{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30506/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30506","id":"gutenberg_30506","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30506","summary":null,"tags":["Anarchism","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Category: Sociology","Socialism"],"text":"Note: Images of the original pages are available by viewing\n      Project Gutenberg's HTML version of this file.\n      See 30506-h.htm or 30506-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30506/pg30506-images.html)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30506/30506-h.zip)\n\n\n\n\n\nANARCHISM AND SOCIALISM\n\nby\n\nGEORGE PLECHANOFF\n\nTranslated with the permission of the author by\nEleanor Marx Aveling\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nChicago\nCharles H. Kerr & Company\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nPUBLISHERS' NOTE                                                 7\n\nPREFACE                                                         13\n\n   I. THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE UTOPIAN SOCIALISTS               17\n\n  II. THE POINT OF VIEW OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM                 30\n\n III. THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANARCHIST DOCTRINE      38\n\n  IV. PROUDHON                                                  53\n\n   V. BAKOUNINE                                                 78\n\n  VI. BAKOUNINE--(CONCLUDED)                                    89\n\n VII. THE SMALLER FRY                                          103\n\nVIII. THE SO-CALLED ANARCHIST TACTICS. THEIR MORALITY          127\n\n  IX. THE BOURGEOISIE, ANARCHISM, AND SOCIALISM                143\n\n\n\n\nPUBLISHERS' NOTE\n\n\nIn reprinting _Anarchism and Socialism_, by George Plechanoff, we\nrealize that there is not the same need for assailing and exposing\nanarchism at present as there has been at different times in the past.\nYet the book is valuable, not merely because of its historic interest\nbut also to workers coming into contact with the revolutionary movement\nfor the first time. The general conception of anarchism that a beginner\noften gets is that it is something extremely advanced. It is often\nexpressed somewhat as follows: \"After capitalism comes socialism and\nthen comes anarchism.\" Plechanoff very ably explodes such notions.\n\nWithin the pages of this work the author shows not only the reactionary\ncharacter of anarchism, but he exposes its class bias and its empty\nphilosophic idealism and utopian program. He shows anarchism to be just\nthe opposite of scientific socialism or communism. It aims at a society\ndominated by individualism, which is simply a capitalist ideal. Such\nideals as \"liberty,\" \"equality,\" \"fraternity,\" first sprang from the\nranks of the petty property owners of early capitalism, as Plechanoff\nshows. He also points out that while Proudhon is usually credited with\nbeing \"the father of anarchism\" that actually Max Stirner comes closer\nto being its \"father.\" Stirner's \"League of Egoists,\" he says, \"is only\nthe utopia of a petty bourgeois in revolt. In this sense one may say he\nhas spoken the last word of bourgeois individualism.\"\n\nBakounine and Kropotkine, the famous Russian anarchists, are exposed as\nconfused idealists, who have not aided but rather hindered the\ndevelopment of the working-class movement. Lenin speaks highly of the\nbook in this relation, but takes Plechanoff severely to task for his\nfailure properly to set forth the Marxian concepts of the State, and for\nhis total evasion of the form the State must take during the time it is\nin the hands of the workers. When writing on the \"Vulgarisation of Marx\nby the Opportunists,\" in his _State and Revolution_, Lenin said:\n\n\"Plechanoff devoted a special pamphlet to the question of the relation\nof socialism to anarchism entitled _Anarchism and Socialism_, published\nin German in 1894. He managed somehow to treat the question without\ntouching on the most vital, controversial point, the essential point\n_politically_, in the struggle with the anarchists: the relation of the\nrevolution to State, and the question of the State in general. His\npamphlet may be divided into two parts: one, historico-literary,\ncontaining valuable material for the history of the ideas of Stirner,\nProudhon, and others; the second, ignorant and narrow-minded, containing\na clumsy disquisition on the theme 'that an anarchist cannot be\ndistinguished from a bandit,' an amusing combination of subjects and\nmost characteristic of the entire activity of Plechanoff on the eve of\nrevolution and during the revolutionary period in Russia. Indeed, in the\nyears 1908 to 1917 Plechanoff showed himself to be half doctrinaire and\nhalf philistine, walking, politically, in the wake of the bourgeoisie.\n\n\"We saw how Marx and Engels, in their polemics against the anarchists,\nexplained most thoroughly their views on the relation of the revolution\nto the State. Engels, when editing in 1891, Marx's _Criticism of the\nGotha Program_, wrote that 'we'--that is, Engels and Marx--'were then in\nthe fiercest phase of our battle with Bakounine and his anarchists;\nhardly two years had then passed since the Hague Congress of the\nInternational' (the First). The anarchists had tried to claim the Paris\nCommune as their 'own,' as a confirmation of their teachings, thus\nshowing that they had not in the least understood the lessons of the\nCommune or the analysis of those lessons by Marx. Anarchism has given\nnothing approaching a true solution of the concrete political problems:\nare we to _break_ up the old State machine, and what shall we put in its\nplace?\n\n\"But to speak of _Anarchism and Socialism_, leaving the whole question\nof the State out of account and taking no notice at all of the whole\ndevelopment of Marxism before and after the Commune--that meant an\ninevitable fall into the pit of opportunism. For that is just what\nopportunism wants--to keep these two questions in abeyance. To secure\nthis is, in itself, a victory of opportunism.\"\n\nThe anarchist desire to abolish the State at one blow, and to abolish\nmoney, etc., in much the same way, springs from their inability to\nunderstand the institutions of capitalist society. To many of them the\nState is simply the result of people having faith in authority. Give up\nthis belief and the State will cease to exist. It is a myth like God and\nrests entirely on faith. The anarchist's desire for the abolition of the\nState arises from entirely different concepts to that of the communists.\nTo these anarchist anti-authoritarians the State is simply bad. It is\nthe most authoritarian thing in sight. It interferes with individual\nfreedom and consequently is the greatest obstruction to \"absolute\nliberty\" and other utopian desires of the champions of individualism.\n\nCommunists also want a society without a State but realize that such can\nonly come about when society is without classes. The aim of the\ncommunist movement is to destroy the capitalist form of the State and\nsubstitute a proletarian form during the time in which society is\nundergoing its classless transformation. When all property is\ncentralized into the hands of this working-class \"State\" and when the\nadministration of things has taken the place of political dominance, the\nState, in its final form, will have withered away. Therefore, the\ncommunist realizes that the State cannot be abolished in the manner\nvisualized by anarchists, but that it must be used, that is, the\nproletariat must be raised \"to the position of ruling class,\" for the\npurpose of expropriating the capitalists and putting an end to the\nexploitation of the producing class. The State is not abolished. Only\nits capitalist form is abolished. The State dies out in the hands of the\nworkers when there is no longer an opposing class to coerce.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe work of my friend George Plechanoff, \"Anarchism and Socialism,\" was\nwritten originally in French. It was then translated into German by Mrs.\nBernstein, and issued in pamphlet form by the German Social-Democratic\nPublishing Office \"Vorw\u00e4rts.\" It was next translated by myself into\nEnglish, and so much of the translation as exigencies of space would\npermit, published in the _Weekly Times and Echo_. The original French\nversion is now appearing in the _Jeunesse Socialiste_, and will be\nissued in book form shortly. The complete English translation is now\ngiven to English readers through the Twentieth Century Press. I have to\nthank the Editor of the _Weekly Times and Echo_, Mr. Kibblewhite, for\nhis kindness in allowing me to use those portions of the work that\nappeared in his paper.\n\nAs to the book itself. There are those who think that the precious time\nof so remarkable a writer, and profound a thinker as George Plechanoff\nis simply wasted in pricking Anarchist wind-bags. But, unfortunately,\nthere are many of the younger, or of the more ignorant sort, who are\ninclined to take words for deeds, high-sounding phrases for acts, mere\nsound and fury for revolutionary activity, and who are too young or too\nignorant to know that such sound and fury signify nothing. It is for the\nsake of these younger, or for the sake of the more ignorant, folk, that\nmen like Plechanoff deal seriously with this matter of Anarchism, and do\nnot feel their time lost if they can, as this work must, help readers to\nsee the true meaning of what is called \"Anarchism.\"\n\nAnd a work like this one of Plechanoff's is doubly necessary in England,\nwhere the Socialist movement is still largely disorganised, where there\nis still such ignorance and confusion on all economic and political\nsubjects; where, with the exception, among the larger Socialist\norganisations, of the Social-Democratic Federation (and even among the\nyounger S.D.F. members there is a vague sort of idea that Anarchism is\nsomething fine and revolutionary), there has been no little coquetting\nwith Anarchism under an impression that it was very \"advanced,\" and\nwhere the Old Unionist cry of \"No politics!\" has unconsciously played\nthe reactionary Anarchist game. We cannot afford to overlook the fact\nthat the Socialist League became in time--when some of us had left\nit--an Anarchist organisation, and that since then its leaders have\nbeen, or still are, more or less avowed Anarchists. While quite recently\nthe leader of a \"new party\"--and that a would-be political one!--did not\nhesitate to declare his Anarchist sympathies or to state that \"The\nmethods of the Anarchists might differ from those of the Socialists, but\nthat might only prove that the former were more zealous than the\nlatter.\"\n\nIt is also necessary to point out once again that Anarchism and\nNihilism have no more in common than Anarchism and Socialism. As\nPlechanoff said at the Z\u00fcrich International Congress: \"We (_i.e._, the\nRussians) have had to endure every form of persecution, every thinkable\nmisery; but we have been spared one disgrace, one humiliation; we, at\nleast, have no Anarchists.\" A statement endorsed and emphasised by other\nRussian revolutionists, and notably by the American delegate, Abraham\nCahan--himself a Russian refugee. The men and women who are waging their\nheroic war in Russia and in Poland against Czarism have no more in\ncommon with Anarchism than had the founders of the modern Socialist\nmovement--Carl Marx and Frederick Engels.\n\nThis little book of Plechanoff will assuredly convince the youngest even\nthat under any circumstances Anarchism is but another word for reaction;\nand the more honest the men and women who play this reactionist game,\nthe more tragic and dangerous it becomes for the whole working class\nmovement.\n\nFinally, there is a last reason why the issuing of this work at the\npresent moment is timely. In 1896 the next International Socialist and\nTrade Union Congress meets in London. It is well that those who may\nattend this great Congress as delegates, and that the thousands of\nworkers who will watch its work, should understand why the resolutions\narrived at by the Paris, Brussels, and Z\u00fcrich International Congresses\nwith regard to the Anarchists should be enforced. The Anarchists who\ncynically declare Workers' Congresses \"absurd, motiveless, and\nsenseless\" must be taught once and for all, that they cannot be allowed\nto make the Congresses of the Revolutionary Socialists of the whole\nworld a playground for reaction and international spydom.\n\nELEANOR MARX AVELING.\n\nGreen Street Green, Orpington, Kent.\nAugust, 1895.\n\n\n\n\nANARCHISM AND SOCIALISM\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE POINT OF VIEW OF THE UTOPIAN SOCIALISTS\n\n\nThe French Materialists of the 18th century while waging relentless war\nagainst all the \"_inf\u00e2mes_\" whose yoke weighed upon the French of this\nperiod, by no means scorned the search after what they called \"perfect\nlegislation,\" _i.e._, the best of all possible legislations, such\nlegislation as should secure to \"human beings\" the greatest sum of\nhappiness, and could be alike applicable to all existing societies, for\nthe simple reason that it was \"perfect\" and therefore the most\n\"natural.\" Excursions into this domain of \"perfect legislation\" occupy\nno small place in the works of a d'Holbach and a Helv\u00e9tius. On the other\nhand, the Socialists of the first half of our century threw themselves\nwith immense zeal, with unequalled perseverance, into the search after\nthe best of possible social organisations, after a perfect social\norganisation. This is a striking and notable characteristic which they\nhave in common with the French Materialists of the last century, and it\nis this characteristic which especially demands our attention in the\npresent work.\n\nIn order to solve the problem of a perfect social organisation, or what\ncomes to the same thing, of the best of all possible legislation, we\nmust eventually have some criterion by the help of which we may compare\nthe various \"legislations\" one with the other. And the criterion must\nhave a special attribute. In fact, there is no question of a\n\"legislation\" _relatively_ the best, _i.e._, _the best legislation under\ngiven conditions_. No, indeed! We have to find a _perfect_ legislation,\na legislation whose perfection should have nothing relative about it,\nshould be entirely independent of time and place, should be, in a word,\nabsolute. We are therefore driven to make abstraction from history,\nsince everything in history is relative, everything depends upon\ncircumstance, time, and place. But abstraction made of the history of\nhumanity, what is there left to guide us in our \"legislative\"\ninvestigations? Humanity is left us, man in general, human nature--of\nwhich history is but the manifestation. Here then we have our criterion\ndefinitely settled, a perfect legislation. The best of all possible\nlegislation is that which best harmonises with human nature. It may be,\nof course, that even when we have such a criterion we may, for want of\n\"light\" or of logic, fail to solve this problem of the best legislation.\n_Errare humanum est_, but it seems incontrovertible that this problem\n_can_ be solved, that we can, by taking our stand upon an exact\nknowledge of human nature, find a perfect legislation, a perfect\norganisation.\n\nSuch was, in the domain of social science, the point of view of the\nFrench Materialists. Man is a sentient and reasonable being, they said;\nhe avoids painful sensations and seeks pleasurable ones. He has\nsufficient intelligence to recognise what is useful to him as well as\nwhat is harmful to him. Once you admit these axioms, and you can in your\ninvestigations into the best legislation, arrive, with the help of\nreflection and good intentions, at conclusions as well founded, as\nexact, as incontrovertible as those derived from a mathematical\ndemonstration. Thus Condorcet undertook to construct deductively all\nprecepts of healthy morality by starting from the truth that man is a\nsentient and reasonable being.\n\nIt is hardly necessary to say that in this Condorcet was mistaken. If\nthe \"philosophers\" in this branch of their investigations arrived at\nconclusions of incontestable though very relative value, they\nunconsciously owed this to the fact that they constantly abandoned their\nabstract standpoint of human nature in general, and took up that of a\nmore or less idealised nature of a man of the Third Estate. This man\n\"felt\" and \"reasoned,\" after a fashion very clearly defined by his\nsocial environment. It was his \"nature\" to believe firmly in bourgeois\nproperty, representative government, freedom of trade (_laissez-faire,\nlaissez passer!_ the \"nature\" of this man was always crying out), and so\non. In reality, the French philosophers always kept in view the economic\nand political requirements of the Third Estate; this was their real\ncriterion. But they applied it unconsciously, and only after much\nwandering in the field of abstraction did they arrive at it. Their\nconscious method always reduced itself to abstract considerations of\n\"human nature,\" and of the social and political institutions that best\nharmonise with this nature.\n\nTheir method was also that of the Socialists. A man of the 18th century,\nMorelly, \"to anticipate a mass of empty objections that would be\nendless,\" lays down as an incontrovertible principle \"that in morals\nnature is one, constant, invariable ... that its laws never change;\" and\nthat \"everything that may be advanced as to the variety in the morals of\nsavage and civilised peoples, by no means proves that nature varies;\"\nthat at the outside it only shows \"that from certain accidental causes\nwhich are foreign to it, some nations have fallen away from the laws of\nnature; others have remained submissive to them, in some respects from\nmere habit; finally, others are subjected to them by certain\nreasoned-out laws that are not always in contradiction with nature;\" in\na word, \"man may abandon the True, but the True can never be\nannihilated!\"[1] Fourier relies upon the analysis of the human passions;\nRobert Owen starts from certain considerations on the formation of human\ncharacter; Saint Simon, despite his deep comprehension of the historical\nevolution of humanity, constantly returns to \"human nature\" in order to\nexplain the laws of this evolution; the Saint-Simonians declared their\nphilosophy was \"based upon a new conception of human nature.\" The\nSocialists of the various schools may quarrel as to the cause of their\ndifferent conceptions of human nature; all, without a single exception,\nare convinced that social science has not and cannot have, any other\nbasis than an adequate concept of this nature. In this they in no wise\ndiffer from the Materialists of the 18th century. Human nature is the\none criterion they invariably apply in their criticism of existing\nsociety, and in their search after a social organisation as it should\nbe, after a \"perfect\" legislation.\n\nMorelly, Fourier, Saint Simon, Owen--we look upon all of them to-day as\nUtopian Socialists. Since we know the general point of view that is\ncommon to them all, we can determine exactly what the Utopian point of\nview is. This will be the more useful, seeing that the opponents of\nSocialism use the word \"Utopian\" without attaching to it any, even\napproximately, definite meaning.\n\nThe _Utopian is one who, starting from an abstract principle, seeks for\na perfect social organisation_.\n\nThe abstract principle which served as starting point of the Utopians\nwas that of human nature. Of course there have been Utopians who applied\nthe principle indirectly through the intermediary of concepts derived\nfrom it. Thus, _e.g._, in seeking for \"perfect legislation,\" for an\nideal organisation of society, one may start from the concept of the\nRights of Man. But it is evident that in its ultimate analysis this\nconcept derives from that of human nature.\n\nIt is equally evident that one may be a Utopian without being a\nSocialist. The bourgeois tendencies of the French Materialists of the\nlast century are most noticeable in their investigations of a perfect\nlegislation. But this in no wise destroys the Utopian character of these\nenquires. We have seen that the method of the Utopian Socialist does not\nin the least differ from that of d'Holbach or Helv\u00e9tius, those champions\nof the revolutionary French bourgeoisie.\n\nNay, more. One may have the profoundest contempt for all \"music of the\nfuture,\" one may be convinced that the social world in which one has the\ngood fortune to live is the best possible of all social worlds, and yet\nin spite of this one may look at the structure and life of the body\nsocial from the same point of view as that from which the Utopians\nregarded it.\n\nThis seems a paradox, and yet nothing could be more true. Take but one\nexample.\n\nIn 1753 there appeared Morelly's work, _Les Isles Flottantes ou la\nBasiliade du c\u00e9l\u00e9bre Pelpai, traduit de l'Indien_.[2] Now, note the\narguments with which a review, _La Biblioth\u00e8que Impartiale_, combated\nthe communistic ideas of the author:--\"One knows well enough that a\ndistance separates the finest speculations of this kind and the\npossibility of their realisation. For in theory one takes imaginary men\nwho lend themselves obediently to every arrangement, and who second with\nequal zeal the views of the legislator; but as soon as one attempts to\nput these things into practice one has to deal with men as they are,\nthat is to say, submissive, lazy, or else in the thraldom of some\nviolent passion. The scheme of equality especially is one that seems\nmost repugnant to the nature of man; they are born to command or to\nserve, a middle term is a burden to them.\"\n\nMen are born to command or to serve. We cannot wonder, therefore, if in\nsociety we see masters and servants, since human nature wills it so. It\nwas all very well for _La Biblioth\u00e8que Impartiale_ to repudiate these\ncommunist speculations. The point of view from which it itself looked\nupon social phenomena, the point of view of human nature, it had in\ncommon with the Utopian Morelly.\n\nAnd it cannot be urged that this review was probably not sincere in its\narguments, and that it appealed to human nature with the single object\nof saying something in favour of the exploiters, in favour of those who\n\"command.\" But sincere or hypocritical in its criticism of Morelly, the\n_Biblioth\u00e8que Impartiale_ adopted the standpoint common to all the\nwriters of this period. They all of them appeal to human nature\nconceived of in one form or another, with the sole exception of the\nretrogrades who, living shadows of passed times, continued to appeal to\nthe will of God.\n\nAs we know, this concept of human nature has been inherited by the 19th\ncentury from its predecessor. The Utopian Socialists had no other. But\nhere again it is easy to prove that it is not peculiar to the Utopians.\n\nEven at the period of the Restoration, the eminent French historian,\nGuizot, in his historical studies, arrived at the remarkable conclusion\nthat the political constitution of any given country depended upon the\n\"condition of property\" in that country. This was an immense advance\nupon the ideas of the last century which had almost exclusively\nconsidered the action of the \"legislator.\" But what in its turn did\nthese \"conditions of property\" depend on? Guizot is unable to answer\nthis question, and after long, vain efforts to find a solution of the\nenigma in historical circumstances, he returns, falls back _nolens\nvolens_, upon the theory of human nature. Augustin Thierry, another\neminent historian of the Restoration, found himself in almost the same\ncase, or rather he would have done so if only he had tried to\ninvestigate this question of the \"condition of property\" and its\nhistorical vicissitudes. In his concept of social life, Thierry was\nnever able to go beyond his master Saint Simon, who, as we have seen\nabove, held firmly to the point of view of human nature.\n\nThe example of the brilliant Saint Simon, a man of encyclop\u00e6dic\nlearning, demonstrates more clearly perhaps than any other, how narrow\nand insufficient was this point of view, in what confusion worse\nconfounded of contradictions it landed those who applied it. Says Saint\nSimon, with the profoundest conviction: \"The future is made up of the\nlast terms of a series, the first of which consist of the past. When one\nhas thoroughly mastered the first terms of any series it is easy to put\ndown their successors; thus from the past carefully observed one can\neasily deduce the future.\" This is so true that one asks oneself at the\nfirst blush why a man who had so clear a conception of the connection\nbetween the various phases of historical evolution, should be classed\namong the Utopians. And yet, look more closely at the historical ideas\nof Saint Simon, and you will find that we are not wrong in calling him a\nUtopian. The future is deducible from the past, the historical evolution\nof humanity is a process governed by law. But what is the impetus, the\nmotive power that sets in motion the human species, that makes it pass\nfrom one phase of its evolution to another? Of what does this impetus\nconsist? Where are we to seek it? It is here that Saint Simon comes back\nto the point of view of all the Utopians, to the point of view of human\nnature. Thus, according to him, the essential fundamental cause of the\nFrench Revolution was a change in the temporal and spiritual forces,\nand, in order to direct it wisely and conclude it rightly, it \"was\nnecessary to put into direct political activity the forces which had\nbecome preponderant.\" In other words, the manufacturers and the\n_savants_ ought to have been called upon to formulate a political system\ncorresponding to the new social conditions. This was not done, and the\nRevolution which had began so well was almost immediately directed into\na false path. The lawyers and metaphysicians became the masters of the\nsituation. How to explain this historical fact? \"It is in the nature of\nman,\" replies Saint Simon, \"to be unable to pass without some\nintermediate phase from any one doctrine to another. This law applies\nmost stringently to the various political systems, through which the\nnatural advance of civilisation compels the human species to pass. Thus\nthe same necessity which in industry has created the element of a new\ntemporal power, destined to replace military power, and which in the\npositive sciences, has created the element of a new spiritual power,\ncalled upon to take the place of theological power, must have developed\nand set in activity (before the change in the conditions of society had\nbegun to be very perceptible) a temporal or spiritual power of an\nintermediary, bastard, and transitory nature, whose only mission was to\nbring about the transition from one social system to another.\"\n\nSo we see that the \"historical series\" of Saint Simon really explained\nnothing at all; they themselves need explanation, and for this we have\nagain to fall back upon this inevitable human nature. The French\nRevolution was directed along a certain line, because human nature was\nso and so.\n\nOne of two things. Either human nature is, as Morelly thought,\ninvariable, and then it explains nothing in history, which shows us\nconstant variations in the relations of man to society; or it does vary\naccording to the circumstances in which men live, and then, far from\nbeing the _cause_, it is itself the _effect_ of historical evolution.\nThe French Materialists knew well enough that man is the product of his\nsocial surroundings. \"Man is all education,\" said Helv\u00e9tius. This would\nlead one to suppose that Helv\u00e9tius must have abandoned the human nature\npoint of view in order to study the laws of the evolution of the\nenvironment that fashion human nature, giving to socialised man such or\nsuch an \"education.\" And indeed Helv\u00e9tius did make some efforts in this\ndirection. But not he, nor his contemporaries, nor the Socialists of the\nfirst half of our century, nor any representatives of science of the\nsame period, succeeded in discovering a new point of view that should\npermit the study of the evolution of the social environment; the cause\nof the historical \"education\" of man, the cause of the changes which\noccur in his \"nature.\" They were thus forced back upon the human nature\npoint of view as the only one that seemed to supply them with a fairly\nsolid basis for their scientific investigations. But since human nature\nin its turn varied, it became indispensable to make abstraction from its\nvariations, and to seek in nature only stable properties, fundamental\nproperties preserved in spite of all changes of its secondary\nproperties. And in the end all that these speculations resulted in was a\nmeagre abstraction, like that of the philosophers, _e.g._, \"man is a\nsentient and reasonable being,\" which seemed all the more precious a\ndiscovery in that it left plenty of room for every gratuitous\nhypothesis, and every fantastical conclusion.\n\nA Guizot had no need to seek for the best of social organisations for a\nperfect legislation. He was perfectly satisfied with the existing ones.\nAnd assuredly the most powerful argument he could have advanced to\ndefend them from the attacks of the malcontents would still have been\nhuman nature, which he would have said renders every serious change in\nthe social and political constitution of France impossible. The\nmalcontents condemned this same constitution, making use of the same\nabstraction. And since this abstraction, being completely empty, left,\nas we have said, full room for every gratuitous hypothesis and the\nlogical consequences resulting therefrom, the \"scientific\" mission of\nthese reformers assumed the appearance of a geometrical problem; given a\ncertain nature, find what structure of society best corresponds with it.\nSo Morelly complains bitterly because \"our old teachers\" failed to\nattempt the solution of \"this excellent problem\"--\"to find the condition\nin which it should be almost impossible for men to be depraved, or\nwicked, or at any rate, _minima de malis_.\" We have already seen that\nfor Morelly human nature was \"one, constant, invariable.\"\n\nWe now know what was the \"scientific\" method of the Utopians. Before we\nleave them let us remind the reader that in human nature, an extremely\nthin and therefore not very satisfying abstraction, the Utopians really\nappealed, not to human nature in general, but to the idealised nature of\nthe men of their own day, belonging to the class whose social tendencies\nthey represented. The social reality, therefore, inevitably appears in\nthe words of the Utopians, but the Utopians were unconscious of this.\nThey saw this reality only across an abstraction which, thin as it was,\nwas by no means translucent.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] See \"Code de la Nature,\" Paris, 1841. Villegardelle's edition, Note\nto p. 66.\n\n[2] \"The floating islands or the Basiliades of the celebrated Pelpai,\ntranslated from the Indian.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE POINT OF VIEW OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIALISM\n\n\nThe great idealistic philosophers of Germany, Schelling and Hegel,\nunderstood the insufficiency of the human nature point of view. Hegel,\nin his \"Philosophy of History,\" makes fun of the Utopian bourgeoisie in\nsearch of the best of constitutions. German Idealism conceived history\nas a process subject to law, and sought the motive-power of the\nhistorical movement _outside the nature of man_. This was a great step\ntowards the truth. But the Idealists saw this motive-power in the\nabsolute idea, in the \"Weltgeist;\" and as their absolute idea was only\nan abstraction of \"our process of thinking,\" in their philosophical\nspeculation upon history, they reintroduced the old love of the\nMaterialist philosophers--human nature--but dressed in robes worthy of\nthe respectable and austere society of German thinkers. Drive nature out\nof the door, she flies in at the window! Despite the great services\nrendered to social science by the German Idealists, the great problem of\nthat science, its essential problem, was no more solved in the time of\nthe German Idealists than in the time of the French Materialists. What\nis this hidden force that causes the historic movement of humanity? No\none knew anything about it. In this field there was nothing to go upon\nsave a few isolated observations, more or less accurate, more or less\ningenious--sometimes indeed, very accurate and ingenious--but always\ndisjointed and always incomplete.\n\nThat social science at last emerged from this No Thoroughfare, it owes\nto Karl Marx.\n\nAccording to Marx, \"legal relations, like forms of State, can neither be\nunderstood in themselves nor from the so-called general development of\nthe human mind, but are rather rooted in those material conditions of\nlife, whose totality Hegel, following the English and the French of the\n18th century, summed up under the name of 'bourgeois society.'\" This is\nalmost the same as Guizot meant when he said that political\nconstitutions had their roots in \"the condition of property.\" But while\nfor Guizot \"the condition of property\" remained a mystery which he\nvainly sought to elucidate with the help of reflections upon human\nnature, for Marx this \"condition\" had nothing mysterious; it is\ndetermined by the condition of the productive forces at the disposal of\na given society. \"The anatomy of bourgeois society is to be sought in\npolitical economy.\" But Marx himself shall formulate his own conception\nof history.\n\n\"In the social production of their lives, men enter upon certain\ndefinite, necessary relations, relations independent of their will,\nrelations of production that correspond with definite degrees of\ndevelopment of their material productive forces. The totality of these\nrelations of production constitute the economic structure of society,\nthe true basis from which arises a juridical and political\nsuperstructure to which definite social forms of consciousness\ncorrespond. The mode of production of material life determines the\nsocial, political and intellectual processes of life. It is not the\nconsciousness of mankind that determines their being, but, on the\ncontrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. In a\ncertain stage of their development, the material forces of production of\nsociety come into contradiction with the existing relations of\nproduction, or, which is only a juridical expression for the same thing,\nwith the relations of property within which they had hitherto moved.\nFrom forms for the development of these forces of production, they are\ntransformed into their fetters. We then enter upon an epoch of social\nrevolution.\"[3]\n\nThis completely materialist conception of history is one of the greatest\ndiscoveries of our century, so rich in scientific discoveries. Thanks to\nit alone sociology has at last, and for ever, escaped from the vicious\ncircle in which it had, until then, turned; thanks to it alone this\nscience now possesses a foundation as solid as natural science. The\nrevolution made by Marx in social science may be compared with that made\nby Kopernicus in astronomy. In fact, before Kopernicus, it was believed\nthat the earth remained stationary, while the sun turned round it. The\nPolish genius demonstrated that what occurred was the exact contrary.\nAnd so, up to the time of Marx, the point of view taken by social\nscience, was that of \"human nature;\" and it was from this point of view\nthat men attempted to explain the historical movement of humanity. To\nthis the point of view of the German genius is diametrically opposed.\nWhile man, in order to maintain his existence, acts upon nature outside\nhimself, he alters his own nature. The action of man upon the nature\noutside himself, pre-supposes certain instruments, certain means of\nproduction; according to the character of their means of production men\nenter into certain relations within the process of production (since\nthis process is a social one), and according to their relations in this\nsocial process of production, their habits, their sentiments, their\ndesires, their methods of thought and of action, in a word, their\nnature, vary. Thus it is not human nature which explains the historical\nmovement; it is the historical movement which fashions diversely human\nnature.\n\nBut if this is so, what is the value of all the more or less laborious,\nmore or less ingenious enquiries into \"perfect legislation\" and the best\nof possible social organisations? None; literally none! They can but\nbear witness to the lack of scientific education in those who pursue\nthem. Their day is gone for ever. With this old point of view of human\nnature must disappear the Utopias of every shade and colour. The great\nrevolutionary party of our day, the International Social-Democracy, is\nbased not upon some \"new conception\" of human nature, nor upon any\nabstract principle, but upon a scientifically demonstrable economic\nnecessity. And herein lies the real strength of this party, making it as\ninvincible as the economic necessity itself.\n\n\"The means of production and exchange on whose foundation the\nbourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a\ncertain stage in the development of these means of production and\nexchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and\nexchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing\nindustry, in one word, the feudal relations of property become no longer\ncompatible with the already developed productive forces, they become so\nmany fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.\nInto their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and\npolitical constitution adapted to it, and by the economical and\npolitical sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on\nbefore our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of\nproduction, of exchange, and of property, a society that has conjured up\nsuch gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer,\nwho is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he\nhas called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of\nindustry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern\nproductive forces against the property relations that are the conditions\nfor the existence of the bourgeoisie and its rule. It is enough to\nmention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put on\nits trial, each time more threateningly, the existence of the entire\nbourgeois society.... The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled\nfeudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie\nitself.\"[4]\n\nThe bourgeoisie destroyed the feudal conditions of property; the\nproletariat will put an end to the bourgeois conditions of property.\nBetween the proletariat and the bourgeoisie a struggle, an implacable\nwar, a war to the knife, is as inevitable as, was in its way, the\nstruggle between the bourgeoisie and the privileged estates. _But every\nclass war is a political war._ In order to do away with feudal society\nthe bourgeoisie had to seize upon political power. In order to do away\nwith capitalist society the proletariat must do the same. Its political\ntask is therefore traced out for it beforehand by the force of events\nthemselves, and not by any abstract consideration.\n\nIt is a remarkable fact that it is only since Karl Marx that Socialism\nhas taken its stand upon the class war. The Utopian Socialists had no\nnotion--even an inexact one--of it. And in this they lagged behind their\ncontemporary theorists of the bourgeoisie, who understood very well the\nhistorical significance at any rate of the struggle of the third estate\nagainst the nobles.\n\nIf every \"new conception\" of human nature seemed to supply very\ndefinite indications as to the organisation of \"the society of the\nfuture,\" Scientific Socialism is very chary of such speculations. The\nstructure of society depends upon the conditions of its productive\nforces. What these conditions will be when the proletariat is in power\nwe do not know. We now know but one thing--that the productive forces\nalready at the disposal of civilised humanity imperatively demand the\nsocialisation and systematised organisation of the means of production.\nThis is enough to prevent our being led astray in our struggle against\n\"the reactionary mass.\" \"The Communists, therefore, are practically the\nmost advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every\ncountry ... theoretically they have over the great mass of the\nproletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march,\nthe conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian\nmovement.\"[5] These words, written in 1848, are to-day incorrect only in\none sense: they speak of \"working class parties\" independent of the\nCommunist party; there is to-day no working class party which does not\nmore or less closely follow the flag of Scientific Socialism, or, as it\nwas called in the Manifesto, \"Communism.\"\n\nOnce again, then, the point of view of the Utopian Socialists, as indeed\nof all social science of their time, was human nature, or some abstract\nprinciple deriving from this idea. The point of view of the social\nscience, of the Socialism of our time is that of economic reality, and\nof the immanent laws of its evolution.\n\nIt is easy, therefore, to form an idea of the impression made upon\nmodern Socialists by the arguments of the bourgeois theorists who sing\nceaselessly the same old song of the incompatibility of human nature and\ncommunism. It is as though one would wage war upon the Darwinians with\narms drawn from the scientific arsenal of Cuvier's time. And a most\nnoteworthy fact is that the \"evolutionists\" like Herbert Spencer,\nthemselves are not above piping to the same tune.[6]\n\nAnd now let us see what relation there may be between modern Socialism\nand what is called Anarchism.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[3] \"Zur Kritik der Politischen OEkonomie,\" Berlin, 1859. Preface iv. v.\n\n[4] \"Manifesto of the Communist Party.\" By Karl Marx and Frederick\nEngels. Authorised English translation by S. Moore, pp. 11-12.\n\n[5] \"Communist Manifesto,\" p. 16.\n\n[6] \"The belief not only of the Socialists, but also of those so-called\nLiberals who are diligently preparing the way for them, is that by due\nskill an ill-working humanity may be framed into well-working\ninstitutions. It is a delusion. The defective nature of citizens will\nshow themselves in the bad acting of whatever social structure they are\narranged into. There is no political alchemy by which you can get golden\nconduct out of leaden instincts.\"--Herbert Spencer's \"The Man _versus_\nthe State,\" p. 43.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE ANARCHIST DOCTRINE\n\nTHE POINT OF VIEW OF ANARCHISM.\n\n\n\"I have often been reproached with being the father of Anarchism. This\nis doing me too great an honour. The father of Anarchism is the immortal\nProudhon, who expounded it for the first time in 1848.\"\n\nThus spoke Peter Kropotkin in his defence before the Correctional\nTribunal of Lyons at his trial in January, 1883. As is frequently the\ncase with my amiable compatriot, Kropotkin has here made a statement\nthat is incorrect. For \"the first time\" Proudhon spoke of Anarchism was\nin his celebrated book \"_Qu'est-ce que le Propri\u00e9t\u00e9, ou Recherches sur\nle principe du droit et du Gouvernement_,\" the first edition of which\nhad already appeared in 1840. It is true that he \"expounds\" very little\nof it here; he only devotes a few pages to it.[7] And before he set\nabout expounding the Anarchist theory \"in 1848,\" the job had already\nbeen done by a German, Max Stirner (the pseudonym of Caspar Schmidt) in\n1845, in his book \"Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum.\"[8] Max Stirner has\ntherefore a well defined claim to be the father of Anarchism. \"Immortal\"\nor not, it is by him that the theory was \"expounded\" _for the first\ntime_.\n\n\nMAX STIRNER\n\nThe Anarchist theory of Max Stirner has been called a caricature of the\n\"philosophy of religion\" of Ludwig Feuerbach. It is thus, _e.g._, that\nUeberweg in his \"Grundz\u00fcge der Geschichte der Philosophie,\" (3rd. part,\n\"Philosophie der Neu Zeit\") speaks of it. Some have even supposed that\nthe only object Stirner had in writing his book was to poke fun at this\nphilosophy. This supposition is absolutely gratuitous. Stirner in\nexpounding his theory was not joking. He is in deadly earnest about it,\nthough he now and again betrays a tendency, natural enough in the\nrestless times when he wrote, to outdo Feuerbach and the radical\ncharacter of his conclusions.\n\nFor Feuerbach, what men call Divinity, is only the product of their\nphantasy, of a psychological aberration. It is not Divinity that has\ncreated man, but man who creates Divinity in his own image. In God man\nonly adores his own being. God is only a fiction, but a very harmful\nfiction. The Christian God is supposed to be all love, all pity for poor\nsuffering humanity. But in spite of this, or rather _because of it_,\nevery Christian really worthy the name, hates, and must hate, the\nAtheists, who appear to him the living negation of all love and all\npity. Thus the god of love becomes the god of hate, the god of\npersecution; the product of the phantasy of man becomes a real cause of\nhis suffering. So we must make an end of this phantasmagoria. Since in\nDivinity man adores only his own being, we must once for all rend and\nscatter to the winds the mystic veil beneath which this being has been\nenveloped. The love of humanity must not extend beyond humanity. \"Der\nMensch ist dem Menschen das h\u00f6chste Wesen\" (Man is the highest being for\nman).\n\nThus Feuerbach. Max Stirner is quite at one with him, but wishes to\ndeduce what he believes to be the final, the most radical consequences\nof his theory. He reasons in this fashion. God is only the product of\nphantasy, is only a _spook_. Agreed. But what is this humanity the love\nof which you prescribe to me? Is not this also a spook, an abstract\nthing, a creature of the imagination? Where is this humanity of yours?\nWhere does it exist but in the minds of men, in the minds of\nindividuals? The only reality, therefore, is the _individual_, with his\nwants, his tendencies, his will. But since this is so, how can the\n_individual_, the reality, sacrifice himself for the happiness of man,\nan abstract being? It is all very well for you to revolt against the old\nGod; you still retain the religious point of view, and the emancipation\nyou are trying to help us to is absolutely theological, _i.e._,\n\"God-inspired.\" \"The highest Being is certainly that of man, but because\nit is his _Being_ and is not he himself, it is quite indifferent if we\nsee this Being outside of him as God, or find it in him and call it the\n'Being of Mankind' or 'Man.' _I_ am neither God nor Man, neither the\nhighest Being, nor my own Being, and therefore it is essentially a\nmatter of indifference if I imagine this Being in myself or outside\nmyself. And, indeed, we do always imagine the highest being in the two\nfuture states, in the internal and external at once; for the 'Spirit of\nGod' is, according to the Christian conception, also 'our spirit' and\n'dwells within us.' It dwells in heaven and dwells in us; but we poor\nthings are but its 'dwelling-place,' and if Feuerbach destroys its\nheavenly dwelling-place and forces it to come down to us bag and\nbaggage, we, its earthly abode, will find ourselves very\nover-crowded.\"[9]\n\nTo escape the inconveniences of such over-crowding, to avoid being\ndominated by any spook, to at last place our foot upon actual ground,\nthere is but one way: to take as our starting-point the only real being,\nour own Ego, \"Away then with everything that is not wholly and solely my\nown affair! You think my own concerns must at least be 'good ones?' A\nfig for good and evil! I am I, and I am neither good nor evil. Neither\nhas any meaning for me. The godly is the affair of God, the human that\nof humanity. My concern is neither the Godly nor the Human, is not the\nTrue, the Good, the Right, the Free, etc., but simply my own self, and\nit is not general, it is individual, as I myself am individual. For me\nthere is nothing above myself.\"[10]\n\nReligion, conscience, morality, right, law, family, state, are but so\nmany fetters forced upon me in the name of an abstraction, but so many\ndespotic lords whom \"I,\" the individual conscious of my own \"concerns,\"\ncombat by every means in my power. Your \"_morality_,\" not merely the\nmorality of the bourgeois philistines, but the most elevated, the most\nhumanitarian morality is only religion which has changed its supreme\nbeings. Your \"_right_,\" that you believe born with man, is but a ghost,\nand if you respect it, you are no farther advanced than the heroes of\nHomer who were afraid when they beheld a god fighting in the ranks of\ntheir enemies. Right is might. \"Whoever has might, he has right; if you\nhave not the former you have not the latter. Is this wisdom so difficult\nof attainment?\"[11] You would persuade me to sacrifice my interests to\nthose of the State. I, on the contrary, declare war to the knife to all\nStates, even the most democratic. \"Every State is a despotism, whether\nit is the despotism of one or many, or whether, as one might suppose\nwould be the case in a Republic, all are masters, _i.e._, one tyrannises\nover the rest. For this is the case whenever a given law, the expressed\nwill perhaps of some assemblage of the people, is immediately to become\na law to the individual, which he must obey, and which it is his _duty_\nto obey. Even if one were to suppose a case in which every individual\namong the people had expressed the same will, and thus a perfect \"will\nof all\" had easily been arrived at, the thing would still be the same.\nShould I not to-day and in the future be bound by my will of yesterday?\nIn this event my will would be paralyzed. Fatal stagnation! My creation,\n_i.e._, a certain expression of will would have become my master. But I,\nin my will should be constrained, I, the creator should be constrained\nin my development, my working out. Because I was a fool yesterday, I\nmust remain one all my life. So that in my life in relation to the State\nI am at best--I might as well say at worst--a slave to my own self.\nBecause yesterday I had a will, I am to-day without one; yesterday free,\nto-day bound.\"[12]\n\nHere a partisan of the \"People's State\" might observe to Stirner, that\nhis \"I\" goes a little too far in his desire to reduce democratic liberty\nto absurdity; further, that a bad law may be abrogated as soon as a\nmajority of citizens desire it, and that one is not forced to submit to\nit \"all one's life.\" But this is only an insignificant detail, to which,\nmoreover, Stirner would reply that the very necessity for appealing to a\nmajority proves that \"I\" am no longer the master of my own conduct. The\nconclusions of our author are irrefutable, for the simple reason that\nto say, I recognize nothing above myself, is to say, I feel oppressed by\nevery institution that imposes any duty upon me. It is simply tautology.\n\nIt is evident that no \"Ego\" can exist quite alone. Stirner knows this\nperfectly, and this is why he advocates \"Leagues of Egoists,\" that is to\nsay, free associations into which every \"Ego\" enters, and in which he\nremains when and so long as it suits his interests.\n\nHere let us pause. We are now face to face with an \"egoist\" system _par\nexcellence_. It is, perhaps, the only one that the history of human\nthought has to chronicle. The French Materialists of the last century\nhave been accused of preaching egoism. The accusation was quite wrong.\nThe French Materialists always preached \"Virtue,\" and preached it with\nsuch unlimited zeal that Grimm could, not without reason, make fun of\ntheir _capucinades_ on the subject. The question of egoism presented to\nthem a double problem. (1) Man is all sensation (this was the basis of\nall their speculations upon man); by his very nature he is forced to\nshun suffering and to seek pleasure; how comes it then that we find men\ncapable of enduring the greatest sufferings for the sake of some idea,\nthat is to say, in its final analysis, in order to provide agreeable\nsensations for their fellow-men. (2) Since man is all sensation he will\nharm his fellow-man if he is placed in a social environment where the\ninterests of an individual conflict with those of others. What form of\nlegislation therefore can harmonise public good and that of\nindividuals? Here, in this double problem, lies the whole significance\nof what is called the materialist ethics of the 18th century. Max\nStirner pursues an end entirely opposed to this. He laughs at \"Virtue,\"\nand, far from desiring its triumph, he sees reasonable men only in\negoists, for whom there is nothing above their own \"Ego.\" Once again, he\nis the theorist _par excellence_ of egoism.\n\nThe good bourgeois whose ears are as chaste and virtuous as their hearts\nare hard; they who, \"drinking wine, publicly preach water,\" were\nscandalised to the last degree by the \"immorality\" of Stirner. \"It is\nthe complete ruin of the moral world,\" they cried. But as usual the\nvirtue of the philistines showed itself very weak in argument. \"The real\nmerit of Stirner is that he has spoken the last word of the young\natheist school\" (_i.e._, the left wing of the Hegelian school), wrote\nthe Frenchman, St. R\u00e9n\u00e9 Taillandier. The philistines of other lands\nshared this view of the \"merits\" of the daring publicist. From the point\nof view of modern Socialism this \"merit\" appears in a very different\nlight.\n\nTo begin with, the incontestable merit of Stirner consists in his having\nopenly and energetically combated the sickly sentimentalism of the\nbourgeois reformers and of many of the Utopian Socialists, according to\nwhich the emancipation of the proletariat would be brought about by the\nvirtuous activity of \"devoted\" persons of all classes, and especially of\nthose of the possessing-class. Stirner knew perfectly what to expect\nfrom the \"devotion\" of the exploiters. The \"rich\" are harsh,\nhard-hearted, but the \"poor\" (the terminology is that of our author) are\nwrong to complain of it, since it is not the rich who create the poverty\nof the poor, but the poor who create the wealth of the rich. They ought\nto blame themselves then if their condition is a hard one. In order to\nchange it they have only to revolt against the rich; as soon as they\nseriously wish it, they will be the strongest and the reign of wealth\nwill be at an end. Salvation lies in struggle, and not in fruitless\nappeals to the generosity of the oppressors. Stirner, therefore,\npreaches the class war. It is true that he represents it in the abstract\nform of the struggle of a certain number of egoist \"Egos\" against\nanother smaller number of \"Egos\" not less egoist. But here we come to\nanother merit of Stirner's.\n\nAccording to Taillandier, he has spoken the last word of the young\natheist school of German philosophers. As a matter of fact he has only\nspoken the last word of idealist speculation. But that word he has\nincontestably the merit of having spoken.\n\nIn his criticism of religion Feuerbach is but half a Materialist. In\nworshipping God, man only worships his own Being idealised. This is\ntrue. But religions spring up and die out, like everything else upon\nearth. Does this not prove that the human Being is not immutable, but\nchanges in the process of the historical evolution of societies?\nClearly, yes. But, then, what is the cause of the historical\ntransformation of the \"human Being?\" Feuerbach does not know. For him\nthe human Being is only an abstract notion, as human Nature was for the\nFrench Materialists. This is the fundamental fault of his criticism of\nreligion. Stirner said that it had no very robust constitution. He\nwished to strengthen it by making it breathe the fresh air of reality.\nHe turns his back upon all phantoms, upon all things of the imagination.\nIn reality, he said to himself, these are only individuals. Let us take\nthe individual for our starting-point. But _what_ individual does he\ntake for his starting-point? Tom, Dick, or Harry? Neither. He takes the\n_individual in general_--he takes a new abstraction, the thinnest of\nthem all--he takes the \"Ego.\"\n\nStirner na\u00efvely imagined that he was finally solving an old\nphilosophical question, which had already divided the Nominalists and\nthe Realists of the Middle Ages. \"No Idea has an existence,\" he says,\n\"for none is capable of becoming corporeal. The scholastic controversy\nof Realism and Nominalism had the same content.\" Alas! The first\nNominalist he came across could have demonstrated to our author by the\ncompletest evidence, that his \"Ego\" is as much an \"Idea\" as any other,\nand that it is as little real as a mathematical unit.\n\nTom, Dick and Harry have relations with one another that do not depend\nupon the will of their \"Ego,\" but are imposed upon them by the structure\nof the society in which they live. To criticise social institutions in\nthe name of the \"Ego,\" is therefore to abandon the only profitable\npoint of view in the case, _i.e._, that of society, of the laws of its\nexistence and evolution, and to lose oneself in the mists of\nabstraction. But it is just in these mists that the \"Nominalist\" Stirner\ndelights. I am I--that is his starting-point; not I is not I--that is\nhis result. I+I+I+etc.--is his social Utopia. It is subjective Idealism,\npure and simple applied to social and political criticism. It is the\nsuicide of idealist speculation.\n\nBut in the same year (1845) in which \"Der Einzige\" of Stirner appeared,\nthere appeared also, at Frankfort-on-Maine the work of Marx and Engels,\n\"Die heilige Familie, oder Kritik der Kritischen Kritik, gegen Bruno\nBauer und Consorten.\"[13] In it Idealist speculation was attacked and\nbeaten by Materialist dialectic, the theoretical basis of modern\nSocialism. \"Der Einzige\" came too late.\n\nWe have just said that I+I+I+etc. represents the social Utopia of\nStirner. His League of Egoists is, in fact, nothing but a mass of\nabstract quantities. What are, what can be the basis of their union?\nTheir interests, answers Stirner. But what will, what can be the true\nbasis of any given combination of their interests? Stirner says nothing\nabout it, and he can say nothing definite since from the abstract\nheights on which he stands, one cannot see clearly economic reality, the\nmother and nurse of all the \"Egos,\" egoistic or altruistic. Nor is it\nsurprising that he is not able to explain clearly even this idea of the\nclass struggle, of which he nevertheless had a happy inkling. The \"poor\"\nmust combat the \"rich.\" And after, when they have conquered these? Then\nevery one of the former \"poor,\" like every one of the former \"rich,\"\nwill combat every one of the former poor, and against every one of the\nformer rich. There will be the war of all against all. (These are\nStirner's own words.) And the rules of the \"Leagues of Egoists\" will be\nso many partial truces in this colossal and universal warfare. There is\nplenty of fight in this idea, but of the \"realism\" Max Stirner dreamed\nof, nothing.\n\nBut enough of the \"Leagues of Egoists.\" A Utopian may shut his eyes to\neconomic reality, but it forces itself upon him in spite of himself; it\npursues him everywhere with the brutality of a natural force not\ncontrolled by force. The elevated regions of the abstract \"I\" do not\nsave Stirner from the attacks of economic reality. He does not speak to\nus only of the \"Individual\"; his theme is \"the Individual _and his\nproperty_.\" Now, what sort of a figure does the property of the\n\"Individual\" cut?\n\nIt goes without saying, that Stirner is little inclined to respect\nproperty as an \"acquired right.\" \"Only that property will be legally and\nlawfully another's which it suits _you_ should be his property. When it\nceases to suit you, it has lost its legality for you, and any absolute\nright in it you will laugh at.\"[14] It is always the same tune: \"For me\nthere is nothing above myself.\" But his scant respect for the property\nof others does not prevent the \"Ego\" of Stirner from having the\ntendencies of a property-owner. The strongest argument against\nCommunism, is, in his opinion, the consideration that Communism by\nabolishing individual property transforms all members of society into\nmere beggars. Stirner is indignant at such an iniquity.\n\n\"Communists think that the Commune should be the property-owner. On the\ncontrary, _I_ am a property-owner, and can only agree with others as to\nmy property. If the Commune does not do as I wish I rebel against it,\nand defend my property, I am the owner of property, but property _is not\nsacred_. Should I only be the holder of property (an allusion to\nProudhon)? No, hitherto one was only a holder of property, assured of\npossession of a piece of land, because one left others also in\npossession of a piece of land; but now _everything_ belongs to me, I am\nthe owner of _everything I need_, and can get hold of. If the Socialist\nsays, society gives me what I need, the Egoist says, I take what I want.\nIf the Communists behave like beggars, the Egoist behaves like an owner\nof property.\"[15] The property of the egoist seems pretty shaky. An\n\"Egoist,\" retains his property only as long as the other \"Egoists\" do\nnot care to take it from him, thus transforming him into a \"beggar.\" But\nthe devil is not so black as he is painted. Stirner pictures the mutual\nrelations of the \"Egoist\" proprietors rather as relations of exchange\nthan of pillage. And force, to which he constantly appeals, is rather\nthe economic force of a producer of commodities freed from the trammels\nwhich the State and \"Society\" in general impose, or seem to impose, upon\nhim.\n\nIt is the soul of a producer of commodities that speaks through the\nmouth of Stirner. If he falls foul of the State, it is because the State\ndoes not seem to respect the \"property\" of the producers of commodities\nsufficiently. He wants _his_ property, his _whole_ property. The State\nmakes him pay taxes; it ventures to expropriate him for the public good.\nHe wants a _jus utendi et abutendi_; the State says \"agreed\"--but adds\nthat there are abuses and abuses. Then Stirner cries \"stop thief!\" \"I am\nthe enemy of the State,\" says he, \"which is always fluctuating between\nthe alternative: He or I.... With the State there is no property,\n_i.e._, no individual property, only State property. Only through the\nState have I what I have, as it is only through the State that I am what\nI am. My private property is only what the State leaves me of its own,\nwhile it deprives other citizens of it: that is State property.\" So down\nwith the State and long live full and complete individual property!\n\nStirner translated into German J. B. Say's \"Trait\u00e9 D'Economie Politique\nPratique\" (Leipsic, 1845-46). And although he also translated Adam\nSmith, he was never able to get beyond the narrow circle of the ordinary\nbourgeois economic ideas. His \"League of Egoists\" is only the Utopia of\na petty bourgeois in revolt. In this sense one may say he has spoken the\nlast word of bourgeois individualism.\n\nStirner has also a third merit--that of the courage of his opinions, of\nhaving carried through to the very end his individualist theories. He is\nthe most intrepid, the most consequent of the Anarchists. By his side\nProudhon, whom Kropotkin, like all the present day Anarchists, takes for\nthe father of Anarchism, is but a straight-laced Philistine.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7] See pages 295-305 of the 1841 edition.\n\n[8] \"The Individual and his Property.\"\n\n[9] \"Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum.\" 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1882, pp. 35-36.\n(American translation: \"The Ego and his Own.\" New York: 1907.)\n\n[10] Ibid. Pp. 7-8.\n\n[11] Ibid. pp. 196-197.\n\n[12] Ibid. p. 200.\n\n[13] \"The Holy Family, or Criticism of Critical Criticism, against Bruno\nBauer and Company.\"\n\n[14] Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum.\n\n[15] Ibid. p. 266.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nPROUDHON\n\n\nIf Stirner combats Feuerbach, the \"immortal\" Proudhon imitates Kant.\n\"What Kant did some sixty years ago for religion, what he did earlier\nfor certainty of certainties; what others before him had attempted to do\nfor happiness or supreme good, the 'Voice of the People' proposes to do\nfor the Government,\" pompously declares \"the father of Anarchism.\" Let\nus examine his methods and their results.\n\nAccording to Proudhon, before Kant, the believer and the philosopher\nmoved \"by an irresistible impulse,\" asked themselves, \"What is God?\"\nThey then asked themselves \"Which, of all religions, is the best?\" \"In\nfact, if there does exist a Being superior to Humanity, there must also\nexist a system of the relations between this Being and Humanity. What\nthen is this system? The search for the best religion is the second step\nthat the human mind takes in reason and in faith. Kant gave up these\ninsoluble questions. He no longer asked himself what is God, and which\nis the best religion, he set about explaining the origin and development\nof the Idea of God; he undertook to work out the biography of this\nidea.\" And the results he attained were as great as they were\nunexpected. \"What we seek, what we see, in God, as Malebranche said ...\nis our own Ideal, the pure essence of Humanity.... The human soul does\nnot become conscious of its Ego through premeditated contemplation, as\nthe psychologists put it; the soul perceives something outside itself,\nas if it were a different Being face to face with itself, and it is this\ninverted image which it calls God. Thus morality, justice, order, law,\nare no longer things revealed from above, imposed upon our free will by\na so-called Creator, unknown and ununderstandable; they are things that\nare proper and essential to us as our faculties and our organs, as our\nflesh and our blood. In two words religion and society are synonymous\nterms, man is as sacred to himself as if he were God.\"\n\nBelief in authority is as primitive, as universal as belief in God.\nWhenever men are grouped together in societies there is authority, the\nbeginning of a government. From time immemorial men have asked\nthemselves, What is authority? Which is the best form of government? And\nreplies to these questions have been sought for in vain. There are as\nmany governments as there are religions, as many political theories as\nsystems of philosophy. Is there any way of putting an end to this\ninterminable and barren controversy? Any means of escape from this\n_impasse_! Assuredly! We have only to follow the example of Kant. We\nhave only to ask ourselves whence comes this idea of authority, of\ngovernment? We have only to get all the information we can upon the\nlegitimacy of the political idea. Once safe on this ground and the\nquestion solves itself with extraordinary ease.\n\n\"Like religion, government is a manifestation of social spontaneity, a\npreparation of humanity for a higher condition.\"\n\n\"What humanity seeks in religion and calls God, is itself.\" \"What the\ncitizen seeks in Government and calls king, emperor, or president, is\nagain himself, is liberty.\" \"Outside humanity there is no God; the\ntheological concept has no meaning:--outside liberty no government, the\npolitical concept has no value.\"\n\nSo much for the \"biography\" of the political idea. Once grasped it must\nenlighten us upon the question as to which is the best form of\ngovernment.\n\n\"The best form of government, like the most perfect of religions, taken\nin a literal sense, is a contradictory idea. The problem is not to\ndiscover how we shall be best governed, but how we shall be most free.\nLiberty commensurate and identical with Order,--this is the only reality\nof government and politics. How shall this absolute liberty, synonymous\nwith order, be brought about? We shall be taught this by the analysis of\nthe various formulas of authority. For all the rest we no more admit the\ngoverning of man by man than the exploitation of man by man.\"[16]\n\nWe have now climbed to the topmost heights of Proudhon's political\nphilosophy. It is from this that the fresh and vivifying stream of his\nAnarchist thought flows. Before we follow the somewhat tortuous course\nof this stream let us glance back at the way we have climbed.\n\nWe fancied we were following Kant. We were mistaken. In his \"Critique of\nPure Reason\" Kant has demonstrated the impossibility of proving the\nexistence of God, because everything outside experience must escape us\nabsolutely. In his \"Critique of Practical Reason\" Kant admitted the\nexistence of God in the name of morality. But he has never declared that\nGod was a topsy-turvy image of our own soul. What Proudhon attributes to\nKant, indubitably belongs to Feuerbach. Thus it is in the footsteps of\nthe latter that we have been treading, while roughly tracing out the\n\"biography\" of the political Idea. So that Proudhon brings us back to\nthe very starting point of our most unsentimental journey with Stirner.\nNo matter. Let us once more return to the reasoning of Feuerbach.\n\nIt is only itself that humanity seeks in religion. It is only himself,\nit is liberty that the citizen seeks in Government.... Then the very\nessence of the citizen is liberty? Let us assume this is true, but let\nus also note that our French \"Kant\" has done nothing, absolutely\nnothing, to prove the \"legitimacy\" of such an \"Idea.\" Nor is this all.\nWhat is this liberty which we are assuming to be the essence of the\ncitizen? Is it political liberty which ought in the nature of things to\nbe the main object of his attention? Not a bit of it! To assume this\nwould be to make of the \"citizen\" an \"authoritarian\" democrat.\n\nIt is the _absolute liberty of the individual_, which is at the same\ntime _commensurate and identical with_ Order, that our citizen seeks in\nGovernment. In other words, it is the Anarchism of Proudhon which is the\nessence of the \"citizen.\" It is impossible to make a more pleasing\ndiscovery, but the \"biography\" of this discovery gives us pause. We have\nbeen trying to demolish every argument in favour of the Idea of\nAuthority, as Kant demolished every proof of the existence of God. To\nattain this end we have--imitating Feuerbach to some extent, according\nto whom man adored his own Being in God--assumed that it is liberty\nwhich the citizen seeks in Government. And as to liberty we have in a\ntrice transformed this into \"absolute\" liberty, into Anarchist liberty.\nEins, zwei, drei; Geschwindigkeit ist keine Hexerei![17]\n\nSince the \"citizen\" only seeks \"absolute\" liberty in Government the\nState is nothing but a fiction (\"this fiction of a superior person,\ncalled the 'State'\"), and all those formulas of government for which\npeople and citizens have been cutting one another's throats for the last\nsixty centuries, are but the \"phantasmagoria of our brain, which it\nwould be the first duty of free reason to relegate to the museums and\nlibraries.\" Which is another charming discovery made _en passant_. So\nthat the political history of humanity has, \"for sixty centuries,\" had\nno other motive power than a phantasmagoria of our brain!\n\nTo say that man adores in God his own essence is to indicate the\n_origin_ of religion, but it is not to work out its \"biography.\" To\nwrite the biography of religion is to write its history, explaining the\nevolution of this essence of man which found expression in it. Feuerbach\ndid not do this--could not do it. Proudhon, trying to imitate Feuerbach,\nwas very far from recognising the insufficiency of his point of view.\nAll Proudhon has done is to take Feuerbach for Kant, and to ape his\nKant-Feuerbach in a most pitiful manner. Having heard that Divinity was\nbut a fiction, he concluded that the State is also a figment: since God\ndoes not exist, how can the State exist? Proudhon wished to combat the\nState and began by declaring it non-existent. And the readers of the\n\"Voix du Peuple\" applauded, and the opponents of M. Proudhon were\nalarmed at the profundity of his philosophy! Truly a tragi-comedy!\n\nIt is hardly necessary for modern readers to add that in taking the\nState for a fiction we make it altogether impossible to understand its\n\"essence\" or to explain its historical evolution. And this was what\nhappened to Proudhon.\n\n\"In every society I distinguish two kinds of constitution,\" says he;\n\"the one which I call _social_, the other which is its _political_\nconstitution; the first innate in humanity, liberal, necessary, its\ndevelopment consisting above all in weakening, and gradually eliminating\nthe second, which is essentially factitious, restrictive, and\ntransitory. The social constitution is nothing but the equilibration of\ninterests based upon free contract and the organisation of the economic\nforces, which, generally speaking, are labour, division of labour,\ncollective force, competition, commerce, money, machinery, credit,\nproperty, equality in transactions, reciprocity of guarantees, etc. The\nprinciple of the political constitution is authority. Its forms are:\ndistinction of classes, separation of powers, administrative\ncentralisation, the judicial hierarchy, the representation of\nsovereignty by elections, etc. The political constitution was conceived\nand gradually completed in the interest of order, for want of a social\nconstitution, the rules and principles of which could only be discovered\nas a result of long experience, and are even to-day the object of\nSocialist controversy. These two constitutions, as it is easy to see,\nare by nature absolutely different and even incompatible: but as it is\nthe fate of the political constitution to constantly call forth and\nproduce the social constitution something of the latter enters into the\nformer, which, soon becoming inadequate, appears contradictory and\nodious, is forced from concession to concession to its final\nabrogation.\"[18]\n\nThe social constitution is innate in humanity, necessary. Yet it could\nonly be discovered as the result of long experience, and for want of it\nhumanity had to invent the political constitution. Is not this an\nentirely Utopian conception of human nature, and of the social\norganisation peculiar to it? Are we not coming back to the standpoint of\nMorelly who said that humanity in the course of its history has always\nbeen \"outside nature?\" No--there is no need to come back to this\nstandpoint, for with Proudhon we have never, for a single instant, got\naway from it. While looking down upon the Utopians searching after \"the\nbest form of government,\" Proudhon does not by any means censure the\nUtopian point of view. He only scoffs at the small perspicacity of men\nwho did not divine that the best political organisation is the absence\nof all political organisation, is the social organisation, proper to\nhuman nature, necessary, immanent in humanity.\n\nThe nature of this social constitution is absolutely different from, and\neven incompatible with, that of the political constitution. Nevertheless\nit is the fate of the political constitution to constantly call forth\nand produce the social constitution. This is tremendously confusing! Yet\none might get out of the difficulty by assuming that what Proudhon meant\nto say was that the political constitutions act upon the evolution of\nthe social constitution. But then we are inevitably met by the question.\nIs not the political constitution in its turn rooted--as even Guizot\nadmitted--in the social constitution of a country? According to our\nauthor _no_; the more emphatically _no_, that the social organisation,\nthe true and only one, is only a thing of the future, for want of which\npoor humanity has \"invented\" the political constitution. Moreover, the\n\"Political Constitution\" of Proudhon covers an immense domain, embracing\neven \"class distinctions,\" and therefore \"non-organised\" property,\nproperty as it ought not to be, property as it is to-day. And since the\nwhole of this political constitution has been invented as a mere\nstop-gap until the advent of the anarchist organisation of society, it\nis evident that all human history must have been one huge blunder. The\nState is no longer exactly a fiction as Proudhon maintained in 1848;\n\"the governmental formulas\" for which people and citizens have been\ncutting one another's throats for sixty centuries are no longer a \"mere\nphantasmagoria of our brain,\" as the same Proudhon believed at this\nsame period; but these formulas, like the State itself, like every\npolitical constitution, are but the product of human ignorance, the\nmother of all fictions and phantasmagorias. At bottom it is always the\nsame. The main point is that Anarchist (\"social\") organisation could\nonly be discovered as the result of \"many experiences.\" The reader will\nsee how much this is to be regretted.\n\nThe political constitution has an unquestionable influence upon the\nsocial organisation; at any rate it calls it forth, for such is its\n\"fate\" as revealed by Proudhon, master of Kantian philosophy and social\norganisation. The most logical conclusion to be drawn therefrom is that\nthe partisans of social organisation must make use of the political\nconstitution in order to attain their end. But logical as this deduction\nis, it is not to the taste of our author. For him it is but a\nphantasmagoria of our brain. To make use of the political constitution\nis to offer a burnt offering to the terrible god of authority, to take\npart in the struggle of parties. Proudhon will have none of this. \"No\nmore parties,\" he says; \"no more authority, absolute liberty of the man\nand the citizen--in three words, such is our political and social\nprofession of faith.\"[19]\n\nEvery class-struggle is a political struggle. Whosoever repudiates the\npolitical struggle by this very act, gives up all part and lot in the\nclass-struggle. And so it was with Proudhon. From the beginning of the\nRevolution of 1848 he preached the reconciliation of classes. Here\n_e.g._, is a passage from the Circular which he addressed to his\nelectors in Doubs, which is dated 3rd April of this same year: \"The\nsocial question is there; you cannot escape from it. To solve it we must\nhave men who combine extreme Radicalism of mind with extreme\nConservatism of mind. Workers, hold out your hands to your employers;\nand you, employers, do not deliberately repulse the advances of those\nwho were your wage-earners.\"\n\nThe man whom Proudhon believed to combine this extreme Radicalism of\nmind with extreme Conservatism of mind, was himself--P. J. Proudhon.\nThere was, on the one hand, at the bottom of this belief, a \"fiction,\"\ncommon to all Utopians who imagine they can rise above classes and their\nstruggles, and na\u00efvely think that the whole of the future history of\nhumanity will be confined to the peaceful propagation of their new\ngospel. On the other hand, this tendency to combine Radicalism and\nConservatism shows conclusively the very \"essence\" of the \"Father of\nAnarchy.\"\n\nProudhon was the most typical representative of petty bourgeois\nsocialism. Now the \"fate\" of the petty bourgeois--in so far as he does\nnot adopt the proletarian standpoint--is to constantly oscillate between\nRadicalism and Conservatism. To make more understandable what we have\nsaid, we must bear in mind what the plan of social organisation\npropounded by Proudhon was.\n\nOur author shall tell us himself. It goes without saying that we shall\nnot escape a more or less authentic interpretation of Kant. \"Thus the\nline we propose to follow in dealing with the political question and in\npreparing the materials for a constitution will be the same as that we\nhave followed hitherto in dealing with the social question.\" The _Voix\ndu Peuple_ while completing the work of its predecessors, the two\nearlier journals, will follow faithfully in their footsteps.[20] What\ndid we say in these two publications, one after the other of which fell\nbeneath the blows of the reaction and the state of siege? We did not\nask, as our precursors and colleagues had done, Which is the best system\nof community? The best organisation of property? Or again: Which is the\nbetter, property or the community? The theory of St. Simon or that of\nFourier? The system of Louis Blanc or that of Cabet? Following the\nexample of Kant we stated the question thus: \"How is it that man\npossesses? How is property acquired? How lost? What is the law of its\nevolution and transformation? Whither does it tend? What does it want?\nWhat, in fine, does it represent?... Then how is it that man labours?\nHow is the comparison of products instituted? By what means is\ncirculation carried out in society? Under what conditions? According to\nwhat laws?\" And the conclusion arrived at by this monograph of property\nwas this: Property indicates function or attribution; community;\nreciprocity of action; usury ever decreasing, the identity of labour and\ncapital (_sic!_). In order to set free and to realise all these terms,\nuntil now hidden beneath the old symbols of property, what must be done?\nThe workers must guarantee one another labour and a market; and to this\nend must accept as money their reciprocal pledges. Good! To-day we say\nthat political liberty, like industrial liberty, will result for us from\nour mutual guarantees. It is by guaranteeing one another liberty that we\nshall get rid of this government, whose destiny is to symbolise the\nrepublican motto: _Liberty_, _Equality_, _Fraternity_, while leaving it\nto our intelligence to bring about the realisation of this. Now, what is\nthe formula of this political and liberal guarantee? At present\nuniversal suffrage; later on free contract.... Economic and social\nreform through the mutual guarantee of credit; political reform through\nthe inter-action of individual liberties; such is the programme of the\n\"_Voix du Peuple_.\"[21] We may add to this that it is not very difficult\nto write the \"biography\" of this programme.\n\nIn a society of producers of commodities, the exchange of commodities is\ncarried out according to the labour socially necessary for their\nproduction. Labour is the source and the measure of their\nexchange-value. Nothing could seem more \"just\" than this to any man\nimbued with the ideas engendered by a society of producers of\ncommodities. Unfortunately this \"justice\" is no more \"eternal\" than\nanything else here below. The development of the production of\ncommodities necessarily brings in its train the transformation of the\ngreater part of society into proletarians, possessing nothing but their\nlabour-power, and of the other part into capitalists, who, buying this\npower, the only commodity of the proletarians, turn it into a source of\nwealth for themselves. In working for the capitalists the proletarian\nproduces the income of his exploiter, at the same time as his own\npoverty, his own social subjection. Is not this sufficiently unjust? The\npartisan of the rights of the producer of commodities deplores the lot\nof the proletarians; he thunders against capital. But at the same time\nhe thunders against the revolutionary tendencies of the proletarians who\nspeak of expropriating the exploiter and of a communistic organisation\nof production. Communism is unjust, it is the most odious tyranny. What\nwants organising is not _production_ but _exchange_, he assures us. But\nhow organise exchange? That is easy enough, and what is daily going on\nbefore our eyes may serve to show us the way. Labour is the source and\nthe measure of the _value_ of commodities. But is the _price_ of\ncommodities always determined by their value? Do not prices continually\nvary according to the rarity or abundance of these commodities? The\nvalue of a commodity and its price are two different things; and this is\nthe misfortune, the great misfortune of all of us poor, honest folk, who\nonly want justice, and only ask for our own. To solve the social\nquestion, therefore we must put a stop to the _arbitrariness of prices_,\nand to the anomaly of value (Proudhon's own expressions). And in order\nto do this we must \"constitute\" value; _i.e._, see that every producer\nshall always, in exchange for his commodity, receive exactly what it\ncosts. Then will private property not only cease to be theft, it will\nbecome the most adequate expression of justice. To constitute value is\nto constitute small private property, and small private property once\nconstituted, everything will be justice and happiness in a world now so\nfull of misery and injustice. And it is no good for proletarians to\nobject, they have no means of production: by guaranteeing themselves\n_credit gratis_, all who want to work will, as by the touch of a magic\nwand, have everything necessary for production.\n\nSmall property and small parcelled-out production, its economic basis,\nwas always the dream of Proudhon. The huge modern mechanical workshop\nalways inspired him with profound aversion. He says that labour, like\nlove, flies from society. No doubt there are some industries--Proudhon\ninstances railways--in which _association_ is essential. In these, the\nisolated producer must make way for \"companies of workers.\" But the\nexception only proves the rule.[22] Small private property must be the\nbasis of \"social organization.\"\n\nSmall private property is tending to disappear. The desire not merely to\npreserve it, but to transform it into the basis of a new social\norganisation is extreme conservatism. The desire at the same time to put\nan end to \"the exploitation of man by man,\" to the wage-system, is\nassuredly to combine with the most conservative the most radical\naspirations.\n\nWe have no desire here to criticise this petty bourgeois Utopia. This\ncriticism has already been undertaken by a master hand in the works of\nMarx: \"La Mis\u00e8re de la Philosophie,\" and \"Zur Kritik der Politischen\nOekonomie.\" We will only observe the following:--\n\nThe only bond that unites the producers of commodities upon the domain\nof economics is exchange. From the juridical point of view, exchange\nappears as the relation between two wills. The relation of these two\nwills is expressed in the \"contract.\" The production of commodities duly\n\"constituted\" is therefore the reign of \"absolute\" individual liberty.\nBy finding myself bound through a contract that obliges me to do such\nand such a thing, I do not renounce my liberty. I simply use it to enter\ninto relations with my neighbours. But at the same time this contract\nis the regulator of my liberty. In fulfilling a duty that I have freely\nlaid upon myself when signing the contract, I render justice to the\nrights of others. It is thus that \"absolute\" liberty becomes\n\"commensurate with order.\" Apply this conception of the contract to the\n\"political constitution\" and you have \"Anarchy.\"\n\n\"The idea of the contract excludes that of government. What\ncharacterises the contract, reciprocal convention, is that by virtue of\nthis convention the liberty and well-being of man are increased, while\nby the institution of authority both are necessarily decreased....\nContract is thus essentially synallagmatic; it lays upon the contracting\nparties no other obligation than that which results from their personal\npromise of reciprocal pledges; it is subject to no external authority;\nit alone lays down a law common to both parties, and it can be carried\nout only through their own initiative. If the contract is already this\nin its most general acceptation and in its daily practice, what will the\nsocial contract be--that contract which is meant to bind together all\nthe members of a nation by the same interest? The social contract is the\nsupreme act by which every citizen pledges to society his love, his\nintellect, his labour, his service, his products, his possessions, in\nexchange for the affection, the ideas, the labour, products, service,\nand possessions of his fellows; the measure of right for each one being\nalways determined by the extent of his own contribution, and the amount\nrecoverable being in accordance with what has been given.... The social\ncontract must be freely discussed, individually consented to, signed\n_manu propri\u00e2_, by all who participate in it. If its discussion were\nprevented, curtailed or burked; if consent to it were filched; if the\nsignature were given to a blank document in pure confidence, without a\nreading of the articles and their preliminary explanation; or even if,\nlike the military oath, it were all predetermined and enforced, then the\nsocial contract would be nothing but a conspiracy against the liberty\nand well-being of the most ignorant, the most weak, and most numerous\nindividuals, a systematic spoliation, against which every means of\nresistance or even of reprisal might become a right and a duty.... The\nsocial contract is of the essence of the reciprocal contract; not only\ndoes it leave the signer the whole of his possessions; it adds to his\nproperty; it does not encroach upon his labour; it only affects\nexchange.... Such, according to the definitions of right and universal\npractice, must be the social contract.\"[23]\n\nOnce it is admitted as an incontestable fundamental principle that the\ncontract is \"the only moral bond that can be accepted by free and equal\nhuman beings\" nothing is easier than a \"radical\" criticism of the\n\"political constitution.\" Suppose we have to do with justice and the\npenal law, for example? Well, Proudhon would ask you by virtue of what\ncontract society arrogates to itself the right to punish criminals.\n\"Where there is no compact there can be, so far as any external tribunal\nis concerned, neither crime nor misdemeanour. The law is the expression\nof the sovereignty of the people; that is, or I am altogether mistaken,\nthe social contract and the personal pledge of the man and the citizen.\nSo long as I did not want this law, so long as I have not consented to\nit, voted for it, it is not binding upon me, it does not exist. To make\nit a precedent before I have recognised it, and to use it against me in\nspite of my protests is to make it retroactive, and to violate this very\nlaw itself. Every day you have to reverse a decision because of some\nformal error. But there is not a single one of your laws that is not\ntainted with nullity, and the most monstrous nullity of all, the very\nhypothesis of the law. Soufflard, Lacenaire, all the scoundrels whom you\nsend to the scaffold turn in their graves and accuse you of judicial\nforgery. What answer can you make them?\"[24]\n\nIf we are dealing with the administration and the police Proudhon sings\nthe same song of contract and free consent. \"Cannot we administer our\ngoods, keep our accounts, arrange our differences, look after our common\ninterests at least as well as we can look after our salvation and take\ncare of our souls?\" \"What more have we to do with State legislation,\nwith State justice, with State police, and with State administration\nthan with State religion?\"[25]\n\nAs to the Ministry of Finance, \"it is evident that its _raison d'\u00eatre_\nis entirely included in that of the other ministries.... Get rid of all\nthe political harness and you will have no use for an administration\nwhose sole object is the procuring and distribution of supplies.\"[26]\n\nThis is logical and \"radical;\" and the more radical, that this formula\nof Proudhon's--constituted value, free contract--is a universal one,\neasily, and even necessarily applicable to all peoples. \"Political\neconomy is, indeed, like all other sciences; it is of necessity the same\nall over the world; it does not depend upon the arrangements of men or\nnations, it is subject to no one's caprice. There is no more a Russian,\nEnglish, Austrian, Tartar, or Hindoo political economy than there is a\nHungarian, German, or American physics or geometry. Truth is everywhere\nequal to itself: Science is the unity of the human race. If science,\ntherefore, and no longer religion or authority is taken in all countries\nas the rule of society, the sovereign arbiter of all interests,\ngovernment becomes null and void, the legislators of the whole universe\nare in harmony.\"[27]\n\nBut enough of this! The \"biography\" of what Proudhon called his\nprogramme is now sufficiently clear to us. Economically it is but the\nUtopia of a petty bourgeois, who is firmly convinced that the\nproduction of commodities is the most \"just\" of all possible modes of\nproduction, and who desires to eliminate its bad sides (hence his\n\"Radicalism\") by retaining to all eternity its good sides (hence his\n\"Conservatism\"). Politically the programme is only the application to\npublic relations of a concept (the \"contract\") drawn from the domain of\nthe private right of a society of producers of commodities. \"Constituted\nvalue\" in economics, the \"contract\" in politics--these are the whole\nscientific \"truth\" of Proudhon. It is all very well for him to combat\nthe Utopians; he is a Utopian himself to his finger tips. What\ndistinguishes him from men like Saint Simon, Fourier, and Robert Owen is\nhis extreme pettiness and narrowness of mind, his hatred of every really\nrevolutionary movement and idea.\n\nProudhon criticised the \"political constitution\" from the point of view\nof private right. He wished to perpetuate private property, and to\ndestroy that pernicious \"fiction\" the State, for ever.\n\nGuizot had already said that the political constitution of a country has\nits root in the conditions of property existing there. For Proudhon the\npolitical constitution owes its origin only to human ignorance, has only\nbeen \"imagined\" in default of the \"social organisation\" at last\n\"invented\" by him, Proudhon, in the year of our Lord so and so. He\njudges the political history of mankind like a Utopian. But the Utopian\nnegation of all reality by no means preserves us from its influence.\nDenied upon one page of a Utopian work, it takes its revenge on\nanother, where it often appears in all its nakedness. Thus Proudhon\n\"denies\" the State. \"The State--no, no--I will none of it, even as\nservant; I reject all government, even direct government,\" he cries _ad\nnauseam_. But, oh! irony of reality! Do you know how he \"invents\" the\nconstitution of value? It is very funny.\n\nThe constitution of value is the selling at a fair price, at the cost\nprice.[28] If a merchant refuses to supply his merchandise at cost price\nit is because he is not certain of selling a sufficient quantity to\nsecure a due return, and further he has no guarantee that he will get\n_quid pro quo_ for his purchases. So he must have guarantees. And there\nmay be \"various kinds\" of these guarantees. Here is one.\n\n\"Let us suppose that the Provisional Government or the Constituent\nAssembly ... had seriously wished to help along business, encourage\ncommerce, industry, agriculture, stop the depreciation of property,\nassure work to the workers--it could have been done by guaranteeing,\n_e.g._, to the first 10,000 contractors, factory owners, manufacturers,\nmerchants, etc., in the whole Republic, an interest of 5 per cent. on\nthe capital, say, on the average, 100,000 francs, that each of them had\nembarked in his competitive business. For it is evident that the State\"\n... Enough! It is evident that the State has forced itself upon\nProudhon, at least \"as servant.\" And it has done this with such\nirresistible force that our author ends by surrendering, and solemnly\nproclaiming:\n\n\"Yes, I say it aloud: the workers' associations of Paris and the\ndepartments hold in their hands the salvation of the people, the future\nof the revolution. They can do everything, if they set about it\ncleverly. Renewed energy on their part must carry the light into the\ndullest minds, and at the election of 1852 [he wrote this in the summer\nof 1851] must place on the order of the day, and at the head of it, the\nconstitution of value.\"[29]\n\nThus \"No more parties! No politics!\" when it is a question of the class\nstruggle--and \"Hurrah for politics! Hurrah for electoral agitation!\nHurrah for State interference!\" when it is a question of realising the\nvapid and meagre Utopia of Proudhon!\n\n\"_Destruam et \u00e6dificabo_,\" says Proudhon, with the pompous vanity\npeculiar to him. But on the other hand--to use the phrase of Figaro--it\nis the truest truth of all he has ever uttered in his life. He destroys\nand he builds. Only the mystery of his \"destruction\" reveals itself\ncompletely in his formula, \"The Contract solves all problems.\" The\nmystery of his \"_\u00e6dificatio_\" is in the strength of the social and\npolitical bourgeois reality with which he reconciled himself, the more\nreadily in that he never managed to pluck from it any of its \"secrets.\"\n\nProudhon will not hear of the State at any price. And yet--apart from\nthe political propositions such as the constitution of value, with which\nhe turns to the odious \"fiction\"--even theoretically he \"builds up\" the\nState as fast as he \"destroys\" it. What he takes from the \"State\" he\nbestows upon the \"communes\" and \"departments.\" In the place of one great\nState we see built up a number of small states; in the place of one\ngreat \"fiction\" a mass of little ones. To sum up, \"anarchy\" resolves\nitself into federalism, which among other advantages has that of making\nthe success of revolutionary movements much more difficult than it is\nunder a centralised State.[30] So endeth Proudhon's \"General Idea of the\nRevolution.\"\n\nIt is a curious fact that Saint Simon is the \"father\" of Proudhon's\nanarchy. Saint Simon has said that the end of social organisation is\nproduction, and that, therefore, political science must be reduced to\neconomics, the \"art of governing men\" must give way to the art of\n\"administration of things.\" He has compared mankind to the individual,\nwho, obeying his parents in childhood, in his ripe age ends by obeying\nno one but himself. Proudhon seized upon this idea and this comparison,\nand with the help of the constitution of value, \"built up\" anarchy. But\nSaint Simon, a man of fertile genius, would have been the very first to\nbe alarmed at what this Socialistic petty bourgeois made of his theory.\nModern scientific Socialism has worked out the theory of Saint Simon\nvery differently, and while explaining the historical origin of the\nState, shows in this very origin, the conditions of the future\ndisappearance of the State.\n\n\"The State was the official representative of society as a whole, the\ngathering of it together into a visible embodiment. But it was this only\nin so far as it was the State of that class which itself represented,\nfor the time being, society as a whole; in ancient times the State of\nslave-owning citizens; in the middle ages, the feudal lords; in our own\ntime, the bourgeoisie. When at last it becomes the real representative\nof the whole of society, it renders itself unnecessary. As soon as there\nis no longer any social class to be held in subjection; as soon as class\nrule and the individual struggle for existence based on our present\nanarchy in production, with the collisions and excesses arising from\nthese are removed, nothing more remains to be repressed, and a special\nrepressive force, a State, is no longer necessary. The first act by\nvirtue of which the State really constitutes itself the representative\nof the whole of society, the taking possession of the means of\nproduction in the name of society, this is, at the same time, its last\nindependent act as a State. State interference in social relations\nbecomes, in one domain after another, superfluous, and then dies out of\nitself; the government of persons is replaced by the administration of\nthings, and by the conduct of processes of production. The State is not\n'abolished.' _It dies out._\"[31]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[16] For all these quotations see the preface to the third edition of\nthe \"Confessions d'un R\u00e9volutionnaire.\" This preface is simply an\narticle reprinted from the _Voix du Peuple_, November, 1849. It was not\ntill 1849 that Proudhon began to \"expound\" his Anarchist theory. In\n1848, _pace_ Kropotkine, he only expounded his theory of exchange, as\nanyone can see for himself by reading the sixth volume of his complete\nworks (Paris, 1868). This \"critique\" of Democracy, written in March,\n1848, did not yet expound his Anarchist theory. This \"critique\" forms\npart of his work, \"Solution du Probl\u00e8me Social,\" and Proudhon proposes\nto bring about this solution \"without taxes, without loans, without cash\npayments, without paper-money, without maximum, without levies, without\nbankruptcy, without agrarian laws, without any poor tax, without\nnational workshops, without association (!), without any participation\nor intervention by the State, without any interference with the liberty\nof commerce and of industry, without any violation of property,\" in a\nword and above all, without any class war. A truly \"immortal\" idea and\nworthy the admiration of all bourgeois, peace-loving, sentimental, or\nbloodthirsty--white, blue, or red!\n\n[17] \"One, two, three; legerdemain isn't witchcraft.\"\n\n[18] \"Les Confessions d'un R\u00e9volutionnaire.\" Vol. ix., 1868 edition of\nthe complete works of Proudhon, pages 166 and 167.\n\n[19] \"Confessions,\" pp. 25-26.\n\n[20] He is speaking of the two papers _Le Peuple_ and _Le R\u00e9pr\u00e9sentant\ndu Peuple_, which he had published in 1848-9 before the _Voix du\nPeuple_.\n\n[21] \"Confessions,\" pp. 7-8.\n\n[22] For Proudhon the principle of association invoked by most schools\n(he means the various Socialist schools), \"a principle essentially\nsterile, is neither an industrial force nor an economic law ... it\nsupposes government and obedience, two terms excluded by the\nRevolution.\" (_Id\u00e9e G\u00e9n\u00e9rale de la R\u00e9volution au XIX Si\u00e8cle_, 2 ed.,\nParis 1851, p. 173).\n\n[23] \"Id\u00e9e G\u00e9n\u00e9rale de la Revolution.\" Paris, 1851, pp. 124-127.\n\n[24] \"Id\u00e9e G\u00e9n\u00e9rale,\" pp. 298-299.\n\n[25] \"Id\u00e9e G\u00e9n\u00e9rale,\" p. 304.\n\n[26] Ibid. p. 324.\n\n[27] Ibid. p. 328.\n\n[28] It was thus that Proudhon understood the determining of value by\nlabour. He could never understand a Ricardo.\n\n[29] \"Id\u00e9e G\u00e9n\u00e9rale,\" p. 268.\n\n[30] See his book, \"Du Principe F\u00e9d\u00e9ratif.\"\n\n[31] _Socialism: Utopian and Scientific._ By F. Engels. Translated by\nEdward Aveling. Pp. 75-77.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nBAKOUNINE\n\n\nWe have seen that in their criticism of the \"political constitution,\"\nthe \"fathers\" of anarchy always based themselves on the Utopian point of\nview. Each one of them based his theories upon an abstract principle.\nStirner upon that of the \"Ego,\" Proudhon upon that of the \"Contract.\"\nThe reader has also seen that these two \"fathers\" were individualists of\nthe first water.\n\nThe influence of Proudhonian individualism was, for a time, very strong\nin the Romance countries (France, Belgium, Italy, Spain) and in the\nSlaav countries, especially Russia. The internal history of the\nInternational Working Men's Association is the history of this struggle\nbetween Proudhonism and the modern Socialism of Marx. Not only men like\nTolain, Chemal\u00e9 or Murat, but men very superior to them, such as De\nPaepe, _e.g._, were nothing but more or less opinionated, more or less\nconsistent \"Mutualists.\" But the more the working class movement\ndeveloped, the more evident it became that \"Mutualism\" could not be its\ntheoretical expression. At the International Congresses the Mutualists\nwere forced by the logic of facts to vote for the Communist\nresolutions. This was the case, _e.g._, at Brussels in the discussion on\nlanded property.[32] Little by little the left wing of the Proudhonian\narmy left the domain of Individualism to intrench itself upon that of\n\"Collectivism.\"\n\nThe word \"Collectivism\" was used at this period in a sense altogether\nopposed to that which it now has in the mouths of the French Marxists,\nlike Jules Guesde and his friends. The most prominent champion of\n\"Collectivism\" was at this time Michel Bakounine.\n\nIn speaking of this man we shall pass over in silence his propaganda in\nfavour of the Hegelian philosophy, as far as he understood it, the part\nhe played in the revolutionary movement of 1848, his Panslavist writings\nin the beginning of the sixties, and his pamphlet, \"Roumanow, Pougatchew\nor Pestel\"[33] (London, 1862), in which he proposed to go over to\nAlexander II., if the latter would become the \"Tzar of the Moujiks.\"\nHere we are exclusively concerned with his theory of Anarchist\nCollectivism.\n\nA member of the \"League of Peace and Liberty,\" Bakounine, at the\nCongress of this Association at Berne in 1869, called upon the\nLeague--an entirely bourgeois body--to declare in favour of \"the\neconomical and social equalisation of classes and of individuals.\" Other\ndelegates, among whom was Chaudey, reproached him with advocating\nCommunism. He indignantly protested against the accusation.\n\n\"Because I demand the economic and social equalisation of classes and\nindividuals, because, with the Workers' Congress of Brussels, I have\ndeclared myself in favour of collective property, I have been reproached\nwith being a Communist. What difference, I have been asked, is there\nbetween Communism and Collectivism. I am really astounded that M.\nChaudey does not understand this difference, he who is the testamentary\nexecutor of Proudhon! I detest Communism, because it is the negation of\nliberty, and I cannot conceive anything human without liberty. I am not\na Communist, because Communism concentrates and causes all the forces of\nsociety to be absorbed by the State, because it necessarily ends in the\ncentralisation of property in the hands of the State, while I desire the\nabolition of the State--the radical extirpation of this principle of the\nauthority and the tutelage of the State, which, under the pretext of\nmoralising and civilising men, has until now enslaved, oppressed,\nexploited, and depraved them. I desire the organisation of society and\nof collective or social property from below upwards, by means of free\nassociation, and not from above downwards by means of some authority of\nsome sort. Desiring the abolition of the State, I desire the abolition\nof property individually hereditary, which is nothing but an institution\nof the State, nothing but a result of the principle of the State. This\nis the sense, gentlemen, in which I am a Collectivist, and not at all a\nCommunist.\"\n\nIn another speech at the same Congress Bakounine reiterates what he had\nalready said of \"Statist\" Communism. \"It is not we, gentlemen,\" he said,\n\"who systematically deny all authority and all tutelary powers, and who\nin the name of Liberty demand the very abolition of the \"authoritarian\"\nprinciple of the State; it is not we who will recognise any sort of\npolitical and social organisation whatever, that is not founded upon\nthe most complete liberty of every one.... But I am in favour of\ncollective property, because I am convinced that so long as property,\nindividually hereditary, exists, the equality of the first start, the\nrealisation of equality, economical and social, will be impossible.\"[34]\nThis is not particularly lucid as a statement of principles. But it is\nsufficiently significant from the \"biographical\" point of view.\n\nWe do not insist upon the ineptitude of the expression \"the economic and\nsocial equalisation of classes;\" the General Council of the\nInternational dealt with that long ago.[35] We would only remark that\nthe above quotations show that Bakounine--\n\n1. Combats the State and \"Communism\" in the name of \"the most complete\nliberty of everybody;\"\n\n2. Combats property, \"individually hereditary,\" in the name of economic\nequality;\n\n3. Regards this property as \"an institution of the State,\" as a\n\"consequence of the very principles of the State;\"\n\n4. Has no objection to individual property, if it is not hereditary; has\nno objection to the right of inheritance, if it is not individual.\n\nIn other words:\n\n1. Bakounine is quite at one with Proudhon so far as concerns the\nnegation of the State and Communism;\n\n2. To this negation he adds another, that of property, individually\nhereditary;\n\n3. His programme is nothing but a total arrived at by the adding up of\nthe two abstract principles--that of \"liberty,\" and that of \"equality;\"\nhe applies these two principles, one after the other, and independently\none of the other, in his criticism of the existing order of things,\nnever asking himself whether the results of these two negations are\nreconcilable with one another.\n\n4. He understands, just as little as Proudhon, the origin of private\nproperty and the causal connection between its evolution and the\ndevelopment of political forms.\n\n5. He has no clear conception of the meaning of the words \"individually\nhereditary.\"\n\nIf Proudhon was a Utopian, Bakounine was doubly so, for his programme\nwas nothing but a Utopia of \"Liberty,\" reinforced by a Utopia of\n\"Equality.\" If Proudhon, at least to a very large extent, remained\nfaithful to his principle of the contract, Bakounine, divided between\nliberty and equality, is obliged from the very outset of his argument\nconstantly to throw over the former for the benefit of the latter, and\nthe latter for the benefit of the former. If Proudhon is a Proudhonian\n_sans reproche_, Bakounine is a Proudhonian adulterated with\n\"detestable\" Communism, nay even by \"Marxism.\"\n\nIn fact, Bakounine has no longer that immutable faith in the genius of\nthe \"master\" Proudhon, which Tolain seems to have preserved intact.\nAccording to Bakounine \"Proudhon, in spite of all his efforts to get a\nfoothold upon the firm ground of reality, remained an idealist and\nmetaphysician. His starting point is the abstract side of law; it is\nfrom this that he starts in order to arrive at economic facts, while\nMarx, on the contrary, has enunciated and proved the truth, demonstrated\nby the whole of the ancient and modern history of human societies, of\npeoples and of states, that economic facts preceded and precede the\nfacts of political and civil law. The discovery and demonstration of\nthis truth is one of the greatest merits of M. Marx.\"[36] In another of\nhis writings he says, with entire conviction, \"All the religions, and\nall the systems of morals that govern a given society are always the\nideal expression of its real, material condition, that is, especially of\nits economic organisation, but also of its political organisation, the\nlatter, indeed, being never anything but the juridical and violent\nconsecration of the former.\" And he again mentions Marx as the man to\nwhom belongs the merit of having discovered and demonstrated this\ntruth.[37] One asks oneself with astonishment how this same Bakounine\ncould declare that private property was only a consequence of the\nprinciple of authority. The solution of the riddle lies in the fact that\nhe did not understand the materialist conception of history; he was only\n\"adulterated\" by it.\n\nAnd here is a striking proof of this. In the Russian work, already\nquoted, \"Statism and Anarchy,\" he says that in the situation of the\nRussian people there are two elements which constitute the conditions\nnecessary for the social (he means Socialist) revolution. \"The Russian\npeople can boast of excessive poverty, and unparalleled slavery. Their\nsufferings are innumerable, and they bear these, not with patience, but\nwith a profound and passionate despair, that twice already in our\nhistory has manifested itself in terrible outbursts: in the revolt of\nStephan Razine, and in that of Pougatschew.\"[38] And that is what\nBakounine understood by the material conditions of a Socialist\nrevolution! Is it necessary to point out that this \"Marxism\" is a little\ntoo _sui generis_?\n\nWhile combating Mazzini from the standpoint of the materialist\nconception of history, Bakounine himself is so far from understanding\nthe true import of this conception, that in the same work in which he\nrefutes the Mazzinian theology, he speaks, like the thorough-faced\nProudhonian that he is, of \"absolute\" human morality, and he bolsters up\nthe idea of this morality--the morality of \"solidarity,\"--with such\narguments as these:\n\n\"Every actual being, so long as he exists, exists only by virtue of a\nprinciple which is inherent in himself, and which determines his\nparticular nature; a principle that is not imposed upon him by a divine\nlaw-giver of any sort\" (this is the \"materialism\" of our author!), \"but\nis the protracted and constant result of combinations of natural causes\nand effects; that is not, according to the ludicrous idea of the\nidealists, shut up in him like a soul within its body, but is, in fact,\nonly the inevitable and constant form of his real existence. The human,\nlike all other species, has inherent principles quite special to itself,\nand all these principles are summed up in, or are reducible to, a single\nprinciple, which we call _solidarity_. This principle may be formulated\nthus: No human individual can recognise his own humanity, nor,\ntherefore, realise it in his life except by recognising it in others,\nand by helping to realise it for others. No man can emancipate himself,\nexcept by emancipating with him all the men around him. My liberty is\nthe liberty of everyone, for I am not truly free, free not only in\nthought but in deed, except when my liberty and my rights find their\nconfirmation, their sanction, in the liberty and the rights of all men,\nmy equals.\"[39]\n\nAs a moral precept, solidarity, as interpreted by Bakounine, is a very\nexcellent thing. But to set up this a morality, which by the way is not\nat all \"absolute,\" as principle \"inherent\" in humanity and determining\nhuman nature, is playing with words, and completely ignoring what\nmaterialism is. Humanity only exists \"by virtue\" of the principle of\nsolidarity. This is coming it a little too strong. How about the \"class\nwar,\" and the cursed State, and property, \"individually hereditary\"--are\nthese only manifestations of \"solidarity,\" inherent in humanity,\ndetermining its special nature, etc., etc? If this is so, everything is\nall right, and Bakounine was wasting his time in dreaming of a \"social\"\nrevolution. If this is not so, this proves that humanity may have\nexisted \"by virtue\" of other principles than that of solidarity, and\nthat this latter principle is by no means \"inherent\" in it. Indeed,\nBakounine only enunciated his \"absolute\" principle in order to arrive at\nthe conclusion that \"no people could be completely free, free with\nsolidarity, in the human sense of the word, if the whole of humanity is\nnot free also.\"[40]\n\nThis is an allusion to the tactics of the modern proletariat, and it is\ntrue in the sense that--as the rules of the International Workingmen's\nAssociation put it--the emancipation of the workers is not a merely\nlocal or national problem, but, on the contrary, a problem concerning\nevery civilised nation, its solution being necessarily dependent upon\ntheir theoretical and practical cooperation. It is easy enough to prove\nthis truth by reference to the actual economic situation of civilised\nhumanity. But nothing is less conclusive, here as elsewhere, than a\n\"demonstration\" founded upon a Utopian conception of \"human nature.\" The\n\"solidarity\" of Bakounine only proves that he remained an incorrigible\nUtopian, although he became acquainted with the historical theory of\nMarx.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[32] \" ... Among those who call themselves Mutualists, and whose\neconomic ideas incline, on the whole, to the theories of Proudhon, in\nthe sense that they, like the great revolutionary writer, demand the\nsuppression of all levies of capital upon labour, the suppression of\ninterest, reciprocity of service, equal exchange of products on the\nbasis of cost price, free reciprocal credit, several voted for the\ncollective ownership of the land. Such, _e.g._, are the four French\ndelegates, Aubry of Rouen, Delacour of Paris, Richard of Lyons,\nLemonnier of Marseilles, and among the Belgians, Companions A. Moetens,\nVerricken, De Paepe, Marichal, etc. For them there is no contradiction\nbetween Mutualism applicable to the exchange of services and the\nexchange of products on the basis of cost price, that is to say, the\nquantity of labour contained in the services and the products, and\ncollective property applicable to the land, which is not a product of\nlabour, and therefore does not seem to them to come under the law of\nexchange, under the law of circulation.\"--Reply to an article by Dr.\nCoullery in the \"Voix de l'Avenir,\" September, 1868, by the Belgians\nVanderhouten, De Paepe, Delasalle, Hermann, Delplanque, Roulants,\nGuillaume Brasseur, printed in the same newspaper and reprinted as a\ndocument in the \"M\u00e9moire of the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Jurasienne,\" Souvillier,\n1873, pp. 19-20.\n\n[33] \"Roumanow\" is the name of the reigning family in Russia--derived\n(if we overlook the adultery of Catherine II., admitted by herself in\nher memoirs) from Peter III., the husband of Catherine II., and Prince\nof Holstein-Gottorp. Pougatchew, the pretended Peter III., was a\nCossack, who placed himself at the head of a Russian peasant rising in\n1773. Pestel was a Republican conspirator, hanged by Nicolas in 1826.\n\n[34] See the documents published with the \"M\u00e9moire de la F\u00e9d\u00e9ration\nJurasienne,\" pp. 28, 29, 37.\n\n[35] \"The equalisation of classes,\" wrote the General Council to the\n\"Alliance\" of Bakounine, who desired to be admitted into the\nInternational Working Men's Association, and had sent the Council its\nprogramme in which this famous \"equalisation\" phrase occurs, \"literally\ninterpreted comes to the harmony of capital and labour, so\npertinaciously advocated by bourgeois Socialists. It is not the\nequalisation of classes, logically a contradiction, impossible to\nrealise, but on the contrary, the abolition of classes, the real secret\nof the proletarian movement, which is the great aim of the International\nWorking Men's Association.\"\n\n[36] \"Statism and Anarchy, 1873\" (the Russian place of publication is\nnot given), pp. 223-224 (Russian). We know the word \"Statism\" is a\nbarbarism, but Bakounine uses it, and the flexibility of the Russian\nlanguage lends itself to such forms.\n\n[37] \"La Th\u00e9ologie Politique de Mazzini et l'Internationale, Neuchatel,\n1871,\" pp. 69 and 78.\n\n[38] Ibid. Appendix A, p. 7.\n\n[39] \"La Th\u00e9ologi\u00e9 Politique de Mazzini,\" p. 91.\n\n[40] Ibid. pp. 110, 111.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nBAKOUNINE--(CONCLUDED)\n\n\nWe have said that the principal features of Bakounine's programme\noriginated in the simple addition of two abstract principles: that of\nliberty and that of equality. We now see that the total thus obtained\nmight easily be increased by the addition of a third principle, that of\nsolidarity. Indeed, the programme of the famous \"Alliance,\" adds several\nothers. For example, \"The Alliance declares itself Atheist; it desires\nthe abolition of religions, the substitution of science for faith, of\nhuman for divine justice.\" In the proclamation with which the Bakounists\nplacarded the walls of Lyons, during the attempted rising at the end of\nSeptember, 1870, we read (Article 41) that \"The State, fallen into\ndecay, will no longer be able to intervene in the payment of private\ndebts.\" This is incontestably logical, but it would be difficult to\ndeduce the non-payment of private debts from principles inherent in\nhuman nature.\n\nSince Bakounine in tacking his various \"absolute\" principles together\ndoes not ask himself, and does not need to ask himself--thanks to the\n\"absolute\" character of his method--whether one of these principles\nmight not somewhat limit the \"absolute\" power of others, and might not\nin its turn be limited by them, he finds it an \"absolute\" impossibility\nto harmonise the various items of his programme whenever words no longer\nsuffice, and it becomes necessary to replace them by more precise ideas.\nHe \"desires\" the abolition of religion. But, \"the State having fallen\ninto decay,\" who is to abolish it? He \"desires\" the abolition of\nproperty, individually hereditary. But what is to be done if, \"the State\nhaving fallen into decay,\" it should continue to exist? Bakounine\nhimself feels the thing is not very clear, but he consoles himself very\neasily.\n\nIn a pamphlet written during the Franco-German war, \"Lettres \u00e0 un\nfran\u00e7ais sur la crise actuelle,\" while demonstrating that France can\nonly be saved by a great revolutionary movement, he comes to the\nconclusion that the peasants must be incited to lay hands upon the land\nbelonging to the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. But so far, the French\npeasants have been in favour of property, \"individually hereditary,\" so\nthis unpleasant institution would be bolstered up by the new Social\nRevolution?\n\n\"Not at all,\" answers Bakounine, \"_once the State is abolished they_\"\n(_i.e._, the peasants) \"_will no longer have the juridical and political\nconsecration, the guarantee of property by the State. Property will no\nlonger be a right, it will be reduced to the condition of a simple\nfact._\" (The italics are Bakounine's own.)\n\nThis is very reassuring. \"The State having fallen into decay,\" any\nfellow that happens to come along, stronger than I, will incontinently\npossess himself of my field, without having any need to appeal to the\nprincipal of \"solidarity;\" the principle of \"liberty\" will sufficiently\nanswer his purpose. A very pleasant \"equalisation of individuals\"!\n\n\"It is certain,\" Bakounine admits, \"that at first things won't work in\nan absolutely peaceful manner; there will be struggles; public order,\nthat arch saint of the bourgeois, will be disturbed, and the just deeds\nwhich will result from such a state of things may constitute what one is\nagreed to call a civil war. But do you prefer to hand over France to the\nPrussians?... Moreover, do you fear that the peasants will devour one\nanother; even if they tried to do so in the beginning, they would soon\nbe convinced of the material impossibility of persisting in this course,\nand then we may be sure they would try to arrive at some understanding,\nto come to terms, to organise among themselves. The necessity of eating,\nof providing for their families, and the necessity therefore of\nsafeguarding their houses, their families, and their own lives against\nunforeseen attacks, all this would soon force them individually to enter\ninto mutual arrangements. And do not believe, either, that in these\narrangements, _arrived at outside all official tutelage_\" (italicised by\nBakounine), \"by the mere force of events, the strongest, the richest,\nwill exercise a predominant influence. The wealth of the wealthy, no\nlonger guaranteed by juridical institutions, will cease to be a\npower.... As to the most cunning, the strongest, they will be rendered\ninnocuous by the collective strength of the mass of the small, and very\nsmall peasants, as well as by the agricultural proletarians, a mass of\nmen to-day reduced to silent suffering, but whom the revolutionary\nmovement will arm with an irresistible power. Please note that I do not\ncontend that the agricultural districts which will thus reorganise\nthemselves, from below upwards, will immediately create an ideal\norganisation, agreeing at all points with the one of which we dream.\nWhat I am convinced of is that this will be a _living_ organisation, and\nas such, one a thousand times superior to what exists now. Moreover,\nthis new organisation being always open to the propaganda of the towns,\nas it can no longer be held down, so to say petrified by the juridical\nsanction of the State, it will progress freely, developing and\nperfecting itself indefinitely, but always living and free, never\ndecreed nor legalised, until it attains as reasonable a condition as we\ncan hope for in our days.\"\n\nThe \"idealist\" Proudhon was convinced that the political constitution\nhad been invented for want of a social organisation \"immanent in\nhumanity.\" He took the pains to \"discover\" this latter, and having\ndiscovered it, he could not see what further _raison d'\u00eatre_ there was\nfor the political constitution. The \"materialist\" Bakounine has no\n\"social organisation\" of his own make. \"The most profound and rational\nscience,\" he says, \"cannot divine the future forms of social life.\"[41]\nThis science must be content to distinguish the \"living\" social forms\nfrom those that owe their origin to the \"petrifying\" action of the\nState, and to condemn these latter. Is not this the old Proudhonian\nantithesis of the social organisation \"immanent in humanity,\" and of the\npolitical constitution \"invented\" exclusively in the interests of\n\"order?\" Is not the only difference that the \"materialist\" transforms\nthe Utopian programme of the \"idealist,\" into something even more\nUtopian, more nebulous, more absurd?\n\n\"To believe that the marvellous scheme of the universe is due to chance,\nis to imagine that by throwing about a sufficient number of printers'\ncharacters at hazard, we might write the Iliad.\" So reasoned the Deists\nof the 18th century in refuting the Atheists. The latter replied that in\nthis case everything was a question of time, and that by throwing about\nthe letters an infinite number of times, we must certainly, at some\nperiod, make them arrange themselves in the required sequence.\nDiscussions of this kind were to the taste of the 18th century, and we\nshould be wrong to make too much fun of them now-a-days. But it would\nseem that Bakounine took the Atheist argument of the good old times\nquite seriously, and used it in order to make himself a \"programme.\"\nDestroy what exists; if only you do this often enough you are bound at\nlast to produce a social organisation, approaching at any rate the\norganisation you \"dream\" of. All will go well when once the revolution\nhas come to stay. Is not this sufficiently \"materialist?\" If you think\nit is not, you are a metaphysician, \"dreaming\" of the impossible!\n\nThe Proudhonian antithesis of the \"social organisation\" and the\n\"political constitution\" reappears \"living\" and in its entirety in what\nBakounine is for ever reiterating as to the \"social revolution\" on the\none hand, and the \"political revolution\" on the other. According to\nProudhon the social organisation has unfortunately, up to our own days,\nnever existed, and for want of it humanity was driven to \"invent\" a\npolitical constitution. According to Bakounine the social revolution has\nnever yet been made, because humanity, for want of a good \"social\"\nprogramme had to content itself with political revolutions. Now that\nthis programme has been found, there is no need to bother about the\n\"political\" revolution; we have quite enough to do with the \"social\nrevolution.\"\n\nEvery class struggle being necessarily a political struggle, it is\nevident that every political revolution, worthy of the name, is a social\nrevolution; it is evident also that for the proletariat the political\nstruggle is as much a necessity as it has always been for every class\nstruggling to emancipate itself. Bakounine anathematises all political\naction by the proletariat; he extols the \"social\" struggle exclusively.\nNow what is this social struggle?\n\nHere our Proudhonian once again shows himself adulterated by Marxism. He\nrelies as far as possible upon the Rules of the International\nWorkingmen's Association.\n\nIn the preamble of these Rules it is laid down that the subjection of\nthe worker to capital lies at the bottom of all servitude, political,\nmoral and material, and that therefore the economic emancipation of the\nworkers is the great end to which all political movements must be\nsubordinated as a means. Bakounine argues from this that \"every\npolitical movement which has not for its immediate and direct object the\nfinal and complete economic emancipation of the workers, and which has\nnot inscribed upon its banner quite definitely and clearly, the\nprinciple of _economic equality_, that is, the integral restitution of\ncapital to labour, or else the social liquidation--every such political\nmovement is a bourgeois one, and as such must be excluded from the\nInternational.\" But this same Bakounine has heard it said that the\nhistorical movement of humanity is a process in conformity with certain\nlaws, and that a revolution cannot be improvised at a moment's notice.\nHe is therefore forced to ask himself, what is the policy which the\nInternational is to adopt during that \"more or less prolonged period of\ntime which separates us from the terrible social revolution which\neveryone foresees to-day?\" To this he replies, with the most profound\nconviction, and, as if quoting the Rules of the International:\n\n\"Without mercy the policy of the democratic bourgeois, or\nbourgeois-Socialists, must be excluded, which, when these declare that\npolitical freedom is a necessary condition of economic emancipation, can\nonly mean this: political reforms, or political revolutions must precede\neconomic reforms or economic revolutions; the workers must therefore\njoin hands with the more or less Radical bourgeois, in order to carry\nout the former together with them, then, being free, to turn the latter\ninto a reality against them. We protest loudly against this unfortunate\ntheory, which, so far as the workers are concerned, can only result in\ntheir again letting themselves be used as tools against themselves, and\nhanding them over once more to bourgeois exploitation.\"\n\nThe International \"commands\" us to disregard all national or local\npolitics; it must give the working-class movement in all countries an\n\"essentially economic\" character, by setting up as final aim \"the\nshortening of the hours of labour, and the increase of wages,\" and as a\nmeans \"the association of the working masses, and the starting of funds\nfor fighting.\" It is needless to add that the shortening of the hours of\nlabour must, of course, be obtained without any intervention from the\naccursed State.[42]\n\nBakounine cannot understand that the working class in its political\naction can completely separate itself from all the exploiting parties.\nAccording to him, there is no other _r\u00f4le_ in the political movement for\nthe workers than that of satellite of the Radical bourgeoisie. He\nglorifies the \"essentially economic\" tactics of the old English Trade\nUnions, and has not the faintest idea that it was these very tactics\nthat made the English workers the tail of the Liberal Party.\n\nBakounine objects to the working class lending a hand in any movement\nwhose object is the obtaining or the extension of political rights. In\ncondemning such movements as \"bourgeois,\" he fancies himself a\ntremendous revolutionist. As a matter of fact he thus proves himself\nessentially Conservative, and if the working class were ever to follow\nthis line of inaction the Governments could only rejoice.[43]\n\nThe true revolutionists of our days have a very different idea of\nSocialist tactics. They \"everywhere support every revolutionary movement\nagainst the existing social and political order of things;\"[44] which\ndoes not prevent them (but quite the contrary) from forming the\nproletariat into a party separate from all the exploiter parties,\nopposed to the whole \"reactionary mass.\"\n\nProudhon, who we know had not any overwhelming sympathy for \"politics,\"\nnevertheless advised the French workers to vote for the candidates who\npledged themselves to \"constitute value.\" Bakounine would not have\npolitics at any price. The worker cannot make use of political liberty:\n\"in order to do so he needs two little things--leisure and material\nmeans.\" So it is all only a bourgeois lie. Those who speak of\nworking-class candidates are but mocking the proletariat. \"Working-class\ncandidates, transferred to bourgeois conditions of life, and into an\natmosphere of completely bourgeois political ideas, ceasing to be\nactually workers in order to become statesmen, will become bourgeois,\nand possibly will become even more bourgeois than the bourgeois\nthemselves. For it is not the men who make positions, but, on the\ncontrary, positions which make the men.\"[45]\n\nThis last argument is about all Bakounine was able to assimilate of the\nmaterialist conception of history. It is unquestionably true that man is\nthe product of his social environment. But to apply this incontestable\ntruth with advantage it is necessary to get rid of the old, metaphysical\nmethod of thought which considers things _one after the other, and\nindependently one of the other_. Now Bakounine, like his master,\nProudhon, in spite of his flirtation with the Hegelian philosophy, all\nhis life remained a metaphysician. He does not understand that the\nenvironment which makes man may change, thus changing man its own\nproduct. The environment he has in his mind's eye when speaking of the\npolitical action of the proletariat, is the bourgeois parliamentary\nenvironment, that environment which must necessarily fatally corrupt\nlabour representatives. But the environment of the _electors_, the\nenvironment of a working-class party, conscious of its aim and well\norganised, would this have no influence upon the elected of the\nproletariat? No! Economically enslaved, the working class must always\nremain in political servitude; in this domain it will always be the\nweakest; to free itself it must begin by an economic revolution.\nBakounine does not see that by this process of reasoning he inevitably\narrives at the conclusion that a victory of the proletariat is\nabsolutely impossible, unless the owners of the means of production\nvoluntarily relinquish their possessions to them. In effect the\nsubjection of the worker to capital is the source not only of political\nbut of moral servitude. And how can the workers, morally enslaved, rise\nagainst the bourgeoisie? For the working class movement to become\npossible, according to Bakounine, it must therefore first make an\neconomic revolution. But the economic revolution is only possible as the\nwork of the workers themselves. So we find ourselves in a vicious\ncircle, out of which modern Socialism can easily break, but in which\nBakounine and the Bakounists are for ever turning with no other hope of\ndeliverance than a logical _salto mortale_.\n\nThe corrupting influence of the Parliamentary environment on\nworking-class representatives is what the Anarchists have up to the\npresent considered the strongest argument in their criticism of the\npolitical activity of Social-Democracy. We have seen what its\n_theoretical_ value amounts to. And even a slight knowledge of the\nhistory of the German Socialist party will sufficiently show how in\npractical life the Anarchist apprehensions are answered.\n\nIn repudiating all \"politics\" Bakounine was forced to adopt the tactics\nof the old English Trade Unions. But even he felt that these tactics\nwere not very revolutionary. He tried to get out of the difficulty by\nthe help of his \"Alliance,\" a kind of international secret society,\norganised on a basis of frenetic centralisation and grotesque\nfancifulness. Subjected to the dictatorial rule of the sovereign pontiff\nof Anarchy, the \"international\" and the \"national\" brethren were bound\nto accelerate and direct the \"essentially economic\" revolutionary\nmovement. At the same time Bakounine approved of \"riots,\" of isolated\nrisings of workers and peasants which, although they must inevitably be\ncrushed out, would, he declared, always have a good influence upon the\ndevelopment of the revolutionary spirit among the oppressed. It goes\nwithout saying that with such a \"programme\" he was able to do much harm\nto the working class movement, but he was not able to draw nearer, even\nby a single step, to that \"immediate\" economic revolution of which he\n\"dreamed.\"[46] We shall presently see the result of the Bakounist\ntheory of \"riots.\" For the present let us sum up what we have said of\nBakounine. And here, he shall help us himself.\n\n\"Upon the Pangermanic banner\" [_i.e._, also upon the banner of German\nSocial-Democracy, and consequently upon the Socialist banner of the\nwhole civilised world] \"is inscribed: The conservation and strengthening\nof the State at all costs; on the Socialist-revolutionary banner\" (read\nBakounist banner) \"is inscribed in characters of blood, in letters of\nfire: the abolition of all States, the destruction of bourgeois\ncivilisation; free organisation from the bottom to the top, by the help\nof free associations; the organisation of the working populace (_sic!_)\nfreed from all trammels, the organisation of the whole of emancipated\nhumanity, the creation of a new human world.\"\n\nIt is with these words that Bakounine concludes his principal work\n\"Statism and Anarchy\" (Russian). We leave our readers to appreciate the\nrhetorical beauties of this passage. For our own part we shall be\ncontent with saying that it contains absolutely no human meaning\nwhatsoever.\n\nThe absurd, pure and simple--that is what is inscribed upon the\nBakounist \"banner.\" There is no need of letters of fire and of blood to\nmake this evident to any one who is not hypnotised by a phraseology\nmore or less sonorous, but always void of sense.\n\nThe Anarchism of Stirner and of Proudhon was completely individualist.\nBakounine did not want individualism, or to speak more correctly, one\nparticular phase of individualism. He was the inventor of\n\"Collectivist-Anarchism.\" And the invention cost him little. He\ncompleted the \"liberty\" Utopia, by the \"equality\" Utopia. As these two\nUtopias would not agree, as they cried out at being yoked together, he\nthrew both into the furnace of the \"permanent revolution\" where they\nwere both at last forced to hold their tongues, for the simple reason\nthat they both evaporated, the one as completely as the other.\n\nBakounine is the _d\u00e9cadent_ of Utopism.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[41] \"Statism and Anarchy,\" Appendix A. But for Russia the \"science\" of\nBakounine was quite equal to divining the future forms of social life;\nthere is to be the Commune, whose ulterior development will start from\nthe actual rural commune. It was especially the Bakounists who in Russia\nspread the notion about the marvellous virtues of the Russian rural\ncommune.\n\n[42] See Bakounine's articles on the \"Politics of the International\" in\nthe _Egalit\u00e9_ of Geneva, August, 1869.\n\n[43] The anathemas pronounced by Bakounine against political liberty for\na time had a very deplorable influence upon the revolutionary movement\nin Russia.\n\n[44] Communist Manifesto, p. 30.\n\n[45] _Egalit\u00e9_, 28th August, 1869.\n\n[46] On the action of Bakounine in the International, see the two works\npublished by the General Council of that organisation: _Les Pr\u00e9tendus\nScissions dans l'Internationale_, and _L'Alliance de la Democratic\nSociale_. See also Engels' article _Die Bakunisten an der Arbeit_,\nreprinted in the recently published pamphlet, _Internationales aus dem\nVolkstaat_ (_i.e._, a series of articles published in the _Volkstaat_,)\n1873-75. Berlin, 1894.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE SMALLER FRY\n\n\nAmong our present-day Anarchists some, like John Mackay, the author of\n\"Die Anarchisten, Kulturgem\u00e4lde aus dem Ende des xix. Jahrhunderts,\"\ndeclare for individualism, while others--by far the more numerous--call\nthemselves Communists. These are the descendants of Bakounine in the\nAnarchist movement. They have produced a fairly considerable literature\nin various languages, and it is they who are making so much noise with\nthe help of the \"propaganda by deed.\" The prophet of this school is the\nRussian refugee, P. A. Kropotkine.\n\nI shall not here stop to consider the doctrines of the\nIndividualist-Anarchist of to-day, whom even their brethren, the\nCommunist-Anarchists, look upon as \"bourgeois.\"[47] We will go straight\non to the Anarchist-\"Communist.\"\n\nWhat is the standpoint of this new species of Communism? \"As to the\nmethod followed by the Anarchist thinker, it entirely differs from that\nof the Utopists,\" Kropotkine assures us. \"The Anarchist thinker does not\nresort to metaphysical conceptions (like 'natural rights,' the 'duties\nof the State' and so on) to establish what are, in his opinion, the best\nconditions for realising the greatest happiness of humanity. He follows,\non the contrary, the course traced by the modern philosophy of\nevolution.... He studies human society as it is now, and was in the\npast; and, without either endowing men altogether, or separate\nindividuals, with superior qualities which they do not possess, he\nmerely considers society as an aggregation of organisms trying to find\nout the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of\ncooperation for the welfare of the species. He studies society and tries\nto discover its tendencies, past and present, its growing needs,\nintellectual and economical, and in this he merely points out in which\ndirection evolution goes.\"[48]\n\nSo the Anarchist-Communists have nothing in common with the Utopians.\nThey do not, in the elaborating of their \"ideal,\" turn to metaphysical\nconceptions like \"natural rights,\" the \"duties of the State,\" etc. Is\nthis really so?\n\nSo far as the \"duties of the State\" are concerned, Kropotkine is quite\nright; it would be too absurd if the Anarchists invited the State to\ndisappear in the name of its own \"duties.\" But as to \"natural rights\" he\nis altogether mistaken. A few quotations will suffice to prove this.\n\nAlready in the _Bulletin de la F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Jurasienne_ (No. 3, 1877), we\nfind the following very significant declaration: \"The sovereignty of the\npeople can only exist through the most complete autonomy of individuals\nand of groups.\" This \"most complete autonomy,\" is it not also a\n\"metaphysical conception?\"\n\nThe _Bulletin de la F\u00e9d\u00e9ration Jurasienne_ was an organ of Collectivist\nAnarchism. At bottom there is no difference between \"Collectivist\" and\n\"Communist\" Anarchism. And yet, since it might be that we are making the\nCommunists responsible for the Collectivists, let us glance at the\n\"Communist\" publications, not only according to the spirit but the\nletter. In the autumn of 1892 a few \"companions\" appeared before the\nAssize Court of Versailles in consequence of a theft of dynamite at\nSoisy-sous-Etiolles. Among others there was one G. Eti\u00e9vant, who drew up\na declaration of Anarchist-Communist principles. The tribunal would not\nallow him to read it, whereupon the official organ of the Anarchists,\n_La R\u00e9volte_, undertook to publish this declaration, having taken great\npains to secure an absolutely correct copy of the original. The\n\"Declaration of G. Eti\u00e9vant\" made a sensation in the Anarchist world,\nand even \"cultured\" men like Octave Mirbeau quote it with respect along\nwith the works of the \"theorists,\" Bakounine, Kropotkine, the\n\"unequalled Proudhon,\" and the \"aristocratic Spencer!\" Now this is the\nline of Eti\u00e9vant's reasoning:\n\nNo idea is innate in us; each idea is born of infinitely diverse and\nmultiple sensations, which we receive by means of our organs. Every act\nof the individual is the result of one or several ideas. The man is not\ntherefore responsible. In order that responsibility should exist, will\nwould have to determine the sensations, just as these determine the\nidea, and the idea, the act. But as it is, on the contrary, the\nsensations which determine the will, all judgment becomes impossible,\nevery reward, every punishment unjust, however great the good or the\nevil done may be. \"Thus one cannot judge men and acts unless one has a\nsufficient criterion. Now no such criterion exists. At any rate it is\nnot in the laws that it could be found, for true justice is immutable\nand laws are changeable. It is with laws as with all the rest (!). For\nif laws are beneficent what is the good of deputies and senators to\nchange them? And if they are bad what is the good of magistrates to\napply them?\"\n\nHaving thus \"demonstrated\" \"liberty,\" Eti\u00e9vant passes on to \"equality.\"\n\nFrom the zoophytes to men, all beings are provided with more or less\nperfect organs destined to serve them. All these beings have therefore\nthe right to make use of their organs according to the evident will of\nmother Nature. \"So for our legs we have the right to all the space they\ncan traverse; for our lungs to all the air we can breathe; for our\nstomach to all the food we can digest; for our brain to all we can\nthink, or assimilate of the thoughts of others; for our faculty of\nelocution to all we can say; for our ears to all we can hear; and we\nhave a right to all this because we have a right to life, and because\nall this constitutes life. These are the true rights of man! No need to\ndecree them, they exist as the sun exists. They are written in no\nconstitution, in no law, but they are inscribed in ineffaceable letters\nin the great book of Nature and are imprescriptible. From the\ncheese-mite to the elephant, from the blade of grass to the oak, from\nthe atom to the star, everything proclaims it.\"\n\nIf these are not \"metaphysical conceptions,\" and of the very worst type,\na miserable caricature of the metaphysical materialism of the eighteenth\ncentury, if this is the \"philosophy of evolution,\" then we must confess\nthat it has nothing in common with the scientific movement of our day.\n\nLet us hear another authority, and quote the now famous book of Jean\nGrave, \"La Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 mourante et l'Anarchie,\" which was recently condemned\nby French judges, who thought it dangerous, while it is only supremely\nridiculous.\n\n\"Anarchy means the negation of authority. Now, Government claims to base\nthe legitimacy of its existence upon the necessity of defending social\ninstitutions: the family, religion, property, etc. It has created a vast\nmachinery in order to assure its exercise and its sanction. The chief\nare: the law, the magistracy, the army, the legislature, executive\npowers, etc. So that the Anarchist idea, forced to reply to everything,\nwas obliged to attack all social prejudices, to become thoroughly\npenetrated by all human knowledge, in order to demonstrate that its\nconceptions were in harmony with the physiological and psychological\nnature of man, and in harmony with the observance of natural laws, while\nour actual organisation has been established in contravention of all\nlogic and all good sense.... Thus, in combating authority, it has been\nnecessary for the Anarchists to attack all the institutions which the\nGovernment defends, the necessity for which it tries to demonstrate in\norder to legitimate its own existence.\"[49]\n\nYou see what was \"the development\" of the \"Anarchist Idea.\" This Idea\n\"denied\" authority. In order to defend itself, authority appealed to the\nfamily, religion, property. Then the \"Idea\" found itself forced to\nattack institutions, which it had not, apparently, noticed before, and\nat the same time the \"Idea,\" in order to make the most of its\n\"conceptions,\" penetrated to the very depths of all human knowledge (it\nis an ill wind that does not blow some good!) All this is only the\nresult of chance, of the unexpected turn given by \"authority\" to the\ndiscussion that had arisen between itself and the \"Idea.\"\n\nIt seems to us that however rich in human knowledge it may be now, the\n\"Anarchist Idea\" is not at all communistic; it keeps its knowledge to\nitself, and leaves the poor \"companions\" in complete ignorance. It is\nall very well for Kropotkine to sing the praises of the \"Anarchist\nthinker\"; he will never be able to prove that his friend Grave has been\nable to rise even a little above the feeblest metaphysics.\n\nKropotkine should read over again the Anarchist pamphlets of Elis\u00e9e\nReclus--a great \"theorist\" this--and then, quite seriously tell us if he\nfinds anything else in them but appeals to \"justice,\" \"liberty,\" and\nother \"metaphysical conceptions.\"\n\nFinally, Kropotkine himself is not so emancipated from metaphysics as he\nfancies he is. Far from it! Here, _e.g._, is what he said at the general\nmeeting of the Federation of the Jura, on the 12th October, 1879, at\nChaux-de-Fonds:--\n\n\"There was a time when they denied Anarchists even the right to\nexistence. The General Council of the International treated us as\nfactious, the press as dreamers; almost all treated us as fools; this\ntime is past. The Anarchist party has proved its _vitality_; it has\nsurmounted the obstacles of every kind that impeded its development;\nto-day it is _accepted_.\" [By whom?] \"To attain to this, it has been\nnecessary, above all else, for the party to hold its own in the domain\nof _theory_, to establish its ideal of the society of the future, to\nprove that this ideal is the best; to do more than this--to prove that\nthis ideal is not the product of the dreams of the study, but flows\ndirectly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with the\nhistorical progress of culture and ideas. This work has been done,\"\netc....\n\nThis hunt after the best ideal of the society of the future, is not this\nthe Utopian method _par excellence_? It is true that Kropotkine tries to\nprove \"that this ideal is not the product of dreams of the study, but\nflows directly from the popular aspirations, that it is in accord with\nthe historical progress of culture and ideas.\" But what Utopian has not\ntried to prove this equally with himself? Everything depends upon the\nvalue of the proofs, and here our amiable compatriot is infinitely\nweaker than the great Utopians whom he treats as metaphysicians, while\nhe himself has not the least notion of the actual methods of modern\nsocial science. But before examining the value of these \"proofs,\" let us\nmake the acquaintance of the \"ideal\" itself. What is Kropotkine's\nconception of Anarchist society?\n\nPre-occupied with the reorganising of the governmental machine, the\nrevolutionist-politicians, the \"Jacobins\" (Kropotkine detests the\nJacobins even more than our amiable Empress, Catherine II., detested\nthem) allowed the people to die of hunger. The Anarchists will act\ndifferently. They will destroy the State, and will urge on the people to\nthe expropriation of the rich. Once this expropriation accomplished, an\n\"inventory\" of the common wealth will be made, and the \"distribution\"\nof it organised. Everything will be done by the people themselves. \"Just\ngive the people elbow room, and in a week the business of the food\nsupply will proceed with admirable regularity. Only one who has never\nseen the hard-working people at their labour, only one who has buried\nhimself in documents, could doubt this. Speak of the organising capacity\nof the Great Misunderstood, the People, to those who have seen them at\nParis on the days of the barricades\" (which is certainly not the case of\nKropotkine) \"or in London at the time of the last great strike, when\nthey had to feed half a million starving people, and they will tell you\nhow superior the people is to all the hide-bound officials.\"[50]\n\nThe basis upon which the enjoyment in common of the food supply is to be\norganised will be very fair, and not at all \"Jacobin.\" There is but one,\nand only one, which is consistent with sentiments of justice, and is\nreally practical. The taking in heaps from what one possesses abundance\nof! Rationing out what must be measured, divided! Out of 350 millions\nwho inhabit Europe, 200 millions still follow this perfectly natural\npractice--which proves, among other things, that the Anarchist ideal\n\"flows from the popular aspirations.\"\n\nIt is the same with regard to housing and clothing. The people will\norganise everything according to the same rule. There will be an\nupheaval; that is certain. Only this upheaval must not become mere\nloss, it must be reduced to a minimum. And it is again--we cannot repeat\nit too often--by turning to those immediately interested and not to\nbureaucrats that the \"least amount of inconvenience will be inflicted\nupon everybody.\"[51]\n\nThus from the beginning of the revolution we shall have an\n_organisation_; the whims of sovereign \"individuals\" will be kept within\nreasonable bounds by the wants of society, by the logic of the\nsituation. And, nevertheless, we shall be in the midst of full-blown\nAnarchy; individual liberty will be safe and sound. This seems\nincredible, but it is true; there is anarchy, and there is organisation,\nthere are obligatory rules for everyone, and yet everyone does what he\nlikes. You do not follow. 'Tis simple enough. This organisation--it is\nnot the \"authoritarian\" revolutionists who will have created it;--these\nrules, obligatory upon all, and yet anarchical, it is the People, the\nGreat Misunderstood, who will have proclaimed them, and the People are\nvery knowing as anyone who has seen,--what Kropotkine never had the\nopportunity of seeing--days of barricade riots, knows.[52]\n\nBut if the Great Misunderstood had the stupidity to create the\n\"bureaux\" so detested of Kropotkine? If, as it did in March, 1871, it\ngave itself a revolutionary Government? Then we shall say the people is\nmistaken, and shall try to bring it back to a better state of mind, and\nif need be we will throw a few bombs at the \"hide bound officials.\" We\nwill call upon the People to organise, and will destroy all the organs\nit may provide itself with.\n\nThis then is the way in which we realise the excellent Anarchist\nideal--in imagination. In the name of the liberty of individuals all\naction of the individuals is done away with, and in the name of the\nPeople we get rid of the whole class of revolutionists; the individuals\nare drowned in the mass. If you can only get used to this logical\nprocess, you meet with no more difficulties, and you can boast that you\nare neither \"authoritarian\" nor \"Utopian.\" What could be easier, what\nmore pleasant?\n\nBut in order to consume, it is necessary to produce. Kropotkine knows\nthis so well that he reads the \"authoritarian\" Marx a lesson on the\nsubject.\n\n\"The evil of the present organisation is not in that the 'surplus value'\nof production passes over to the capitalist--as Rodbertus and Marx had\ncontended--thus narrowing down the Socialist conception, and the general\nideas on the capitalist regime. Surplus value itself is only a\nconsequence of more profound causes. The evil is that there can be any\nkind of 'surplus value,' instead of a surplus not consumed by each\ngeneration; for, in order that there may be 'surplus value,' men, women,\nand children must be obliged by hunger to sell their labour powers, for\na trifling portion of what these powers produce, and, especially of what\nthey are capable of producing\" (poor Marx, who knew nothing of all these\nprofound truths, although so confusedly expounded by the learned\nPrince!)... \"It does not, indeed, suffice to distribute in equal shares\nthe profits realised in one industry, if, at the same time, one has to\nexploit thousands of other workers. The point is to _produce with the\nsmallest possible expenditure of human labour power the greatest\npossible amount of products necessary for the well being of all_.\"\n(Italicised by Kropotkine himself.)\n\nIgnorant Marxists that we are! We have never heard that a Socialist\nsociety pre-supposes a systematic organisation of production. Since it\nis Kropotkine who reveals this to us, it is only reasonable that we\nshould turn to him to know what this organisation will be like. On this\nsubject also he has some very interesting things to say.\n\n\"Imagine a Society comprising several million inhabitants engaged in\nagriculture, and a great variety of industries--Paris, for example, with\nthe Department of Seine-et-Oise. Imagine that in this Society all\nchildren learn to work with their hand as well as with their brain.\nAdmit, in fine, that all adults, with the exception of the women\noccupied with the education of children, undertake to work _five hours a\nday_ from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty, and\nthat they spend this time in any occupations they choose, in no matter\nwhat branch of human labour considered _necessary_. Such a Society\ncould, in return, guarantee well-being to all its members, _i.e._, far\ngreater comfort than that enjoyed by the bourgeoisie to-day. And every\nworker in this Society would moreover have at his disposal at least five\nhours a day, which he could devote to science, to art, and to those\nindividual needs that do not come within the category of _necessities_,\nwhile later on, when the productive forces of man have augmented,\neverything may be introduced into this category that is still to-day\nlooked upon as a luxury or unattainable.\"[53]\n\nIn Anarchist Society there will be no authority, but there will be the\n_Contract_ (oh! immortal Monsieur Proudhon, here you are again; we see\nall still goes well with you!) by virtue of which the infinitely free\nindividuals \"agree\" to work in such or such a \"free commune.\" The\ncontract is justice, liberty, equality; it is Proudhon, Kropotkine, and\nall the Saints. But, at the same time, do not trifle with the contract!\nIt is a thing not so destitute of means to defend itself as would seem.\nIndeed, suppose the signatory of a contract freely made does not wish to\nfulfil his duty? He is driven forth from the free commune, and he runs\nthe risk of dying of hunger--which is not a particularly gay outlook.\n\n\"I suppose a group or a certain number of volunteers, combining in some\nenterprise, to secure the success of which all rival each other in zeal,\nwith the exception of one associate, who frequently absents himself from\nhis post. Should they, on his account, dissolve the group, appoint a\npresident who would inflict fines, or else, like the Academy, distribute\nattendance-counters? It is evident that we shall do neither the one nor\nthe other, but that one day the comrade who threatens to jeopardise the\nenterprise will be told: 'My friend, we should have been glad to work\nwith you, but as you are often absent from your post, or do your work\nnegligently, we must part. Go and look for other comrades who will\nput up with your off-hand ways.'\"[54] This is pretty strong at\nbottom; but note how appearances are saved, how very \"Anarchist\" is\nhis language. Really, we should not be at all surprised if in the\n\"Anarchist-Communist\" society people were guillotined by persuasion, or,\nat any rate, by virtue of a freely-made contract.\n\nBut farther, this very Anarchist method of dealing with lazy \"free\nindividuals\" is perfectly \"natural,\" and \"is practised everywhere to-day\nin all industries, in competition with every possible system of fines,\nstoppages from wages, espionage, etc.; the workman may go to his shop at\nthe regular hour, but if he does his work badly, if he interferes with\nhis comrades by his laziness or other faults, if they fall out, it is\nall over. He is obliged to leave the workshop.\"[55] Thus is the\nAnarchist \"Ideal\" in complete harmony with the \"tendencies\" of\ncapitalist society.\n\nFor the rest, such strong measures as these will be extremely rare.\nDelivered from the yoke of the State and capitalist exploitation,\nindividuals will of their own free motion set themselves to supply the\nwants of the great All of society. Everything will be done by means of\n\"free arrangement.\"\n\n\"Well, Citizens, let others preach industrial barracks, and the convent\nof \"Authoritarian\" Communism, we declare that the _tendency_ of\nsocieties is in the opposite direction. We see millions and millions of\ngroups constituting themselves freely in order to satisfy all the varied\nwants of human beings, groups formed, some by districts, by streets, by\nhouses; others holding out hands across the walls (!) of cities, of\nfrontiers, of oceans. All made up of human beings freely seeking one\nanother, and having done their work as producers, associating\nthemselves, to consume, or to produce articles of luxury, or to turn\nscience into a new direction. This is the tendency of the nineteenth\ncentury, and we are following it; we ask only to develop it freely,\nwithout let or hindrance on the part of governments. Liberty for the\nindividual!\" \"Take some pebbles,\" said Fourier, \"put them into a box and\nshake them; they will arrange themselves into a mosaic such as you could\nnever succeed in producing if you told off some one to arrange them\nharmoniously.\"[56]\n\nA wit has said that the profession of faith of the Anarchists reduces\nitself to two articles of a fantastic law: (1) There shall be nothing.\n(2) No one is charged with carrying out the above article.\n\nThis is not correct. The Anarchists say:\n\n(1) There shall be everything. (2) No one is held responsible for seeing\nthat there is anything at all.\n\nThis is a very seductive \"Ideal,\" but its realisation is unfortunately\nvery improbable.\n\nLet us now ask, what is this \"free agreement\" which according to\nKropotkine, exists even in capitalist society? He quotes two kinds of\nexamples by way of evidence: (_a_) those connected with production and\nthe circulation of commodities; (_b_) those belonging to all kinds of\nsocieties of amateurs--learned societies, philanthropic societies, etc.\n\n\"Take all the great enterprises: the Suez Canal, _e.g._, Trans-Atlantic\nnavigation, the telegraph that unites the two Americas. Take, in fine,\nthis organisation of commerce, which provides that when you get up in\nthe morning you are sure to find bread at the bakers' ... meat at the\nbutchers', and everything you want in the shops. Is this the work of the\nState? Certainly, to-day we pay middlemen abominably dearly. Well, all\nthe more reason to suppress them, but not to think it necessary to\nconfide to the Government the care of providing our goods and our\nclothing.\"[57]\n\nRemarkable fact! we began by snapping our fingers at Marx, who only\nthought of suppressing surplus value, and had no idea of the\norganisation of production, and we end by demanding the suppression of\nthe profits of the middleman, while, so far as production is concerned,\nwe preach the most bourgeois _laissez-faire, laissez passer_. Marx\nmight, not without reason, have said, he laughs best who laughs last!\n\nWe all know what the \"free agreement\" of the bourgeois _entrepreneur_\nis, and we can only admire the \"absolute\" na\u00efv\u00e9t\u00e9 of the man who sees in\nit the precursor of communism. It is exactly this Anarchic \"arrangement\"\nthat must be got rid of in order that the producers may cease to be the\nslaves of their own products.[58]\n\nAs to the really free societies of _savants_, artists, philanthropists,\netc., Kropotkine himself tells us what their example is worth. They are\n\"made up of human beings freely seeking one another after having done\ntheir work as producers.\" Although this is not correct--since in these\nsocieties there is often not a single _producer_--this still farther\nproves that we can only be free after we have settled our account with\nproduction. The famous \"tendency of the nineteenth century,\" therefore,\ntells us nothing on the main question--how the unlimited liberty of the\nindividual can be made to harmonise with the economic requirements of a\ncommunistic society. And as this \"tendency\" constitutes the whole of the\nscientific equipment of our \"Anarchist thinker,\" we are driven to the\nconclusion that his appeal to science was merely verbiage, that he is,\nin spite of his contempt for the Utopians, one of the least ingenious of\nthese, a vulgar hunter in search of the \"best Ideal.\"\n\nThe \"free agreement\" works wonders, if not in Anarchist society, which\nunfortunately does not yet exist, at least in Anarchist arguments. \"Our\npresent society being abolished, individuals no longer needing to hoard\nin order to make sure of the morrow, this, indeed being made impossible,\nby the suppression of all money or symbol of value--all their wants\nbeing satisfied and provided for in the new society, the stimulus of\nindividuals being now only that ideal of always striving towards the\nbest, the relations of individuals or groups no longer being established\nwith a view to those exchanges in which each contracting party only\nseeks to 'do' his partner\" (the \"free agreement\" of the bourgeois, of\nwhich Kropotkine has just spoken to us) \"these relations will now only\nhave for object the rendering of mutual services, with which particular\ninterests have nothing to do, the agreement will be rendered easy, the\ncauses of discord having disappeared.\"[59]\n\nQuestion: How will the new society satisfy the needs of its members? How\nwill it make them certain of the morrow?\n\nAnswer: By means of free agreements.\n\nQuestion: Will production be possible if it depends solely upon the free\nagreement of individuals?\n\nAnswer: Of course! And in order to convince yourself of it, you have\nonly to _assume_ that your morrow is certain, that all your needs are\nsatisfied, and, in a word, that production, thanks to free agreement, is\ngetting on swimmingly.\n\nWhat wonderful logicians these \"companions\" are, and what a beautiful\nideal is that which has no other foundation than an illogical\nassumption!\n\n\"It has been objected that in leaving individuals free to organise as\nthey like, there would arise that competition between groups which\nto-day exists between individuals. This is a mistake, for in the society\nwe desire money would be abolished, consequently there would no longer\nbe any exchange of products, but exchange of services. Besides, in order\nthat such a social revolution as we contemplate can have been\naccomplished we must assume that a certain evolution of ideas will have\ntaken place in the mind of the masses, or, at the least, of a\nconsiderable minority among them. But if the workers have been\nsufficiently intelligent to destroy bourgeois exploitation, it will not\nbe in order to re-establish it among themselves, especially when they\nare assured all their wants will be supplied.\"[60]\n\nIt is incredible, but it is incontestably true: the only basis for the\n\"Ideal\" of the Anarchist-Communists, is this _petitio principii_, this\n\"assumption\" of the very thing that has to be proved. Companion Grave,\nthe \"profound thinker,\" is particularly rich in assumptions. As soon as\nany difficult problem presents itself, he \"assumes\" that it is already\nsolved, and then everything is for the best in the best of ideals.\n\nThe \"profound\" Grave is less circumspect than the \"learned\" Kropotkine.\nAnd so it is only he who succeeds in reducing the \"ideal\" to \"absolute\"\nabsurdity.\n\nHe asks himself what will be done if in \"the society of the day after\nthe revolution\" there should be a papa who should refuse his child _all\neducation_. The papa is an individual with unlimited rights. He follows\nthe Anarchist rule, \"Do as thou wouldst.\" No one has any right,\ntherefore, to bring him to his senses. On the other hand, the child also\nmay do as he likes, and he wants to learn. How to get out of this\nconflict, how resolve the dilemma without offending the holy laws of\nAnarchy? By an \"assumption.\" \"Relations\" (between citizens) \"being much\nwider and more imbued with fraternity than in our present society, based\nas it is upon the antagonism of interests, it follows that the child by\nmeans of what he will see passing before his eyes, by what he will daily\nhear, will escape from the influence of the parent, and will find every\nfacility necessary for acquiring the knowledge his parents refuse to\ngive him. Nay more, if he finds himself too unhappy under the authority\nthey try to force upon him, he would abandon them in order to place\nhimself under the protection of individuals with whom he was in greater\nsympathy. The parents could not send the gendarmes after him to bring\nback to their authority the slave whom the law to-day gives up to\nthem.\"[61]\n\nIt is not the child who is running away from his parents, but the\nUtopian who is running away from an insurmountable logical difficulty.\nAnd yet this judgment of Solomon has seemed so profound to the\ncompanions that, it has been literally quoted by Emil Darnaud in his\nbook \"La Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Future\" (Foix. 1890, p. 26)--a book especially\nintended to popularise the lucubrations of Grave.\n\n\"Anarchy, the No-government system of Socialism, has a double origin. It\nis an outgrowth of the two great movements of thought in the economical\nand the political fields which characterise our century, and especially\nits second part. In common with all Socialists, the Anarchists hold that\nthe private ownership of land, capital, and machinery has had its time;\nthat it is condemned to disappear; and that all requisites of production\nmust, and will, become the common property of society, and be managed in\ncommon by the producers of wealth. And, in common with the most advanced\nrepresentatives of political Radicalism, they maintain that the ideal of\nthe political organisation of society is a condition of things where the\nfunctions of government are reduced to a minimum, and the individual\nrecovers his full liberty of initiative and action for satisfying, by\nmeans of free groups and federations--freely constituted--all the\ninfinitely varied needs of the human being. As regards Socialism, most\nof the Anarchists arrive at its ultimate conclusion, that is, at a\ncomplete negation of the wage-system, and at Communism. And with\nreference to political organisation, by giving a farther development to\nthe above-mentioned part of the Radical programme, they arrive at the\nconclusion that the ultimate aim of society is the reduction of the\nfunctions of governments to _nil_--that is, to a society without\ngovernment, to Anarchy. The Anarchists maintain, moreover, that such\nbeing the ideal of social and political organisation they must not\nremit it to future centuries, but that only those changes in our social\norganisation which are in accordance with the above double ideal, and\nconstitute an approach to it, will have a chance of life and be\nbeneficial for the commonwealth.\"[62]\n\nKropotkine here reveals to us, with admirable clearness, the origin and\nnature of his \"Ideal.\" This Ideal, like that of Bakounine, is truly\n\"double;\" it is really born of the connection between bourgeois\nRadicalism, or rather that of the Manchester school, and Communism; just\nas Jesus was born in connection between the Holy Ghost and the Virgin\nMary. The two natures of the Anarchist ideal are as difficult to\nreconcile as the two natures of the Son of God. But one of these natures\nevidently gets the better of the other. The Anarchists \"want\" to begin\nby immediately realising what Kropotkine calls \"the ultimate aim of\nsociety,\" that is to say, by destroying the \"State.\" Their starting\npoint is always the unlimited liberty of the individual. Manchesterism\nbefore everything. Communism only comes in afterwards.[63] But in order\nto reassure us as to the probable fate of this second nature of their\nIdeal, the Anarchists are constantly singing the praises of the wisdom,\nthe goodness, the forethought of the man of the \"future.\" He will be so\nperfect that he will no doubt be able to organise Communist production.\nHe will be so perfect that one asks oneself, while admiring him, why he\ncannot be trusted with a little \"authority.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[47] The few Individualists we come across are only strong in their\ncriticism of the State and of the law. As to their constructive ideal, a\nfew preach an idyll that they themselves would never care to practise,\nwhile others, like the editor of _Liberty_, Boston, fall back upon an\nactual bourgeois system. In order to defend their Individualism they\nreconstruct the State with all its attributes (law, police, and the\nrest) after having so courageously denied them. Others, finally, like\nAuberon Herbert, are stranded in a \"Liberty and Property Defence\nLeague\"--a League for the defence of landed property. _La R\u00e9volte_, No.\n38, 1893, \"A lecture on Anarchism.\"\n\n[48] \"Anarchist-Communism; its Basis and Principles,\" by Peter\nKropotkine, republished by permission of the Editor of the _Nineteenth\nCentury_. February and August, 1887, London.\n\n[49] _l.c._, pp. 1-2.\n\n[50] \"La Conqu\u00eate du Pain.\" Paris, 1892. pp. 77-78.\n\n[51] Ibid., p. 111.\n\n[52] As, however, Kropotkine was in London at the time of the great Dock\nStrike, and therefore had an opportunity of learning how the food supply\nwas managed for the strikers, it is worth pointing out that this was\nmanaged quite differently from the method suggested above. An organised\nCommittee, consisting of Trade Unionists helped by State Socialists\n(Champion) and Social-Democrats (John Burns, Tom Mann, Eleanor Marx\nAveling, etc.) made _contracts_ with shopkeepers, and distributed\nstamped tickets, for which could be obtained certain articles of food.\nThe food supplied was paid for with the money that had been raised by\nsubscriptions, and to these subscriptions the _bourgeois_ public,\nencouraged by the _bourgeois_ press, had very largely contributed.\nDirect distributions of food to strikers, and those thrown out of work\nthrough the strike, were made by the Salvation Army, an essentially\ncentralised, bureaucratically organised body, and other philanthropic\nsocieties. All this has very little to do with the procuring and\ndistributing of the food supply, \"the day after the revolution;\" with\nthe organising of the \"service for supplying food.\" The food was there,\nand it was only a question of buying and dividing it as a means of\nsupport. The \"People,\" _i.e._, the strikers, by no means helped\nthemselves in this respect; they were helped by others.\n\n[53] \"La Conqu\u00eate du Pain,\" pp. 128-129.\n\n[54] Ibid., pp. 201-202.\n\n[55] Ibid., p. 202.\n\n[56] \"_L'Anarchie dans l'Evolution socialiste._\" Lecture at the Salle\nLevis, Paris, 1888, pp. 20-21.\n\n[57] Ibid., p. 19.\n\n[58] Kropotkine speaks of the Suez Canal! Why not the Panama Canal?\n\n[59] \"La Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 au lendemain de la R\u00e9volution.\" J. Grave, 1889, Paris,\npp. 61-62.\n\n[60] Ibid., p. 47.\n\n[61] Ibid., p. 99.\n\n[62] Anarchist Communism, p. 3.\n\n[63] \"L'Anarchia \u00e8 il funzionamento armonico di tutte le autonomie,\nrisolventesi nella eguaglianza totale delle condizioni umane.\"\nL'Anarchia nella scienza e nelle evoluzione. (Traduzione dello\nSpagnuolo) Piato, Toscana, 1892, p. 26. \"Anarchy is the harmonious\nfunctioning of all autonomy resolved in the complete equalisation of all\nhuman conditions.\" \"Anarchy in Science and Evolution.\"--Italian,\ntranslated from the Spanish.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE SO-CALLED ANARCHIST TACTICS. THEIR MORALITY\n\n\nThe Anarchists are Utopians. Their point of view has nothing in common\nwith that of modern scientific Socialism. But there are Utopias and\nUtopias. The great Utopians of the first half of our century were men of\ngenius; they helped forward social science, which in their time was\nstill entirely Utopian. The Utopians of to-day, the Anarchists, are the\nabstracters of quintessence, who can only fully draw forth some poor\nconclusions from certain mummified principles. They have nothing to do\nwith social science, which, in its onward march, has distanced them by\nat least half a century. Their \"profound thinkers,\" their \"lofty\ntheorists,\" do not even succeed in making the two ends of their\nreasoning meet. They are the decadent Utopians, stricken with incurable\nintellectual an\u00e6mia. The great Utopians did much for the development of\nthe working class movement. The Utopians of our days do nothing but\nretard its progress. And it is especially their so-called tactics that\nare harmful to the proletariat.\n\nWe already know that Bakounine interpreted the Rules of the\nInternational in the sense that the working class must give up all\npolitical action, and concentrate its efforts upon the domain of the\n\"immediately economic\" struggle for higher wages, a reduction of the\nhours of labour, and so forth. Bakounine himself felt that such tactics\nwere not very revolutionary. He tried to complete them through the\naction of his \"Alliance;\" he preached riots.[64] But the more the class\nconsciousness of the proletariat develops, the more it inclines towards\npolitical action, and gives up the \"riots,\" so common during its\ninfancy. It is more difficult to induce the working men of Western\nEurope, who have attained a certain degree of political development, to\nriot, than, for example, the credulous and ignorant Russian peasants. As\nthe proletariat has shown no taste for the tactics of \"riot,\" the\ncompanions have been forced to replace it by \"individual action.\" It was\nespecially after the attempted insurrection at Benevento in Italy in\n1877 that the Bakounists began to glorify the \"propaganda of deed.\" But\nif we glance back at the period that separates us from the attempt of\nBenevento, we shall see that this propaganda too assumed a special form:\nvery few \"riots,\" and these quite insignificant, a great many personal\nattempts against public edifices, against individuals, and even against\nproperty--\"individually hereditary,\" of course. It could not be\notherwise.\n\n\"We have already seen numerous revolts by people who wished to obtain\nurgent reforms,\" says Louise Michel, in an interview with a\ncorrespondent of the _Matin_, on the occasion of the Vaillant attempt.\n\"What was the result? The people were shot down. Well, we think the\npeople has been sufficiently bled; it is better large-hearted people\nshould sacrifice themselves, and, at their own risk, commit acts of\nviolence whose object is to terrorise the Government and the\nbourgeois.\"[65]\n\nThis is exactly what we have said--only in slightly different words.\nLouise Michel has forgotten to say that revolts, causing the bloodshed\nof the people, figured at the head of the Anarchists' programme, until\nthe Anarchists became convinced, not that these partial risings in no\nway serve the cause of the workers, but that the workers, for the most\npart, will not have anything to do with these risings.\n\nError has its logic as well as truth. Once you reject the political\naction of the working-class, you are fatally driven--provided you do not\nwish to serve the bourgeois politicians--to accept the tactics of the\nVaillants and the Henrys. The so-called \"Independent\" (Unabh\u00e4ngige)\nmembers of the German Socialist Party have proved this in their own\npersons. They began by attacking \"Parliamentarism,\" and to the\n\"reformist\" tactics of the \"old\" members they opposed--on paper, of\ncourse--the \"revolutionary struggle,\" the purely \"economic\" struggle.\nBut this struggle, developing naturally, must inevitably bring about the\nentry of the proletariat into the arena of political struggles. Not\nwishing to come back to the very starting-point of their negation, the\n\"Independents,\" for a time, preached what they called \"political\ndemonstrations,\" a new kind of old Bakounist riots. As riots, by\nwhatever name they are called, always come too late for the fiery\n\"revolutionists,\" there was only left to the Independents to \"march\nforward,\" to become converts to Anarchy, and to propagate--in words--the\npropaganda of deed. The language of the \"young\" Landauers and Co. is\nalready as \"revolutionary\" as that of the \"oldest\" Anarchists.\n\n\n     \"Reason and knowledge only thou despise\n     The highest strength in man that lies!\n     Let but the lying spirit bind thee,\n     With magic works and shows that blind thee,\n     And I shall have thee fast and sure.\"\n\n\nAs to the \"magic work and shows,\" they are innumerable in the arguments\nof the Anarchists against the political activity of the proletariat.\nHere hate becomes veritable witchcraft. Thus Kropotkine turns their own\narm--the materialist conception of history--against the\nSocial-Democrats. \"To each new economical phase of life corresponds a\nnew political phase,\" he assures us. \"Absolute monarchy--that is\nCourt-rule--corresponded to the system of serfdom. Representative\ngovernment corresponds to capital-rule. Both, however, are class-rule.\nBut in a society where the distinction between capitalist and labourer\nhas disappeared, there is no need of such a government; it would be an\nanachronism, a nuisance.\"[66] If Social-Democrats were to tell him they\nknow this at least as well as he does, Kropotkine would reply that\npossibly they do, but that then they will not draw a logical conclusion\nfrom these premises. He, Kropotkine, is your real logician. Since the\npolitical constitution of every country is determined by its economic\ncondition, he argues, the political action of Socialists is absolute\nnonsense. \"To seek to attain Socialism or even (!) an agrarian\nrevolution by means of a political revolution, is the merest Utopia,\nbecause the whole of history shows us that political changes flow from\nthe great economic revolutions, and not _vice vers\u00e2_.\"[67] Could the\nbest geometrician in the world ever produce anything more exact than\nthis demonstration? Basing his argument upon this impregnable\nfoundation, Kropotkine advises the Russian revolutionists to give up\ntheir political struggle against Tzarism. They must follow an\n\"immediately economic\" end. \"The emancipation of the Russian peasants\nfrom the yoke of serfdom that has until now weighed upon them, is\ntherefore the first task of the Russian revolutionist. In working along\nthese lines he directly and immediately works for the good of the\npeople ... and he moreover prepares for the weakening of the centralised\npower of the State and for its limitation.\"[68]\n\nThus the emancipation of the peasants will have prepared the way for the\nweakening of Russian Tzarism. But how to emancipate the peasants before\noverthrowing Tzarism? Absolute mystery! Such an emancipation would be a\nveritable \"witchcraft.\" Old Liscow was right when he said, \"It is easier\nand more natural to write with the fingers than with the head.\"\n\nHowever this may be, the whole political action of the working-class\nmust be summed up in these few words: \"No politics! Long live the purely\neconomic struggle!\" This is Bakounism, but perfected Bakounism.\nBakounine himself urged the workers to fight for a reduction of the\nhours of labour, and higher wages. The Anarchist-Communists of our day\nseek to \"make the workers understand that they have nothing to gain from\nsuch child's play as this, and that society can only be transformed by\ndestroying the institutions which govern it.\"[69] The raising of wages\nis also useless. \"North America and South America, are they not there to\nprove to us that whenever the worker has succeeded in getting higher\nwages, the prices of articles of consumption have increased\nproportionately, and that where he has succeeded in getting 20 francs a\nday for his wages, he needs 25 to be able to live according to the\nstandard of the better class workman, so that he is always below the\naverage?\"[70] The reduction of the hours of labour is at any rate\nsuperfluous since capital will always make it up by a \"systematic\nintensification of labour by means of improved machinery. Marx himself\nhas demonstrated this as clearly as possible.\"[71]\n\nWe know, thanks to Kropotkine, that the Anarchist ideal has a double\norigin. And all the Anarchist \"demonstrations\" also have a double\norigin. On the one hand they are drawn from the vulgar hand books of\npolitical economy, written by the most vulgar of bourgeois economists,\n_e.g._, Grave's dissertation upon wages, which Bastiat would have\napplauded enthusiastically. On the other hand, the \"companions,\"\nremembering the somewhat \"Communist\" origin of their ideal, turn to Marx\nand quote, without understanding, him. Even Bakounine has been\n\"sophisticated\" by Marxism. The latter-day Anarchists, with Kropotkine\nat their head, have been even more sophisticated.\n\nThe ignorance of Grave, \"the profound thinker,\" is very remarkable in\ngeneral, but it exceeds the bounds of all probability in matters of\npolitical economy. Here it is, only equalled by that of the learned\ngeologist Kropotkine, who makes the most monstrous statements whenever\nhe touches upon an economic question. We regret that space will not\nallow us to amuse the reader with some samples of Anarchist economics.\nThey must content themselves with what Kropotkine has taught them about\nMarx's \"surplus-value.\"\n\nAll this would be very ridiculous, if it were not too sad, as the\nRussian poet Lermontoff says. And it is sad indeed. Whenever the\nproletariat makes an attempt to somewhat ameliorate its economic\nposition, \"large-hearted people,\" vowing they love the proletariat most\ntenderly, rush in from all points of the compass, and depending on their\nhalting syllogisms, put spokes into the wheel of the movement, do their\nutmost to prove that the movement is useless. We have had an example of\nthis with regard to the eight hours day, which the Anarchists combated,\nwhenever they could, with a zeal worthy of a better cause. When the\nproletariat takes no notice of this, and pursues its \"immediately\neconomic\" aims undisturbed--as it has the fortunate habit of doing--the\nsame \"large-hearted people\" re-appear upon the scene armed with bombs,\nand provide the government with the desired and sought for pretext for\nattacking the proletariat. We have seen this at Paris on May 1, 1890; we\nhave seen it often during strikes. Fine fellows these \"large-hearted\nmen!\" And to think that among the workers themselves there are men\nsimple enough to consider as their friends, these personages who are, in\nreality, the most dangerous enemies of their cause!\n\nAn Anarchist will have nothing to do with \"parliamentarism,\" since it\nonly lulls the proletariat to sleep. He will none of \"reforms,\" since\nreforms are but so many compromises with the possessing classes. He\nwants the revolution, a \"full, complete, immediate, and immediately\neconomic\" revolution. To attain this end he arms himself with a saucepan\nfull of explosive materials, and throws it amongst the public in a\ntheatre or a caf\u00e9. He declares this is the \"revolution.\" For our own\npart it seems to us nothing but \"immediate\" madness.\n\nIt goes without saying that the bourgeois governments, whilst inveighing\nagainst the authors of these attempts, cannot but congratulate\nthemselves upon these tactics. \"Society is in danger!\" _Caveant\nconsules!_ And the police \"consuls\" become active, and public opinion\napplauds all the reactionary measures resorted to by ministers in order\nto \"save society.\" \"The terrorist saviours of society in uniform, to\ngain the respect of the Philistine masses must appear with the halo of\ntrue sons of 'holy order,' the daughter of Heaven rich in blessings, and\nto this halo the school-boy attempts of these Terrorists help them. Such\na silly fool, lost in his fantastical imaginings, does not even see that\nhe is only a puppet, whose strings are pulled by a cleverer one in the\nTerrorist wings; he does not see that the fear and terror he causes only\nserve to so deaden all the senses of the Philistine crowd, that it\nshouts approval of every massacre that clears the road for\nreaction.\"[72]\n\nNapoleon III. already indulged from time to time in an \"outrage\" in\norder once again to save society menaced by the enemies of order. The\nfoul admissions of Andrieux,[73] the acts and deeds of the German and\nAustrian _agents provocateurs_, the recent revelations as to the attempt\nagainst the Madrid Parliament, etc., prove abundantly that the present\nGovernments profit enormously by the tactics of the \"companions,\" and\nthat the work of the Terrorists in uniform would be much more difficult\nif the Anarchists were not so eager to help in it.\n\nThus it is that spies of the vilest kind, like Joseph Peukert, for long\nyears figured as shining lights of Anarchism, translating into German\nthe works of foreign Anarchists; thus it is that the French bourgeois\nand priests directly subvention the \"companions,\" and that the\nlaw-and-order ministry does everything in its power to throw a veil over\nthese shady machinations. And so, too, in the name of the \"immediate\nrevolution,\" the Anarchists become the precious pillars of bourgeois\nsociety, inasmuch as they furnish the _raison d'\u00eatre_ for the most\nimmediately reactionary policy.\n\nThus the reactionary and Conservative press has always shown a hardly\ndisguised sympathy for the Anarchists, and has regretted that the\nSocialists, conscious of their end and aim, will have nothing to do with\nthem. \"They drive them away like poor dogs,\" pitifully exclaims the\nParis _Figaro, \u00e0 propos_ of the expulsion of the Anarchists from the\nZurich Congress.[74]\n\nAn Anarchist is a man who--when he is not a police agent--is fated\nalways and everywhere to attain the opposite of that which he attempts\nto achieve.\n\n\"To send working men to a Parliament,\" said Bordat, before the Lyons\ntribunal in 1893, \"is to act like a mother who would take her daughter\nto a brothel.\" Thus it is also in the name of _morality_ that the\nAnarchists repudiate political action. But what is the outcome of their\nfear of parliamentary corruption? The glorification of theft, (\"Put\nmoney in thy purse,\" wrote Most in his _Freiheit_, already in 1880), the\nexploits of the Duvals and Ravachols, who in the name of the \"cause\"\ncommit the most vulgar and disgusting crimes. The Russian writer,\n_Herzen_, relates somewhere how on arriving at some small Italian town,\nhe met only priests and bandits, and was greatly perplexed, being unable\nto decide which were the priests and which the bandits. And this is the\nposition of every impartial person to-day; for how are you going to\ndivine where the \"companion\" ends and the bandit begins? The Anarchists\nthemselves are not always sure, as was proved by the controversy caused\nin their ranks by the Ravachol affair. Thus the better among them, those\nwhose honesty is absolutely unquestionable, constantly fluctuate in\ntheir views of the \"propaganda of deed.\"\n\n\"Condemn the propaganda of deed?\" says Elys\u00e9e Reclus. \"But what is this\npropaganda except the preaching of well-doing and love of humanity by\nexample? Those who call the \"propaganda of deed\" acts of violence prove\nthat they have not understood the meaning of this expression. The\nAnarchist who understands his part, instead of massacring somebody or\nother, will exclusively strive to bring this person round to his\nopinions, and to make of him an adept who, in his turn, will make\n\"propaganda of deed\" by showing himself good and just to all those whom\nhe may meet.\"[75]\n\nWe will not ask what is left of the Anarchist who has divorced himself\nfrom the tactics of \"deeds.\"\n\nWe only ask the reader to consider the following lines: \"The editor of\nthe _Sempre Avanti_ wrote to Elys\u00e9e Reclus asking him for his true\nopinion of Ravachol. 'I admire his courage, his goodness of heart, his\ngreatness of soul, the generosity with which he pardons his enemies, or\nrather his betrayers. I hardly know of any men who have surpassed him in\nnobleness of conduct. I reserve the question as to how far it is always\ndesirable to push to extremities one's own right, and whether other\nconsiderations moved by a spirit of human solidarity ought not to\nprevail. Still I am none the less one of those who recognise in Ravachol\na hero of a magnanimity but little common.'\"[76]\n\nThis does not at all fit in with the declaration quoted above, and it\nproves irrefutably that citizen Reclus fluctuates, that he does not know\nexactly where his \"companion\" ends and the bandit begins. The problem is\nthe more difficult to solve that there are a good many individuals who\nare at the same time \"bandits\" and Anarchists. Ravachol was no\nexception. At the house of the Anarchists, Oritz and Chiericotti,\nrecently arrested at Paris, an enormous mass of stolen goods were found.\nNor is it only in France that you have the combination of these two\napparently different trades. It will suffice to remind the reader of the\nAustrians Kammerer and Stellmacher.\n\nKropotkine would have us believe that Anarchist morality, a morality\nfree from all obligations or sanction, opposed to all utilitarian\ncalculations, is the same as the natural morality of the people, \"the\nmorality from the habit of well doing.\"[77] The morality of the\nAnarchists is that of persons who look upon all human action from the\nabstract point of view of the unlimited rights of the individual, and\nwho, in the name of these rights, pass a verdict of \"Not guilty\" on the\nmost atrocious deeds, the most revolting arbitrary acts. \"What matter\nthe victims,\" exclaimed the Anarchist poet Laurent Tailhade, on the very\nevening of Vaillant's outrage, at the banquet of the \"Plume\" Society,\n\"provided the gesture is beautiful?\"\n\nTailhade is a decadent, who, because he is _blas\u00e9_ has the courage of\nhis Anarchist opinions. In fact the Anarchists combat democracy because\ndemocracy, according to them, is nothing but the tyranny of the majority\nas against the minority. The majority has no right to impose its wishes\nupon the minority. But if this is so, in the name of what moral\nprinciple do the Anarchists revolt against the bourgeoisie? Because the\nbourgeoisie are not a minority? Or because they do not do what they\n\"will\" to do?\n\n\"Do as thou would'st,\" proclaim the Anarchists. The bourgeoisie \"want\"\nto exploit the proletariat, and do it remarkably well. They thus follow\nthe Anarchist precept, and the \"companions\" are very wrong to complain\nof their conduct. They become altogether ridiculous when they combat the\nbourgeoisie in the name of their victims. \"What matters the death of\nvague human beings\"--continues the Anarchist logician Tailhade--\"if\nthereby the individual affirms himself?\" Here we have the true morality\nof the Anarchists; it is also that of the crowned heads. _Sic volo, sic\njubeo!_[78]\n\n_Thus, in the name of the revolution, the Anarchists serve the cause of\nreaction; in the name of morality they approve the most immoral acts; in\nthe name of individual liberty they trample under foot all the rights of\ntheir fellows._\n\nAnd this is why the whole Anarchist doctrine founders upon its own\nlogic. If any maniac may, because he \"wants\" to, kill as many men as he\nlikes, society, composed of an immense number of individuals, may\ncertainly bring him to his senses, not because it is its caprice, but\nbecause it is its duty, because such is the _conditio sine qu\u00e2 non_ of\nits existence.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[64] In their dreams of riots and even of the Revolution, the\nAnarchists, burn, with real passion and delight, all title-deeds of\nproperty, and all governmental documents. It is Kropotkine especially\nwho attributes immense importance to these _auto-da-fe_. Really, one\nwould think him a rebellious civil servant.\n\n[65] Republished in the _Peuple_ of Lyons, December 20, 1893.\n\n[66] \"Anarchist Communism,\" p. 8.\n\n[67] Kropotkine's preface to the Russian edition of Bakounine's pamphlet\n\"La Commune de Paris et la notion de l'Etat.\" Geneva, 1892, p. 5.\n\n[68] Ibid., same page.\n\n[69] J. Grave \"La Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Mourante et L'Anarchie,\" p. 253.\n\n[70] Ibid., p. 249.\n\n[71] Ibid., pp. 250-251.\n\n[72] _Vorw\u00e4rts_, January 23, 1894.\n\n[73] \"The companions were looking for someone to advance funds, but\ninfamous capital did not seem in a hurry to reply to their appeal. I\nurged on infamous capital, and succeeded in persuading it that it was to\nits own interest to facilitate the publication of an Anarchist paper....\nBut don't imagine that I with frank brutality offered the Anarchists the\nencouragement of the Prefect of police. I sent a well-dressed bourgeois\nto one of the most active and intelligent of them. He explained that\nhaving made a fortune in the druggist line, he wanted to devote a part\nof his income to advancing the Socialist propaganda. This bourgeois,\nanxious to be devoured, inspired the companions with no suspicion.\nThrough his hands I placed the caution-money\" [caution-money has to be\ndeposited before starting a paper in France] \"in the coffers of the\nState, and the journal, _La R\u00e9volution Sociale_, made its appearance. It\nwas a weekly paper, my druggist's generosity not extending to the\nexpenses of a daily.\"--\"Souvenirs d'un Pr\u00e9fet de Police.\" \"Memoirs of a\nPrefect of Police.\" By J. Andrieux. (Jules Rouff et Cie, Paris, 1885.)\nVol. I., p. 337, etc.\n\n[74] In passing, we may remark that it is in the name of freedom of\nspeech that the Anarchists claim to be admitted to Socialist Congresses.\nYet this is the opinion of the French official journal of the Anarchists\nupon these Congresses:--\"The Anarchists may congratulate themselves that\nsome of their number attended the Troyes Congress. Absurd, motiveless,\nand senseless as an Anarchist Congress would be, just as logical is it\nto take advantage of Socialist Congresses in order to develop our ideas\nthere.\"--_La R\u00e9volte_, 6-12 January, 1889. May not we also, in the name\nof freedom, ask the \"companions\" to leave us alone?\n\n[75] See in the _L'Etudiant Socialiste_ of Brussels, No. 6 (1894) the\nrepublication of the declaration made by Elys\u00e9e Reclus, to a\n\"correspondent\" who had questioned him upon the Anarchist attempts.\n\n[76] The _Twentieth Century_, a weekly Radical magazine, New York,\nSeptember, 1892, p. 15.\n\n[77] See Kropotkine's _Anarchist Communism_, pp. 34-35; also his\n_Anarchie dans l'Evolution Socialiste_, pp. 24-25, and many passages in\nhis _Morale Anarchiste_.\n\n[78] The papers have just announced that Tailhade was wounded by an\nexplosion at the Restaurant Foyot. The telegram (_La Tribune de Gen\u00e8ve_,\n5th April, 1894) adds--\"M. Tailhade is constantly protesting against the\nAnarchist theories he is credited with. One of the house surgeons,\nhaving reminded him of his article and the famous phrase quoted above,\nM. Tailhade remained silent, and asked for chloral to alleviate his\npain.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX--CONCLUSION\n\nTHE BOURGEOISIE, ANARCHISM, AND SOCIALISM\n\n\nThe \"father of Anarchy,\" the \"immortal\" Proudhon, bitterly mocked at\nthose people for whom the revolution consisted of acts of violence, the\nexchange of blows, the shedding of blood. The descendants of the\n\"father,\" the modern Anarchists, understand by revolution only this\nbrutally childish method. Everything that is not violence is a betrayal\nof the cause, a foul compromise with \"authority.\"[79] The scared\nbourgeoisie does not know what to do against them. In the domain of\ntheory they are absolutely impotent with regard to the Anarchists, who\nare their own _enfants terribles_. The bourgeoisie was the first to\npropagate the theory of _laissez faire_, of dishevelled individualism.\nTheir most eminent philosopher of to-day, Herbert Spencer, is nothing\nbut a conservative Anarchist. The \"companions\" are active and zealous\npersons, who carry the bourgeois reasoning to its logical conclusion.\n\nThe magistrates of the French bourgeois Republic have condemned Grave\nto prison, and his book, \"La Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Mourante et l'Anarchie\" to\ndestruction. The bourgeois men of letters declare this puerile book a\nprofound work, and its author a man of rare intellect.\n\nAnd not only has the bourgeoisie[80] no theoretical weapons with which\nto combat the Anarchists; they see their young folk enamoured of the\nAnarchist doctrine. In this society, satiated and rotten to the marrow\nof its bones, where all faiths are long since dead, where all sincere\nopinions appear ridiculous, in this _monde o\u00f9 l'on s'ennui_, where after\nhaving exhausted all forms of enjoyment they no longer know in what new\nfancy, in what fresh excess to seek novel sensations, there are people\nwho lend a willing ear to the song of the Anarchist siren. Amongst the\nParis \"companions\" there are already not a few men quite _comme il\nfaut_, men about town who, as the French writer, Raoul Allier, says,\nwear nothing less than patent leather shoes, and put a green carnation\nin their button-holes before they go to meetings. Decadent writers and\nartists are converted to Anarchism and propagate its theories in reviews\nlike the _Mercure de France_, _La Plume_, etc. And this is\ncomprehensible enough. One might wonder indeed if Anarchism, an\nessentially bourgeois doctrine, had not found adepts among the French\nbourgeoisie, the most _blas\u00e9e_ of all bourgeoisies.\n\nBy taking possession of the Anarchist doctrine, the decadent,\n_fin-de-si\u00e8cle_ writers restore to it its true character of bourgeois\nindividualism. If Kropotkine and Reclus speak in the name of the worker,\noppressed by the capitalist, _La Plume_ and the _Mercure de France_\nspeak in the name of the _individual_ who is seeking to shake off all\nthe trammels of society in order that he may at last do freely what he\n\"wants\" to. Thus Anarchism comes back to its starting-point. Stirner\nsaid: \"Nothing for me goes beyond myself.\" Laurent Tailhade says: \"What\nmatters the death of vague human beings, if thereby the individual\naffirms himself.\"\n\nThe bourgeoisie no longer knows where to turn. \"I who have fought so\nmuch for Positivism,\" moans Emile Zola, \"well, yes! after thirty years\nof this struggle, I feel my convictions are shaken. Religious faith\nwould have prevented such theories from being propagated; but has it not\nalmost disappeared to-day? Who will give us a new ideal?\"\n\nAlas, gentlemen, there is no ideal for walking corpses such as you! You\nwill try everything. You will become Buddhists, Druids, S\u00e2rs, Chaldeans,\nOccultists, Magi, Theosophists, or Anarchists, whichever you prefer--and\nyet you will remain what you are now--beings without faith or\nprinciple, bags, emptied by history. The ideal of the bourgeois has\nlived.\n\nFor ourselves, Social-Democrats, we have nothing to fear from the\nAnarchist propaganda. The child of the bourgeoisie, Anarchism, will\nnever have any serious influence upon the proletariat. If among the\nAnarchists there are workmen who sincerely desire the good of their\nclass, and who sacrifice themselves to what they believe to be the good\ncause, it is only thanks to a misunderstanding that they find themselves\nin this camp. They only know the struggle for the emancipation of the\nproletariat under the form which the Anarchists are trying to give it.\nWhen more enlightened they will come to us.\n\nHere is an example to prove this. During the trial of the Anarchists at\nLyons in 1883, the working man Desgranges related how he had become an\nAnarchist, he who had formerly taken part in the political movement, and\nhad even been elected a municipal councillor at Villefranche in\nNovember, 1879. \"In 1881, in the month of September, when the dyers'\nstrike broke out at Villefranche, I was elected secretary of the strike\ncommittee, and it was during this memorable event ... that I became\nconvinced of the necessity of suppressing authority, for authority\nspells despotism. During this strike, when the employers refused to\ndiscuss the matter with the workers, what did the prefectural and\ncommunal administrations do to settle the dispute? Fifty gendarmes, with\nsword in hand, were told off to settle the question. That is what is\ncalled the pacific means employed by Governments. It was then, at the\nend of this strike, that some working men, myself among the number,\nunderstood the necessity of seriously studying economic questions, and,\nin order to do so, we agreed to meet in the evening to study\ntogether.\"[81] It is hardly necessary to add that this group became\nAnarchist.\n\nThat is how the trick is done. A working man, active and intelligent,\nsupports the programme of one or the other bourgeois party. The\nbourgeois talk about the well-being of the people, the workers, but\nbetray them on the first opportunity. The working man who has believed\nin the sincerity of these persons is indignant, wants to separate from\nthem, and decides to study seriously \"economic questions.\" An Anarchist\ncomes along, and reminding him of the treachery of the bourgeois, and\nthe sabres of the gendarmes, assures him that the political struggle is\nnothing but bourgeois nonsense, and that in order to emancipate the\nworkers political action must be given up, making the destruction of the\nState the final aim. The working man who was only beginning to study the\nsituation thinks the \"companion\" is right, and so he becomes a convinced\nand devoted Anarchist! What would happen, if pursuing his studies of the\nsocial question further, he had understood that the \"companion\" was a\npretentious ignoramus, that he talked twaddle, that his \"Ideal\" is a\ndelusion and a snare, that outside bourgeois politics there is, opposed\nto these, the political action of the proletariat, which will put an end\nto the very existence of capitalist society? He would have become a\nSocial-Democrat.\n\nThus the more widely our ideas become known among the working classes,\nand they are thus becoming more and more widely known, the less will\nproletarians be inclined to follow the Anarchist. Anarchism, with the\nexception of its \"learned\" housebreakers, will more and more transform\nitself into a kind of bourgeois sport, for the purpose of providing\nsensations for \"individuals\" who have indulged too freely in the\npleasures of the world, the flesh and the devil.\n\nAnd when the proletariat are masters of the situation, they will only\nneed to look at the \"companions,\" and even the \"finest\" of them will be\nsilenced; they will only have to breathe to disperse all the Anarchist\ndust to the winds of heaven.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[79] It is true that men like Reclus do not always approve of such\nnotions of the revolution. But again we ask, what is left of the\nAnarchist when once he rejects the \"propaganda of deed\"? A sentimental,\nvisionary bourgeois--nothing more.\n\n[80] In order to obtain some idea of the weakness of the bourgeois\ntheorists and politicians in their struggle against the Anarchists, it\nsuffices to read the articles of C. Lombroso and A. B\u00e9rard in the _Revue\ndes Revues_, 15th February, 1894, or the article of J. Bourdeau in the\n_Revue de Paris_, 15th March, 1894. The latter can only appeal to \"human\nnature\" which, he thinks, \"will not be changed through the pamphlets of\nKropotkine and the bombs of Ravachol.\"\n\n[81] See report of the Anarchist trial before the Correctional Police\nand the Court of Appeal of Lyons; Lyons, 1883, pp. 90-91.","title":"Anarchism and Socialism","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":33527}