of another. Government is considered a mere detail of
industrial management; and the industrial management is considered to be
in the hands of all who co-operate in the industry. The specific
preference of anarchism, therefore, seems to be for some form of direct
government by the people, in place of any form of central, superior, or
representative government; and naturally its political communities must
be small in size, though they may be left to league together, if they
choose, in free and somewhat loose federations. The anarchists are
accordingly more democratic in their political theory than the
socialists more strictly so called, inasmuch as they would give the
people more hand in the work of government, though of course they
preposterously underrate the need and difficulty of that work.
On some minor points they contradict one another, and quite as often
contradict themselves. Proudhon, for example, would still, even in
anarchist society, retain the local policeman and magistrate; but
anarchists of a stricter doctrine would either have every man carry his
own pistol and provide for his own security, or, as the Boston
anarchists prefer, apparently, would have public security supplied like
any other commodity by an ordinary mercantile association--in Proudhon's
words, "by the simple operation of transactions and exchanges." Emerson
said the day was coming when the world would do without the
paraphernalia of courts and parliaments, and a man who liked the
profession would merely put a sign over his door, "John Smith, King."
This is too much division of function however for anarchists generally,
and they would have every industrial group do its government as it did
its business by general co-operation. Just as in Russia every rural
commune has its own trade, and the inhabitants of one are all
shoemakers, while the inhabitants of another are all tailors, so in
anarchist society, according to the more advanced doctrine, every
separate group would have its own separate industry, because, in fact,
the separate industry makes it a separate group. And it would be managed
by all its members together, not by anything in the nature of a board,
for it is important to recollect that anarchists of the purest water
entertain as much objection to the domination of a vestry or a town
council as to that of a king or a cabinet. Some who side with them,
especially old supporters of the French Revolutionary Commune, have
still a certain belief in a municipal council; but the Russian
anarchists, at any rate, look upon this as a piece of faithless
accommodation. Prince Krapotkin, I have already mentioned, thinks the
first business of the contemplated revolution must be to redistribute
the dwelling houses, so as to thin the slums and quarter their surplus
population in the incompletely occupied villas or mansions of the West
End. That is a very large task, which it will seem, to an ordinary mind,
obviously impossible for the vast population of a great city like London
to execute in their own proper persons at an enormous town meeting; yet,
if I understand Prince Krapotkin, it is this preposterous proposal he is
actually offering as a serious contribution to a more perfect system of
government. "For," says he, "sixty elected persons sitting round a table
and calling themselves a Municipal Council cannot arrange the matter on
paper. It must be arranged by the people themselves, freely uniting to
settle the question for each block of houses, each street, and
proceeding by agreement from the single to the compound, from the parts
to the whole; all having their voice in the arrangements, and putting in
their claims with those of their fellow-citizens; just as the Russian
peasants settle the periodical repartition of the communal lands." And
how do the Russian peasants settle the periodical repartition of the
communal lands? Stepniak gives us a very interesting description of a
meeting of a Russian _mir_ in his "Russia Under the Tsars" (vol. i. p.
2).
"The meetings of the village communes, like those of the
_Landesgemeinde_ of the primitive Swiss cantons, are held under the
vault of heaven, before the Starosta's house, before a tavern, or at any
other convenient place. The thing that most strikes a person who is
present for the first time at one of these meetings is the utter
confusion which seems to characterize its proceedings. Chairman there is
none. The debates are scenes of the wildest disorder. After the convener
has explained his reasons for calling the meeting, everybody rushes in
to express his opinion, and for a while the debate resembles a free
fight of pugilists. The right of speaking belongs to him who can command
attention. If an orator pleases his audience, interrupters are promptly
silenced; but if he says nothing worth hearing, nobody heeds him, and he
is shut up. When the question is somewhat of a burning one, and the
meeting begins to grow warm, all speak at once, and none listen. On
these occasions the assembly breaks up into groups, each of which
discusses the subject on its own account. Everybody shouts his arguments
at the top of his voice. Charges and objurgations, words of contumely
and derision, are heard on every hand, and a wild uproar goes on from
which it does not seem possible that any good can result.
"But this apparent confusion is of no moment. It is a necessary means to
a certain end. In our village assemblies voting is unknown.
Controversies are never decided by a majority of voices; every question
must be settled unanimously. Hence the general debate, as well as
private discussions, must be continued until a proposal is brought
forward which conciliates all interests, and wins the suffrage of the
entire _mir_. It is, moreover, evident that to reach this consummation
the debates must be thorough and the subject well threshed out; and in
order to overcome isolated opposition, it is essential for the advocates
of conflicting views to be brought face to face, and compelled to fight
out their differences in single combat."
But beneath all this tough and apparently acrimonious strife a singular
spirit of forbearance reigns. The majority will not force on a premature
decision. Debate may rage fast and furious day after day, but at last
the din dies. A common understanding is somehow attained, and the _mir_
pronounces its deliverance, which is accepted, in the rude belief of
the peasants, as the decree of God Himself. In this way tens of
thousands of Russian villages have been, no doubt, managing their own
petty business with reasonable amity and success for centuries, and the
political philosophy of Russian writers like Bakunin and Prince
Krapotkin, who have propagated anarchism in the west of Europe, is
merely the naive suggestion that the form of government which answers
not intolerably for the few trivial concerns of a primitive Russian
village would answer best for the whole complex business of a great
developed modern society.
The anarchists carry their dislike to authority into other fields
besides the political and industrial. They will have no invisible master
or ruler any more than visible. They renounce both God and the devil,
and generally with an energy beyond all other revolutionists. Some of
the older socialists were believers; St. Simon, Fourier, Leroux and
Louis Blanc were all theists; but it is rare to find one among the
socialists of the present generation, and with the anarchists an
aggressive atheism seems an essential part of their way of thinking.
They will own no superior power or authority of any kind--employer,
ruler, deity, or law. The Anarchist Congress of Geneva in 1882 issued a
manifesto, which began thus:--
"Our enemy, it is our master. Anarchists--that is to say, men without
chiefs--we fight against all who are invested or wish to invest
themselves with any kind of power whatsoever. Our enemy is the landlord
who owns the soil and makes the peasant drudge for his profit. Our enemy
is the employer who owns the workshop, and has filled it with
wage-serfs. Our enemy is the State, monarchical, oligarchic, democratic,
working class, with its functionaries and its services of officers,
magistrates, and police. Our enemy is every abstract authority, whether
called Devil or Good God, in the name of which priests have so long
governed good souls. Our enemy is the law, always made for the
oppression of the weak by the strong, and for the justification and
consecration of crime."
Among other restraints, they entertain often a speculative opposition to
the restraint of the legal family, and sometimes advocate a return to
aboriginal promiscuity and relationship by mothers; but this is only an
occasional element in their agitation. It is plain, however, that when
law is believed to be oppression, crime and lawlessness come to be
humanity.
I have now shown that the anarchists, so far from representing an
opposite movement to revolutionary social democracy, are really
ultra-socialist and ultra-democratic, and it seems hardly necessary to
show that they are ultra-revolutionary. All social democrats contemplate
an eventual revolution, but some see no objection meanwhile to take part
in current politics; while others, a more witnessing generation,
practise an ostentatious abstention, and call themselves political
abstentionists. Some, again, think and desire that the revolution will
come by peaceful and lawful means; others trust to violence alone. The
anarchists outrun all. They refuse to have anything to do with any
politics but revolution, and with any revolution but a violent one, and
they think the one means of producing revolution now or at any future
time is simply to keep exciting disorder and class hatred, assassinating
State officers, setting fire to buildings, and paralyzing the
_bourgeoisie_ with fear. All anarchists are not of this sanguinary mind,
and it is interesting to remember that Proudhon himself wrote Karl Marx
in 1846, warning him against "making a St. Bartholomew of the
proprietors," and opposed resort to revolutionary action of any kind as
a means of promoting social reform. "Perhaps," he says, "we think no
reform is possible without a _coup de main_, without what used to be
called a revolution, and which is only a shake. I understand that
decision and excuse it, for I held it for a long time myself, but I
confess my latest studies have completely taken it away from me. I
believe we have no need of any such thing in order to succeed, and that
consequently we ought not to postulate revolutionary action as a means
of social reform, because that pretended means is nothing more nor less
than an appeal to force, to arbitrary power, and is therefore a
contradiction. I state the problem thus: to restore to society, by an
economic combination, the wealth which has been taken from society by
another economic combination." ("Proudhon's Correspondence," ii. 198.)
But whatever individual anarchists may hold or renounce, the general
view of the party is as I have stated. A meeting of 600
anarchists--chiefly Germans and Austrians, but including also some
Russians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen--was held at Paris on the 20th April,
1884, and passed a resolution urgently recommending the extirpation of
princes, capitalists, and parsons, by means of "the propaganda of
deed."[2] The Congress held at London in 1881, which sought to
re-establish the International on purely anarchist lines, adopted a
declaration of principles, containing, among other things, the
following: "It is matter of strict necessity to make all possible
efforts to propagate by deeds the revolutionary idea and the spirit of
revolt among that great section of the mass of the people which as yet
takes no part in the movement, and entertains illusions about the
morality and efficacy of legal means. In quitting the legal ground on
which we have generally remained hitherto, in order to carry our action
into the domain of illegality which is the only way leading to
revolution, it is necessary to have recourse to means which are in
conformity with that end.... The Congress recommends organizations and
individuals constituting part of the International Working Men's
Association to give great weight to the study of the technical and
chemical sciences as a means of defence and attack."[3] In the first
French revolution Lavoisier and other seven and twenty chemists were put
to the guillotine together, on the express pretence, "We have no need of
_savants_"; but now "Technology" is a standing heading in the anarchist
journals; a revolutionary organization has its chemical department as
well as its press department; and anarchist tracts often end with the
standing exhortation, "Learn the use of dynamite," as socialist tracts
end with the old admonition of 1848, "Proletarians of all nations,
unite."
The object of this policy of violence is partly, as we see from the
above quotations, to inflame the spirit of revolt and disorder in the
working classes; and it is partly to terrorize the _bourgeoisie_, so
that they may yield in pure panic all they possess. But for its
expressly violent policy, anarchism would be the least formidable or
offensive manifestation of contemporary socialism. For, in the first
place, its specific doctrine is one which it is really difficult to get
the most ordinary common sense puzzled into accepting. Men in their
better mind may be ready enough to listen to specious, or even not very
specious, schemes of reform that hold out a promise of extirpating
misery, and in their worse mind they may be quite as prone to think that
if everybody had his own, there would be fewer rich; but they are not
likely to believe we can get on without law or government of any sort.
Even the vainest will feel that however superfluous these institutions
may be for themselves, they are still unhappily indispensable for some
of their neighbours. Then in the next place this doctrine of the
anarchists is as great a stumbling-block to themselves as it is to other
people, for they carry their objection to government into their own
movement, and can consequently never acquire that concentration and
unity of organization which is necessary for any effectual conspiracy.
They are always found constituted in very small groups very loosely held
together, and small as the several groups may be, they are always much
more likely to subdivide than to consolidate. Even the few anarchist
refugees in London who might be expected to be knit into indissoluble
friendship by their common adversity have broken into separate clubs,
and the "Autonomic" and the "Morgenrothe"--though they have hardly more
than a hundred members between them, and all belong to the same
socialist variety of anarchist doctrine--remain as the Jews and the
Samaritans. It is said to be a subject of speculative discussion among
anarchists whether two members are sufficient to constitute an anarchist
club. This laxity of organization is a natural result of the dislike to
authority which the anarchists cultivate as a cardinal principle.
Subjection to an executive committee is as offensive to their feelings
and as contrary to their principles as subjection to a monarch. The
dread of subjection keeps them disunited and weak. As Machiavelli says,
the many ruin a revolutionary society, and the few are not enough. A
small group may concoct an isolated crime, but it can do little towards
the social revolution.
The anarchist policy--the propaganda of deed--consists, however,
exactly in this concoction of isolated crimes and outrages. Some of the
continental powers are conferring at this moment on the propriety of
taking international efforts against the anarchists, and the question
may at least be reasonably raised before our own Government, whether a
policy of promiscuous outrage like this should continue to be included
among political offences, securing protection against extradition, and
whether the propaganda of deed and the use of dynamite should not rather
be declared outside the limits of fair and legitimate revolution, as, by
the Geneva Convention, explosive bullets are put outside the limits of
fair or legitimate war.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Much interesting information on this subject is given from official
sources in a recent anonymous work, "Socialismus und Anarchismus in
Europa und Nordamerika waehrend der Jahre 1883 bis 1886."
[3] Garin, "L'Anarchie et les Anarchistes," p. 48.