Comrade Kropotkin Part 8

[49] Without venturing my own opinion, I must say that in this work Kropotkin enunciates a theory which few radicals accept--the Decentralisation of Industries. Briefly stated, the doctrine is this: It is untrue that certain nations are specialised either for industry or for agriculture. Countries which economists have declared to be merely agricultural lands, have recently advanced so rapidly in industries that the supremacy of the champions is seriously threatened. No one or two nations can again secure a monopoly of industry, for the tendency of modern civilization is towards a spreading and scattering of industries all over the earth. Not a mere shifting of the center of gravity from one country to another, as formerly happened in Europe when the commercial hegemony migrated from Italy to Spain, then to Holland, and finally to Britain, but an actual and permanent decentralisation of industry, by its very nature making it impossible for any nation to gain industrial ascendancy. Even the most backward nations will soon manufacture almost everything they need. There is much advantage in this combination of industrial with agricultural pursuits. It is well to have production for home use--each region producing and consuming its own manufactured goods and its own agricultural product.----Of course the Socialists are diametrically opposed to this contention, and they answer it with one word--the trusts.--When I spoke with Leonard D. Abbott about Kropotkin, he told me his high opinion of him, but soon referred to this hypothesis, and laughed. It was the same when I mentioned the point to Dr. Antoinette Konikov, etc. See Abbott's "A Visit to Prince Kropotkin,"

(Twentieth Century, October 2, 1897).

[50] My friend Elmer Littlefield has demonstrated the same thing on his acre on Fellowship Farm, Westwood, Ma.s.s. His magazine, Ariel, is an enthusiastic advocate of intensive agriculture.

[51] Bolton Hall's "Three Acres and Liberty" is based to a great extent on this work of Kropotkin's.

[52] After finishing the "Memoirs," my friend, Miss Margaret Scott wrote me: "As a system of ethical training it might be advisable to have our police lieutenants read one chapter a day of Kropotkin, while lawyers, mayors and such, should have to get thru three. Think of the mental upheaval!"

[53] Spargo the Socialist--always a vehement foe of the Anarchists--calls this "a wonderful book." See his "The Socialists."

[54] This book is not permitted in Russia--when Kellogg Durland traveled there, he had to rip off the cover and wrap the pages around his body.

[55] Several intelligent Russians tell me Nadson is their favorite poet; therefore this must be considered a serious omission. One exclaimed, "What, he writes about Fet and not Nadson!"

[56] On this subject see "Russia and the Russians," by Edmund n.o.ble.

[57] "The history of Russian Literature is a martyrology." See "Russian Traits and Terrors," by E. B. Lanin, the collective signature of several writers in the Fortnightly Review. The Twentieth Century (June 26, 1897) ends its review of this volume with this sentence: "Concerning Russian prisons the book makes revelations so sickening that language is polluted by the recital of them. Swinburne's fierce ode is mild in its characterization of their brutal infamy, and it is possible, after reading these pages to agree with Ernest Belfort Bax's a.s.sertion that any sane man, knowing the facts, who p.r.o.nounces it wrong to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Czar, deliberately lies."--Swinburne's poem, "Russia: An Ode," altho it contains a few weak lines, is certainly one of the most fiery outbursts in the language, and is clearly the work of a master. Here is a representative pa.s.sage:

"h.e.l.l recoils heart-stricken: horror worse than h.e.l.l Darkens earth and sickens heaven; life knows the spell, Shudders, quails, and sinks--or, filled with fierier breath, Rises red in arms devised of darkling death.

Pity mad with pa.s.sion, anguish mad with shame, Call aloud on justice by her darker name; Love grows hate for love's sake; life takes death for guide.

Night hath none but one red star--Tyrannicide."

[58] Imagine the United States of America if Franklin had been murdered, if Irving had been knouted, if Bryant had been exiled, if Emerson had been imprisoned, if Longfellow had been starved, if Whittier had been hanged, if Holmes had been flogged, if Th.o.r.eau had been shot, if Whitman had been poisoned, if Hawthorne had been chained with iron, if Lowell had been kept in a secret dungeon, if Motley had spent his life in a mine, if Parkman had been tortured, etc., etc., etc.

[59] See "Russian Novelists" by Viscount Vogue. But the statements of this virulent French reactionary must be received with extreme caution as his perverted brains frequently prevent him from stating the truth.

For example, in speaking of Turgenev, he says, "But, tho always ready to help others, he certainly never gave his aid to any political intriguer.

Was it natural that a man of his refinement and high culture should have aided the schemes of wild and fruitless political conspiracies?" By 'political intriguer' he means an 'enemy to the empire, a revolutionist.

Now the facts are that no one was of greater use to Herzen the arch-revolutionist and his thundering Kolokol, than Turgenev. Herzen was in England and often it was impossible to explain how he knew some of the events which he described. It was Turgenev who furnished him this information. All this is revealed by the published correspondence of Herzen and Turgenev. Turgenev was fully and entirely in sympathy with the Russian Revolution. He earnestly desired to meet Ippolit Mishkin, and begged Kropotkin to tell him all he knew about this defiant revolutionary orator. Turgenev deeply loved his own Bazaroff, and in explaining him says, "If the reader is not won by Bazaroff, notwithstanding his roughness, absence of heart, pitiless dryness and terseness, then the fault is with me--I have missed my aim; but to sweeten him with syrup (to use Bazaroff's own language), this I did not want to do, altho perhaps thru that I would have won Russian youth at once to my side.... When he calls himself nihilist, you must read revolutionist."

[60] This does not include obsequious authors like Derzhavin and Karamzin. Masters are usually willing to fling a few crumbs to their fawning dogs.

IN LATER LIFE

There are at this moment only two great Russians who think for the Russian people, and whose thoughts belong to mankind,--Leo Tolstoy and Peter Kropotkin.--GEORG BRANDES

A storm careered madly over the Northern Sea, its impatient waves heaving and howling, leaping with a burning frenzy, the fuming raging billows surging and swelling, calling and crying, roaring louder and louder, vaulting higher and higher.

The steamer shook and swayed and struggled; the frightened pa.s.sengers sought shelter in their state-rooms, but one of them sat for hours upon the stem of the deck, enjoying the tempest intensely, putting out his face so it could be watered by the foam of the dashing waves. This was Kropotkin. After the years he had spent in the charnel cell, no wonder every fibre in his body was trembling and throbbing to meet the force and pa.s.sion of the sea-storm.

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 t.i.tle, "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 a.s.sa.s.sinated. 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.

This peace-loving man whose name is synonym for kindness, this tender soul as modest as Newton, as gentle as Darwin, has been hunted from frontier to border-line. Against none of his persecutors does he utter a single invective. He is the epitome of mildness, the incarnation of humaneness.[63]

Ask anyone who has seen Kropotkin for an hour or has known him for a generation, to describe his most characteristic trait, and the invariable answer will be: simplicity. His is a great spirit--it has cast out flam. "Kropotkin is one of the most sincere and frank of men,"

says Stepniak. "He always says the truth, pure and simple, without any regard for the _amour propre_ of his hearers, or for any consideration whatever. This is the most striking and sympathetic feature of his character. Every word he says may be absolutely believed. His sincerity is such, that sometimes in the ardour of discussion an entirely fresh consideration unexpectedly presents itself to his mind, and sets him thinking. He immediately stops, remains quite absorbed for a moment, and then begins to think aloud, speaking as tho he were an opponent. At other times he carries on this discussion mentally, and after some moments of silence, turning to his astonished adversary, smilingly says, 'You are right.' This absolute sincerity renders him the best of friends, and gives especial weight to his praise and blame."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COSSACKS

Indulging in a favorite Russian pastime.]

Most of Kropotkin's Russian revolutionary comrades--using the term Comrade in its broad sense--ended their days in misery. Kroutikoff strangled himself with a piece of linen; Stransky poisoned himself; Zapolsky cut his throat with a pair of scissors; Leontovitch and Bogomoloff hacked theirs with a bit of gla.s.s; Zhutin died in chains bound to the wall; Kolenkin perished from wounds torn open by fetters; Rodin poisoned himself with matches; Nathalie Armfeldt died of prison consumption; Beverly was wounded with bullets and murdered with bayonet-thrusts; Ivan Cherniavsky and wife and child were transported to Irkutsk, the temperature was thirty degrees below zero, and the baby died, while the mother went mad, howled, laughed, prayed, cursed, rocked the dead infant in her arms and sang nursery songs;[64]

Semyonovsky shot himself; Uspensky hanged himself; Martinova was dragged to the police station on the very day that she expected to become a mother; Gratchevsky threw kerosene from his lamp over himself, set it on fire and died shrieking--but at least he escaped from Schlusselburg; Edelson was marched to the Arctic zone even after he had become insane; Mukhanov was killed with a volley of b.a.l.l.s; Sergius Pik was struck in the head, his jaw was smashed by the gendarmes' guns, a ghastly hole was made above his eye, his blood and brains oozed and fell on his chest;[65] Sophia Gurevitch was ripped open with bayonets; Sherstnova was shot to death for signaling with a hand-mirror; the young wife of Felix Volkhovsky shot herself thru the head; the wonderful Kuprianov died in prison at the age of nineteen; Shtchedrin was chained to the barrow, became insane and so perished; Nadyeshda Sigida was flogged to death;[66] Marie Vetrova was raped and murdered;[67] Jessy Helfman was tortured indescribably; Bobohov swallowed a handful of opium; Ossinsky's hair turned white in five minutes; Maria Kovalevskaya--cover thy face, freedom--suffered, took poison and died in the prison infirmary; Yakimova stayed up nights in the Trubetzkoi Ravelin to prevent the rats from devouring her baby; Olga Lubatovitch was stripped naked by men and beaten; Malyovany died in exile; the student Schmidt was murdered in his cell by his jailers; Spiridonova was violated by a cossack officer and by a police chief; the high-minded Plotnikoff ended his days in an asylum; Bogulubov became a raving lunatic; Serdukov was so broken that he shot himself after his release; the poet Polivanoff also committed suicide thus--(Ah, those twenty long years in Schlusselburg!); the n.o.ble Balmaschoff was hanged; the beautiful Zinaida too; Isaiev, Okladsky, Zubkovsky went mad; Kviotkovsky, Presniakoff, Soukanoff died in Skipper Peter's Prison; Buzinsky, Gellis, Ignatius Ivanoff succ.u.mbed in the Key-Town Fortress; to Federoff was reserved a fate worse than death, worse than torture, worse than madness, for it was his destiny to become a dupe of the Black Hundreds and unwittingly slay Georg Iollos--lover of liberty;[68] Ludmila Volkenstein,--but why continue an unhappy list which has neither beginning nor end? I could fill a library with such cases.

Such individual torments fell not to the lot of Peter Kropotkin.

Personally he has been favored by fortune. He has touched existence on every side and lived every life. The wisdom of the world is in his brain, and within his heart is lodged all its goodness. His experience has been unusually wide. He has been on intimate terms with czar and serf, he has met millionaire and mendicant, he has hobn.o.bbed with prince and pauper. He has lectured to aristocratic audiences who gazed calmly at him thru gilded lorgnettes and foppish monocles, and to empty-stomached workmen who cried loudly, "Pierre! Pierre! Notre Pierre!"[69]

The finest men of all nations have honored him. When a prisoner at Clairvaux, a pet.i.tion for his release was signed by such geniuses as Herbert Spencer, Victor Hugo and Algernon Swinburne. When he required books, Ernest Renan put his library at his service. While at Paris, Turgenev--who won immortality by a single word--wished to be introduced to him and celebrate his escape by a little banquet. When Catherine Breshkovskaya journeyed for the first time to Petersburg, Kropotkin was on the same train; they discussed problems, and this extraordinary woman says his words thrilled like fire.[70] Elie Reclus was his brother.

Elisee published his writings and asked him to contribute to his Geography--the greatest in existence. Jean Grave is his disciple. Ernest Crosby loved him. Georg Brandes praises him lavishly. Zola paid his work a high compliment. Elizabeth Cady Stanton spent an interesting day at his home. J. Scott Keltie, the eminent authority on African history, is one of his warmest friends. Bates, the Naturalist on the Amazons whom Darwin mentions so often, appreciated his scientific ability. Enrico Ferri closely studied his works. The learned Lavrov was his comrade.

Denjiro Kotoku, the j.a.panese essayist who founded the radical _Heiminshimbun_, considers him one of the greatest humanitarians of the nineteenth century.[71] At the home of Edward Clodd he argued with Grant Allen. When at East Aurora, I saw only one picture over the desk of Elbert Hubbard, and that was Kropotkin. Those who have read _De Profundis_ will recall in what high pure words Oscar Wilde speaks of him. Tolstoy calls him a learned man.[72] The authors of _Russian Traits and Terrors_ speak of him as "one whose scientific accuracy and objectivity is beyond praise." James Knowles so respected him that he allowed him to write anarchistic articles for his high-toned _Nineteenth Century_. Laurence Gronlound gives him as a type of the ideal anarchist.

In the soul of every libertarian swings a fragrant censer which offers up olibanum to the stainless character of the great revolutionist. Put those who love Kropotkin on one side, and those who don't on the other, and you will have separated the heralds of the morning from the spooks of the night. It is no more necessary to be an anarchist-communist to have a warm spot in your heart for Peter Kropotkin, than it is necessary to believe in Adam and Eve to enjoy Milton's _Paradise Lost_.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] Kropotkin is still able to cross London Bridge, but his comrade is missing. For many years Chaykovsky kept away from Russia. During a whole generation the man who taught Perovskaya was a wanderer in other lands.

Some months ago he went back--he could control his yearning no longer.

He is now in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. The Father of the Revolution will sleep among his children.

P. S. As this book goes to press, the happy news comes that Chaykovsky has been liberated on a heavy bail, but it is not yet known what the government intends to do with him.

[62] Some types are depicted in Gorky's latest work, "The Spy,"

translated by Thomas Seltzer. Because of its subject-matter this book acts as an emetic.

[63] remember hearing James F. Morton, A. M.--author of the excellent essay "The Curse of Race Prejudice"--speak to Elbert Hubbard about Catherine Breshkovskaya whom he had seen at the Sunrise Club, and in wishing to ill.u.s.trate her gentleness and lack of resentment for those who ill-treated her, he called her "a female Kropotkin."