He landed safely in the country where Herzen founded The Bell, where Lavrov edited Forward, where Felix Volkhovsky was to conduct Free Russia, and where he himself was to start Freedom.
For over thirty years he has remained abroad. He never returned to Russia. He is one of the few revolutionists who never went back to that sunken swamp where liberty's wrapped in her winding-sheets, while tyranny's robed in ermine. There are two reasons for this. In the first place he became interested in a new-born idea—Anarchism—and felt he could be more useful as an apostle of this movement than as a rebel in Trepovdom. As is well-known, his lectures and writings on the subject have earned him the title, "Father of Anarchist-Communism." Secondly, when the Nihilists were changed (by purple butchers) into Terrorists, they dropped their propaganda of pamphlets to study the properties of petroleum, and thus were forced to neglect the varletry. However, Kropotkin's sympathies drew him more and more towards those human machines who toil so hard for their bread that if you cut their pennies open, the blood would gush from them.
About a year after his escape, Kropotkin attended an important labor congress in Belgium (1877). A few days later the police received an order to arrest him. At this time the theologians were in power, and the Belgian comrades knowing a clerical ministry would be only too willing to turn him over to the blood-sucking czar, insisted upon his leaving the country. On returning to his hotel, he found his good friend James Guillaume—small physically, big in all other respects—barring the way to his room, and sternly announcing that Kropotkin could enter only by using force against him.
The next morning the ejected delegate sailed for London, but soon went to Paris where he helped to form radical groups. Again he was wanted by the police, but by mistake they arrested a Russian student (1878). Later he left for Switzerland where he founded an anarchistic paper, Le Revolte (1879).
Two years later Alexander II. was assassinated. The government hanged the revolutionists at home, but pretended the exiles abroad were responsible for the deed. The Holy League was formed to execute the refugees. An officer who knew Kropotkin when he was a page de chambre, was appointed to kill him. A woman was sent from Petersburg to Geneva to lead the conspiracy. Kropotkin took matters coolly, collected a pile of threatening letters—of which the police later relieved him—and nothing happened except that Helvetia was told if it did not expel the agitator, then Alexander III., the Lord's Anointed, would drive out from Russia all the Swiss governesses and ladies' maids, while the czarina would refuse to eat Swiss cheese. This was more than the little republic could stand, and Kropotkin was told to go. He says he did not take umbrage at this.
He went once more to London, where he met his old comrade Chaykovsky, and together they began to preach their gospel of freedom. Always to work for the liberation of humanity—that isn't such a bad idea, is it?[61]
At this time there was no movement in the Island which had imbibed the narcotic of reaction and lay in a wakeless torpor, and Kropotkin and his devoted wife felt so lonely among the napping Britons that they decided to cross the channel. "Better a prison in France than this grave," they said. They were followed by an army of informers, freely furnished by the loving Russian Government which cannot bear to see its children travel without suitable protection. Not to be outdone in courtesy, the French police soon escorted him to the official lodging-house.
Kropotkin was incarcerated in the central prison of Clairvaux where had been confined old Blanqui—the communard at whose burial Louise Michel spoke words which will have no funeral. Kropotkin was well-treated, the officials were polite, and he was permitted to give his fellow-prisoners instruction in physics, languages, geometry and cosmography. Unfortunately, Clairvaux is built on marshy ground, and Kropotkin fell sick from malaria. His wife who was studying in Paris, preparing for the degree of Doctor of Science, hastened from Wurtz's laboratory to the prison-town. She remained there until her iconoclast was released. This event occurred after three years' imprisonment. He then went to the capital, lectured to an audience of several thousand, and left France immediately to avoid a forcible expulsion.
Such are some of the scenes in the life of Peter Kropotkin—imprisoned by governments, pursued by police, followed by spies,[62] hounded by agents of autocracy.
