Violence and the Labor Movement Part 2

France and Spain, having now failed to launch the universal revolution, Bakounin's hopes turned to Italy, where a series of artificial uprisings among the almost famished peasants was being stirred up by his followers. Their greatest activity was during the first two weeks in August of the next year, 1874, and the three main centers were Bologna, Romagna, and Apulia. In spite of the fact that the followers of Mazzini were opposed to the International, an attempt was made in the summer of 1874 by some Italian socialists (Celso Cerretti among others), to effect a union in order that by common action they might work more advantageously against the monarchy. Garibaldi, to whom these socialists appealed, at first disapproved of any reconciliation with Bakounin and his friends, but later allowed himself to be persuaded. A meeting of the Mazzinian leaders to discuss the matter convened August 2 at the village of Ruffi. The older members were opposed to all common action, while the younger elements desired it. However, before an agreement was reached, twenty-eight Mazzinians were arrested, among them Saffi, Fortis, and Valzania. Three days later, the police succeeded in arresting Andrea Costa, for whom they had been searching for more than a year on account of his partic.i.p.ation in the International congress at Geneva. Although these events were something of a setback, the revolutionists decided that they had gone too far to retreat. It was then that Bakounin wrote: "And now, my friends, there remains nothing more for me but to die.

Farewell!"[23] On the way to Italy he wrote to his friend, Guillaume, saying good-by to him and announcing, without explanation, that he was journeying to Italy to take part in a struggle from which he would not return alive. On his arrival in that country, however, he carefully concealed himself in a small house where only the revolutionary "intimates" could see him.

The nights of August 7 and 8 had been chosen for the insurrection which was to burst forth in Bologna and thence to extend, first to Romagna, and afterward to the Marches and Tuscany. A group of Bologna insurgents, reinforced by about three thousand others from Romagna, were to enter Bologna by the San Felice gate. Another group would enter the a.r.s.enal, the doors of which would be opened by two non-commissioned officers, and take possession of the arms and ammunition, carrying them to the Church of Santa Annunziata, where all the guns should be stored. At certain places in the city material was already gathered with which to improvise barricades. One hundred republicans had promised to take part in the movement, not as a group, but individually. On the 7th copies of the proclamation of the Italian Committee for the Social Revolution were distributed throughout the city, calling the ma.s.ses to arms and urging the soldiers to make common cause with the people. During the nights of the 7th and 8th, groups from Bologna a.s.sembled at the appointed places of meeting outside the walls, but the Romagna comrades did not come, or at least came in very small numbers. Those from Imola were surrounded in their march, some being arrested and others being forced to retreat. At dawn the insurgents who had gathered under the walls of Bologna dispersed, some taking refuge in the mountains. Bakounin had been alone during the night, and became convinced that the insurrection had failed.

He was trying to make up his mind to commit suicide, when his friend, Silvio, arrived and told him that all was not lost and that perhaps other attempts might yet be made. The following day Bakounin was removed to another retreat of greater safety, as numerous arrests had been made at Bologna, Imola, Romagna, the Marches, as well as in Florence, Rome, and other parts of Italy.

About the same time a conspiracy similar to that undertaken at Bologna was launched by Enrico Malatesta and some friends in Apulia. A heavy chest of guns had been dispatched from Tarentum to a station in the province of Bari, from which it was carried on a cart to the old chateau of _Castel del Monte_, which had been chosen as the rendezvous.

"Many hundreds of conspirators," Malatesta recounts, "had promised to meet at _Castel del Monte_. I arrived, but of all those who had sworn to be there we found ourselves six. No matter. We opened the box of arms and found it was filled with old percussion guns, but that made no difference. We armed ourselves and declared war on the Italian army. We roamed the country for some days, trying to gain over the peasants, but meeting with no response. The second day we met eight _carabinieri_, who opened fire on us and imagined that we were very numerous. Three days later we discovered that we were surrounded by soldiers. There remained only one thing to do. We buried the guns and decided to disperse. I hid myself in a load of hay, and thus succeeded in escaping from the dangerous region."[24] An attempt at insurrection also took place in Romagna, but it appears to have been limited to cutting the telegraph wires between Bologna and Imola.

Back of all the Italian riots lay a serious economic condition. The peasants were in very deep distress, and it was not difficult for the Bakouninists to stir them to revolt. The _Bulletin_ of the Jura Federation of August 16 informs us: "During the last two years there have been about sixty riots produced by hunger; but the rioters, in their ignorance, only bore a grudge against the immediate monopolists, and did not know how to discern the fundamental causes of their misery."[25] This is all too plainly shown in the events of 1874. Beyond giving the Bakouninists a chance to play at revolution, there is little significance in the Italian uprisings of that year.

The failure of the various insurrections in France, Spain, and Italy was, naturally enough, discouraging to Bakounin and his followers. The Commune of Paris was the one uprising that had made any serious impression upon the people, and it was the one wherein the Bakouninists had played no important part. The others had failed miserably, with no other result than that of increasing the power of reaction, while discouraging and disorganizing the workers. Even Bakounin had now reached the point where he was thoroughly disillusioned, and he wrote to his friends that he was exhausted, disheartened, and without hope. He desired, he said, to withdraw from the movement which made him the object of the persecutions of the police and the calumnies of the jealous. The whole world was in the evening of a black reaction, he thought, and he wrote to the truest and most devoted of all that loyal circle of Swiss workmen, James Guillaume, that the time for revolutionary struggles was past and that Europe had entered into a period of profound reaction, of which the present generation would probably not see the end. "He urged me," relates Guillaume, "to imitate himself and 'to make my peace with the bourgeoisie.'"[26] "It is useless," are Bakounin's words, "to wish obstinately to obtain the impossible. It is necessary to recognize reality and to realize that, for the moment, the popular ma.s.ses do not wish socialism. And, if some tipplers of the mountains desire on this account to accuse you of treason, you will have for yourself the witness of your conscience and the esteem of your friends."[27]

In July, 1873, Bakounin retired to an estate that had been bought for him through the generosity of Cafiero, on the route from Locarno to Bellinzona, and for the next few months lavish expenditures were made in the construction and reconstruction of an establishment where the "intimates" could be entertained. That fall Bakounin wrote to the Jura Federation, announcing his retreat from public life and requesting it to accept his resignation. "For acting in this way," he wrote, "I have many reasons. Do not believe that it is princ.i.p.ally on account of the personal attacks of which I have been made the object these last years.

I do not say that I am absolutely insensible to such. However, I would feel myself strong enough to resist them if I thought that my further partic.i.p.ation in your work and in your struggles could aid in the triumph of the cause of the proletariat. But I do not think so.

"By my birth and my personal position, and doubtless by my sympathies and my tendencies, I am only a bourgeois, and, as such, I could not do anything else among you but propaganda. Well, I have a conviction that the time for great theoretical discourses, whether printed or spoken, is past. In the last nine years there have been developed within the International more ideas than would be necessary to save the world, if ideas alone could save it, and I defy anybody to invent a new one."[28]

This letter in reality marks the end of Bakounin's activity in the revolutionary movement. After squandering most of Cafiero's fortune, Bakounin sought a martyr's death in Italy, but in this, as in all his other exploits, he was unsuccessful. And from that time on to his death his life is a humiliating story as he sought here and there the necessary money for his livelihood. Nearly always he had been forced to live from hand to mouth. Money, money, money was the burden of hundreds of his letters. In order to obtain funds he had resorted to almost every possible plan. He had accepted money in advance from publishers for books which he had never had time to write. From time to time he would find an almoner to care for him, only in the end to lose him through his importunate and exacting demands. An account is given by Guillaume of what I believe is the last meeting between Bakounin and certain of his old friends in September, 1874. Ross, Cafiero, Spichiger, and Guillaume met Bakounin in a hotel at Neuchatel. Guillaume, it appears, was cold and unfeeling; Cafiero and Ross said nothing, while Spichiger wept silently in a corner. "The explicit declaration made by me ..."

says Guillaume, "took away from Bakounin at the very beginning all hope of a change in our estimation of him. It was also a question of money in this last interview. We offered to a.s.sure to our old friend a monthly pension of 300 francs, expressing the hope that he would continue to write, but he refused to accept anything. As a set-off, he asked Cafiero to loan him 3,000 francs (no longer 5,000), ... and Cafiero replied that he would do it. Then we separated sadly."[29]

On the first of July, 1876, Bakounin, after a brief illness, died at Bern at the house of his old friend, Dr. Vogt. The press of Europe printed various comments upon his life and work. The anarchists wrote their eulogies, while the socialists generally deplored the ruinous and disrupting tactics that Bakounin had employed in the International Working Men's a.s.sociation. This story will be told later, but it is well to mention here that since 1869 an unbridgeable chasm had opened itself between the anarchists and the socialists. When they first came together in the International there was no clear distinction between them, but, after Bakounin was expelled from that organization in 1872, at The Hague, his followers frankly called themselves anarchists, while the followers of Marx called themselves socialists. In principles and tactics they were poles apart, and the bitterness between them was at fever heat. The anarchists took the principles of Bakounin and still further elaborated them, while his methods were developed from conspiratory insurrections to individual acts of violence. While the idea of the Propaganda of the Deed is to be found in the writings of Bakounin and Nechayeff, it was left to others to put into practice that doctrine. For the next thirty years the principles and ideals of anarchism made no appreciable headway, but the deeds of the anarchists became the talk and, to a degree, the terror of the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[G] Previous to 1848, socialism was used by Robert Owen and his followers, as well as by many French idealists, to mean phalansteries, colonies, or other voluntary communal undertakings. Marx and Engels at first called themselves "communists," and were thus distinguished from these earlier socialists. During the period of the International all its members began more and more to call themselves "socialists." The word, anarchism, was rarely used. As a matter of fact, it was the struggle in the International which eventually clarified the views of both anarchists and socialists and made clear the distinctions now recognized between communism, anarchism, and socialism. See Chapter VIII, _infra_.

[H] This is from "The Commune of Paris," which was read by Marx to the General Council of the International on May 30, two days after the last of the combatants of the Commune were crushed by superior numbers on the heights of Belleville.

CHAPTER III

THE PROPAGANDA OF THE DEED

The insurrections in France and Spain were on the whole spontaneous uprisings, but those disturbances in Italy in which the anarchists played a part were largely the result of agitation. Of course, adverse political and economic conditions were the chief causes of that general spirit of unrest which was prevalent in the early seventies in all the Latin countries, but after 1874 the numerous riots in which the anarchists were active were almost entirely the work of enthusiasts who believed they could make revolutions. The results of the previous uprisings had a terribly depressing effect upon nearly all the older men, but there were four youths attached to Bakounin's insurrectionary ideas whose spirits were not bowed down by what had occurred. Carlo Cafiero, Enrico Malatesta, Paul Brousse, and Prince Kropotkin were at the period of life when action was a joyous thing, and they undertook to make history. Cafiero we know as a young Italian of very wealthy parents. Malatesta "had left the medical profession and also his fortune for the sake of the revolution."[1] Paul Brousse was of French parentage, and had already distinguished himself in medicine, but he cast it aside in his early devotion to anarchism. He had rushed to Spain when the revolution broke out there, and he was always ready to go where-ever an opportunity offered itself for revolutionary activity. The Russian prince, Kropotkin, the fourth member of the group, was a descendant of the Ruriks, and it was said sometimes, in jest, that he had more right to the Russian throne than Czar Alexander II. The fascinating story of his life is told in the "Memoirs of a Revolutionist," but modesty forbade him to say that no one since Bakounin has exercised so great an influence as himself over the principles and tactics of anarchism. Kropotkin first visited Switzerland in 1872, when he came in close contact with the men of the Jura Federation. A week's stay with the Bakouninists converted him, he says, to anarchism.[2] He then returned to St. Petersburg, and shortly after entered the famous circle of Tchaykovsky, and, as a result of his revolutionary activity, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. After his thrilling escape from prison, in 1876, Kropotkin returned to Switzerland, and for several years gave himself up entirely to the cause of anarchism. These four young men, all far removed by training and position from the working cla.s.s, after the death of Bakounin, devised the Propaganda of the Deed, a method of agitation that was destined to become famous throughout the world.

Hitherto the Bakouninists had all been firmly convinced that the ma.s.ses were ready to rise at a moment's notice in order to tear down the existing governments. They were obsessed with the idea that only a spark was needed to set the whole world into a general conflagration. But repeated failures taught them that the ma.s.ses were inclined to make very little sacrifice for the sake of communism and that stupendous efforts were needed to create a revolution. It appeared to them, therefore, that the propaganda of words and of theories was of little avail.

Consequently, these four youths, with their friends, set out to spread knowledge by acts of violence. Of course, they had not entirely given up the hope that a minority could, by a series of well-planned a.s.saults, gradually sweep in after them the ma.s.ses. But even should they fail in that, they felt that they must strike at the enemy, though they stood alone. Whatever happened, they argued, the acts themselves would prove of great propaganda value. Even the trials would enable them to use the courts as a tribune, and the bourgeois press itself would print their words and spread throughout the world their doctrines.

In the _Bulletin_ of the Jura Federation, December 3, 1876, Cafiero and Malatesta wrote: "The great majority of Italian socialists are grouped about the program of the Italian Federation--a program which is anarchist, collectivist, and revolutionary. And the small number who, up to the present, have remained on the outside--the dupes of intrigues and lies--are all beginning to enter our organization. We do not refer to a small group who, influenced by personal considerations and reactionary ends, are trying to establish a propaganda which they call 'gradual and peaceful.' These have already been judged in the opinion of the Italian socialists and represent nothing but themselves.

"The Italian Federation believes that the _insurrectionary deed_, destined to affirm socialist principles by acts, is the most efficacious means of propaganda."[3] The next year Paul Brousse originated the famous phrase, the Propaganda of the Deed. He reviews in the _Bulletin_ the various methods of propaganda which had previously been employed.

"Propaganda from individual to individual, propaganda by ma.s.s meeting or conference, propaganda by newspaper, pamphlet, or book--these means," he declares, "are adapted only to theoretical propaganda. Besides, they become more and more difficult to employ in any efficacious fashion in the presence of those means possessed by the bourgeoisie, with its orators, trained at the bar and knowing how to wheedle the popular a.s.semblies, and with its venal press which calumniates and disguises everything."[4] In the opinion of Brousse, the workers, "laboring most of the time eleven and twelve hours a day ... return home so exhausted by fatigue that they have little desire to read socialist books and newspapers."[5] Rejecting thus all other methods of propaganda, Brousse concludes that "the Propaganda of the Deed is a powerful means of awakening the popular conscience."[6]

Kropotkin was even more enthusiastic over this new method of education.

"A single deed," he declared, "makes more propaganda in a few days than a thousand pamphlets. The government defends itself, it rages pitilessly; but by this it only causes further deeds to be committed by one or more persons, and drives the insurgents to heroism. One deed brings forth another; opponents join the mutiny; the government splits into factions; harshness intensifies the conflict; concessions come too late; the revolution breaks out."[7] Here at last is the famous Propaganda of the Deed, destined to such tragic ends. It owes its inspiration, of course, to the teachings of Bakounin, and we find among these youths the same contempt for words and theories that Bakounin himself had, and they proposed, in the words of Bakounin, "to destroy something--a person, a cause, a condition that hinders the emanc.i.p.ation of the people."[8] Consequently, they undertook immediately to carry into effect these new theories of propaganda, and during the year 1877 they organized two important demonstrations, the avowed purpose of which was to show anarchism in action.

The first event, which occurred at Bern, March 18, under the leadership of Paul Brousse, was a manifestation to celebrate the anniversary of the proclamation of the Commune. All the members of the Jura Federation were invited to take part, and the red flag was to be unfurled. Among the most conspicuous in this demonstration were Brousse, Werner, Chopard, Schwitzguebel, Kropotkin, Pindy, Jeallot, Ferre, Spichiger, Guillaume, and George Plechanoff, recently arrived from St. Petersburg. The partic.i.p.ants became mixed up in a violent affray in the streets, blows were exchanged between them and the police, but in the effort to tear away the red flags many of the gendarmes were wounded. The climax came on August 16 of the same year, when twenty-five of the _manifestants_ appeared before the correctional tribunal of Bern, accused "(1) of partic.i.p.ation in a brawl with deadly instruments, (2) of resisting, by means of force, the employees of the police." Most of the prisoners were condemned to imprisonment, the terms varying from ten days to two months. James Guillaume was condemned to forty days, Brousse to a month.

The latter and five other convicted foreigners were also banished for three years from the canton of Bern.[9]

The second of these demonstrations took place in April in the form of an insurrectionary movement of the Internationalists of Italy. They chose the ma.s.sive group of mountains which border on the Province of Benevent for the scene of their operations, and made Naples their headquarters.

During the whole of the preceding winter they were occupied in making their preparations, and endeavoring to gain the support of the peasants of the near-by villages. They instructed all those who joined their cause from Emilia, Romagna, and Tuscany to be ready for action the beginning of April, as soon as the snow disappeared from the summits of the Apennines. According to information furnished by Malatesta to Guillaume, on April 6 and 7 they journeyed from San Lupo (Province of Benevent) into the region at the south of the Malta Mountains (Province of Caserte). On the 8th they attacked the communes of Letino and Gallo, burned the archives of the first named, pillaged the treasury of the preceptor, and burned the parish house of the second. On the 9th and 10th they tried to penetrate the other communes, but in vain, for they found them all occupied by troops sent directly by the government to oppose them. Their provisions were exhausted, and they would have bought a fresh supply in the village of Venafro, only the soldiers gave the alarm and pursued the band as far as a wood, in which they hid themselves. All of the 11th was spent in a long march through rain and snow. The jaded band was finally surprised and captured in a sheepfold, where they had sought shelter for that night. Two of the revolutionists escaped, but were recaptured a short time afterward. They were confined in the prison of Santa-Maria Capua Visere, to the number of thirty-seven, among them being Cafiero, Malatesta, Ceccarelli, Lazzari, Fortini (cure of Letino), Tomburri Vincenzo (cure of Gallo), Starnari, and others. On December 30 the Chamber of Arraignment of Naples rendered its decision. The two priests and a man who had served as guide to the insurgents were exempted from punishment, but the thirty-four others were sent before the court of a.s.sizes on the charge of conspiracy against the security of the State. As these were political crimes, which were covered by a recent amnesty, there remained only the murder of a carabineer, of which the court of a.s.sizes of Benevent finally acquitted Cafiero, Malatesta, and their friends in August, 1878.[10]

By the above series of events the Propaganda of the Deed was launched, and from this day on it became a recognized method of propaganda.

Neither money, nor organization, nor literature was any longer absolutely necessary. One human being in revolt with torch or dynamite was able to instruct the world. Bakounin and Nechayeff had written their principles, and had, in fact, in some measure, endeavored to carry them into effect. But the Propaganda of the Deed was no more evolved as a principle of action than these four daring youths put it into practice.

In the next few years it became the chief expression of anarchism, and little by little it made the very name of anarchism synonymous with violence and crime. Surely these four zealous youths could hardly have devised a method of propaganda that could have served more completely to defeat their purpose.

The year 1878 witnessed a series of violent acts which brought in their train serious consequences. In that year an attempt was made upon the life of King Humbert of Italy; and, while driving in Berlin with his daughter, the Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Baden, Emperor William was shot at by a half-witted youth named Hodel. Three weeks later Dr. Karl n.o.biling fired at the Emperor from an upper window overlooking the _Unter den Linden_.

These a.s.saults were made to serve as the pretext for a series of brutally repressive measures against the German socialists, although the authorities were unable to connect either Hodel or n.o.biling with the anarchists or with the socialists. An excellent opportunity, however, had arrived to deal a crushing blow to socialism, and "Bismarck used his powerful influence with the press," August Bebel says, "in order to lash the public into a fanatical hatred of the social-democratic party.

Others who had an interest in the defeat of the party joined in, especially a majority of the employers. Henceforth our opponents spoke of us exclusively as the party of a.s.sa.s.sins, or the 'Ruin all' party--a party that wished to rob the ma.s.ses of their faith in G.o.d, the monarchy, the family, marriage, and property."[11] The attempt to destroy the German socialist organization was only one of the many repressive measures that were taken by the governments of Europe in the midst of the panic. To the terrorism of the anarchists the governments responded by a terrorism of repression, and this in itself helped to establish murderous a.s.saults as a method of propaganda.

Up to this time Germany had been comparatively free from anarchist teachings. A number of the La.s.salleans had advocated violent methods.

Ha.s.selmann had several years before launched the _Red Flag_, which advocated much that was not in harmony with socialism, and eventually the German socialist congress requested him to cease the publication of his paper. A few individuals without great influence had endeavored at various times to import Bakounin's philosophy and methods into Germany, but their propaganda bore no fruit whatever. It was only when the German Government began to imitate the terrorism of the Russian bureaucracy that a momentary pa.s.sion for retaliation arose among the socialists. In fact, a few notable socialists went over to anarchism, frankly declaring their belief in terrorist tactics. And one of the most striking characters in the history of terrorism, Johann Most, was a product of Bismarck's man-hunting policies and legal tyranny. Nevertheless, those policies failed utterly to provoke the extensive retaliation which Bismarck expected, although it was a German who, after five attempts had been made on the life of Czar Alexander II. of Russia--the last being successful--proposed at an anarchist congress in Paris, in 1881, the forcible removal of all the potentates of the earth. This was rejected by the Paris conference as "at present not yet suitable,"[12] although the idea proved attractive to some anarchists who even believed that a few daring a.s.saults could so terrify the royal families of Europe that they would be forced to abdicate their power.

During the same period the anarchist movement was developing in Austria-Hungary. A number of anarchist newspapers were launched, and a ceaseless agitation was in progress under the guidance of Peukert, Stellmacher, and Kammerer. Most's _Freiheit_ was smuggled into the country in large quant.i.ties and was read greedily. At the trial of Merstallinger it was shown that the money for anarchist agitation was obtained by robbery. This discovery added to the bitterness of the fight going on between the socialists and the anarchists. The anarchists, however, overpowered their opponents, and everywhere secret printing presses were busily producing incendiary literature which advocated the murder of police officials and otherwise developed the tactics of terrorism. "At a secret conference at Lang Enzersdorf," says Zenker, "a new plan of action was discussed and adopted, namely, to proceed with all means in their power to take action against 'exploiters and agents of authority,' to keep people in a state of continual excitement by such acts of terrorism, and to bring about the revolution in every possible way. This program was immediately acted upon in the murder of several police agents. On December 15, 1883, at Floridsdorf, a police official named Hlubek was murdered, and the condemnation of Rouget, who was convicted of the crime, on June 23, 1884, was immediately answered the next day by the murder of the police agent Bloct. The Government now took energetic measures. By order of the Ministry, a state of siege was proclaimed in Vienna and district from January 30, 1884, by which the usual tribunals for certain crimes and offences were temporarily suspended, and the severest repressive measures were exercised against the anarchists, so that anarchism in Austria rapidly declined, and at the same time it soon lost its leaders. Stellmacher and Kammerer were executed, Peukert escaped to England, most of the other agitators were fast in prison, the journals were suppressed and the groups broken up."[13]

While these events were taking place in Austria, anarchist agitation was manifesting itself in several great strikes that broke out in the industrial centers of Southern France. At Lyons, Fournier, who shot his employer in the open street, was honored in a public meeting by the presentation of a revolver. A great demonstration was planned for Paris, but, as there happened to be a review of troops on the day set, the anarchists decided to abandon the demonstration. In the autumn of the same year (1882), troubles arose in Monceau-les-Mines and at Blanzy, where the workers were bent under a terrible capitalist and clerical domination. Under the circ.u.mstances, the anarchist propaganda was very welcome, and it was only a short time until it produced an anti-religious demonstration. Three or four hundred men, armed with pitchforks and revolvers, spread over the country, breaking the crosses and the statues of the Virgin which were placed at the junctions of the roads. They called the working cla.s.ses to arms and took as hostages landlords, cures, and functionaries. These riots were the childlike manifestations of exasperated and miserable men, destined in advance to failure. Numerous arrests followed, and in the mines the workers suffered increased oppression.

In 1882 the great silk industry of Lyons was undergoing a serious crisis, and the misery among the weavers was intense. The anarchists were carrying on a big agitation led by Kropotkin, Gautier, Bordas, Bernard, and others. In the center of this city reduced almost to starvation there was, says Kropotkin, an "underground cafe at the Theatre Bellecour, which remained open all night, and where, in the small hours of the morning, one could see newspaper men and politicians feasting and drinking in company with gay women. Not a meeting was held but some menacing allusion was made to that cafe, and one night a dynamite cartridge was exploded in it by an unknown hand. A worker who was occasionally there, a socialist, jumped to blow out the lighted fuse of the cartridge, and was killed, while a few of the feasting politicians were slightly wounded. Next day a dynamite cartridge was exploded at the doors of a recruiting bureau, and it was said that the anarchists intended to blow up the huge statue of the Virgin which stands on one of the hills of Lyons."[14] A panic seized the wealthier cla.s.ses of the city, and some sixty anarchists were arrested, including Kropotkin. A great trial, known as the _Proces des Anarchistes de Lyons_, ensued, which lasted many weeks. At the conclusion only three out of the entire number were acquitted. Although nearly all the anarchists were condemned, the police of Lyons were still searching for the author of the explosion. At last, Cyvoct, a militant anarchist of Lyons, was identified as the one who had thrown the bomb. Cyvoct had first gone to Switzerland, then to Brussels, in the suburbs of which city he was finally arrested. He was given over to the French police, appeared before the court of a.s.sizes of the Rhone, and was condemned to death. His sentence was afterward commuted to that of enforced labor, and in 1897 he was pardoned.

On March 29, 1883, the carpenters' union of Paris called the unemployed to a meeting to be held on the _Esplanade des Invalides_. Two groups of anarchists formed. One started toward the _elysee_ and was scattered on its way by the police. The second went toward the suburb of Saint-Antoine. On the march many bakeries were robbed by the manifestants. Arrived at _Place Maubert_, they clashed with a large force of police. As a result, many arrests were made. Accused of inciting to pillage, Louise Michel and emile Pouget were condemned to several years' imprisonment. The same month, at Monceau-les-Mines and in Paris, great demonstrations of the "unemployed" took place in the streets, combined with robbery and dynamite outrages, while in July there were sanguinary encounters with the armed forces in Roubaix and elsewhere. Again and again the populace was incited to rise against the bourgeoisie, "who (it was said) were indulging in festivities while they had condemned Louise Michel, the champion of the proletariat, to a cruel imprisonment."[15]

These are but a few instances of the activity of the anarchists at the end of the seventies and at the beginning of the eighties. They are perhaps sufficient to show that the Propaganda of the Deed was making headway in Western Europe. Certainly in Germany and Austria its course was soon run, but in France, Italy, Spain, and even in Belgium every strike was attended with violence. Insurrections, dynamite outrages, a.s.sa.s.sinations--all played their part. At the same time the governments carried on a ferocious persecution, and the chief anarchists were driven from place to place and hunted as wild animals. Police spies and _agents provocateurs_ swarmed over the labor, socialist, and anarchist movements, and at the slightest sign of an uprising the soldiers were brought out to shoot down the people. Hardly a month went by without some "anarchist trouble," and many harmless strikes resulted in dreadful ma.s.sacres. It was a tragic period, that reminds one again of the picture in Dante in which the two bitter enemies inflict upon each other cruel wounds in a fight that on both sides was inspired by the deepest hatred.

CHAPTER IV

JOHANN MOST IN AMERICA

While the above events were transpiring in the Latin countries, the Bakouninists were keeping a sharp eye on America as a land of hopeful possibilities. As early as 1874 Bakounin himself considered the matter of coming here, while Kropotkin and Guillaume followed with interest the labor disturbances that were at that time so numerous and so violent in this country. The panic of 1873 had caused widespread suffering among the working cla.s.ses. For several years afterward hordes of unemployed tramped the country. The ma.s.ses were driven to desperation and, in their hunger, to frequent outbreaks of violence. When later a measure of prosperity returned, both the trade-union and the socialist movements began to attract mult.i.tudes of the discontented. The news of two important events in the labor world of America reached the anarchists of the Jura and filled them, Guillaume says, "with a lively emotion." In June, 1877, Kropotkin called attention to the act of the Supreme Court of the United States in declaring unconst.i.tutional the eight-hour law on Government work. He was especially pleased with an article in the _Labor Standard_ of New York, which declared: "This will teach the workers not to put their confidence in Congress and to trust only in their own efforts. No law of Congress could be of any use to the worker if he is not so organized that he can enforce it. And, if the workers are strong enough to do that, if they succeed in solidly forming the federation of their trade organizations, then they will be able, not only to force the legislators to make efficacious laws on the hours of work, on inspection, etc., but they will also be able to make the law themselves, deciding that henceforth no worker in the country shall work more than eight hours a day." "It is the good, practical sense of an American which says that,"[1] comments Kropotkin. This act of the Supreme Court and this statement of the _Labor Standard_ were very welcome news to the anarchists. They were convinced that the Americans had abandoned political action and were turning to what they had already begun to call "direct action."

Another event, a month later, added to this conviction. In its issue of July 29 the _Bulletin_ published this article: "'Following a strike of the machinists of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, a popular insurrection has burst forth in the states of Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. If at Martinsburg (West Virginia) the workmen have been conquered by the militia, at Baltimore (Maryland), a city of 300,000 inhabitants, they have been victorious. They have taken possession of the station and have burned it, together with all the wagons of petroleum which were there. At Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), a city of 100,000 inhabitants, the workers are at the present time masters of the city, after having seized guns and cannon.... The strike is extending to the near-by railroads and is gaining in the direction of the Pacific.

Great agitation reigns in New York. It is announced that the troops will concentrate, that Sheridan has been named commander, and that the Western States have offered their help.' In the following number, a detailed article, written by Kropotkin, recounted the _denouement_ of the crisis, the recovery of Pittsburgh, where two thousand wagons loaded with merchandise had been burned, the repression and the disarray of the strikers following the treachery of the miserable false brothers, and the final miscarriage of the movement. But if there had been, in this attempt of popular insurrection, weak sides that had brought about the failure, Kropotkin rightly praised the qualities of which the American working people had just given proof: 'This movement will have certainly impressed profoundly the proletariat of Europe and excited its admiration. Its spontaneity, its simultaneousness at so many distant points communicating only by telegraph, the aid given by the workers of different trades, the resolute character of the uprising from the beginning, call forth all our sympathies, excite our admiration, and awaken our hopes.... But the blood of our brothers of America shall not have flowed in vain. Their energy, their union in action, their courage will serve as an example to the proletariat of Europe. But would that this flowing of n.o.ble blood prove once again the blindness of those who amuse the people with the plaything of parliamentarism when the powder magazine is ready to take fire, unknown to them, at the fall of the least spark.'"[2]

The news of industrial troubles, such as the above, convinced the anarchist elements of Europe that America was ripe for direct action and the revolution. And it was indeed this period of profound industrial unrest that gave a forward impulse to all radical movements in the late seventies. Socialist newspapers sprang up in all parts of the country, and both socialist and trade-union organizations took on an immense development. Riots, minor insurrections, and strikes were symptoms of an all-pervading discontent. Simultaneously with this, many revolutionists, upon being expelled from Germany, were injected into the ferment. With many other refugees, the Germans then began to form revolutionary clubs, and, in 1882, Johann Most appeared in the United States scattering broadcast the terrorist ideas of Bakounin and Nechayeff.

Most was perhaps the most fiery personality that appeared in the ranks of the anarchists after the death of Bakounin. A cruel stepmother, a pitiless employer, a long sickness, and an operation which left his face deformed forever are some of the incidents of his unhappy childhood. He received a poor education, but read extensively, and as a bookbinder worked at his trade in Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. He became attached to the labor movement toward the end of the sixties, and was elected to the German Reichstag in 1874. Forced to leave Germany as a result of the anti-socialist law, he went to London, where he established _Die Freiheit_, at first a social-democratic paper, which was smuggled into Germany. He became, however, more and more violent, and in 1880, at a secret gathering of the German socialists at Wyden in Switzerland, he and his friend Ha.s.selmann were expelled from the Germany party. After this he no longer attempted to conceal his anarchist sympathies, and in the _Freiheit_, on the platform, and on every possible occasion he preached principles almost identical with those of Nechayeff and Bakounin. In a pamphlet on the scientific art of revolutionary warfare and of dynamiters he prescribes in detail where bombs should be placed in churches, palaces, and ball-rooms.[I] He advises wholly individual action, in order that the groups may suffer as little harm as possible. His pamphlet also contains a dictionary of poisons which may be usefully employed against politicians, traitors, and spies. "Extirpate the miserable brood!" he writes in _Die Freiheit_; "extirpate the wretches! Thus runs the refrain of a revolutionary song of the working cla.s.ses, and this will be the exclamation of the executive of a victorious proletariat army when the battle has been won.

For at the critical moment the executioner's block must ever be before the eyes of the revolutionist. Either he is cutting off the heads of his enemies or his own is being cut off. Science gives us means which make it possible to accomplish the wholesale destruction of these beasts quietly and deliberately." Elsewhere he says, "Those of the reptile brood who are not put to the sword remain as a thorn in the flesh of the new society; hence it would be both foolish and criminal not to annihilate utterly this race of parasites."[3]

It was this cheerful individual who, after being expelled from the German socialist party, made prodigious efforts to establish revolutionary organizations all over Europe. In London he captured the Communist Working Men's Educational Society, despite the protest of a considerable minority, and through it he undertook to launch other revolutionary clubs. The parliamentary socialists were bitterly a.s.sailed, and a congress was held in Paris and a later one in London for the purpose of uniting the revolutionists of all countries. According to Zenker, the headquarters of the a.s.sociation were at London, and sub-committees were formed to act in Paris, Geneva, and New York. Money was to be collected "for the purchase of poison and weapons, as well as to find places suitable for laying mines, and so on. To attain the proposed end, the annihilation of all rulers, ministers of State, n.o.bility, the clergy, the most prominent capitalists, and other exploiters, any means are permissible, and therefore great attention should be given specially to the study of chemistry and the preparation of explosives, as being the most important weapons. Together with the chief committee in London there will also be established an executive bureau, whose duty is to carry out the decisions of the chief committee and to conduct correspondence."[4]

After these attempts to establish an anarchist International, Most sailed for New York. Some of his ideas had preceded him, and when he arrived he was met and greeted by ma.s.ses of German workingmen. Miss Emma Goldman, in "Anarchism and Other Essays," tells us of the impression he made upon her. "Some twenty-one years ago," she says, "I heard the first great anarchist speaker--the inimitable John Most. It seemed to me then, and for many years after, that the spoken word hurled forth among the ma.s.ses with such wonderful eloquence, such enthusiasm and fire, could never be erased from the human mind and soul. How could any one of all the mult.i.tudes who flocked to Most's meetings escape his prophetic voice!"[5] At the time of Most's arrival the American socialist movement was hopelessly divided over questions of methods and tactics. Already there had been bitter quarrels between those in the movement who had formed secret drilling organizations which were preparing for a violent revolution, and those others who sought by education, organization, and political action to achieve their demands. In the year 1880 a number of New York members had left the socialist organization and formed a revolutionary group, and in October of the following year a convention was held to organize the various revolutionary groups into a national organization. Everything was favorable for Most, and when he arrived it was not long, with his magnetic personality and fiery agitation, until he had swept out of existence the older socialist organizations. In 1883 representatives from twenty-six cities met in Pittsburgh to form the revolutionary socialist and anarchist groups into one body, called the "International Working People's a.s.sociation." The same year a dismal socialist convention was held in Baltimore with only sixteen delegates attending. They attempted to stem the tide to terrorism by declaring: "We do not share the folly of the men who consider dynamite bombs as the best means of agitation. We know full well that a revolution must take place in the heads and in the industrial life of men before the working cla.s.s can achieve lasting success."[6]