Anarchism and Socialism Part 7

"Anarchy, the No-government system of Socialism, has a double origin. It is an outgrowth of the two great movements of thought in the economical and the political fields which characterise our century, and especially its second part. In common with all Socialists, the Anarchists hold that the private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time; that it is condemned to disappear; and that all requisites of production must, and will, become the common property of society, and be managed in common by the producers of wealth. And, in common with the most advanced representatives of political Radicalism, they maintain that the ideal of the political organisation of society is a condition of things where the functions of government are reduced to a minimum, and the individual recovers his full liberty of initiative and action for satisfying, by means of free groups and federations--freely const.i.tuted--all the infinitely varied needs of the human being. As regards Socialism, most of the Anarchists arrive at its ultimate conclusion, that is, at a complete negation of the wage-system, and at Communism. And with reference to political organisation, by giving a farther development to the above-mentioned part of the Radical programme, they arrive at the conclusion that the ultimate aim of society is the reduction of the functions of governments to _nil_--that is, to a society without government, to Anarchy. The Anarchists maintain, moreover, that such being the ideal of social and political organisation they must not remit it to future centuries, but that only those changes in our social organisation which are in accordance with the above double ideal, and const.i.tute an approach to it, will have a chance of life and be beneficial for the commonwealth."[62]

Kropotkine here reveals to us, with admirable clearness, the origin and nature of his "Ideal." This Ideal, like that of Bakounine, is truly "double;" it is really born of the connection between bourgeois Radicalism, or rather that of the Manchester school, and Communism; just as Jesus was born in connection between the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary. The two natures of the Anarchist ideal are as difficult to reconcile as the two natures of the Son of G.o.d. But one of these natures evidently gets the better of the other. The Anarchists "want" to begin by immediately realising what Kropotkine calls "the ultimate aim of society," that is to say, by destroying the "State." Their starting point is always the unlimited liberty of the individual. Manchesterism before everything. Communism only comes in afterwards.[63] But in order to rea.s.sure us as to the probable fate of this second nature of their Ideal, the Anarchists are constantly singing the praises of the wisdom, the goodness, the forethought of the man of the "future." He will be so perfect that he will no doubt be able to organise Communist production.

He will be so perfect that one asks oneself, while admiring him, why he cannot be trusted with a little "authority."

FOOTNOTES:

[47] The few Individualists we come across are only strong in their criticism of the State and of the law. As to their constructive ideal, a few preach an idyll that they themselves would never care to practise, while others, like the editor of _Liberty_, Boston, fall back upon an actual bourgeois system. In order to defend their Individualism they reconstruct the State with all its attributes (law, police, and the rest) after having so courageously denied them. Others, finally, like Auberon Herbert, are stranded in a "Liberty and Property Defence League"--a League for the defence of landed property. _La Revolte_, No.

38, 1893, "A lecture on Anarchism."

[48] "Anarchist-Communism; its Basis and Principles," by Peter Kropotkine, republished by permission of the Editor of the _Nineteenth Century_. February and August, 1887, London.

[49] _l.c._, pp. 1-2.

[50] "La Conquete du Pain." Paris, 1892. pp. 77-78.

[51] Ibid., p. 111.

[52] As, however, Kropotkine was in London at the time of the great Dock Strike, and therefore had an opportunity of learning how the food supply was managed for the strikers, it is worth pointing out that this was managed quite differently from the method suggested above. An organised Committee, consisting of Trade Unionists helped by State Socialists (Champion) and Social-Democrats (John Burns, Tom Mann, Eleanor Marx Aveling, etc.) made _contracts_ with shopkeepers, and distributed stamped tickets, for which could be obtained certain articles of food.

The food supplied was paid for with the money that had been raised by subscriptions, and to these subscriptions the _bourgeois_ public, encouraged by the _bourgeois_ press, had very largely contributed.

Direct distributions of food to strikers, and those thrown out of work through the strike, were made by the Salvation Army, an essentially centralised, bureaucratically organised body, and other philanthropic societies. All this has very little to do with the procuring and distributing of the food supply, "the day after the revolution;" with the organising of the "service for supplying food." The food was there, and it was only a question of buying and dividing it as a means of support. The "People," _i.e._, the strikers, by no means helped themselves in this respect; they were helped by others.

[53] "La Conquete du Pain," pp. 128-129.

[54] Ibid., pp. 201-202.

[55] Ibid., p. 202.

[56] "_L'Anarchie dans l'Evolution socialiste._" Lecture at the Salle Levis, Paris, 1888, pp. 20-21.

[57] Ibid., p. 19.

[58] Kropotkine speaks of the Suez Ca.n.a.l! Why not the Panama Ca.n.a.l?

[59] "La Societe au lendemain de la Revolution." J. Grave, 1889, Paris, pp. 61-62.

[60] Ibid., p. 47.

[61] Ibid., p. 99.

[62] Anarchist Communism, p. 3.

[63] "L'Anarchia e il funzionamento armonico di tutte le autonomie, risolventesi nella eguaglianza totale delle condizioni umane."

L'Anarchia nella scienza e nelle evoluzione. (Traduzione dello Spagnuolo) Piato, Toscana, 1892, p. 26. "Anarchy is the harmonious functioning of all autonomy resolved in the complete equalisation of all human conditions." "Anarchy in Science and Evolution."--Italian, translated from the Spanish.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SO-CALLED ANARCHIST TACTICS. THEIR MORALITY

The Anarchists are Utopians. Their point of view has nothing in common with that of modern scientific Socialism. But there are Utopias and Utopias. The great Utopians of the first half of our century were men of genius; they helped forward social science, which in their time was still entirely Utopian. The Utopians of to-day, the Anarchists, are the abstracters of quintessence, who can only fully draw forth some poor conclusions from certain mummified principles. They have nothing to do with social science, which, in its onward march, has distanced them by at least half a century. Their "profound thinkers," their "lofty theorists," do not even succeed in making the two ends of their reasoning meet. They are the decadent Utopians, stricken with incurable intellectual anaemia. The great Utopians did much for the development of the working cla.s.s movement. The Utopians of our days do nothing but r.e.t.a.r.d its progress. And it is especially their so-called tactics that are harmful to the proletariat.

We already know that Bakounine interpreted the Rules of the International in the sense that the working cla.s.s must give up all political action, and concentrate its efforts upon the domain of the "immediately economic" struggle for higher wages, a reduction of the hours of labour, and so forth. Bakounine himself felt that such tactics were not very revolutionary. He tried to complete them through the action of his "Alliance;" he preached riots.[64] But the more the cla.s.s consciousness of the proletariat develops, the more it inclines towards political action, and gives up the "riots," so common during its infancy. It is more difficult to induce the working men of Western Europe, who have attained a certain degree of political development, to riot, than, for example, the credulous and ignorant Russian peasants. As the proletariat has shown no taste for the tactics of "riot," the companions have been forced to replace it by "individual action." It was especially after the attempted insurrection at Benevento in Italy in 1877 that the Bakounists began to glorify the "propaganda of deed." But if we glance back at the period that separates us from the attempt of Benevento, we shall see that this propaganda too a.s.sumed a special form: very few "riots," and these quite insignificant, a great many personal attempts against public edifices, against individuals, and even against property--"individually hereditary," of course. It could not be otherwise.

"We have already seen numerous revolts by people who wished to obtain urgent reforms," says Louise Michel, in an interview with a correspondent of the _Matin_, on the occasion of the Vaillant attempt.

"What was the result? The people were shot down. Well, we think the people has been sufficiently bled; it is better large-hearted people should sacrifice themselves, and, at their own risk, commit acts of violence whose object is to terrorise the Government and the bourgeois."[65]

This is exactly what we have said--only in slightly different words.

Louise Michel has forgotten to say that revolts, causing the bloodshed of the people, figured at the head of the Anarchists' programme, until the Anarchists became convinced, not that these partial risings in no way serve the cause of the workers, but that the workers, for the most part, will not have anything to do with these risings.

Error has its logic as well as truth. Once you reject the political action of the working-cla.s.s, you are fatally driven--provided you do not wish to serve the bourgeois politicians--to accept the tactics of the Vaillants and the Henrys. The so-called "Independent" (Unabhangige) members of the German Socialist Party have proved this in their own persons. They began by attacking "Parliamentarism," and to the "reformist" tactics of the "old" members they opposed--on paper, of course--the "revolutionary struggle," the purely "economic" struggle.

But this struggle, developing naturally, must inevitably bring about the entry of the proletariat into the arena of political struggles. Not wishing to come back to the very starting-point of their negation, the "Independents," for a time, preached what they called "political demonstrations," a new kind of old Bakounist riots. As riots, by whatever name they are called, always come too late for the fiery "revolutionists," there was only left to the Independents to "march forward," to become converts to Anarchy, and to propagate--in words--the propaganda of deed. The language of the "young" Landauers and Co. is already as "revolutionary" as that of the "oldest" Anarchists.

"Reason and knowledge only thou despise The highest strength in man that lies!

Let but the lying spirit bind thee, With magic works and shows that blind thee, And I shall have thee fast and sure."

As to the "magic work and shows," they are innumerable in the arguments of the Anarchists against the political activity of the proletariat.

Here hate becomes veritable witchcraft. Thus Kropotkine turns their own arm--the materialist conception of history--against the Social-Democrats. "To each new economical phase of life corresponds a new political phase," he a.s.sures us. "Absolute monarchy--that is Court-rule--corresponded to the system of serfdom. Representative government corresponds to capital-rule. Both, however, are cla.s.s-rule.

But in a society where the distinction between capitalist and labourer has disappeared, there is no need of such a government; it would be an anachronism, a nuisance."[66] If Social-Democrats were to tell him they know this at least as well as he does, Kropotkine would reply that possibly they do, but that then they will not draw a logical conclusion from these premises. He, Kropotkine, is your real logician. Since the political const.i.tution of every country is determined by its economic condition, he argues, the political action of Socialists is absolute nonsense. "To seek to attain Socialism or even (!) an agrarian revolution by means of a political revolution, is the merest Utopia, because the whole of history shows us that political changes flow from the great economic revolutions, and not _vice versa_."[67] Could the best geometrician in the world ever produce anything more exact than this demonstration? Basing his argument upon this impregnable foundation, Kropotkine advises the Russian revolutionists to give up their political struggle against Tzarism. They must follow an "immediately economic" end. "The emanc.i.p.ation of the Russian peasants from the yoke of serfdom that has until now weighed upon them, is therefore the first task of the Russian revolutionist. In working along these lines he directly and immediately works for the good of the people ... and he moreover prepares for the weakening of the centralised power of the State and for its limitation."[68]

Thus the emanc.i.p.ation of the peasants will have prepared the way for the weakening of Russian Tzarism. But how to emanc.i.p.ate the peasants before overthrowing Tzarism? Absolute mystery! Such an emanc.i.p.ation would be a veritable "witchcraft." Old Liscow was right when he said, "It is easier and more natural to write with the fingers than with the head."

However this may be, the whole political action of the working-cla.s.s must be summed up in these few words: "No politics! Long live the purely economic struggle!" This is Bakounism, but perfected Bakounism.

Bakounine himself urged the workers to fight for a reduction of the hours of labour, and higher wages. The Anarchist-Communists of our day seek to "make the workers understand that they have nothing to gain from such child's play as this, and that society can only be transformed by destroying the inst.i.tutions which govern it."[69] The raising of wages is also useless. "North America and South America, are they not there to prove to us that whenever the worker has succeeded in getting higher wages, the prices of articles of consumption have increased proportionately, and that where he has succeeded in getting 20 francs a day for his wages, he needs 25 to be able to live according to the standard of the better cla.s.s workman, so that he is always below the average?"[70] The reduction of the hours of labour is at any rate superfluous since capital will always make it up by a "systematic intensification of labour by means of improved machinery. Marx himself has demonstrated this as clearly as possible."[71]

We know, thanks to Kropotkine, that the Anarchist ideal has a double origin. And all the Anarchist "demonstrations" also have a double origin. On the one hand they are drawn from the vulgar hand books of political economy, written by the most vulgar of bourgeois economists, _e.g._, Grave's dissertation upon wages, which Bastiat would have applauded enthusiastically. On the other hand, the "companions,"

remembering the somewhat "Communist" origin of their ideal, turn to Marx and quote, without understanding, him. Even Bakounine has been "sophisticated" by Marxism. The latter-day Anarchists, with Kropotkine at their head, have been even more sophisticated.

The ignorance of Grave, "the profound thinker," is very remarkable in general, but it exceeds the bounds of all probability in matters of political economy. Here it is, only equalled by that of the learned geologist Kropotkine, who makes the most monstrous statements whenever he touches upon an economic question. We regret that s.p.a.ce will not allow us to amuse the reader with some samples of Anarchist economics.

They must content themselves with what Kropotkine has taught them about Marx's "surplus-value."

All this would be very ridiculous, if it were not too sad, as the Russian poet Lermontoff says. And it is sad indeed. Whenever the proletariat makes an attempt to somewhat ameliorate its economic position, "large-hearted people," vowing they love the proletariat most tenderly, rush in from all points of the compa.s.s, and depending on their halting syllogisms, put spokes into the wheel of the movement, do their utmost to prove that the movement is useless. We have had an example of this with regard to the eight hours day, which the Anarchists combated, whenever they could, with a zeal worthy of a better cause. When the proletariat takes no notice of this, and pursues its "immediately economic" aims undisturbed--as it has the fortunate habit of doing--the same "large-hearted people" re-appear upon the scene armed with bombs, and provide the government with the desired and sought for pretext for attacking the proletariat. We have seen this at Paris on May 1, 1890; we have seen it often during strikes. Fine fellows these "large-hearted men!" And to think that among the workers themselves there are men simple enough to consider as their friends, these personages who are, in reality, the most dangerous enemies of their cause!

An Anarchist will have nothing to do with "parliamentarism," since it only lulls the proletariat to sleep. He will none of "reforms," since reforms are but so many compromises with the possessing cla.s.ses. He wants the revolution, a "full, complete, immediate, and immediately economic" revolution. To attain this end he arms himself with a saucepan full of explosive materials, and throws it amongst the public in a theatre or a cafe. He declares this is the "revolution." For our own part it seems to us nothing but "immediate" madness.

It goes without saying that the bourgeois governments, whilst inveighing against the authors of these attempts, cannot but congratulate themselves upon these tactics. "Society is in danger!" _Caveant consules!_ And the police "consuls" become active, and public opinion applauds all the reactionary measures resorted to by ministers in order to "save society." "The terrorist saviours of society in uniform, to gain the respect of the Philistine ma.s.ses must appear with the halo of true sons of 'holy order,' the daughter of Heaven rich in blessings, and to this halo the school-boy attempts of these Terrorists help them. Such a silly fool, lost in his fantastical imaginings, does not even see that he is only a puppet, whose strings are pulled by a cleverer one in the Terrorist wings; he does not see that the fear and terror he causes only serve to so deaden all the senses of the Philistine crowd, that it shouts approval of every ma.s.sacre that clears the road for reaction."[72]

Napoleon III. already indulged from time to time in an "outrage" in order once again to save society menaced by the enemies of order. The foul admissions of Andrieux,[73] the acts and deeds of the German and Austrian _agents provocateurs_, the recent revelations as to the attempt against the Madrid Parliament, etc., prove abundantly that the present Governments profit enormously by the tactics of the "companions," and that the work of the Terrorists in uniform would be much more difficult if the Anarchists were not so eager to help in it.

Thus it is that spies of the vilest kind, like Joseph Peukert, for long years figured as shining lights of Anarchism, translating into German the works of foreign Anarchists; thus it is that the French bourgeois and priests directly subvention the "companions," and that the law-and-order ministry does everything in its power to throw a veil over these shady machinations. And so, too, in the name of the "immediate revolution," the Anarchists become the precious pillars of bourgeois society, inasmuch as they furnish the _raison d'etre_ for the most immediately reactionary policy.

Thus the reactionary and Conservative press has always shown a hardly disguised sympathy for the Anarchists, and has regretted that the Socialists, conscious of their end and aim, will have nothing to do with them. "They drive them away like poor dogs," pitifully exclaims the Paris _Figaro, a propos_ of the expulsion of the Anarchists from the Zurich Congress.[74]

An Anarchist is a man who--when he is not a police agent--is fated always and everywhere to attain the opposite of that which he attempts to achieve.