But enough of this! The "biography" of what Proudhon called his programme is now sufficiently clear to us. Economically it is but the Utopia of a petty bourgeois, who is firmly convinced that the production of commodities is the most "just" of all possible modes of production, and who desires to eliminate its bad sides (hence his "Radicalism") by retaining to all eternity its good sides (hence his "Conservatism"). Politically the programme is only the application to public relations of a concept (the "contract") drawn from the domain of the private right of a society of producers of commodities. "Constituted value" in economics, the "contract" in politics—these are the whole scientific "truth" of Proudhon. It is all very well for him to combat the Utopians; he is a Utopian himself to his finger tips. What distinguishes him from men like Saint Simon, Fourier, and Robert Owen is his extreme pettiness and narrowness of mind, his hatred of every really revolutionary movement and idea.

Proudhon criticised the "political constitution" from the point of view of private right. He wished to perpetuate private property, and to destroy that pernicious "fiction" the State, for ever.

Guizot had already said that the political constitution of a country has its root in the conditions of property existing there. For Proudhon the political constitution owes its origin only to human ignorance, has only been "imagined" in default of the "social organisation" at last "invented" by him, Proudhon, in the year of our Lord so and so. He judges the political history of mankind like a Utopian. But the Utopian negation of all reality by no means preserves us from its influence. Denied upon one page of a Utopian work, it takes its revenge on another, where it often appears in all its nakedness. Thus Proudhon "denies" the State. "The State—no, no—I will none of it, even as servant; I reject all government, even direct government," he cries ad nauseam. But, oh! irony of reality! Do you know how he "invents" the constitution of value? It is very funny.

The constitution of value is the selling at a fair price, at the cost price.[28] If a merchant refuses to supply his merchandise at cost price it is because he is not certain of selling a sufficient quantity to secure a due return, and further he has no guarantee that he will get quid pro quo for his purchases. So he must have guarantees. And there may be "various kinds" of these guarantees. Here is one.

"Let us suppose that the Provisional Government or the Constituent Assembly ... had seriously wished to help along business, encourage commerce, industry, agriculture, stop the depreciation of property, assure work to the workers—it could have been done by guaranteeing, e.g., to the first 10,000 contractors, factory owners, manufacturers, merchants, etc., in the whole Republic, an interest of 5 per cent. on the capital, say, on the average, 100,000 francs, that each of them had embarked in his competitive business. For it is evident that the State" ... Enough! It is evident that the State has forced itself upon Proudhon, at least "as servant." And it has done this with such irresistible force that our author ends by surrendering, and solemnly proclaiming:

"Yes, I say it aloud: the workers' associations of Paris and the departments hold in their hands the salvation of the people, the future of the revolution. They can do everything, if they set about it cleverly. Renewed energy on their part must carry the light into the dullest minds, and at the election of 1852 [he wrote this in the summer of 1851] must place on the order of the day, and at the head of it, the constitution of value."[29]

Thus "No more parties! No politics!" when it is a question of the class struggle—and "Hurrah for politics! Hurrah for electoral agitation! Hurrah for State interference!" when it is a question of realising the vapid and meagre Utopia of Proudhon!

"Destruam et aedificabo," says Proudhon, with the pompous vanity peculiar to him. But on the other hand—to use the phrase of Figaro—it is the truest truth of all he has ever uttered in his life. He destroys and he builds. Only the mystery of his "destruction" reveals itself completely in his formula, "The Contract solves all problems." The mystery of his "aedificatio" is in the strength of the social and political bourgeois reality with which he reconciled himself, the more readily in that he never managed to pluck from it any of its "secrets."

Proudhon will not hear of the State at any price. And yet—apart from the political propositions such as the constitution of value, with which he turns to the odious "fiction"—even theoretically he "builds up" the State as fast as he "destroys" it. What he takes from the "State" he bestows upon the "communes" and "departments." In the place of one great State we see built up a number of small states; in the place of one great "fiction" a mass of little ones. To sum up, "anarchy" resolves itself into federalism, which among other advantages has that of making the success of revolutionary movements much more difficult than it is under a centralised State.[30] So endeth Proudhon's "General Idea of the Revolution."

It is a curious fact that Saint Simon is the "father" of Proudhon's anarchy. Saint Simon has said that the end of social organisation is production, and that, therefore, political science must be reduced to economics, the "art of governing men" must give way to the art of "administration of things." He has compared mankind to the individual, who, obeying his parents in childhood, in his ripe age ends by obeying no one but himself. Proudhon seized upon this idea and this comparison, and with the help of the constitution of value, "built up" anarchy. But Saint Simon, a man of fertile genius, would have been the very first to be alarmed at what this Socialistic petty bourgeois made of his theory. Modern scientific Socialism has worked out the theory of Saint Simon very differently, and while explaining the historical origin of the State, shows in this very origin, the conditions of the future disappearance of the State.

"The State was the official representative of society as a whole, the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But it was this only in so far as it was the State of that class which itself represented, for the time being, society as a whole; in ancient times the State of slave-owning citizens; in the middle ages, the feudal lords; in our own time, the bourgeoisie. When at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class rule and the individual struggle for existence based on our present anarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from these are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special repressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by virtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society, the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society, this is, at the same time, its last independent act as a State. State interference in social relations becomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of itself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not 'abolished.' It dies out."[31]

FOOTNOTES:

[16] For all these quotations see the preface to the third edition of the "Confessions d'un Revolutionnaire." This preface is simply an article reprinted from the Voix du Peuple, November, 1849. It was not till 1849 that Proudhon began to "expound" his Anarchist theory. In 1848, pace Kropotkine, he only expounded his theory of exchange, as anyone can see for himself by reading the sixth volume of his complete works (Paris, 1868). This "critique" of Democracy, written in March, 1848, did not yet expound his Anarchist theory. This "critique" forms part of his work, "Solution du Probleme Social," and Proudhon proposes to bring about this solution "without taxes, without loans, without cash payments, without paper-money, without maximum, without levies, without bankruptcy, without agrarian laws, without any poor tax, without national workshops, without association (!), without any participation or intervention by the State, without any interference with the liberty of commerce and of industry, without any violation of property," in a word and above all, without any class war. A truly "immortal" idea and worthy the admiration of all bourgeois, peace-loving, sentimental, or bloodthirsty—white, blue, or red!

[17] "One, two, three; legerdemain isn't witchcraft."

[18] "Les Confessions d'un Revolutionnaire." Vol. ix., 1868 edition of the complete works of Proudhon, pages 166 and 167.

[19] "Confessions," pp. 25-26.

[20] He is speaking of the two papers Le Peuple and Le Representant du Peuple, which he had published in 1848-9 before the Voix du Peuple.

[21] "Confessions," pp. 7-8.

[22] For Proudhon the principle of association invoked by most schools (he means the various Socialist schools), "a principle essentially sterile, is neither an industrial force nor an economic law ... it supposes government and obedience, two terms excluded by the Revolution." (Idee Generale de la Revolution au XIX Siecle, 2 ed., Paris 1851, p. 173).

[23] "Idee Generale de la Revolution." Paris, 1851, pp. 124-127.

[24] "Idee Generale," pp. 298-299.

[25] "Idee Generale," p. 304.

[26] Ibid. p. 324.

[27] Ibid. p. 328.

[28] It was thus that Proudhon understood the determining of value by labour. He could never understand a Ricardo.

[29] "Idee Generale," p. 268.

[30] See his book, "Du Principe Federatif."

[31] Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. By F. Engels. Translated by Edward Aveling. Pp. 75-77.



CHAPTER V

BAKOUNINE

We have seen that in their criticism of the "political constitution," the "fathers" of anarchy always based themselves on the Utopian point of view. Each one of them based his theories upon an abstract principle. Stirner upon that of the "Ego," Proudhon upon that of the "Contract." The reader has also seen that these two "fathers" were individualists of the first water.

The influence of Proudhonian individualism was, for a time, very strong in the Romance countries (France, Belgium, Italy, Spain) and in the Slaav countries, especially Russia. The internal history of the International Working Men's Association is the history of this struggle between Proudhonism and the modern Socialism of Marx. Not only men like Tolain, Chemale or Murat, but men very superior to them, such as De Paepe, e.g., were nothing but more or less opinionated, more or less consistent "Mutualists." But the more the working class movement developed, the more evident it became that "Mutualism" could not be its theoretical expression. At the International Congresses the Mutualists were forced by the logic of facts to vote for the Communist resolutions. This was the case, e.g., at Brussels in the discussion on landed property.[32] Little by little the left wing of the Proudhonian army left the domain of Individualism to intrench itself upon that of "Collectivism."

The word "Collectivism" was used at this period in a sense altogether opposed to that which it now has in the mouths of the French Marxists, like Jules Guesde and his friends. The most prominent champion of "Collectivism" was at this time Michel Bakounine.

In speaking of this man we shall pass over in silence his propaganda in favour of the Hegelian philosophy, as far as he understood it, the part he played in the revolutionary movement of 1848, his Panslavist writings in the beginning of the sixties, and his pamphlet, "Roumanow, Pougatchew or Pestel"[33] (London, 1862), in which he proposed to go over to Alexander II., if the latter would become the "Tzar of the Moujiks." Here we are exclusively concerned with his theory of Anarchist Collectivism.

A member of the "League of Peace and Liberty," Bakounine, at the Congress of this Association at Berne in 1869, called upon the League—an entirely bourgeois body—to declare in favour of "the economical and social equalisation of classes and of individuals." Other delegates, among whom was Chaudey, reproached him with advocating Communism. He indignantly protested against the accusation.

"Because I demand the economic and social equalisation of classes and individuals, because, with the Workers' Congress of Brussels, I have declared myself in favour of collective property, I have been reproached with being a Communist. What difference, I have been asked, is there between Communism and Collectivism. I am really astounded that M. Chaudey does not understand this difference, he who is the testamentary executor of Proudhon! I detest Communism, because it is the negation of liberty, and I cannot conceive anything human without liberty. I am not a Communist, because Communism concentrates and causes all the forces of society to be absorbed by the State, because it necessarily ends in the centralisation of property in the hands of the State, while I desire the abolition of the State—the radical extirpation of this principle of the authority and the tutelage of the State, which, under the pretext of moralising and civilising men, has until now enslaved, oppressed, exploited, and depraved them. I desire the organisation of society and of collective or social property from below upwards, by means of free association, and not from above downwards by means of some authority of some sort. Desiring the abolition of the State, I desire the abolition of property individually hereditary, which is nothing but an institution of the State, nothing but a result of the principle of the State. This is the sense, gentlemen, in which I am a Collectivist, and not at all a Communist."

In another speech at the same Congress Bakounine reiterates what he had already said of "Statist" Communism. "It is not we, gentlemen," he said, "who systematically deny all authority and all tutelary powers, and who in the name of Liberty demand the very abolition of the "authoritarian" principle of the State; it is not we who will recognise any sort of political and social organisation whatever, that is not founded upon the most complete liberty of every one.... But I am in favour of collective property, because I am convinced that so long as property, individually hereditary, exists, the equality of the first start, the realisation of equality, economical and social, will be impossible."[34] This is not particularly lucid as a statement of principles. But it is sufficiently significant from the "biographical" point of view.

We do not insist upon the ineptitude of the expression "the economic and social equalisation of classes;" the General Council of the International dealt with that long ago.[35] We would only remark that the above quotations show that Bakounine—

1. Combats the State and "Communism" in the name of "the most complete liberty of everybody;"

2. Combats property, "individually hereditary," in the name of economic equality;

3. Regards this property as "an institution of the State," as a "consequence of the very principles of the State;"

4. Has no objection to individual property, if it is not hereditary; has no objection to the right of inheritance, if it is not individual.

In other words:

1. Bakounine is quite at one with Proudhon so far as concerns the negation of the State and Communism;

2. To this negation he adds another, that of property, individually hereditary;

3. His programme is nothing but a total arrived at by the adding up of the two abstract principles—that of "liberty," and that of "equality;" he applies these two principles, one after the other, and independently one of the other, in his criticism of the existing order of things, never asking himself whether the results of these two negations are reconcilable with one another.

4. He understands, just as little as Proudhon, the origin of private property and the causal connection between its evolution and the development of political forms.

5. He has no clear conception of the meaning of the words "individually hereditary."

If Proudhon was a Utopian, Bakounine was doubly so, for his programme was nothing but a Utopia of "Liberty," reinforced by a Utopia of "Equality." If Proudhon, at least to a very large extent, remained faithful to his principle of the contract, Bakounine, divided between liberty and equality, is obliged from the very outset of his argument constantly to throw over the former for the benefit of the latter, and the latter for the benefit of the former. If Proudhon is a Proudhonian sans reproche, Bakounine is a Proudhonian adulterated with "detestable" Communism, nay even by "Marxism."

In fact, Bakounine has no longer that immutable faith in the genius of the "master" Proudhon, which Tolain seems to have preserved intact. According to Bakounine "Proudhon, in spite of all his efforts to get a foothold upon the firm ground of reality, remained an idealist and metaphysician. His starting point is the abstract side of law; it is from this that he starts in order to arrive at economic facts, while Marx, on the contrary, has enunciated and proved the truth, demonstrated by the whole of the ancient and modern history of human societies, of peoples and of states, that economic facts preceded and precede the facts of political and civil law. The discovery and demonstration of this truth is one of the greatest merits of M. Marx."[36] In another of his writings he says, with entire conviction, "All the religions, and all the systems of morals that govern a given society are always the ideal expression of its real, material condition, that is, especially of its economic organisation, but also of its political organisation, the latter, indeed, being never anything but the juridical and violent consecration of the former." And he again mentions Marx as the man to whom belongs the merit of having discovered and demonstrated this truth.[37] One asks oneself with astonishment how this same Bakounine could declare that private property was only a consequence of the principle of authority. The solution of the riddle lies in the fact that he did not understand the materialist conception of history; he was only "adulterated" by it.

And here is a striking proof of this. In the Russian work, already quoted, "Statism and Anarchy," he says that in the situation of the Russian people there are two elements which constitute the conditions necessary for the social (he means Socialist) revolution. "The Russian people can boast of excessive poverty, and unparalleled slavery. Their sufferings are innumerable, and they bear these, not with patience, but with a profound and passionate despair, that twice already in our history has manifested itself in terrible outbursts: in the revolt of Stephan Razine, and in that of Pougatschew."[38] And that is what Bakounine understood by the material conditions of a Socialist revolution! Is it necessary to point out that this "Marxism" is a little too sui generis?

While combating Mazzini from the standpoint of the materialist conception of history, Bakounine himself is so far from understanding the true import of this conception, that in the same work in which he refutes the Mazzinian theology, he speaks, like the thorough-faced Proudhonian that he is, of "absolute" human morality, and he bolsters up the idea of this morality—the morality of "solidarity,"—with such arguments as these:

"Every actual being, so long as he exists, exists only by virtue of a principle which is inherent in himself, and which determines his particular nature; a principle that is not imposed upon him by a divine law-giver of any sort" (this is the "materialism" of our author!), "but is the protracted and constant result of combinations of natural causes and effects; that is not, according to the ludicrous idea of the idealists, shut up in him like a soul within its body, but is, in fact, only the inevitable and constant form of his real existence. The human, like all other species, has inherent principles quite special to itself, and all these principles are summed up in, or are reducible to, a single principle, which we call solidarity. This principle may be formulated thus: No human individual can recognise his own humanity, nor, therefore, realise it in his life except by recognising it in others, and by helping to realise it for others. No man can emancipate himself, except by emancipating with him all the men around him. My liberty is the liberty of everyone, for I am not truly free, free not only in thought but in deed, except when my liberty and my rights find their confirmation, their sanction, in the liberty and the rights of all men, my equals."[39]

As a moral precept, solidarity, as interpreted by Bakounine, is a very excellent thing. But to set up this a morality, which by the way is not at all "absolute," as principle "inherent" in humanity and determining human nature, is playing with words, and completely ignoring what materialism is. Humanity only exists "by virtue" of the principle of solidarity. This is coming it a little too strong. How about the "class war," and the cursed State, and property, "individually hereditary"—are these only manifestations of "solidarity," inherent in humanity, determining its special nature, etc., etc? If this is so, everything is all right, and Bakounine was wasting his time in dreaming of a "social" revolution. If this is not so, this proves that humanity may have existed "by virtue" of other principles than that of solidarity, and that this latter principle is by no means "inherent" in it. Indeed, Bakounine only enunciated his "absolute" principle in order to arrive at the conclusion that "no people could be completely free, free with solidarity, in the human sense of the word, if the whole of humanity is not free also."[40]

This is an allusion to the tactics of the modern proletariat, and it is true in the sense that—as the rules of the International Workingmen's Association put it—the emancipation of the workers is not a merely local or national problem, but, on the contrary, a problem concerning every civilised nation, its solution being necessarily dependent upon their theoretical and practical cooperation. It is easy enough to prove this truth by reference to the actual economic situation of civilised humanity. But nothing is less conclusive, here as elsewhere, than a "demonstration" founded upon a Utopian conception of "human nature." The "solidarity" of Bakounine only proves that he remained an incorrigible Utopian, although he became acquainted with the historical theory of Marx.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] " ... Among those who call themselves Mutualists, and whose economic ideas incline, on the whole, to the theories of Proudhon, in the sense that they, like the great revolutionary writer, demand the suppression of all levies of capital upon labour, the suppression of interest, reciprocity of service, equal exchange of products on the basis of cost price, free reciprocal credit, several voted for the collective ownership of the land. Such, e.g., are the four French delegates, Aubry of Rouen, Delacour of Paris, Richard of Lyons, Lemonnier of Marseilles, and among the Belgians, Companions A. Moetens, Verricken, De Paepe, Marichal, etc. For them there is no contradiction between Mutualism applicable to the exchange of services and the exchange of products on the basis of cost price, that is to say, the quantity of labour contained in the services and the products, and collective property applicable to the land, which is not a product of labour, and therefore does not seem to them to come under the law of exchange, under the law of circulation."—Reply to an article by Dr. Coullery in the "Voix de l'Avenir," September, 1868, by the Belgians Vanderhouten, De Paepe, Delasalle, Hermann, Delplanque, Roulants, Guillaume Brasseur, printed in the same newspaper and reprinted as a document in the "Memoire of the Federation Jurasienne," Souvillier, 1873, pp. 19-20.

[33] "Roumanow" is the name of the reigning family in Russia—derived (if we overlook the adultery of Catherine II., admitted by herself in her memoirs) from Peter III., the husband of Catherine II., and Prince of Holstein-Gottorp. Pougatchew, the pretended Peter III., was a Cossack, who placed himself at the head of a Russian peasant rising in 1773. Pestel was a Republican conspirator, hanged by Nicolas in 1826.

[34] See the documents published with the "Memoire de la Federation Jurasienne," pp. 28, 29, 37.

[35] "The equalisation of classes," wrote the General Council to the "Alliance" of Bakounine, who desired to be admitted into the International Working Men's Association, and had sent the Council its programme in which this famous "equalisation" phrase occurs, "literally interpreted comes to the harmony of capital and labour, so pertinaciously advocated by bourgeois Socialists. It is not the equalisation of classes, logically a contradiction, impossible to realise, but on the contrary, the abolition of classes, the real secret of the proletarian movement, which is the great aim of the International Working Men's Association."

[36] "Statism and Anarchy, 1873" (the Russian place of publication is not given), pp. 223-224 (Russian). We know the word "Statism" is a barbarism, but Bakounine uses it, and the flexibility of the Russian language lends itself to such forms.

[37] "La Theologie Politique de Mazzini et l'Internationale, Neuchatel, 1871," pp. 69 and 78.

[38] Ibid. Appendix A, p. 7.

[39] "La Theologie Politique de Mazzini," p. 91.

[40] Ibid. pp. 110, 111.



CHAPTER VI

BAKOUNINE—(CONCLUDED)

We have said that the principal features of Bakounine's programme originated in the simple addition of two abstract principles: that of liberty and that of equality. We now see that the total thus obtained might easily be increased by the addition of a third principle, that of solidarity. Indeed, the programme of the famous "Alliance," adds several others. For example, "The Alliance declares itself Atheist; it desires the abolition of religions, the substitution of science for faith, of human for divine justice." In the proclamation with which the Bakounists placarded the walls of Lyons, during the attempted rising at the end of September, 1870, we read (Article 41) that "The State, fallen into decay, will no longer be able to intervene in the payment of private debts." This is incontestably logical, but it would be difficult to deduce the non-payment of private debts from principles inherent in human nature.

Since Bakounine in tacking his various "absolute" principles together does not ask himself, and does not need to ask himself—thanks to the "absolute" character of his method—whether one of these principles might not somewhat limit the "absolute" power of others, and might not in its turn be limited by them, he finds it an "absolute" impossibility to harmonise the various items of his programme whenever words no longer suffice, and it becomes necessary to replace them by more precise ideas. He "desires" the abolition of religion. But, "the State having fallen into decay," who is to abolish it? He "desires" the abolition of property, individually hereditary. But what is to be done if, "the State having fallen into decay," it should continue to exist? Bakounine himself feels the thing is not very clear, but he consoles himself very easily.

In a pamphlet written during the Franco-German war, "Lettres a un francais sur la crise actuelle," while demonstrating that France can only be saved by a great revolutionary movement, he comes to the conclusion that the peasants must be incited to lay hands upon the land belonging to the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. But so far, the French peasants have been in favour of property, "individually hereditary," so this unpleasant institution would be bolstered up by the new Social Revolution?

"Not at all," answers Bakounine, "once the State is abolished they" (i.e., the peasants) "will no longer have the juridical and political consecration, the guarantee of property by the State. Property will no longer be a right, it will be reduced to the condition of a simple fact." (The italics are Bakounine's own.)

This is very reassuring. "The State having fallen into decay," any fellow that happens to come along, stronger than I, will incontinently possess himself of my field, without having any need to appeal to the principal of "solidarity;" the principle of "liberty" will sufficiently answer his purpose. A very pleasant "equalisation of individuals"!

"It is certain," Bakounine admits, "that at first things won't work in an absolutely peaceful manner; there will be struggles; public order, that arch saint of the bourgeois, will be disturbed, and the just deeds which will result from such a state of things may constitute what one is agreed to call a civil war. But do you prefer to hand over France to the Prussians?... Moreover, do you fear that the peasants will devour one another; even if they tried to do so in the beginning, they would soon be convinced of the material impossibility of persisting in this course, and then we may be sure they would try to arrive at some understanding, to come to terms, to organise among themselves. The necessity of eating, of providing for their families, and the necessity therefore of safeguarding their houses, their families, and their own lives against unforeseen attacks, all this would soon force them individually to enter into mutual arrangements. And do not believe, either, that in these arrangements, arrived at outside all official tutelage" (italicised by Bakounine), "by the mere force of events, the strongest, the richest, will exercise a predominant influence. The wealth of the wealthy, no longer guaranteed by juridical institutions, will cease to be a power.... As to the most cunning, the strongest, they will be rendered innocuous by the collective strength of the mass of the small, and very small peasants, as well as by the agricultural proletarians, a mass of men to-day reduced to silent suffering, but whom the revolutionary movement will arm with an irresistible power. Please note that I do not contend that the agricultural districts which will thus reorganise themselves, from below upwards, will immediately create an ideal organisation, agreeing at all points with the one of which we dream. What I am convinced of is that this will be a living organisation, and as such, one a thousand times superior to what exists now. Moreover, this new organisation being always open to the propaganda of the towns, as it can no longer be held down, so to say petrified by the juridical sanction of the State, it will progress freely, developing and perfecting itself indefinitely, but always living and free, never decreed nor legalised, until it attains as reasonable a condition as we can hope for in our days."

The "idealist" Proudhon was convinced that the political constitution had been invented for want of a social organisation "immanent in humanity." He took the pains to "discover" this latter, and having discovered it, he could not see what further raison d'etre there was for the political constitution. The "materialist" Bakounine has no "social organisation" of his own make. "The most profound and rational science," he says, "cannot divine the future forms of social life."[41] This science must be content to distinguish the "living" social forms from those that owe their origin to the "petrifying" action of the State, and to condemn these latter. Is not this the old Proudhonian antithesis of the social organisation "immanent in humanity," and of the political constitution "invented" exclusively in the interests of "order?" Is not the only difference that the "materialist" transforms the Utopian programme of the "idealist," into something even more Utopian, more nebulous, more absurd?

"To believe that the marvellous scheme of the universe is due to chance, is to imagine that by throwing about a sufficient number of printers' characters at hazard, we might write the Iliad." So reasoned the Deists of the 18th century in refuting the Atheists. The latter replied that in this case everything was a question of time, and that by throwing about the letters an infinite number of times, we must certainly, at some period, make them arrange themselves in the required sequence. Discussions of this kind were to the taste of the 18th century, and we should be wrong to make too much fun of them now-a-days. But it would seem that Bakounine took the Atheist argument of the good old times quite seriously, and used it in order to make himself a "programme." Destroy what exists; if only you do this often enough you are bound at last to produce a social organisation, approaching at any rate the organisation you "dream" of. All will go well when once the revolution has come to stay. Is not this sufficiently "materialist?" If you think it is not, you are a metaphysician, "dreaming" of the impossible!

The Proudhonian antithesis of the "social organisation" and the "political constitution" reappears "living" and in its entirety in what Bakounine is for ever reiterating as to the "social revolution" on the one hand, and the "political revolution" on the other. According to Proudhon the social organisation has unfortunately, up to our own days, never existed, and for want of it humanity was driven to "invent" a political constitution. According to Bakounine the social revolution has never yet been made, because humanity, for want of a good "social" programme had to content itself with political revolutions. Now that this programme has been found, there is no need to bother about the "political" revolution; we have quite enough to do with the "social revolution."

Every class struggle being necessarily a political struggle, it is evident that every political revolution, worthy of the name, is a social revolution; it is evident also that for the proletariat the political struggle is as much a necessity as it has always been for every class struggling to emancipate itself. Bakounine anathematises all political action by the proletariat; he extols the "social" struggle exclusively. Now what is this social struggle?

Here our Proudhonian once again shows himself adulterated by Marxism. He relies as far as possible upon the Rules of the International Workingmen's Association.

In the preamble of these Rules it is laid down that the subjection of the worker to capital lies at the bottom of all servitude, political, moral and material, and that therefore the economic emancipation of the workers is the great end to which all political movements must be subordinated as a means. Bakounine argues from this that "every political movement which has not for its immediate and direct object the final and complete economic emancipation of the workers, and which has not inscribed upon its banner quite definitely and clearly, the principle of economic equality, that is, the integral restitution of capital to labour, or else the social liquidation—every such political movement is a bourgeois one, and as such must be excluded from the International." But this same Bakounine has heard it said that the historical movement of humanity is a process in conformity with certain laws, and that a revolution cannot be improvised at a moment's notice. He is therefore forced to ask himself, what is the policy which the International is to adopt during that "more or less prolonged period of time which separates us from the terrible social revolution which everyone foresees to-day?" To this he replies, with the most profound conviction, and, as if quoting the Rules of the International:

"Without mercy the policy of the democratic bourgeois, or bourgeois-Socialists, must be excluded, which, when these declare that political freedom is a necessary condition of economic emancipation, can only mean this: political reforms, or political revolutions must precede economic reforms or economic revolutions; the workers must therefore join hands with the more or less Radical bourgeois, in order to carry out the former together with them, then, being free, to turn the latter into a reality against them. We protest loudly against this unfortunate theory, which, so far as the workers are concerned, can only result in their again letting themselves be used as tools against themselves, and handing them over once more to bourgeois exploitation."

The International "commands" us to disregard all national or local politics; it must give the working-class movement in all countries an "essentially economic" character, by setting up as final aim "the shortening of the hours of labour, and the increase of wages," and as a means "the association of the working masses, and the starting of funds for fighting." It is needless to add that the shortening of the hours of labour must, of course, be obtained without any intervention from the accursed State.[42]

Bakounine cannot understand that the working class in its political action can completely separate itself from all the exploiting parties. According to him, there is no other role in the political movement for the workers than that of satellite of the Radical bourgeoisie. He glorifies the "essentially economic" tactics of the old English Trade Unions, and has not the faintest idea that it was these very tactics that made the English workers the tail of the Liberal Party.

Bakounine objects to the working class lending a hand in any movement whose object is the obtaining or the extension of political rights. In condemning such movements as "bourgeois," he fancies himself a tremendous revolutionist. As a matter of fact he thus proves himself essentially Conservative, and if the working class were ever to follow this line of inaction the Governments could only rejoice.[43]

The true revolutionists of our days have a very different idea of Socialist tactics. They "everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things;"[44] which does not prevent them (but quite the contrary) from forming the proletariat into a party separate from all the exploiter parties, opposed to the whole "reactionary mass."

Proudhon, who we know had not any overwhelming sympathy for "politics," nevertheless advised the French workers to vote for the candidates who pledged themselves to "constitute value." Bakounine would not have politics at any price. The worker cannot make use of political liberty: "in order to do so he needs two little things—leisure and material means." So it is all only a bourgeois lie. Those who speak of working-class candidates are but mocking the proletariat. "Working-class candidates, transferred to bourgeois conditions of life, and into an atmosphere of completely bourgeois political ideas, ceasing to be actually workers in order to become statesmen, will become bourgeois, and possibly will become even more bourgeois than the bourgeois themselves. For it is not the men who make positions, but, on the contrary, positions which make the men."[45]

This last argument is about all Bakounine was able to assimilate of the materialist conception of history. It is unquestionably true that man is the product of his social environment. But to apply this incontestable truth with advantage it is necessary to get rid of the old, metaphysical method of thought which considers things one after the other, and independently one of the other. Now Bakounine, like his master, Proudhon, in spite of his flirtation with the Hegelian philosophy, all his life remained a metaphysician. He does not understand that the environment which makes man may change, thus changing man its own product. The environment he has in his mind's eye when speaking of the political action of the proletariat, is the bourgeois parliamentary environment, that environment which must necessarily fatally corrupt labour representatives. But the environment of the electors, the environment of a working-class party, conscious of its aim and well organised, would this have no influence upon the elected of the proletariat? No! Economically enslaved, the working class must always remain in political servitude; in this domain it will always be the weakest; to free itself it must begin by an economic revolution. Bakounine does not see that by this process of reasoning he inevitably arrives at the conclusion that a victory of the proletariat is absolutely impossible, unless the owners of the means of production voluntarily relinquish their possessions to them. In effect the subjection of the worker to capital is the source not only of political but of moral servitude. And how can the workers, morally enslaved, rise against the bourgeoisie? For the working class movement to become possible, according to Bakounine, it must therefore first make an economic revolution. But the economic revolution is only possible as the work of the workers themselves. So we find ourselves in a vicious circle, out of which modern Socialism can easily break, but in which Bakounine and the Bakounists are for ever turning with no other hope of deliverance than a logical salto mortale.

The corrupting influence of the Parliamentary environment on working-class representatives is what the Anarchists have up to the present considered the strongest argument in their criticism of the political activity of Social-Democracy. We have seen what its theoretical value amounts to. And even a slight knowledge of the history of the German Socialist party will sufficiently show how in practical life the Anarchist apprehensions are answered.

In repudiating all "politics" Bakounine was forced to adopt the tactics of the old English Trade Unions. But even he felt that these tactics were not very revolutionary. He tried to get out of the difficulty by the help of his "Alliance," a kind of international secret society, organised on a basis of frenetic centralisation and grotesque fancifulness. Subjected to the dictatorial rule of the sovereign pontiff of Anarchy, the "international" and the "national" brethren were bound to accelerate and direct the "essentially economic" revolutionary movement. At the same time Bakounine approved of "riots," of isolated risings of workers and peasants which, although they must inevitably be crushed out, would, he declared, always have a good influence upon the development of the revolutionary spirit among the oppressed. It goes without saying that with such a "programme" he was able to do much harm to the working class movement, but he was not able to draw nearer, even by a single step, to that "immediate" economic revolution of which he "dreamed."[46] We shall presently see the result of the Bakounist theory of "riots." For the present let us sum up what we have said of Bakounine. And here, he shall help us himself.

"Upon the Pangermanic banner" [i.e., also upon the banner of German Social-Democracy, and consequently upon the Socialist banner of the whole civilised world] "is inscribed: The conservation and strengthening of the State at all costs; on the Socialist-revolutionary banner" (read Bakounist banner) "is inscribed in characters of blood, in letters of fire: the abolition of all States, the destruction of bourgeois civilisation; free organisation from the bottom to the top, by the help of free associations; the organisation of the working populace (sic!) freed from all trammels, the organisation of the whole of emancipated humanity, the creation of a new human world."

It is with these words that Bakounine concludes his principal work "Statism and Anarchy" (Russian). We leave our readers to appreciate the rhetorical beauties of this passage. For our own part we shall be content with saying that it contains absolutely no human meaning whatsoever.

The absurd, pure and simple—that is what is inscribed upon the Bakounist "banner." There is no need of letters of fire and of blood to make this evident to any one who is not hypnotised by a phraseology more or less sonorous, but always void of sense.

The Anarchism of Stirner and of Proudhon was completely individualist. Bakounine did not want individualism, or to speak more correctly, one particular phase of individualism. He was the inventor of "Collectivist-Anarchism." And the invention cost him little. He completed the "liberty" Utopia, by the "equality" Utopia. As these two Utopias would not agree, as they cried out at being yoked together, he threw both into the furnace of the "permanent revolution" where they were both at last forced to hold their tongues, for the simple reason that they both evaporated, the one as completely as the other.

Bakounine is the decadent of Utopism.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] "Statism and Anarchy," Appendix A. But for Russia the "science" of Bakounine was quite equal to divining the future forms of social life; there is to be the Commune, whose ulterior development will start from the actual rural commune. It was especially the Bakounists who in Russia spread the notion about the marvellous virtues of the Russian rural commune.

[42] See Bakounine's articles on the "Politics of the International" in the Egalite of Geneva, August, 1869.

[43] The anathemas pronounced by Bakounine against political liberty for a time had a very deplorable influence upon the revolutionary movement in Russia.

[44] Communist Manifesto, p. 30.

[45] Egalite, 28th August, 1869.

[46] On the action of Bakounine in the International, see the two works published by the General Council of that organisation: Les Pretendus Scissions dans l'Internationale, and L'Alliance de la Democratic Sociale. See also Engels' article Die Bakunisten an der Arbeit, reprinted in the recently published pamphlet, Internationales aus dem Volkstaat (i.e., a series of articles published in the Volkstaat,) 1873-75. Berlin, 1894.



CHAPTER VII

THE SMALLER FRY

Among our present-day Anarchists some, like John Mackay, the author of "Die Anarchisten, Kulturgemaelde aus dem Ende des xix. Jahrhunderts," declare for individualism, while others—by far the more numerous—call themselves Communists. These are the descendants of Bakounine in the Anarchist movement. They have produced a fairly considerable literature in various languages, and it is they who are making so much noise with the help of the "propaganda by deed." The prophet of this school is the Russian refugee, P. A. Kropotkine.

I shall not here stop to consider the doctrines of the Individualist-Anarchist of to-day, whom even their brethren, the Communist-Anarchists, look upon as "bourgeois."[47] We will go straight on to the Anarchist-"Communist."

What is the standpoint of this new species of Communism? "As to the method followed by the Anarchist thinker, it entirely differs from that of the Utopists," Kropotkine assures us. "The Anarchist thinker does not resort to metaphysical conceptions (like 'natural rights,' the 'duties of the State' and so on) to establish what are, in his opinion, the best conditions for realising the greatest happiness of humanity. He follows, on the contrary, the course traced by the modern philosophy of evolution.... He studies human society as it is now, and was in the past; and, without either endowing men altogether, or separate individuals, with superior qualities which they do not possess, he merely considers society as an aggregation of organisms trying to find out the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of cooperation for the welfare of the species. He studies society and tries to discover its tendencies, past and present, its growing needs, intellectual and economical, and in this he merely points out in which direction evolution goes."[48]

So the Anarchist-Communists have nothing in common with the Utopians. They do not, in the elaborating of their "ideal," turn to metaphysical conceptions like "natural rights," the "duties of the State," etc. Is this really so?

So far as the "duties of the State" are concerned, Kropotkine is quite right; it would be too absurd if the Anarchists invited the State to disappear in the name of its own "duties." But as to "natural rights" he is altogether mistaken. A few quotations will suffice to prove this.

Already in the Bulletin de la Federation Jurasienne (No. 3, 1877), we find the following very significant declaration: "The sovereignty of the people can only exist through the most complete autonomy of individuals and of groups." This "most complete autonomy," is it not also a "metaphysical conception?"

The Bulletin de la Federation Jurasienne was an organ of Collectivist Anarchism. At bottom there is no difference between "Collectivist" and "Communist" Anarchism. And yet, since it might be that we are making the Communists responsible for the Collectivists, let us glance at the "Communist" publications, not only according to the spirit but the letter. In the autumn of 1892 a few "companions" appeared before the Assize Court of Versailles in consequence of a theft of dynamite at Soisy-sous-Etiolles. Among others there was one G. Etievant, who drew up a declaration of Anarchist-Communist principles. The tribunal would not allow him to read it, whereupon the official organ of the Anarchists, La Revolte, undertook to publish this declaration, having taken great pains to secure an absolutely correct copy of the original. The "Declaration of G. Etievant" made a sensation in the Anarchist world, and even "cultured" men like Octave Mirbeau quote it with respect along with the works of the "theorists," Bakounine, Kropotkine, the "unequalled Proudhon," and the "aristocratic Spencer!" Now this is the line of Etievant's reasoning:

No idea is innate in us; each idea is born of infinitely diverse and multiple sensations, which we receive by means of our organs. Every act of the individual is the result of one or several ideas. The man is not therefore responsible. In order that responsibility should exist, will would have to determine the sensations, just as these determine the idea, and the idea, the act. But as it is, on the contrary, the sensations which determine the will, all judgment becomes impossible, every reward, every punishment unjust, however great the good or the evil done may be. "Thus one cannot judge men and acts unless one has a sufficient criterion. Now no such criterion exists. At any rate it is not in the laws that it could be found, for true justice is immutable and laws are changeable. It is with laws as with all the rest (!). For if laws are beneficent what is the good of deputies and senators to change them? And if they are bad what is the good of magistrates to apply them?"

Having thus "demonstrated" "liberty," Etievant passes on to "equality."

From the zoophytes to men, all beings are provided with more or less perfect organs destined to serve them. All these beings have therefore the right to make use of their organs according to the evident will of mother Nature. "So for our legs we have the right to all the space they can traverse; for our lungs to all the air we can breathe; for our stomach to all the food we can digest; for our brain to all we can think, or assimilate of the thoughts of others; for our faculty of elocution to all we can say; for our ears to all we can hear; and we have a right to all this because we have a right to life, and because all this constitutes life. These are the true rights of man! No need to decree them, they exist as the sun exists. They are written in no constitution, in no law, but they are inscribed in ineffaceable letters in the great book of Nature and are imprescriptible. From the cheese-mite to the elephant, from the blade of grass to the oak, from the atom to the star, everything proclaims it."

If these are not "metaphysical conceptions," and of the very worst type, a miserable caricature of the metaphysical materialism of the eighteenth century, if this is the "philosophy of evolution," then we must confess that it has nothing in common with the scientific movement of our day.

Let us hear another authority, and quote the now famous book of Jean Grave, "La Societe mourante et l'Anarchie," which was recently condemned by French judges, who thought it dangerous, while it is only supremely ridiculous.

"Anarchy means the negation of authority. Now, Government claims to base the legitimacy of its existence upon the necessity of defending social institutions: the family, religion, property, etc. It has created a vast machinery in order to assure its exercise and its sanction. The chief are: the law, the magistracy, the army, the legislature, executive powers, etc. So that the Anarchist idea, forced to reply to everything, was obliged to attack all social prejudices, to become thoroughly penetrated by all human knowledge, in order to demonstrate that its conceptions were in harmony with the physiological and psychological nature of man, and in harmony with the observance of natural laws, while our actual organisation has been established in contravention of all logic and all good sense.... Thus, in combating authority, it has been necessary for the Anarchists to attack all the institutions which the Government defends, the necessity for which it tries to demonstrate in order to legitimate its own existence."[49]

You see what was "the development" of the "Anarchist Idea." This Idea "denied" authority. In order to defend itself, authority appealed to the family, religion, property. Then the "Idea" found itself forced to attack institutions, which it had not, apparently, noticed before, and at the same time the "Idea," in order to make the most of its "conceptions," penetrated to the very depths of all human knowledge (it is an ill wind that does not blow some good!) All this is only the result of chance, of the unexpected turn given by "authority" to the discussion that had arisen between itself and the "Idea."

It seems to us that however rich in human knowledge it may be now, the "Anarchist Idea" is not at all communistic; it keeps its knowledge to itself, and leaves the poor "companions" in complete ignorance. It is all very well for Kropotkine to sing the praises of the "Anarchist thinker"; he will never be able to prove that his friend Grave has been able to rise even a little above the feeblest metaphysics.

Kropotkine should read over again the Anarchist pamphlets of Elisee Reclus—a great "theorist" this—and then, quite seriously tell us if he finds anything else in them but appeals to "justice," "liberty," and other "metaphysical conceptions."

Finally, Kropotkine himself is not so emancipated from metaphysics as he fancies he is. Far from it! Here, e.g., is what he said at the general meeting of the Federation of the Jura, on the 12th October, 1879, at Chaux-de-Fonds:—

"There was a time when they denied Anarchists even the right to existence. The General Council of the International treated us as factious, the press as dreamers; almost all treated us as fools; this time is past. The Anarchist party has proved its vitality; it has surmounted the obstacles of every kind that impeded its development; to-day it is accepted." [By whom?] "To attain to this, it has been necessary, above all else, for the party to hold its own in the domain of theory, to establish its ideal of the society of the future, to prove that this ideal is the best; to do more than this—to prove that this ideal is not the product of the dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas. This work has been done," etc....

This hunt after the best ideal of the society of the future, is not this the Utopian method par excellence? It is true that Kropotkine tries to prove "that this ideal is not the product of dreams of the study, but flows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas." But what Utopian has not tried to prove this equally with himself? Everything depends upon the value of the proofs, and here our amiable compatriot is infinitely weaker than the great Utopians whom he treats as metaphysicians, while he himself has not the least notion of the actual methods of modern social science. But before examining the value of these "proofs," let us make the acquaintance of the "ideal" itself. What is Kropotkine's conception of Anarchist society?

Pre-occupied with the reorganising of the governmental machine, the revolutionist-politicians, the "Jacobins" (Kropotkine detests the Jacobins even more than our amiable Empress, Catherine II., detested them) allowed the people to die of hunger. The Anarchists will act differently. They will destroy the State, and will urge on the people to the expropriation of the rich. Once this expropriation accomplished, an "inventory" of the common wealth will be made, and the "distribution" of it organised. Everything will be done by the people themselves. "Just give the people elbow room, and in a week the business of the food supply will proceed with admirable regularity. Only one who has never seen the hard-working people at their labour, only one who has buried himself in documents, could doubt this. Speak of the organising capacity of the Great Misunderstood, the People, to those who have seen them at Paris on the days of the barricades" (which is certainly not the case of Kropotkine) "or in London at the time of the last great strike, when they had to feed half a million starving people, and they will tell you how superior the people is to all the hide-bound officials."[50]

The basis upon which the enjoyment in common of the food supply is to be organised will be very fair, and not at all "Jacobin." There is but one, and only one, which is consistent with sentiments of justice, and is really practical. The taking in heaps from what one possesses abundance of! Rationing out what must be measured, divided! Out of 350 millions who inhabit Europe, 200 millions still follow this perfectly natural practice—which proves, among other things, that the Anarchist ideal "flows from the popular aspirations."

It is the same with regard to housing and clothing. The people will organise everything according to the same rule. There will be an upheaval; that is certain. Only this upheaval must not become mere loss, it must be reduced to a minimum. And it is again—we cannot repeat it too often—by turning to those immediately interested and not to bureaucrats that the "least amount of inconvenience will be inflicted upon everybody."[51]

Thus from the beginning of the revolution we shall have an organisation; the whims of sovereign "individuals" will be kept within reasonable bounds by the wants of society, by the logic of the situation. And, nevertheless, we shall be in the midst of full-blown Anarchy; individual liberty will be safe and sound. This seems incredible, but it is true; there is anarchy, and there is organisation, there are obligatory rules for everyone, and yet everyone does what he likes. You do not follow. 'Tis simple enough. This organisation—it is not the "authoritarian" revolutionists who will have created it;—these rules, obligatory upon all, and yet anarchical, it is the People, the Great Misunderstood, who will have proclaimed them, and the People are very knowing as anyone who has seen,—what Kropotkine never had the opportunity of seeing—days of barricade riots, knows.[52]

But if the Great Misunderstood had the stupidity to create the "bureaux" so detested of Kropotkine? If, as it did in March, 1871, it gave itself a revolutionary Government? Then we shall say the people is mistaken, and shall try to bring it back to a better state of mind, and if need be we will throw a few bombs at the "hide bound officials." We will call upon the People to organise, and will destroy all the organs it may provide itself with.

This then is the way in which we realise the excellent Anarchist ideal—in imagination. In the name of the liberty of individuals all action of the individuals is done away with, and in the name of the People we get rid of the whole class of revolutionists; the individuals are drowned in the mass. If you can only get used to this logical process, you meet with no more difficulties, and you can boast that you are neither "authoritarian" nor "Utopian." What could be easier, what more pleasant?

But in order to consume, it is necessary to produce. Kropotkine knows this so well that he reads the "authoritarian" Marx a lesson on the subject.

"The evil of the present organisation is not in that the 'surplus value' of production passes over to the capitalist—as Rodbertus and Marx had contended—thus narrowing down the Socialist conception, and the general ideas on the capitalist regime. Surplus value itself is only a consequence of more profound causes. The evil is that there can be any kind of 'surplus value,' instead of a surplus not consumed by each generation; for, in order that there may be 'surplus value,' men, women, and children must be obliged by hunger to sell their labour powers, for a trifling portion of what these powers produce, and, especially of what they are capable of producing" (poor Marx, who knew nothing of all these profound truths, although so confusedly expounded by the learned Prince!)... "It does not, indeed, suffice to distribute in equal shares the profits realised in one industry, if, at the same time, one has to exploit thousands of other workers. The point is to produce with the smallest possible expenditure of human labour power the greatest possible amount of products necessary for the well being of all." (Italicised by Kropotkine himself.)

Ignorant Marxists that we are! We have never heard that a Socialist society pre-supposes a systematic organisation of production. Since it is Kropotkine who reveals this to us, it is only reasonable that we should turn to him to know what this organisation will be like. On this subject also he has some very interesting things to say.

"Imagine a Society comprising several million inhabitants engaged in agriculture, and a great variety of industries—Paris, for example, with the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Imagine that in this Society all children learn to work with their hand as well as with their brain. Admit, in fine, that all adults, with the exception of the women occupied with the education of children, undertake to work five hours a day from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and that they spend this time in any occupations they choose, in no matter what branch of human labour considered necessary. Such a Society could, in return, guarantee well-being to all its members, i.e., far greater comfort than that enjoyed by the bourgeoisie to-day. And every worker in this Society would moreover have at his disposal at least five hours a day, which he could devote to science, to art, and to those individual needs that do not come within the category of necessities, while later on, when the productive forces of man have augmented, everything may be introduced into this category that is still to-day looked upon as a luxury or unattainable."[53]

In Anarchist Society there will be no authority, but there will be the Contract (oh! immortal Monsieur Proudhon, here you are again; we see all still goes well with you!) by virtue of which the infinitely free individuals "agree" to work in such or such a "free commune." The contract is justice, liberty, equality; it is Proudhon, Kropotkine, and all the Saints. But, at the same time, do not trifle with the contract! It is a thing not so destitute of means to defend itself as would seem. Indeed, suppose the signatory of a contract freely made does not wish to fulfil his duty? He is driven forth from the free commune, and he runs the risk of dying of hunger—which is not a particularly gay outlook.

"I suppose a group or a certain number of volunteers, combining in some enterprise, to secure the success of which all rival each other in zeal, with the exception of one associate, who frequently absents himself from his post. Should they, on his account, dissolve the group, appoint a president who would inflict fines, or else, like the Academy, distribute attendance-counters? It is evident that we shall do neither the one nor the other, but that one day the comrade who threatens to jeopardise the enterprise will be told: 'My friend, we should have been glad to work with you, but as you are often absent from your post, or do your work negligently, we must part. Go and look for other comrades who will put up with your off-hand ways.'"[54] This is pretty strong at bottom; but note how appearances are saved, how very "Anarchist" is his language. Really, we should not be at all surprised if in the "Anarchist-Communist" society people were guillotined by persuasion, or, at any rate, by virtue of a freely-made contract.

But farther, this very Anarchist method of dealing with lazy "free individuals" is perfectly "natural," and "is practised everywhere to-day in all industries, in competition with every possible system of fines, stoppages from wages, espionage, etc.; the workman may go to his shop at the regular hour, but if he does his work badly, if he interferes with his comrades by his laziness or other faults, if they fall out, it is all over. He is obliged to leave the workshop."[55] Thus is the Anarchist "Ideal" in complete harmony with the "tendencies" of capitalist society.

For the rest, such strong measures as these will be extremely rare. Delivered from the yoke of the State and capitalist exploitation, individuals will of their own free motion set themselves to supply the wants of the great All of society. Everything will be done by means of "free arrangement."

"Well, Citizens, let others preach industrial barracks, and the convent of "Authoritarian" Communism, we declare that the tendency of societies is in the opposite direction. We see millions and millions of groups constituting themselves freely in order to satisfy all the varied wants of human beings, groups formed, some by districts, by streets, by houses; others holding out hands across the walls (!) of cities, of frontiers, of oceans. All made up of human beings freely seeking one another, and having done their work as producers, associating themselves, to consume, or to produce articles of luxury, or to turn science into a new direction. This is the tendency of the nineteenth century, and we are following it; we ask only to develop it freely, without let or hindrance on the part of governments. Liberty for the individual!" "Take some pebbles," said Fourier, "put them into a box and shake them; they will arrange themselves into a mosaic such as you could never succeed in producing if you told off some one to arrange them harmoniously."[56]

A wit has said that the profession of faith of the Anarchists reduces itself to two articles of a fantastic law: (1) There shall be nothing. (2) No one is charged with carrying out the above article.

This is not correct. The Anarchists say:

(1) There shall be everything. (2) No one is held responsible for seeing that there is anything at all.

This is a very seductive "Ideal," but its realisation is unfortunately very improbable.

Let us now ask, what is this "free agreement" which according to Kropotkine, exists even in capitalist society? He quotes two kinds of examples by way of evidence: (a) those connected with production and the circulation of commodities; (b) those belonging to all kinds of societies of amateurs—learned societies, philanthropic societies, etc.

"Take all the great enterprises: the Suez Canal, e.g., Trans-Atlantic navigation, the telegraph that unites the two Americas. Take, in fine, this organisation of commerce, which provides that when you get up in the morning you are sure to find bread at the bakers' ... meat at the butchers', and everything you want in the shops. Is this the work of the State? Certainly, to-day we pay middlemen abominably dearly. Well, all the more reason to suppress them, but not to think it necessary to confide to the Government the care of providing our goods and our clothing."[57]

Remarkable fact! we began by snapping our fingers at Marx, who only thought of suppressing surplus value, and had no idea of the organisation of production, and we end by demanding the suppression of the profits of the middleman, while, so far as production is concerned, we preach the most bourgeois laissez-faire, laissez passer. Marx might, not without reason, have said, he laughs best who laughs last!

We all know what the "free agreement" of the bourgeois entrepreneur is, and we can only admire the "absolute" naivete of the man who sees in it the precursor of communism. It is exactly this Anarchic "arrangement" that must be got rid of in order that the producers may cease to be the slaves of their own products.[58]

As to the really free societies of savants, artists, philanthropists, etc., Kropotkine himself tells us what their example is worth. They are "made up of human beings freely seeking one another after having done their work as producers." Although this is not correct—since in these societies there is often not a single producer—this still farther proves that we can only be free after we have settled our account with production. The famous "tendency of the nineteenth century," therefore, tells us nothing on the main question—how the unlimited liberty of the individual can be made to harmonise with the economic requirements of a communistic society. And as this "tendency" constitutes the whole of the scientific equipment of our "Anarchist thinker," we are driven to the conclusion that his appeal to science was merely verbiage, that he is, in spite of his contempt for the Utopians, one of the least ingenious of these, a vulgar hunter in search of the "best Ideal."

The "free agreement" works wonders, if not in Anarchist society, which unfortunately does not yet exist, at least in Anarchist arguments. "Our present society being abolished, individuals no longer needing to hoard in order to make sure of the morrow, this, indeed being made impossible, by the suppression of all money or symbol of value—all their wants being satisfied and provided for in the new society, the stimulus of individuals being now only that ideal of always striving towards the best, the relations of individuals or groups no longer being established with a view to those exchanges in which each contracting party only seeks to 'do' his partner" (the "free agreement" of the bourgeois, of which Kropotkine has just spoken to us) "these relations will now only have for object the rendering of mutual services, with which particular interests have nothing to do, the agreement will be rendered easy, the causes of discord having disappeared."[59]

Question: How will the new society satisfy the needs of its members? How will it make them certain of the morrow?

Answer: By means of free agreements.

Question: Will production be possible if it depends solely upon the free agreement of individuals?

Answer: Of course! And in order to convince yourself of it, you have only to assume that your morrow is certain, that all your needs are satisfied, and, in a word, that production, thanks to free agreement, is getting on swimmingly.

What wonderful logicians these "companions" are, and what a beautiful ideal is that which has no other foundation than an illogical assumption!

"It has been objected that in leaving individuals free to organise as they like, there would arise that competition between groups which to-day exists between individuals. This is a mistake, for in the society we desire money would be abolished, consequently there would no longer be any exchange of products, but exchange of services. Besides, in order that such a social revolution as we contemplate can have been accomplished we must assume that a certain evolution of ideas will have taken place in the mind of the masses, or, at the least, of a considerable minority among them. But if the workers have been sufficiently intelligent to destroy bourgeois exploitation, it will not be in order to re-establish it among themselves, especially when they are assured all their wants will be supplied."[60]

It is incredible, but it is incontestably true: the only basis for the "Ideal" of the Anarchist-Communists, is this petitio principii, this "assumption" of the very thing that has to be proved. Companion Grave, the "profound thinker," is particularly rich in assumptions. As soon as any difficult problem presents itself, he "assumes" that it is already solved, and then everything is for the best in the best of ideals.

The "profound" Grave is less circumspect than the "learned" Kropotkine. And so it is only he who succeeds in reducing the "ideal" to "absolute" absurdity.

He asks himself what will be done if in "the society of the day after the revolution" there should be a papa who should refuse his child all education. The papa is an individual with unlimited rights. He follows the Anarchist rule, "Do as thou wouldst." No one has any right, therefore, to bring him to his senses. On the other hand, the child also may do as he likes, and he wants to learn. How to get out of this conflict, how resolve the dilemma without offending the holy laws of Anarchy? By an "assumption." "Relations" (between citizens) "being much wider and more imbued with fraternity than in our present society, based as it is upon the antagonism of interests, it follows that the child by means of what he will see passing before his eyes, by what he will daily hear, will escape from the influence of the parent, and will find every facility necessary for acquiring the knowledge his parents refuse to give him. Nay more, if he finds himself too unhappy under the authority they try to force upon him, he would abandon them in order to place himself under the protection of individuals with whom he was in greater sympathy. The parents could not send the gendarmes after him to bring back to their authority the slave whom the law to-day gives up to them."[61]

It is not the child who is running away from his parents, but the Utopian who is running away from an insurmountable logical difficulty. And yet this judgment of Solomon has seemed so profound to the companions that, it has been literally quoted by Emil Darnaud in his book "La Societe Future" (Foix. 1890, p. 26)—a book especially intended to popularise the lucubrations of Grave.

"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 constituted—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 constitute 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 God. 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 reassure 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 Canal! Why not the Panama Canal?

[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 class movement. The Utopians of our days do nothing but retard 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 class 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 class 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 assumed 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-class, 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" (Unabhaengige) 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 assures us. "Absolute monarchy—that is Court-rule—corresponded to the system of serfdom. Representative government corresponds to capital-rule. Both, however, are class-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 constitution 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 emancipation 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 emancipation of the peasants will have prepared the way for the weakening of Russian Tzarism. But how to emancipate the peasants before overthrowing Tzarism? Absolute mystery! Such an emancipation 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-class 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 institutions 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 class 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 space 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 compass, 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 classes. 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 masses 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 massacre 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.

"To send working men to a Parliament," said Bordat, before the Lyons tribunal in 1893, "is to act like a mother who would take her daughter to a brothel." Thus it is also in the name of morality that the Anarchists repudiate political action. But what is the outcome of their fear of parliamentary corruption? The glorification of theft, ("Put money in thy purse," wrote Most in his Freiheit, already in 1880), the exploits of the Duvals and Ravachols, who in the name of the "cause" commit the most vulgar and disgusting crimes. The Russian writer, Herzen, relates somewhere how on arriving at some small Italian town, he met only priests and bandits, and was greatly perplexed, being unable to decide which were the priests and which the bandits. And this is the position of every impartial person to-day; for how are you going to divine where the "companion" ends and the bandit begins? The Anarchists themselves are not always sure, as was proved by the controversy caused in their ranks by the Ravachol affair. Thus the better among them, those whose honesty is absolutely unquestionable, constantly fluctuate in their views of the "propaganda of deed."

"Condemn the propaganda of deed?" says Elysee Reclus. "But what is this propaganda except the preaching of well-doing and love of humanity by example? Those who call the "propaganda of deed" acts of violence prove that they have not understood the meaning of this expression. The Anarchist who understands his part, instead of massacring somebody or other, will exclusively strive to bring this person round to his opinions, and to make of him an adept who, in his turn, will make "propaganda of deed" by showing himself good and just to all those whom he may meet."[75]

We will not ask what is left of the Anarchist who has divorced himself from the tactics of "deeds."

We only ask the reader to consider the following lines: "The editor of the Sempre Avanti wrote to Elysee Reclus asking him for his true opinion of Ravachol. 'I admire his courage, his goodness of heart, his greatness of soul, the generosity with which he pardons his enemies, or rather his betrayers. I hardly know of any men who have surpassed him in nobleness of conduct. I reserve the question as to how far it is always desirable to push to extremities one's own right, and whether other considerations moved by a spirit of human solidarity ought not to prevail. Still I am none the less one of those who recognise in Ravachol a hero of a magnanimity but little common.'"[76]