What was it that drove these men to violence? Was it the teachings of Bakounin, of Nechayeff, and of Most? Their writings have been read and pondered over by thousands of yearning and impressionable minds. They have been drink to the thirsty and food to the hungry. Yet one anarchist at least denies that the writings of these terrorists have moved men to violence. "My contention is," says Emma Goldman, "that they were impelled, not by the teachings of anarchism, but by the tremendous pressure of conditions, making life unbearable to their sensitive natures." [(1)] Returning again to the same thought, she exclaims, "How utterly fallacious the stereotyped notion that the teachings of anarchism, or certain exponents of these teachings, are responsible for the acts of political violence." [(21)] To this indefatigable propagandist of anarchist doctrine, those who have been led into homicidal violence are "high strung, like a violin string." "They weep and moan for life, so relentless, so cruel, so terribly inhuman. In a desperate moment the string breaks." [(3)]
Yet, if it be true that doctrines have naught to do with the spread of terrorism, why is it that among many million socialists there are almost no terrorists, while among a few thousand anarchists there are many terrorists? The pressure of adverse social conditions is felt as keenly by the socialists as by the anarchists. The one quite as much as the other is a rebel against social ills. The indictment made by the socialists against political and economic injustice is as far-reaching as that of the anarchists. Why then does not the socialist movement produce terrorists? Is it not that the teachings of Marx and of all his disciples dwell upon the folly of violence, the futility of riots, the madness of assassination, while, on the other hand, the teachings of Bakounin, of Nechayeff, of Kropotkin, and of Most advocate destructive violence as a creative force? "Extirpate the wretches!" cries Most. "Make robbers our allies!" says Nechayeff. "Propagate the gospel by a deed!" urges Kropotkin, and throughout Bakounin's writings there appears again and again the plea for "terrible, total, inexorable, and universal destruction." Both socialists and anarchists preach their gospel to the weary and heavy-laden, to the despondent and the outraged, who may readily be led to commit acts of despair. They have, after all, little to lose, and their life, at present unbearable, can be made little worse by punishment. Yet millions of the miserable have come into the socialist movement to hear the fiercest of indictments against capitalism, and it is but rare that one becomes a terrorist. What else than the teachings of anarchism and of socialism can explain this difference?
Unquestionably, socialism and anarchism attract distinctly different types, who are in many ways alien to each other. Their mental processes differ. Their nervous systems jar upon each other. Even physically they have been known to repel each other. Born of much the same conditions, they fought each other in the cradle. From the very beginning they have been irreconcilable, and with perfect frankness they have shown their contempt for each other. About the kindest criticism that the socialist makes of the anarchist is that he is a child, while the anarchist is convinced that the socialist is a Philistine and an inbred conservative who, should he ever get power, would immediately hang the anarchists.[J] They are traditional enemies, who seem utterly incapable of understanding each other. Intellectually, they fail to grasp the meaning of each other's philosophy. It is but rare that a socialist, no matter how conscientious a student, will confess he fully understands anarchism. On the other hand, no one understands the doctrines of socialism so little as the anarchist. It is possible, therefore, that the same conditions which drive the anarchist to terrorist acts lead the socialist to altogether different methods, but the reasonable and obvious conclusion would be that teachings and doctrines determine the methods that each employ.
The anarchist is, as Emma Goldman says, "high strung." His ear is tuned to hear unintermittently the agonized cry. To follow the imagery of Shelley, he seems to be living in a "mind's hell," [(4)] wherein hate, scorn, pity, remorse, and despair seem to be tearing out the nerves by their bleeding roots. Björnstjerne Björnson, François Coppée, Émile Zola, and many other great writers have sought to depict the psychology of the anarchist, but I think no one has approached the poet Shelley, who had in himself the heart of the anarchist. He was a son-in-law and a disciple of William Godwin, one of the fathers of anarchism. "Prometheus Unbound," "The Revolt of Islam," and "The Mask of Anarchy," are expressions of the very soul of Godwin's philosophy. Shelley was "cradled into poetry by wrong," as a multitude of other unhappy men are cradled into terrorism by wrong. He was "as a nerve o'er which do creep the else unfelt oppressions of this earth," and he "could moan for woes which others hear not." He, too, "could ... with the poor and trampled sit and weep." [(5)] There is in nearly all anarchists this supersensitiveness, this hyperæsthesia that leads to ecstasy, to hysteria, and to fanaticism. It is a neuropathy that has led certain scientists, like Lombroso and Krafft-Ebbing, to suggest that some anarchist crimes can only be looked upon as a means to indirect suicide. They are outbursts that lead to a spectacular martyr-like ending to brains that "too much thought expands," to hearts overladen, and to nerves all unstrung. Life is a burden to them, though they lack the courage to commit suicide directly. Such is the view of these students of criminal pathology, and they cite a long list of political criminals who can only be explained as those who have sought indirectly self-destruction. It is a type of insanity that leads to acts which seem sublime to others in a state of like torture both of mind and of nerves.
This explains no doubt the acts of some terrorists, and at the same time it condemns the present attitude of society toward the terrorist. Think of hanging the tormented soul who could say as he was taken to the gallows: "I went away from my native place because I was frequently moved to tears at seeing little girls of eight or ten years obliged to work fifteen hours a day for the paltry pay of twenty centimes. Young women of eighteen or twenty also work fifteen hours daily for a mockery of remuneration....
"I have observed that there are a great many people who are hungry, and many children who suffer, while bread and clothes abound in the towns. I saw many and large shops full of clothing and woolen stuffs, and I also saw warehouses full of wheat and Indian corn, suitable for those who are in want." [(6)] When such a tortured spirit is driven to homicide, how is it possible for society to demand and take that life? Shall we admit that there is a duel between society and these souls deranged by the wrongs of society? "In this duel," said Vaillant, "I have only wounded my adversary, it is now his turn to strike me." [(7)] It is tragic enough that a poor and desperate soul, like Vaillant, should have felt himself in deadly combat with society, but how much more tragic it is for society to admit that fact, accept the challenge, and take that life! "If you cannonade us, we shall dynamite you," said Louis Lingg. [(8)] And we answer, "If you dynamite us, we shall cannonade you." And in so far as this is our sole attitude toward these rebels, wherein are we superior? For Lingg to say that was at least heroic. For us so to answer is not even heroic. Our paid men see to it. It is done as a matter of course and forgotten.
These men say that justice exists only for the powerful, that the poor are robbed, and that "the lamp of their soul" is put out. They beg us to listen, and we will not. They ask us to read, and we will not. "It takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear," said Vaillant. They then give all they have to execute one dreadful deed of propaganda in order to awaken us. Must even this fail? We can hang them, but can we forget them? After every deed of the anarchists the press, the police, and the pulpit carry on for weeks a frenzied discussion over their atrocities. The lives of these Propagandists of the Deed are then crushed out, and in a few months even their names are forgotten. There seems to be an innate dread among us to seek the causes that lie at the bottom of these distressing symptoms of our present social régime. We prefer, it seems, to become like that we contemplate. We seek to terrorize them, as they seek to terrorize us. As the anarchist believes that oppression may be ended by the murder of the oppressor, so society cherishes the thought that anarchism may be ended by the murder of the anarchist. Are not our methods in truth the same, and can any man doubt that both are equally futile and senseless? Both the anarchy of the powerful and the anarchy of the weak are stupid and abortive, in that they lead to results diametrically opposed to the ends sought. Tennyson was never nearer a great social truth than when he wrote:
"He that roars for liberty
Faster binds a tyrant's power;
And the tyrant's cruel glee