Violence and the Labor Movement

by Robert Hunter

Marx and Engels saw very clearly the part that the criminal elements would play in any uprising, and as early as 1847 they wrote in the Communist Manifesto: "The 'dangerous class,' the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue." [(22)] The truth of this statement has been amply illustrated in the numerous outbreaks that have occurred since it was written. The use by the Bakouninists in Spain of the criminal elements there, the repeated exploits of the police agents in discrediting every uprising by encouraging the criminal elements to outrageous acts, and the terrible barbarities of the criminal classes at the time of the Paris Commune are all examples of how useful to reaction the rotting layers of old society may become. Even when they do not serve as a bribed tool of the reactionary elements, their atrocities, both cruel and criminal, repel the self-respecting and conscientious elements. They discredit the real revolutionists, who must bear the stigma that attaches to the inhuman acts of the "dangerous class."

That the European governments have used the terrorists in exactly this manner in order to discredit popular movements, is not, I think, open to any question. The money of the anarchists' bitterest enemy has helped to make anarchy so well known. The politics of Machiavelli is the politics of nearly every old established European government. It is the politics of families who have been trained in the profession of rulership. And this mastership, as William Morris has said, has many shifts. And one that has been most useful to them is that of subsidizing those persons or elements who by their acts promote reaction. In Russia it is an old custom to foment and provoke minor insurrections. Police agents enter a discontented district and do all possible to irritate the troublesome elements and to force them "to come into the street." In this manner the agitators and leaders are brought to the front, where at one stroke they may all be shot. Furthermore, the police agents themselves commit or provoke such atrocious crimes that the people are terrified and welcome the strong arm of the Government. Literally scores of instances might be given where, by well-planned work of this sort, the active leaders are cut down, the sources of agitation destroyed, and through the robberies, murders, and dynamite outrages of police agents the people are so terrified that they welcome the intervention of even tyranny itself.

An immense sensation throughout Europe was created by an address by Jules Guesde in the French Chamber of Deputies, the 19th of July, 1894. The deeds of Ravachol, Vaillant, and Henry were still the talk of Europe, and, three weeks before, the President of the Republic had been stabbed to death by Caserio. It was in that critical period, amidst commotions, interruptions, protests, and exclamations of amazement, that Guesde brought out his evidence that the chief of police of Paris had paid regular subsidies to promote and extend both the preaching and the practice of violent anarchism. He introduced, in support of his remarks, portions from the Memoirs of M. Andrieux, our old friend of Lyons and later the head of the Paris police. "The anarchists," says Andrieux, "wished to have a newspaper to spread their doctrines. If I fought their Propaganda of the Deed, I at least favored the spread of their doctrines by means of the press, and I have no reasons for depriving myself longer of their gratitude.[O] The companions were looking for some one to advance funds, but infamous capital was in no hurry to reply to their appeal. I shook it up and succeeded in persuading it that it was for its own interest to aid in the publication of an anarchist newspaper....

"But do not think that I boldly offered to the anarchists the encouragement of the Prefect of Police.... I sent a well-dressed bourgeois to one of the most active and intelligent of them. He explained that, having acquired a fortune in the drug business, he desired to devote a part of his income to help their propaganda. This bourgeois, anxious to be devoured, awakened no suspicion among the companions. Through his hands, I deposited the caution money in the coffers of the State, and the paper, la Révolution Sociale, made its appearance.... Every day, about the table of the editors, the authorized representatives of the party of action assembled; they looked over the international correspondence; they deliberated on the measures to be taken to end 'the exploitation of man by man'; they imparted to each other the recipes which science puts at the disposal of revolution. I was always represented in the councils, and I gave my advice in case of need.... The members had decided in the beginning that the Palais-Bourbon must be blown up. They deliberated on the question as to whether it would not be more expedient to commence with some more accessible monument. The Bank of France, the palais de l'Élysée, the house of the prefect of police, the office of the Minister of the Interior were all discussed, then abandoned, by reason of the too careful surveillance of which they were the object." [(23)] Toward the end of his address, Guesde turned to the reactionaries, and said: "I have shown you that everywhere, from the beginning of the anarchist epidemic in France, you find either the hand or the money of one of your prefects of police.... That is how you have fought in the past this anarchistic danger of which you make use to-day to commit, what shall I say?... real crimes, not only against socialism, but against the Republic itself." [(24)]

For the last forty years police agents have swarmed into the socialist, the anarchist, and the trade-union movements for the purpose of provoking violence. The conditions grew so bad in Russia that every revolutionist suspected his comrade. Many loyal revolutionists were murdered in the belief that they were spies. In the belief that they were comrades, the faithful intrusted their innermost secrets to the agents of the police. Every plan they made was known. Every undertaking proved abortive, because the police knew everything in advance and frequently had in charge of every plot their own men. Criminals were turned into the movement under the surveillance of the police.[P] All through the days of the International it was a common occurrence to expose police spies, and in every national party agents of the police have been discovered and driven out. It has become almost a rule, in certain sections of the socialist and labor movements, that the man who advocates violence must be watched, and there are numerous instances where such men have been proved to be paid agents of the police. Joseph Peukert was for many years one of the foremost leaders of the anarchists. He was in Vienna with Stellmacher and Kammerer, and devoted much of his time to translating into German the works of foreign anarchists. It was only discovered toward the end of his life that during all this time he was in the employ of the Austrian police.

These and similar startling facts were brought out by August Bebel in an address delivered in Berlin, November 2, 1898. Luccheni had just murdered the Empress of Austria, and the German reactionaries attempted, of course, to connect him with the socialists. Bebel created utter consternation in their camp when, as a part of his address, he showed the active participation of high officials in crimes of the anarchists. "And how often," said Bebel, "police agents have helped along in the attempted or executed assassinations of the last decades. When Bismarck was Federal Ambassador at Frankfort-on-the-Main he wrote to his wife: 'For lack of material the police agents lie and exaggerate in a most inexcusable manner.' These agents are engaged to discover contemplated assassinations. Under these circumstances, the bad fellows among them ... come easily to the idea: 'If other people don't commit assassinations, then we ourselves must help the thing along.' For, if they cannot report that there is something doing, they will be considered superfluous, and, of course, they don't want that to happen. So they 'help the thing along' by 'correcting luck,' as the French proverb puts it. Or they play politics on their own score.

"To demonstrate this I need only to remind you of the 'reminiscences' of Andrieux, the former Chief of Police of Paris, in which he brags with the greatest cynicism of how he, by aid of police funds, subsidized extreme Anarchist papers and organized Anarchist assassinations, just to give a thorough scare to rich citizens. And then there is that notorious Police Inspector Melville, of London, who also operated on these lines. That was revealed by the investigation of the so-called Walsall attempt at assassination. Among the assassinations committed by the Fenians there were also some that were the work of the police, as was shown at the Parnell trial. Everybody remembers how much of such activity was displayed in Belgium during the eighties by that prince of scoundrels, Pourbaix. Even the Minister Bernaard himself was compelled to admit before the Parliament that Pourbaix was paid to arrange assassinations in order to justify violent persecutions of the Social Democracy. Likewise was Baron von Ungern-Sternberg, nicknamed the 'bomb-baron,' unmasked as a police agent at the trial of the Luttich Anarchists.

"And then—our own good friends at the time of the [anti-] Socialist law. About them I myself could tell you some interesting stories, for I was among those who helped to unmask them. There is Schroeder-Brennwald, of Zurich, the chap who was receiving from Molkenmarkt, through police counsellor Krueger, a monthly salary of at first 200 and then 250 marks. At every meeting in Zurich this Schroeder was stirring up people and putting them up to commit acts of violence. But to guard against expulsion from Switzerland by the authorities of that country, he first acquired citizenship in Switzerland, presumably by means of funds furnished by the police of Prussia. During the summer of 1883 Schroeder and the police-Anarchist Kaufman called and held in Zurich a conference participated in by thirteen persons. Schroeder acted as chairman. At that conference plans were laid for the assassinations which were later committed in Vienna, Stuttgart, and Strassburg by Stellmacher, Kammerer, and Kumitzsch. I am not informed that these unscrupulous scoundrels, although they were in the service of the police, had informed the police commissioner that those murders were being contemplated.... Men like Stellmacher and Kammerer paid for their acts with their lives on the gallows. When [Johann] Most was serving a term in a prison in England, this same police spy Schroeder had Most's 'Freiheit' published at Schaffhausen, Switzerland, at his own expense. The money surely did not come out of his own pocket.

"That was a glorious time when [we unmasked this Schroeder and the other police organizer of plots, Haupt, to whom] the police counsellor Krueger wrote that he knew the next attempt on the life of the Czar of Russia would be arranged in Geneva, and he should send in reports. Was this demand not remarkable in the highest degree? And now Herr von Ehrenberg, the former colonel of artillery of Baden!... This fellow was unquestionably for good reason suspected of having betrayed to the General Staff of Italy the fortifications of Switzerland at St. Gotthard. When his residence was searched it was brought to light that Herr von Ehrenberg worked also in the employ of the Prussian police. He gave regularly written reports of conversations which he claimed to have had with our comrades, including me. Only in those alleged conversations the characters were reversed. We were represented as advocating the most reckless criminal plans, which in reality he himself suggested and defended, while he pictured himself in those reports as opposing the plans.... What would have happened if some day those reports had fallen into the hands of certain persons—and that was undoubtedly the purpose—and, if accused, we had no witnesses to prove the spy committed perfidy? Thus, for instance, he attempted to convince me—but in his records claimed that it was I who proposed it—that it would be but child's play to find out the residences of the higher military officers in all the greater cities of Germany, then, in one night, send out our best men and have all those officers murdered simultaneously. In four articles published in the 'Arbeiterstimme,' of Zurich, he explained in a truly classical manner how to conduct a modern street battle, what to do to get the best of artillery and cavalry. At meetings he urged the collection of funds to buy arms for our people. As soon as war broke out with France our comrades from Switzerland, according to him, should break into Baden and Wuerttemberg, should there tear up the tracks and confiscate the contents of the postal and railroad treasuries. And this man, who urged me to do all that, was, as I said, in the employ of the Prussian police.

"Another police preacher and organizer of violent plots was that well-known Friedeman who was driven out of Berlin, and, at the gatherings of comrades in Zurich, appealed to them, in prose and poetry, to commit acts of violence. A certain Weiss, a journeyman tinsmith, was arrested in the vicinity of Basel for having put up posters in which the deeds of Kammerer and Stellmacher were glorified. He, too, was in the employ of the German police, as was afterward established during the court proceedings.