THE SMALLER FRY
Among our present-day Anarchists some, like John Mackay, the author of "Die Anarchisten, Kulturgemälde aus dem Ende des xix. Jahrhunderts," declare for individualism, while others—by far the more numerous—call themselves Communists. These are the descendants of Bakounine in the Anarchist movement. They have produced a fairly considerable literature in various languages, and it is they who are making so much noise with the help of the "propaganda by deed." The prophet of this school is the Russian refugee, P. A. Kropotkine.
I shall not here stop to consider the doctrines of the Individualist-Anarchist of to-day, whom even their brethren, the Communist-Anarchists, look upon as "bourgeois."[47] We will go straight on to the Anarchist-"Communist."
What is the standpoint of this new species of Communism? "As to the method followed by the Anarchist thinker, it entirely differs from that of the Utopists," Kropotkine assures us. "The Anarchist thinker does not resort to metaphysical conceptions (like 'natural rights,' the 'duties of the State' and so on) to establish what are, in his opinion, the best conditions for realising the greatest happiness of humanity. He follows, on the contrary, the course traced by the modern philosophy of evolution.... He studies human society as it is now, and was in the past; and, without either endowing men altogether, or separate individuals, with superior qualities which they do not possess, he merely considers society as an aggregation of organisms trying to find out the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of cooperation for the welfare of the species. He studies society and tries to discover its tendencies, past and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economical, and in this he merely points out in which direction evolution goes."[48]
So the Anarchist-Communists have nothing in common with the Utopians. They do not, in the elaborating of their "ideal," turn to metaphysical conceptions like "natural rights," the "duties of the State," etc. Is this really so?
So far as the "duties of the State" are concerned, Kropotkine is quite right; it would be too absurd if the Anarchists invited the State to disappear in the name of its own "duties." But as to "natural rights" he is altogether mistaken. A few quotations will suffice to prove this.
Already in the Bulletin de la Fédération Jurasienne (No. 3, 1877), we find the following very significant declaration: "The sovereignty of the people can only exist through the most complete autonomy of individuals and of groups." This "most complete autonomy," is it not also a "metaphysical conception?"
The Bulletin de la Fédération Jurasienne was an organ of Collectivist Anarchism. At bottom there is no difference between "Collectivist" and "Communist" Anarchism. And yet, since it might be that we are making the Communists responsible for the Collectivists, let us glance at the "Communist" publications, not only according to the spirit but the letter. In the autumn of 1892 a few "companions" appeared before the Assize Court of Versailles in consequence of a theft of dynamite at Soisy-sous-Etiolles. Among others there was one G. Etiévant, who drew up a declaration of Anarchist-Communist principles. The tribunal would not allow him to read it, whereupon the official organ of the Anarchists, La Révolte, undertook to publish this declaration, having taken great pains to secure an absolutely correct copy of the original. The "Declaration of G. Etiévant" made a sensation in the Anarchist world, and even "cultured" men like Octave Mirbeau quote it with respect along with the works of the "theorists," Bakounine, Kropotkine, the "unequalled Proudhon," and the "aristocratic Spencer!" Now this is the line of Etiévant's reasoning:
No idea is innate in us; each idea is born of infinitely diverse and multiple sensations, which we receive by means of our organs. Every act of the individual is the result of one or several ideas. The man is not therefore responsible. In order that responsibility should exist, will would have to determine the sensations, just as these determine the idea, and the idea, the act. But as it is, on the contrary, the sensations which determine the will, all judgment becomes impossible, every reward, every punishment unjust, however great the good or the evil done may be. "Thus one cannot judge men and acts unless one has a sufficient criterion. Now no such criterion exists. At any rate it is not in the laws that it could be found, for true justice is immutable and laws are changeable. It is with laws as with all the rest (!). For if laws are beneficent what is the good of deputies and senators to change them? And if they are bad what is the good of magistrates to apply them?"