Anarchy and Anarchists / A History of the Red Terror and the Social Revolution in America and Europe; Communism, Socialism, and Nihilism in Doctrine and in Deed; The Chicago Haymarket Conspiracy and the Detection and Trial of the Conspirators

by Michael J. Schaack

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

The Movement in Europe—Present Plans of the Reds—Stringent Measures Adopted by Various European Governments—Bebel and Liebknecht—A London Celebration—Whitechapel Outcasts—“Blood, Blood, Blood!”—Verestchagin’s Views—The Bulwarks of Society—The Condition of Anarchy in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis and other American Cities—A New Era of Revolutionary Activity—A Fight to the Death—Are we Prepared?

AS regards the present plans and movements of the reds in Europe, of course it is almost impossible to obtain an adequate conception here. It is known, however, that the French, German, English and Belgian governments have only recently adopted most stringent measures, the effect of which will undoubtedly be to send some very undesirable immigrants to our hospitable shores.

Notwithstanding the measures taken by the French Government, it is reported as tolerably certain that the Revolutionary Congress will meet at Paris, although there is a pressure to have the date of the session delayed until October. Much will depend, probably, upon the proceedings of the proposed meeting of German, Swiss and Austrian Socialists at Zurich the coming summer.

With all their talk of universal brotherhood and a grand combination of the proletariat of every nation against tyranny, race hatreds are very strong among the Socialists of Europe. A French Communist would be more likely to cut a German Socialist’s throat than labor with him for the overthrow of the common oppressor.

The social conference soon to convene at The Hague, it is said, will ask the German leaders to take the decisive step of annulling the Zurich meeting, in order to give the Paris congress the more importance and avoid giving any possible offense by such action as may be taken there. It is well known that Bebel, Liebknecht and their immediate followers have no particular love for the dynamite faction of the Paris Communists, but there are many Swiss, South Germans and Russians who are engaged in the thankless and seemingly hopeless task of reconciling national differences, and these men have no small influence over their fellows by reason of their intelligence and approved courage and the sacrifices they have made for the common cause. By their unceasing labor a large proportion of the rank and file of the German army have been won over to the Socialistic movement, and they do not despair of allaying the French repugnance to affiliating with men of their own ideas from across the Rhine.

The London celebration of the anniversary of the Paris Commune on the night of March 18, 1889, consisted of a small crowd of boozy, beery, pot-valiant, squalid, frowsy, sodden Whitechapel outcasts who shrieked and fought in a small hall in their district under the eye of a single policeman.

“Better not go in, sir,” the policeman said to a correspondent who entered the door of the small hall at 87 Commonwealth Road. “There ain’t no danger, but it’s very unpleasant.”

It was the fumes of scores of dirty pipes and a thousand other causes that made the air almost unbearable. About two hundred people, a fourth of whom were lushed, soggy Whitechapel women, were in the low-ceilinged hall, while a long-haired Pole was screaming an address from the platform. He cursed and swore with frantic blasphemy, and called upon his hearers to arm themselves and wade to liberty through blood. Whenever he uttered the word “blood,” the muddled and maudlin crowd set up a shriek of “Blood, blood, blood!” that was deafening. All of the women and most of the men had soiled red flags and handkerchiefs, which they waved in the air as they shrieked “Blood!” in chorus. Then they would sink back into drunken indifference till the word “blood” was mentioned again.

Two women and a man, says the correspondent, lay in senseless stupor, with the crowd treading on them. One woman’s rags did not half cover her. An illiterate Englishman pushed the Pole aside and began to harangue the people from the platform. It was the most shameless, ribald and obscene harangue imaginable. In the midst of it one woman struck another with a piece of a broken beer glass, and the two females began to fight like cats. Faces were cut and bleeding. No one paid the slightest attention except the policeman, who looked indifferently on. Presently one of the women ran sobbing from the hall with her face streaming blood. Another woman started after her, when a man made a sign to a policeman, and she was restrained. Then a neighbor plucked the correspondent’s sleeve: