The effects, however, of Most's agitation in Switzerland were all the more strongly felt in Austria, the classic land of political immaturity and insecurity. To-day the Austrian Empire is almost free from Anarchists; other elements have come to take up therôleof fishing in troubled waters. But at the time of the general increase of Anarchism, after the London Congress, Austria-Hungary was one of the strongholds of Anarchism. A former house painter, Josef Penkert, a man who had given himself a very fair education by his own efforts, and was Most's most eager pupil, conducted the agitation in Vienna and Pesth. Groups sprang up, and the agitation was so strong that the new Social Democratic party was soon relegated to the background. Everywhere Anarchist papers arose—in Vienna theZukunft(Future) and theDelnicke Listy, in ReichenbergtheRadical, in Prague theSocialistand theCommunist, in Lemberg thePraca, in Cracow theRobotnikand thePrzedswit, imported from Switzerland. The chief organs of Austrian Anarchism, however, flourished on the other side of the river Leitha, where the press laws were interpreted more liberally than in the west of the kingdom. In Hungary there were numerous Anarchist journals, some of which, like the PesthSocialist, preached the most sanguinary and merciless propaganda. This was acted upon in Vienna, under the guidance of Penkert, Stellmacher, and Kammerer, in such a way that Most'sFreedom, which was smuggled in in large quantities, was delighted at it. In 1881 Anarchist meetings had collisions with the authorities. The money for the agitation was obtained by robbery, as the trial of Merstallinger proved. The most prominent Anarchist speakers were examined judicially in consequence of this trial, which took place in March, 1882, but had to be acquitted, which naturally only increased the confidence of the propagandists. The Socialists succeeded no better in making headway against this rapidly increasing movement. The "General Workmen's Conference," sitting at Brünn on the 15th and 16th of October, 1882, certainly passed an open vote of want of confidence against the Anarchist minority, but a resolution to the effect that Merstallinger's offence was a common crime, that the tactics preached by the Anarchists ought to be rejected as unworthy of Social Democrats, and that all adherents of such tactics were to be regarded as enemies and traitorsto the people—this was rejected after a hot debate. All this naturally increased the confidence and recklessness of the Anarchist agitation. Secret printing-presses were busily engaged spreading incendiary literature, which advocated the murder of police officials and explained the tactics suitable for this purpose. On the 26th and 27th October, 1883, at a secret conference at Lang Enzersdorf, a new plan of action was discussed and adopted, namely, to proceed with all means in their power to take action against "exploiters and agents of authority," to keep people in a state of continual excitement by such acts of terrorism, and to bring about the revolution in every possible way. This programme was immediately acted upon in the murder of several police agents. On December 15, 1883, at Floridsdorf, a police official named Hlubek was murdered, and the condemnation of Rouget, who was convicted of the crime, on June 23, 1884, was immediately answered the next day by the murder of the police agent Blöct. The Government now took energetic measures. By order of the Ministry, a state of siege was proclaimed in Vienna and district from January 30, 1884, by which the usual tribunals for certain crimes and offences were temporarily suspended, and the severest repressive measures were exercised against the Anarchists, so that Anarchism in Austria rapidly declined, and at the same time it soon lost its leaders. Stellmacher and Kammerer were executed, Penkert escaped to England, most of the other agitators were fast in prison, the journals were suppressed and the groups brokenup. The same occurred in Hungary, which had only followed the fashion in Austria, for in Hungary the social question is by no means so acute and the public movement in it is merely political.
At present Anarchism in Germany and Austria is confined to an (at most) harmless doctrinaireism, and it will be well to accept with great reserve any statements to the contrary; for neither those who were condemned at the last Anarchist trial at Vienna, nor the Bohemian Anarchist and Omladinist trials, nor the suspected persons who have recently migrated to Germany, appear to have been more than half conscious of Anarchism, nor do they appear to have had any international associations.
In Belgium, also, after the passing of the German Socialist laws, a difference of opinion became manifest among the working classes, which gave new life to Anarchism, almost extinct as it was at the end of the seventies. The "German Reading Union" in Brussels split into two parties, the more radical of which was filled with Most's ideas and eagerly agitated for the dissemination of hisFreedom. As this radical tendency had found many supporters among the German Socialists, it made itself noticeable at the Brussels Congress of 1880. The keener became the struggle between the Most-Hasselmann and the Bebel-Liebknecht parties, the more sharply defined became the opposition in the ranks of the Belgian working classes. The Radicals united into a "Union Révolutionnaire"; founded their own party organ,La Persévérance, at Verviers; and declared themselves in favour of the London Congress asagainst that at Coire. The others held quarterly advisory congresses at Brussels, Verviers, and Ceresmes, at which it was agreed to revive the "International Working-Men's Association" on a revolutionary basis and not to limit the various groups in their autonomy. These meetings also adopted the resolution which the German members in Brussels had suggested about the employment of explosives. But in spite of the active agitation, and the founding of the "Republican League" to show the activity of the Anarchists as opposed to the Socialist "Electoral Reform League," Anarchism in Belgium made no progress, mainly on account of internal dissension, and the annual congress arranged for 1882 did not even take place. In spite of the most active propaganda, circumstances have not altered in Belgium during the last ten years. We must be careful not to set down to the Anarchists the repeated dynamite outrages which are so common during the great strikes in Belgium, although in certain isolated cases, as in the dynamite affair at Gomshoren, near Brussels, in 1883, the hand of the Anarchists cannot be mistaken.
England, the ancient refuge of political offenders, although it has sheltered Bakunin, Kropotkin, Reclus, Most, Penkert, Louise Michel, Cafiero, Malatesta, and other Anarchist leaders, and still shelters some of them; although London is rich in Anarchist clubs and newspapers, meetings and congresses, yet possesses no Anarchism "native to the soil," and has formed at all times rather a kind of exchange or market-place for Anarchist ideas, motiveforces, and the literature of agitation. London is especially the headquarters of German Anarchism; the English working classes have, however, always regarded their ideas very coldly, while the Government have always regarded the eccentric proceedings of the Anarchists, as long as they confined themselves merely to talking and writing, in the most logical spirit of the doctrine oflaisser faire. Certainly, when Most went a little too far in hisFreedom, the full power of the English law was put in motion against him, and condemned him on one occasion to sixteen, and on another to eighteen months' imprisonment with hard labour. But of greater effect than this punishment was the fact that in all London no printer could be found to set up the type forFreedom. Thereupon Most left thankless Old England grumbling, and went to the New World, where, however, he was, if possible, taken even less seriously.
Spain was the only country where Anarchism, even under the new impulse of the London Congress, really kept in the main to its old Collectivist principles. In consequence of the movement proceeding from the London Congress, the Spanish Anarchists called a national congress at Barcelona on September 24 and 25, 1881, at which, in the presence of one hundred and forty delegates, a programme and statutes of organisation were drawn up and a "Spanish Federation of the International Working-Men's Association" was founded. Its aim was to be the political, economic, and social emancipation of all the working classes by theestablishment of a form of society founded upon a Collectivist basis, and guaranteeing the unconditional autonomy of the free and federally united communes. The only means of reaching this aim was declared to be a revolutionary upheaval carried out by force. The organisation sketched out at the Barcelona Congress is quite in Proudhon's spirit; the arrangement of its members was to be a double one, both by trades and districts, and both divisions had mutually to enlarge each other. The basis of the trade organisation was to be formed by the single local groups; these were to be united into local associations, these into provincial associations, and these again into a national association, the "Union." Monthly, quarterly, and yearly conferences, and the committees attached to them, were to form the decisive and executive organs of these associations. Parallel with the arrangement by trades was to be the territorial arrangement, all the local trade associations of the same district being formed into one united local association, this again into provincial associations, these into the national association of the whole country,i. e., into the "Federation"; and here again local, provincial, and national congresses performed all executive functions as local, provincial, and national committees. The National Committee established by the Congress developed immediately an active agitation, so that at the next congress at Seville (24th to 26th September, 1883), attended by 254 delegates, the Federation numbered already 10 provincial, 200 local unions, and 632 sections, with 50,000 members.Their organ, theRevista Social, which appeared in Madrid, possessed about 10,000 subscribers, although besides this there were several local journals.
But this rapid growth of the Anarchist movement in Spain was followed by a retrogression, mainly caused by the increased severity of the measures taken by the Government in consequence of the terrorism created by the Andalusian secret society of "The Black Hand" (Mano Negra), and proceedings were taken against the Anarchists. Their examination, however, failed to reveal the supposed connection between the Mano Negra and Anarchism, and the Anarchists, who had been arrested wholesale, had to be acquitted. The Federation itself had expressed to every society its disapproval of the "secret actions of those assassins," and had pointed to the legality and public nature of their organisation and agitation, as well as to their statutes, which had received the approval of the authorities. The congress at Valencia (1883) repeated this declaration. Henceforth Spanish Anarchism proceeded on peaceful lines, and only in the last few years did it have recourse to force after the example of the French, as,e. g., in the attack on Campos, and the outrage in the Liceo Theatre at Barcelona.
As to Italy, here also after 1880 Anarchism awoke to new life, as it did everywhere else, and at the same time broke finally with the Democratic Socialists. In December, 1886, the Anarchists held a secret congress at Chiasso, at which fifteen delegates of cities of North Italy took part. These professed Anarchist Communism, viewed with horror anydivisionau choix, and recommended "the use of every favorable opportunity for seriously disturbing public order." In agreement with this the Italians, represented by Cafiero and Malatesta, took part in the London Congress in the following year. On their return these two men developed an active agitation, and began a bitter campaign against the moderate Socialists, especially when their leader Costa was elected to Parliament, which the Anarchists regarded as a betrayal of the proletariat to thebourgeoisie. In the year 1883 Malatesta was arrested at Florence, and, with several companions, condemned by the royal courts, on February 1, 1884, to several years' imprisonment, it being proved that groups had already been formed in Rome, Florence, and Naples on the basis of the London programme, and that these groups had planned and prepared dynamite outrages. Leghorn, which in the time of the Romans was a refuge for criminals, may be regarded as the centre of modern Italian Anarchism. "In Leghorn," writes one who knows his facts, "the number of the Anarchists of action is legion. The idea of slaking their inborn thirst for blood on the 'fatbourgeoisie' could not fail to gain many adherents among the descendants of that Sciolla, who at the time of the last Grand Duke founded the celebrated dagger-band and slew 700 people; how many adherents it gained may be seen from the figures of the last election (March, 1894), when 3200 electors voted for the Anarchist murderer Merga." Lugo (the home of Lega), Forli, and Cesena form important centres of Italian Anarchism. Therôlewhich it has played in the international propaganda is fresh in the memory of all, and is sufficiently indicated by the names of Lega and Caserio.
It will be seen from the foregoing that Anarchism, after retrograding till the end of the seventies, made unexpectedly rapid progress in every country after 1880, lasting till about 1884, but after that a new reaction, or at least a diminution of propaganda, is to be noticed. The renewed force with which the Anarchism of action has during the last three years or so made itself felt in the Latin countries, appears already to present new features; this may be termed the third epoch of Anarchism. The epoch dating from the London Congress is characterised by certain party features (federations, alliances, etc.), which have now quite disappeared.
With Most's departure for America, the central government created by him—if we can speak of a central government in view of the complete autonomy of the groups—appears to have completely lost its power, and when, at the congresses of Chicago (1891) and London (1892), Merlino and Malatesta moved that some form of leadership of the party should be established, their motion was rejected, it being pointed out that it was inconsistent with the main Anarchist principle: "Do as thou wilt." When nowadays we hear talk of an "International Organisation" of an Anarchist party and so forth, this must be taken merely in the very wide meaning of a completely freeententebetween single groups.
Everything at present rests with the "group," which is, at the same time, very small and of an extremely fluctuating character. Five, seven, or at most a dozen men unite in a group according to occupation, personal relationships, propinquity of dwelling, or other causes; only after a certain time to separate again. The groups are only connected with each other almost entirely by means of moving intermediaries, calledtrimardeurs, a slang expression borrowed from the thieves. This organisation completely corresponds to the purely individual character of their actions; Anarchist riots and conspiracies are out of fashion; and the outrages of recent years have arisen almost exclusively from the initiative of individuals. This circumstance, as well as the whole organisation of the Anarchists, of course renders difficult any summary proceedings on the part of the Government of the country; which is probably by no means the least important reason for the adoption of these tactics by the Anarchists.
As to the numerical strength of Anarchism, different estimates are given by the Anarchists and their opponents; but all of them are very untrustworthy. Kropotkin, in 1882, gave the numbers of those living at Lyons at 3000; those in the basin of the Rhone at 5000; and spoke of thousands of others living in the south of France. One of the sixty-six defendants at the Lyons trial wrote: "We areallcaptured"—a remarkable difference of numbers compared with Kropotkin's 3000. Lately, the ParisFigarohas published some data, said to be from anauthentic source, about the strength of the Anarchists, and, according to this journal, about 2000 Anarchists are known to the police in France, among whom are about 500 Frenchmen and 1500 foreigners. The majority of these foreign Anarchists consists of the Italians (45 per cent.), then come the Swiss (25 per cent.), the Germans and Russians (20 per cent., each), Belgians and Austrians (5 per cent., each), Spaniards and Bulgarians (each 2 per cent.), and the natives of several minor States. This proportionate percentage of course only refers to Anarchists living in France or known there, and cannot be taken as trustworthy for international numbers. We have in fact practically no knowledge of its present strength, for it is as often undervalued as overrated. When this is done by those who are not Anarchists, it cannot be wondered at, since one of the leaders of the Anarchism of action in Paris confessed his own ignorance by the remark: "There are in the world some thousands of us, perhaps some millions."
Legislation against Anarchists — Anarchism and Crime — Tolerance towards Anarchist Theory — Suppression of Anarchist Crime — Conclusion.
Legislation against Anarchists — Anarchism and Crime — Tolerance towards Anarchist Theory — Suppression of Anarchist Crime — Conclusion.
W
hen about a year ago (1894) the Italian Caserio, a baker's apprentice, assassinated the amiable and respected President of the French Republic, probably thinking that he was thereby ridding the world of a tyrant, the public, in a mood perfectly comprehensible if not justifiable, was ready to take the severest measures against anyone suspected of Anarchism. An international convention against the Anarchists was demanded, but this was almost unanimously rejected by European diplomatists. Parliaments, however, showed themselves more subservient to the anxiety of the public than the diplomatists. Italy gave its Government full powers over administrative dealings with all suspected persons, and France passed a Press law limiting very considerably, not only the Anarchist press, but the press generally. Spain had alreadyanticipated this action. Germany took all manner of trouble to frame exceptional laws, although one cannot quite see how this country was concerned in the matter. England alone, true to its traditions, rejected the proposal of the House of Lords to pass exceptional laws against the Anarchists, Lord Rosebery, who was then Premier, declaring that the ordinary law and the existing executive organisation were amply sufficient to cope with the Anarchists.
The question as to which State has pursued the better policy appears at first extremely difficult to answer. It is believed that we have in Anarchism something quite new, which has never occurred before, something monstrous and not human, against which quite extraordinary measures are permissible. To judge whether this standpoint is correct, we must, before everything, distinguish carefully the theory from the propaganda.
The common view—or prejudice—soon disposes of the Anarchist theory: the anxious possessor of goods thinks it is nothing less than a direct incitement to robbery and murder; the practical politician merely regards the Anarchist theory as not worth debate, because it could not be carried out in practice; and even men of science, as we have seen in the case of Laveleye, and could prove by other examples, look upon Anarchist theories merely as the mad and feverish fancies of extravagant minds.
None of them would much mind if all Anarchist literature were consumed in anauto da féand the authors thereof rendered harmless by being sent offto Siberia or New Caledonia. Such judgments are easily passed, but whether one could settle the question permanently thereby is another matter.
That the theory of Anarchism is not merely a systematic incitement to robbery and murder we need hardly repeat, now that we have concluded an exhaustive statement of it. Proudhon and Stirner, the men who have laid down the basis of the new doctrine, never once preached force. "If ideas once have originated," said Proudhon once, "the very paving-stones would rise of themselves, unless the Government has sense enough to avert this. And if such is not the case, then nothing is of any use." It will be admitted that, for a revolutionary, this is a very moderate speech. The doctrine of propaganda, which since Proudhon's time has always accompanied a certain form of Anarchist theory, is a foreign element, having no necessary or internal connection with the fundamental ideas of Anarchism. It is simply a piece of tactics borrowed from the circumstances peculiar to Russia, and accepted moreover only by one fraction of the Anarchists, and approved by very few indeed in its most crude form; it is merely the old tactics of all revolutionary parties in every age. The deeds of people like Jacques Clement, Ravaillac, Corday, Sand, and Caserio, are all of the same kind; hardly anyone will be found to-day to maintain that Sand's action followed from the views of theBurschenschaft, or Clement's from Catholicism, even when we learn that Sand was regarded by his fellows as a saint, as was Charlotte Corday and Clement, or even when learned Jesuits like Sa,Mariana, and others,cum licentia et approbatione superiorum, in connection with Clement's outrage, discussed the question of regicide in a manner not unworthy of Netschajew or Most.
We may quote the remarks of a specialist[59]upon the connection between politics and criminality. "History is rich in examples of the combination of criminal acts with politics, wherein sometimes political passion and sometimes a criminal disposition forms the chief element. While Pompeius the Sober has all honest people on his side, his talented contemporaries, Cicero, Cæsar, and Brutus have as followers all the baser sort, men like Clodius and Cataline,[60]libertines and drunkards like Antonius, the bankrupt Curio, the mad Clelius, Dolabella the spendthrift, who wanted to repudiate all his debts by passing a law. The Greek Clephts, those brave champions of the independence of their home, were, in times of peace, brigands. In Italy the Papacy and the Bourbons in 1860 kept the brigands in their pay against the national party and its troops; and Garibaldi had on his side in Sicily the Maffia, just as in Naples the Liberals were supported by the Camorra. This alliance with the Camorra is not even yet quite dissolved, as the occurrences in Naples at the time of the recent disturbances in the Italian Parliament have shown, nor will matters probably improve. Criminals usually take a large share in the initial stages of insurrections and revolutions,for at a time when the weak and undecided are still hesitating, the impulsive force of abnormal and unhealthy natures preponderates, and their example calls forth epidemics of excesses.
"Chenn, in his remarks upon revolutionary movements in France before 1848, has shown that political passion gradually degenerated into unconcealed criminal attempts; thus the precursors of Anarchism at that time had for leader a certain Coffirean, who finally became a raving Communist, and exalted thieving into a socio-political principle, plundered the merchants with the aid of his adherents, because in his opinion they cheated their customers; by thus doing they believed they were only making perfectly justifiable reprisals, and at the same time converting the plundered ones into discontented men who would join the revolutionary cause. This group also occupied themselves in the manufacture of forged bank notes, which led in 1847 to their being discovered and severely punished after the real Republicans had disowned them. In England at the time of the conspiracies against Cromwell, bands of robbers collected in the neighbourhood of London, and the number of thieves increased; the robber-bands assumed a political colouring and asked those whom they attacked whether they had sworn an oath of fidelity to the Republic, and according to their answer they let them go or robbed and ill-treated them. Companies of soldiers had to be sent to repress them, nor were the soldiers always victorious. Hordes of vagabonds, bands of robbers, and societies of thieves in unheard-of numbers alsoappeared as forerunners of the French Revolution. Mercier states that in 1789 an army of 10,000 vagabonds gradually approached Paris and penetrated into the city; these were the rabble that attended the wholesale executions during the Reign of Terror and later took part in the fusilades at Toulon and the wholesale drownings at Nantes; at the same time the revolutionary troops and militia were, according to Meissner, merely organised bands who committed every kind of murder, robbery, and extortion. The criminals who happened to be caught occasionally during the Revolution sought to save themselves by the cry ofà l'aristocrate; when on trial they behaved in the most audacious manner, and grinned at the judges when condemned, and the women behaved most shamelessly. In 1790 only 490 accused, and in 1791 not more than 1198, were sent to the Conciergerie. A similar state of affairs prevailed in the Commune of 1871. Among the population then in Paris, deceived as they were in their patriotic hopes, unnerved by inglorious combats, weakened by hunger and alcohol, no one cared to bestir themselves but the unruly elements, thedéclassés, the criminals, the madmen, and the drunkards who imposed their will upon the city; that these were the main elements in the rising is shown by the slaughter of helpless captives, by the refined cruelty of the murderers, who compelled their victims to jump over a wall, and shot them while doing so, while others were riddled by bullets; thus one citizen received sixty-nine bullets, and Abbé Bengy had sixty-two bayonet wounds."
The foregoing examples could easily be increased in order to show that the criminal tactics of the Anarchists are nothing new. If they are more formidable and more monstrous than those of the religious dissenters of the Renaissance or the political criminals of the Revolutionary period, the reason lies in the age in which we live. We mean that those who use the progress of modern mechanics, chemistry, technical science, and so on, solely in order to increase the terror inspired by organised murder, and to make the furies of war invincible, ought not to be so surprised if the revolutionaries in their turn no longer content themselves with old-fashioned weapons, but seek to utilise also the achievements of modern chemistry.Exampla trahunt.The Anarchist propaganda should not be judged so severely; new and wonderful as it appears to the majority, it is by no means so in reality; it is the stock piece of all revolutionaries, somewhat modernised and adapted to a new age and a new doctrine.
Certainly the Anarchist doctrine is something new, if you will; but we consider this means little if it merely expresses the fact that these new demands exceed all previous changes in society. This is too trivial to justify the application of exceptional measures and the suspension of the principle of tolerance to all opinions. The Anarchists are not, after all, so very original; they are a modernised version of the Chiliasts of more than a thousand years ago, and differ from them only as the mental conception of the present differs from that of Irenæus. For he sought to justify his dreams by anappeal to religion, while the Anarchists appeal to modern science. That is all. But if we blame for its intolerance, and stigmatise as belonging to the "dark ages," the age that persecuted the Chiliasts with fire and sword, we certainly ought not to show a still greater intolerance to the Chiliasts of our own day.
But it may be said that this fantasy, this Anarchist theory, is far more dangerous than all the other errors that have preceded it; it wishes to abolish property, reduce the family to Hetairism, and so forth. We hope we have shown clearly in the preceding pages that, at bottom, all Anarchist theories, even Kropotkin's, are very harmless, and would merely result in leaving everything as before, merely changing the present compulsory system into a voluntary one. A large group of Anarchists, indeed the most extreme, are pure Individualists, even maintaining individual property; how this could be maintained without some legal guarantee is a question for themselves; but it is evident that the Anarchist theory would alter the existing state of things much less than the social-democratic theory; for the latter demands the cessation of Individualist economy, and would punish any opposition to its views as a crime, just as we punish theft to-day. It is the same with marriage. Anarchists of all parties merely wish the family to be changed into the "family group"; but that means that everything could practically remain unchanged; only the legal guarantees and privileges associated with marriage must be abolished. We will neither discuss the morality,or lack of it, nor the practicability or impracticability of this idea; but in this the Anarchists go no further than what Fichte, or that moderate liberal, Wilhelm von Humboldt, or even F. A. Schlegel, the poet of Lucinde, have demanded as regards natural marriage; and Schlegel certainly is somewhat of the national-Christian-Socialism type. In any case, here, too, Socialism with its more drastic measures is more formidable, for even if it would respect the sexual group—which may be doubted in view of the artificial organisation of work in the social State—yet the character of the "family" would quite disappear owing to the Socialists' violent interference with the care and bringing up of children. It is certainly characteristic in this respect that the authoritative Socialists regard even Anarchism as merely a modern form of the Manchester Liberal School, sneering at Anarchists as "smallbourgeoisie," and representing them as quite harmless against the reforms planned by themselves.
But whether it is more or less dangerous need not be considered, when it is a question of whether an opinion is worth discussion. If an opinion contains elements which are useful, serviceable, or necessary for the majority of the members of society, these opinions will be realised in practice without regard to whether danger thereby threatens or does not threaten single forms or arrangements of present society. Exceptional legislation may check criticism of unhealthy or obsolete forms of society, but cannot hinder the organic development of society itself; for society will then only develop through aseries of painful catastrophes instead of by a gradual evolution; catastrophes which are the consequence of opinions which have not had free discussion. It would be more than sad if we had to demonstrate the truth of these views again to-day, although our own age, or at least, we Continentals, seem in our condemnation of Anarchism to have lost all calmness, and to have abandoned those principles of toleration and Liberalism of which we are generally so proud. It has been rightly said that the freedom of conscience must include not only the freedom of belief, but also the freedom of unbelief. In that case the right of freedom of opinions must not be confined merely to the forms of the State: one should be equally free to deny the State itself. Without this extension of the principle, freedom of thought is a mockery.
We therefore demand for the Anarchist doctrine, as long as it does not incite to crime, the right of free discussion and the tolerance due to every opinion, quite without regard to whether it is more dangerous, or more probable, or more practicable than any other opinion; and this we do not merely froma prioriand academic reasons, but in the best interests of the community.
We consider the Anarchist idea unrealisable, just as is any other scheme based only on speculation; we think Proudhon's picture of society quite as Utopian as Plato's, and certainly none the less a product of genius. Moreover, we are convinced that grave complications have already arisen in society owing to the fanatical pursuit of these Utopian ideas, andstill greater ones will arise; and yet we do not belong to those who deplore the appearance of these ideas, or who believe that serious and permanent danger is threatened to the development of society by the Anarchist idea. This, indeed, would be the place in which to write a chapter on the value of the error; but we must leave this to writers on ethics, and content ourselves with pointing out that the development of culture does not depend mainly upon the truth or falsehood of ruling ideas. As we have often said in these pages in our criticism of the Anarchists, life is not merely the fulfilment of philosophic dreams or the embodiment of absolute truths; on the contrary, it can easily be proved from history that error and superstition have rather been the most potent factors in human development. When discussing Stirner's views, we have shewn the cardinal error that lies in the conclusion that only the absolutely true is useful and admissible in practice. Certainly, philosophy has taught us the insufficiency of alla prioriproofs of the truth of the conception of God; critical science has shown us its empirical origin, and taught us that our ideas of the soul, God, and the future life have proceeded from the most erroneous and crudest attempts to explain certain physiological and psychological phenomena: but even if the conception of the Deity were the greatest error committed by mankind, it is yet incontestable that this conception has produced and still produces the greatest blessings for mankind. We have taken up this standpoint against the Anarchists, and now it may turn out in their favour;for, if it is not a question of doing away with the State altogether, merely because (as Stirner discovered, though he was not the first to do so) it is not sacred, nor absolute, nor real in the philosophic sense, so one need not consider an idea absolutely worthless, and therefore unworthy of discussion merely because it arises from and leads to errors.
Anarchism is certainly one of the greatest errors ever imagined by man, for it proceeds from assumptions and leads to conclusions which entirely contradict human nature and the facts of life.
Nevertheless, it also has its purpose in social evolution, and that not a small one, however frightened at this certain timid spirits may be. What is this mission? In so small a space as is now left us, it is hard to answer this without causing misunderstandings to arise on every side. But after what has been said, it will readily be perceived that Anarchism will be a factor in overcoming Socialism, if not by Anarchy yet at least by freedom.
A military trait runs through the whole world; the great wars and conquests of the last few decades and present international relations which compel most European states to keep their weapons always ready; all this has called forth a military strain of character, a necessity for defence based upon guardianship and compulsory organisation, which is increased by a similar need for defence in the province of economics, as a consequence of previous economic and social phenomena. This feature is seen in the universal endeavour to increase the power of the State at the expense of the individual, and to solveeconomic problems in the same way as one organises an army. State Socialism, the Socialism of the chair, and the Christian Social movement prove the simultaneity of this characteristic of the age in every circle of modern society; the Social Democratic party merely represents the group to whose impulse we must ascribe the fact of governments including Socialism in their programme, of professors inoculating young intelligences therewith from their chairs, of Rome eagerly seizing it as a welcome instrument wherewith to revive her faded popularity; and the fact of politicians, who still call themselves liberal, giving up, often without a struggle, one position after the other in the defence of economic freedom.
We will not go so far as to brand every concession to the Socialist spirit of our time as blamable and harmful. After almost a century of continually increasing economic freedom, after the old form of society, with its ranks and institutions, has been completely broken up by Liberalism, an increase of social discipline, a rallying of mankind round new social standpoints, is perfectly natural. But it is just as natural that evolution will not be able to proceed in the one-sided direction begun by Socialism. Already the most unpleasant phenomena are visible. The power of the State profits most of all by the Socialist movement, which it combats as Social Democracy; the rights of the individual retire to the background; in the "industrial army," as in the military force, the individual is only a number, a unit; the sense of freedom has almostdisappeared from our age. Freedom in its signification as to culture and civilisation is now completely misunderstood and underrated, and even considered an idle dream. But the gloomiest feature of Socialism is a renaissance of thereligiosespirit and all the disadvantages it entails. Thereligioseattitude, as I have shown elsewhere,[61]is connected with an inclination for tutelage, and places the individual in quite a secondary position. In an age when the weak are only too surely convinced of the impossibility of maintaining themselves in the midst of the social whirlwind, when everyone seeks to join some community or society, it is easy to make religious proselytes. People mostly console a nation that has a low position in the economic scale with religion, as we console the sick. To those who suffer so bitterly from the inequality of power and wealth in our social system, there is shown a prospect of a future eternal recompense; and those who are continually seeking the support of some power higher than themselves are referred to the Highest Power of all. That always convinces them. The Socialist and the religious view of the world are one and the same; the former is the religion of the absolute, infallible, all-mighty, and ever-present State. The reawakening of the religious spirit simultaneously with the growth of Socialist parties is no mere chance. Socialism has slipped on the cowl and cassock with the greatest ease, and we have every reason to believe that this sad companionship is by no meansended; the regard for personal freedom will decrease more and more; the tendency towards authority and religion will increase; the comprehension of purely mental effort will continue to disappear in proportion as society endeavours to transform itself into an industrial barrack. Whether the end of it all will be the Social Democratic popular State, or the Socialist Absolute Monarchy, matters but little. In any case, before things reach this point, a counteracting tendency will make itself felt from the needs of the people, which will endeavour to force evolution back into the opposite path. The old implacable struggle between the Gironde and the Mountain will again be renewed; and the impulse in this contest of the future will come from Anarchism, which is already preparing and sharpening the weapons for it. That Socialism will be overthrown by the introduction of Anarchism we do not believe; but the conquest will be won under the banner of individual freedom. The centralising tendency and the coercive character of the system of doing everything in common, without which Socialism cannot have the least success, will naturally and necessarily be replaced by Federalism and free association. In these two distinctive features of a future reaction against a Socialism that would turn everything into one vast army, we recognise those two demands of theoretical Anarchism which are capable of realisation, and capable of it because they are not dogmas, like absolute freedom, but only methods.
Thus it appears nota prioributa posteriori, that the Anarchist theory must not be considered as absolutelyworthless because in itself it is an error and in its main demand is impracticable. Our opinion is that it contains at least as many useful elements as Socialism; and if to-day governments, men of learning, and even bishops proceed without alarm upon the path of Socialism, then a discussion of Anarchist theory should not be so coolly waved aside.
But it is entirely different as regards the criminal propaganda of action. If Anarchists wish to spread their opinions abroad, there are quite sufficient means for doing so in civilised society. No one can be allowed the right of giving a sanguinary advertisement to his views by the murder of innocent visitors to a café or a theatre; still less have Anarchists the right, when they appeal to force, to complain if force is used against them.
It is perfectly fair that the State should proceed against criminal propaganda by legal measures, and that Anarchist criminals should suffer for their action, the punishment which a country inflicts even if it be the death penalty. There is no difference of opinion[62]as regards this view except among Anarchists themselves, who arrogate to themselves the right to kill, but deny it to the State. There remain only two points that we might add.
First of all, exceptional legislation should be avoided. It is in no way justified. Just as the motive of Anarchism to any offence affords no extenuating circumstances, so, too, it should not make matters worse. Secondly, we should not indulge in the vain hope that Anarchism itself, or the criminal results of it, can be combated by mere condemnation of Anarchist criminals, however just or unjust the sentence may be. Punishment appears to fanatics who long for the martyr's crown, no longer a deterrent but an atonement. In France in less than two years, Ravachol, Henry, and Vaillant were guillotined; but that did not deter Caserio in the least from his mad act.
Numerous Anarchist crimes are to be regarded merely as means to indirect suicide, a method by which those who commit them may end lives that are a burden to them, while they lack the courage to commit suicide directly. Lombroso, Krafft, Ebbing, and others cite a long list of political criminals who must certainly be regarded as such indirect suicides.
We will not enter the controversial province of criminal pathology, although it seems certain that in the criminal deeds of the Anarchism of action a large share is taken by persons pathologically diseased or mentally affected. For these also punishment loses its deterrent effect. Taken all in all, one cannot expect any other result from the punishment of Anarchist criminals, except the moral one of having defended the rights of society. On the other hand, the Anarchists regard the justificationof one of their own party as the strongest means of propaganda, and it cannot be denied that the Ravachol cult resulting from the execution of that common criminal, Ravachol, caused a considerable accession of strength to Communist Anarchism. The State cannot, of course, allow itself to look on at Anarchist crimes and "to shorten its arm"; but it must not delude itself that it will remove such crime or stop the Anarchist movement by means of the guillotine.
Does this mean that society is helpless in face of Anarchism? It is, if it possesses only force to suppress and not the power to convince; if society is only held together by compulsion, as the present State partly is, and the Socialist State would be still more, and threatens to fall to pieces if the apparatus of compulsion were given up; if the State, instead of trying to redress the unfortunately unalterable natural inequality of its members, only intensifies them by legalising all kinds of new inequalities, and if it regards its institutions, and especially the law, as instruments for the unalterable conservation of all present forms of society with all their imperfections and injustices. If right is done, and right is uttered arbitrarily, in a partisan and protectionist method; if equality before the law is disregarded by those who are called to defend the law; if belief in the reliability of the indispensable institutions of authority is lightly shaken by these very institutions themselves, then it is no wonder if men despair of the capability of the State to practice or to maintain right; and if the masses, always ready to generalise,deny right, law, State, and authority together. We have already pointed out repeatedly that Anarchism cannot be explained by pauperism alone. Pauperism justifies Socialism; but this movement against authority, which certainly does not bear in all cases the name of Anarchism, but which is to-day more widely spread than is often imagined, can only be explained by a confused mass of injustice and wrongdoing, of which thebourgeoisState is daily and hourly guilty towards the weak.
The average man does not much mind his rich fellow-man riding in his carriage while he himself cannot even pay his tram fare; but that he should be abandoned by society to every chance official of justice, as a prey that has no rights, while justice often falters anxiously before those who are shielded by coats of arms and titles,—that makes his blood boil, and causes him to seek the origin of this injustice in the institution itself instead of in the way it works. How many Anarchists have become so merely because they were treated as common criminals when they happened to have the misfortune to be suspected of Anarchism? How many became Anarchists because they were outlawed by society on account of free and liberal views?
Anarchism may be defined etiologically as disbelief in the suitability of constituted society. With such views there would be only one way in which we could cut the ground from under the Anarchists' feet. Society must anxiously watch that no one should have reason to doubt its intention of lettingjustice have free sway, but must raise up the despairing, and by all means in its power lead them back to their lost faith in society. A movement like Anarchism cannot be conquered by force and injustice, but only by justice and freedom.