Anarchism: A Criticism and History of the Anarchist Theory

by E. V. Zenker

The London Congress operated as a beacon of fire; scarcely had it uttered its terrible concluding words when it found in all parts of Europe an echo multiplied a thousand-fold. Anarchism, which was thought to be dead, celebrated a dread resurrection, and in places where it had never existed it suddenly raised its Gorgon head aloft. The reason is mainly to be found in the fact that all the numerous radical-social elements which had not agreed with the tactics of the Social Democrats in view of Government prosecutions, now adopted Most's programme without asking in the least what the Anarchist theory was or whether they believed in it. The two catchwords of the Anarchism of action, Communism and Anarchy, did not fail to have their usual effect upon the most radical and confused elements of discontent. Communism is, to speak plainly, only "the absolute average"; and as there are large numbers of men who fall even below the average both mentally, morally, and materially, Communism can have at any time nothing terrible in it for these people, and even represents to them a highly desirable Eldorado. Collectivism is the impractical invention of a man of genius, that may be compared to a mechanical invention that consists of so many screws, wheels, and springs that it never can be set going. But Communism seems an easy expedient for the average man; it can always reckon upon a public; certainly one is always to be found. By Anarchy, of course, the mob understands always only its own dictatorship, and this remedy, too, always has a great attraction for the uneducated masses. But as regards the tactics commended by the London Congress, it was completely adapted to the mental capacities of the representatives of "darkest Europe." The "new movement" could thus count upon success, especially as skilful agitators like Kropotkin, Most, Penkert, Gautier, and others devoted to it all their remarkable powers. This success was gained with surprising rapidity.

In Paris in 1880 Anarchism was almost extinguished; its organ, the Révolution Sociale, had to cease when Andrieux, the Prefect of Police, who had supplied it with money, left his appointment, and supplies were stopped. The party was disorganised both in Paris and the provinces, and the Jurassic Federation was nearly extinct. Immediately after the London Congress, the "Revolutionary International League" was established, an active intercommunication was kept up with London, and an eager agitation was developed. In consequence, however, of the strong opposition of the other Socialists, this League remained weak, and scarcely numbered a hundred members. On the other hand, Anarchism increased all the more in the great industrial centres of the provinces. In the South were founded the Féderation Lyonnaise and the Féderation Stéphanoise, which, especially after Kropotkin took over the leadership and cleverly took advantage of the discords prevailing among other Socialists (e. g., at the congress of St. Etienne), made astonishing progress in Lyons, the main centre of the movement, St. Etienne, Roanne, Narbonne, Nîmes, Bordeaux, and other places. According to Kropotkin, these unions already numbered in a year's time 8000 members. In Lyons they possessed an organ, which, like Most's Freedom, appeared under all kinds of titles in order to elude the police, and which openly advocated outrages and gave recipes for the manufacture of explosives.

The consequences of this unchecked agitation soon became visible. The first opportunity was given by the great strikes which broke out at the beginning of 1882 in Roanne, Bezières, Molières, and other industrial centres of Southern France, and were used by the Anarchists for their own purposes. A workman, Fournier, who shot his employer in the open street, was honoured in Lyons by the summoning of a meeting to present him with a presentation revolver. For the national fête on the 14th July, 1882, a larger riot was planned to take place in Paris, for which purpose help was also sought from London. But as there happened to be a review of troops in Paris on that date, the Anarchists contented themselves with issuing a manifesto "to the Slaves of Labour," concluding with the words: "No Fêtes! Death to the Exploiters of Labour! Long Live the Social Revolution!" In autumn, 1882, riots broke out in Montceau-les-Mines and Lyons, in which violent means were employed, including dynamite. Next spring (March, 1883), there and in Paris great demonstrations of the "unemployed" took place in the streets, combined with robbery and dynamite outrages, and on July 14th there were sanguinary encounters with the armed forces of the State in Roubaix and elsewhere, when the populace was incited to arise against the bourgeoisie, "who" (it was said) "were indulging in festivities while they had condemned Louise Michel, the champion of the proletariat, to a cruel imprisonment."

The French Government now thought it no longer possible to look on quietly at these proceedings, and sought to secure the agitators, which proved no light task. Of the fourteen prisoners accused of complicity in the riots of Montceau-les-Mines, only nine were condemned to terms of imprisonment of one to five years or less important counts. On the other hand, at the Lyons trial of 19th January, 1883, only three out of sixty-six were acquitted; the others, including Kropotkin, his follower Gautier, a brilliant orator and fanatical propagandist, Bordas, Bernard, and others, were condemned to imprisonment with the full penalty on the strength of the law of March 14, 1872, against the "International." Almost all the accused, including Kropotkin, openly confessed that both intellectually and in deed they were the originators of the excesses at Lyons and Montceau-les-Mines, and that they were Anarchists, but denied the existence of an international organisation, and protested against the application of the law of the 14th March, 1872.

Similarly the Government succeeded in securing the ringleaders of the demonstrations in Paris. At the same time the Government endeavoured to check the Anarchist agitation by administrative methods; but nothing could stay the progress of the new movement that had started since the London Congress. France is the headquarters of Anarchism, Paris contains its leading journals, over all France there exists a network of groups; the propaganda of action here celebrated its saddest triumphs, as is only too well shown by the cases of Ravachol, Henry, and Caserio.

Switzerland, the original home of the Anarchism of action, now gives rise to but little comment. Immediately after the London Congress Kropotkin developed his most active agitation in the old Anarchist centre, the Lake of Geneva district. On July 4, 1882, at Lausanne, at an annual congress of some thirty delegates, Kropotkin estimated the number of his adherents at two thousand. Lausanne Congress adopted the same attitude as the London Congress, and took the opportunity on the occasion of the international musical festival at Geneva, August 12 to 14, 1882, to hold a secret international congress there. At this the question of the separation of the Anarchists from every other party was discussed. As a matter of fact this separation had long since taken place; the long-drawn struggle between Marxists and Bakuninists had caused a complete division between the Social Democrats and Anarchists; latterly even the adherents of Collectivism, the Possibilists, and other groups had separated from the Anarchists; and thus the Geneva Congress merely gave expression to the complete individualisation of the new movement, and it was decided to make the new programme officially known in a manifesto. This manifesto ran:

"Our ruler is our enemy. We Anarchists, i. e., men without any rulers, fight against all those who have usurped any power, or who wish to usurp it. Our enemy is the owner who keeps the land for himself, and makes the peasant work for his advantage. Our enemy is the manufacturer who fills his factory with wage-slaves; our enemy is the State, whether monarchical, oligarchical, or democratic, with its officials and staff of officers, magistrates, and police spies. Our enemy is every thought of authority, whether men call it God or devil, in whose name the priests have so long ruled honest people. Our enemy is the law which always oppresses the weak by the strong, to the justification and apotheosis of crime. But if the landowners, the manufacturers, the heads of the State, the priests, and the law are our enemies, we are also theirs, and we boldly oppose them. We intend to reconquer the land and the factory from the landowner and the manufacturer; we mean to annihilate the State, under whatever name it may be concealed; and we mean to get our freedom back again in spite of priest or law. According to our strength, we will work for the annihilation of all legal institutions, and are in accord with everyone who defies the law by a revolutionary act. We despise all legal means because they are the negation of our rights; we do not want so-called universal suffrage, since we cannot get away from our own personal sovereignty, and cannot make ourselves accomplices in the crimes committed by our so-called representatives. Between us Anarchists and all political parties, whether Conservatives or Moderates, whether they fight for freedom or recognise it by their admissions, a deep gulf is fixed. We wish to remain our own masters and he among us who strives to become a chief or leader is a traitor to our cause. Of course we know that individual freedom cannot exist without a union with other free associates. We all live by the support one of another, that is the social life which has created us, that is the work of all, which gives to each the consciousness of his rights and the power to defend them. Every social product is the work of the whole community, to which all have a claim in equal manner. For we are Communists; we recognise that unless patrimonial, communal, provincial, and national limits are abolished, the work must be begun anew. It is ours to conquer and defend common property, and to overthrow governments by whatever name they may be called."

In spite of the severe repressive measures taken against the Swiss Anarchists in consequence of the outrages in the south of France, in which they were rightly supposed to be implicated, they held their annual congress from July 7 to 9, 1883, at Chaux-de-Fonds, at which the establishment of an international fund "for the sacrifice of the reactionary bourgeoisie," the disadvantage from the Anarchist standpoint of a union of revolutionary groups, and the necessity of the propaganda of action were decided upon.

The beginnings of German Anarchism in Switzerland date from the characteristic year 1880, when the division among German Socialists (arising from Most's influence) was felt among the Swiss working classes also. In the summer of 1880 Most himself was in Switzerland, and succeeded in collecting round him a small following, which, as early as October, felt itself strong enough to hold on the Lake of Geneva a sort of opposition congress to the one at Wyden, in order to declare its decisions null and void. At the same time the Freedom was recognised as the organ of the party. The London Congress gave a new impulse to the agitation. Proceedings were at once taken to realise in Switzerland the London programme; groups were formed, and connection made between them by special correspondents (trimardeurs), a propaganda fund established, and messages sent to Germany inciting to commit outrages as opportunity offered. In consequence of this active agitation, the Anarchist groups in France and N. E. Switzerland continually increased, and when in 1883 Most's Freedom no longer could be published in London, it appeared in Switzerland under the editorship of Stellmacher, who was afterwards executed in Vienna, until Most, after performing his sentence of imprisonment in London, transferred it with him to New York. In this year (1883) the growth of Anarchism was so rapid that its adherents even succeeded in gaining the majority in many of the German working-men's clubs or in breaking them up. In August, 1883, the Anarchists held a secret conference in Zürich, which declared Most's system of groups to be satisfactory; drew up a new plan for extending, as far as possible and with all possible safety, the spread of Anarchist literature; and considered the establishment of a secret printing-press. The activity of the Swiss Anarchists consisted mainly in smuggling Anarchist literature into Germany and Austria, while the Jurassic Federation again concerned itself chiefly with doing the same for Southern France. Both parties now had the most friendly relations one with another.

Swiss Anarchism leads us directly to Germany and Austria. Germany may be termed the most free from Anarchists of any country in Europe. In the seventies a few groups had been founded here from Switzerland, and by means of the Arbeiterzeitung (Working-Mens' Journal), appearing in Bern, and conducted by Reinsdorf, a former compositor and enthusiastic agitator, an attempt was made to convert the working classes of Germany to Anarchism. But owing to the strength of Social Democracy in this country, all Reinsdorf's efforts at agitation were in vain. Even the superior skill of Johann Most could only produce very feeble and transitory results. When he openly professed Anarchism, and was expelled from the Social Democratic party, a small following remained to him in Germany; but in the German Empire only a dozen or so groups were formed (chiefly in Berlin and Hamburg) which adopted Most's programme; but their numbers did not rise above two hundred, and they remained quite unimportant.