,note3 ,images of the original pages are available by viewing ,see #cjejf-;h4htm or #cjejf-;h4zip3 7https3_/_/www4gutenberg4org_/cache_/epu b_/#cjejf_/pg#cjejf-;images4html7 or 7https3_/_/www4gutenberg4org_/files_/#cj ejf_/cjejf-;h4zip7 ,,anarchism ,,and ,,socialism by ,,george ,,plechanoff ,translated with the permission of the author by ,eleanor ,marx ,aveling ,chicago ,charles ,h4 ,kerr ,company ,,contents4 ,,publishers' ,,note #g ,,preface #ac ,i4 ,,the ,,point ,,of ,,view ,,of ,,the ,,utopian ,,socialists #ag ,,ii4 ,,the ,,point ,,of ,,view ,,of ,,scientific ,,socialism #cj ,,iii4 ,,the ,,historical ,,development ,,of ,,the ,,anarchist ,,doctrine #ch ,,iv4 ,,proudhon #ec ,v4 ,,bakounine #gh ,,vi4 ,,bakounine--7,,concluded7 #hi ,,vii4 ,,the ,,smaller ,,fry #ajc ,,viii4 ,,the ,,so-,,called ,,anarchist ,,tactics4 ,,their ,,morality #abg ,,ix4 ,,the ,,bourgeoisie1 ,,anarchism1 ,,and ,,socialism #adc ,,publishers' ,,note ,in reprinting ,anarchism and ,socialism1 by ,george ,plechanoff1 we realize that there is not the same need for assailing and exposing anarchism at present as there has been at different times in the past4 ,yet the book is valuable1 not merely because of its historic interest but also to workers coming into contact with the revolutionary movement for the first time4 ,the general conception of anarchism that a beginner often gets is that it is something extremely advanced4 ,it is often expressed somewhat as follows3 ,after capitalism comes socialism and then comes anarchism4 ,plechanoff very ably explodes such notions4 ,within the pages of this work the author shows not only the reactionary character of anarchism1 but he exposes its class bias and its empty philosophic idealism and utopian program4 ,he shows anarchism to be just the opposite of scientific socialism or communism4 ,it aims at a society dominated by individualism1 which is simply a capitalist ideal4 ,such ideals as liberty1 equality1 fraternity1 first sprang from the ranks of the petty property owners of early capitalism1 as ,plechanoff shows4 ,he also points out that while ,proudhon is usually credited with being the father of anarchism that actually ,max ,stirner comes closer to being its father4 ,stirner's ,league of ,egoists1 he says1 is only the utopia of a petty bourgeois in revolt4 ,in this sense one may say he has spoken the last word of bourgeois individualism4 ,bakounine and ,kropotkine1 the famous ,russian anarchists1 are exposed as confused idealists1 who have not aided but rather hindered the development of the working-class movement4 ,lenin speaks highly of the book in this relation1 but takes ,plechanoff severely to task for his failure properly to set forth the ,marxian concepts of the ,state1 and for his total evasion of the form the ,state must take during the time it is in the hands of the workers4 ,when writing on the ,vulgarisation of ,marx by the ,opportunists1 in his ,state and ,revolution1 ,lenin said3 ,plechanoff devoted a special pamphlet to the question of the relation of socialism to anarchism entitled ,anarchism and ,socialism1 published in ,german in #ahid4 ,he managed somehow to treat the question without touching on the most vital1 controversial point1 the essential point politically1 in the struggle with the anarchists3 the relation of the revolution to ,state1 and the question of the ,state in general4 ,his pamphlet may be divided into two parts3 one1 historico-literary1 containing valuable material for the history of the ideas of ,stirner1 ,proudhon1 and others2 the second1 ignorant and narrow-minded1 containing a clumsy disquisition on the theme 'that an anarchist cannot be distinguished from a bandit1' an amusing combination of subjects and most characteristic of the entire activity of ,plechanoff on the eve of revolution and during the revolutionary period in ,russia4 ,indeed1 in the years #aijh to #aiag ,plechanoff showed himself to be half doctrinaire and half philistine1 walking1 politically1 in the wake of the bourgeoisie4 ,we saw how ,marx and ,engels1 in their polemics against the anarchists1 explained most thoroughly their views on the relation of the revolution to the ,state4 ,engels1 when editing in #ahia1 ,marx's ,criticism of the ,gotha ,program1 wrote that 'we'--that is1 ,engels and ,marx--'were then in the fiercest phase of our battle with ,bakounine and his anarchists2 hardly two years had then passed since the ,hague ,congress of the ,international' 7the ,first74 ,the anarchists had tried to claim the ,paris ,commune as their 'own1' as a confirmation of their teachings1 thus showing that they had not in the least understood the lessons of the ,commune or the analysis of those lessons by ,marx4 ,anarchism has given nothing approaching a true solution of the concrete political problems3 are we to break up the old ,state machine1 and what shall we put in its place8 ,but to speak of ,anarchism and ,socialism1 leaving the whole question of the ,state out of account and taking no notice at all of the whole development of ,marxism before and after the ,commune--that meant an inevitable fall into the pit of opportunism4 ,for that is just what opportunism wants--to keep these two questions in abeyance4 ,to secure this is1 in itself1 a victory of opportunism4 ,the anarchist desire to abolish the ,state at one blow1 and to abolish money1 etc41 in much the same way1 springs from their inability to understand the institutions of capitalist society4 ,to many of them the ,state is simply the result of people having faith in authority4 ,give up this belief and the ,state will cease to exist4 ,it is a myth like ,god and rests entirely on faith4 ,the anarchist's desire for the abolition of the ,state arises from entirely different concepts to that of the communists4 ,to these anarchist anti-authoritarians the ,state is simply bad4 ,it is the most authoritarian thing in sight4 ,it interferes with individual freedom and consequently is the greatest obstruction to absolute liberty and other utopian desires of the champions of individualism4 ,communists also want a society without a ,state but realize that such can only come about when society is without classes4 ,the aim of the communist movement is to destroy the capitalist form of the ,state and substitute a proletarian form during the time in which society is undergoing its classless transformation4 ,when all property is centralized into the hands of this working-class ,state and when the administration of things has taken the place of political dominance1 the ,state1 in its final form1 will have withered away4 ,therefore1 the communist realizes that the ,state cannot be abolished in the manner visualized by anarchists1 but that it must be used1 that is1 the proletariat must be raised to the position of ruling class1 for the purpose of expropriating the capitalists and putting an end to the exploitation of the producing class4 ,the ,state is not abolished4 ,only its capitalist form is abolished4 ,the ,state dies out in the hands of the workers when there is no longer an opposing class to coerce4 ,,preface4 ,the work of my friend ,george ,plechanoff1 ,anarchism and ,socialism1 was written originally in ,french4 ,it was then translated into ,german by ,mrs4 ,bernstein1 and issued in pamphlet form by the ,german ,social-,democratic ,publishing ,office ,vorwrts4 ,it was next translated by myself into ,english1 and so much of the translation as exigencies of space would permit1 published in the ,weekly ,times and ,echo4 ,the original ,french version is now appearing in the ,jeunesse ,socialiste1 and will be issued in book form shortly4 ,the complete ,english translation is now given to ,english readers through the ,twentieth ,century ,press4 ,i have to thank the ,editor of the ,weekly ,times and ,echo1 ,mr4 ,kibblewhite1 for his kindness in allowing me to use those portions of the work that appeared in his paper4 ,as to the book itself4 ,there are those who think that the precious time of so remarkable a writer1 and profound a thinker as ,george ,plechanoff is simply wasted in pricking ,anarchist wind-bags4 ,but1 unfortunately1 there are many of the younger1 or of the more ignorant sort1 who are inclined to take words for deeds1 high-sounding phrases for acts1 mere sound and fury for revolutionary activity1 and who are too young or too ignorant to know that such sound and fury signify nothing4 ,it is for the sake of these younger1 or for the sake of the more ignorant1 folk1 that men like ,plechanoff deal seriously with this matter of ,anarchism1 and do not feel their time lost if they can1 as this work must1 help readers to see the true meaning of what is called ,anarchism4 ,and a work like this one of ,plechanoff's is doubly necessary in ,england1 where the ,socialist movement is still largely disorganised1 where there is still such ignorance and confusion on all economic and political subjects2 where1 with the exception1 among the larger ,socialist organisations1 of the ,social-,democratic ,federation 7and even among the younger ,s4,d4,f4 members there is a vague sort of idea that ,anarchism is something fine and revolutionary71 there has been no little coquetting with ,anarchism under an impression that it was very advanced1 and where the ,old ,unionist cry of ,no politics6 has unconsciously played the reactionary ,anarchist game4 ,we cannot afford to overlook the fact that the ,socialist ,league became in time--when some of us had left it--an ,anarchist organisation1 and that since then its leaders have been1 or still are1 more or less avowed ,anarchists4 ,while quite recently the leader of a new party--and that a would-be political one6--did not hesitate to declare his ,anarchist sympathies or to state that ,the methods of the ,anarchists might differ from those of the ,socialists1 but that might only prove that the former were more zealous than the latter4 ,it is also necessary to point out once again that ,anarchism and ,nihilism have no more in common than ,anarchism and ,socialism4 ,as ,plechanoff said at the ,zrich ,international ,congress3 ,we 7i4e41 the ,russians7 have had to endure every form of persecution1 every thinkable misery2 but we have been spared one disgrace1 one humiliation2 we1 at least1 have no ,anarchists4 ,a statement endorsed and emphasised by other ,russian revolutionists1 and notably by the ,american delegate1 ,abraham ,cahan--himself a ,russian refugee4 ,the men and women who are waging their heroic war in ,russia and in ,poland against ,czarism have no more in common with ,anarchism than had the founders of the modern ,socialist movement--,carl ,marx and ,frederick ,engels4 ,this little book of ,plechanoff will assuredly convince the youngest even that under any circumstances ,anarchism is but another word for reaction2 and the more honest the men and women who play this reactionist game1 the more tragic and dangerous it becomes for the whole working class movement4 ,finally1 there is a last reason why the issuing of this work at the present moment is timely4 ,in #ahif the next ,international ,socialist and ,trade ,union ,congress meets in ,london4 ,it is well that those who may attend this great ,congress as delegates1 and that the thousands of workers who will watch its work1 should understand why the resolutions arrived at by the ,paris1 ,brussels1 and ,zrich ,international ,congresses with regard to the ,anarchists should be enforced4 ,the ,anarchists who cynically declare ,workers' ,congresses absurd1 motiveless1 and senseless must be taught once and for all1 that they cannot be allowed to make the ,congresses of the ,revolutionary ,socialists of the whole world a playground for reaction and international spydom4 ,,eleanor ,,marx ,,aveling4 ,green ,street ,green1 ,orpington1 ,kent4 ,august1 #ahie4 ,,anarchism ,,and ,,socialism ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,point ,,of ,,view ,,of ,,the ,,utopian ,,socialists ,the ,french ,materialists of the #ahth century while waging relentless war against all the infmes whose yoke weighed upon the ,french of this period1 by no means scorned the search after what they called perfect legislation1 i4e41 the best of all possible legislations1 such legislation as should secure to human beings the greatest sum of happiness1 and could be alike applicable to all existing societies1 for the simple reason that it was perfect and therefore the most natural4 ,excursions into this domain of perfect legislation occupy no small place in the works of a d',holbach and a ,helvtius4 ,on the other hand1 the ,socialists of the first half of our century threw themselves with immense zeal1 with unequalled perseverance1 into the search after the best of possible social organisations1 after a perfect social organisation4 ,this is a striking and notable characteristic which they have in common with the ,french ,materialists of the last century1 and it is this characteristic which especially demands our attention in the present work4 ,in order to solve the problem of a perfect social organisation1 or what comes to the same thing1 of the best of all possible legislation1 we must eventually have some criterion by the help of which we may compare the various legislations one with the other4 ,and the criterion must have a special attribute4 ,in fact1 there is no question of a legislation relatively the best1 i4e41 the best legislation under given conditions4 ,no1 indeed6 ,we have to find a perfect legislation1 a legislation whose perfection should have nothing relative about it1 should be entirely independent of time and place1 should be1 in a word1 absolute4 ,we are therefore driven to make abstraction from history1 since everything in history is relative1 everything depends upon circumstance1 time1 and place4 ,but abstraction made of the history of humanity1 what is there left to guide us in our legislative investigations8 ,humanity is left us1 man in general1 human nature--of which history is but the manifestation4 ,here then we have our criterion definitely settled1 a perfect legislation4 ,the best of all possible legislation is that which best harmonises with human nature4 ,it may be1 of course1 that even when we have such a criterion we may1 for want of light or of logic1 fail to solve this problem of the best legislation4 ,errare humanum est1 but it seems incontrovertible that this problem can be solved1 that we can1 by taking our stand upon an exact knowledge of human nature1 find a perfect legislation1 a perfect organisation4 ,such was1 in the domain of social science1 the point of view of the ,french ,materialists4 ,man is a sentient and reasonable being1 they said2 he avoids painful sensations and seeks pleasurable ones4 ,he has sufficient intelligence to recognise what is useful to him as well as what is harmful to him4 ,once you admit these axioms1 and you can in your investigations into the best legislation1 arrive1 with the help of reflection and good intentions1 at conclusions as well founded1 as exact1 as incontrovertible as those derived from a mathematical demonstration4 ,thus ,condorcet undertook to construct deductively all precepts of healthy morality by starting from the truth that man is a sentient and reasonable being4 ,it is hardly necessary to say that in this ,condorcet was mistaken4 ,if the philosophers in this branch of their investigations arrived at conclusions of incontestable though very relative value1 they unconsciously owed this to the fact that they constantly abandoned their abstract standpoint of human nature in general1 and took up that of a more or less idealised nature of a man of the ,third ,estate4 ,this man felt and reasoned1 after a fashion very clearly defined by his social environment4 ,it was his nature to believe firmly in bourgeois property1 representative government1 freedom of trade 7laissez-faire1 laissez passer6 the nature of this man was always crying out71 and so on4 ,in reality1 the ,french philosophers always kept in view the economic and political requirements of the ,third ,estate2 this was their real criterion4 ,but they applied it unconsciously1 and only after much wandering in the field of abstraction did they arrive at it4 ,their conscious method always reduced itself to abstract considerations of human nature1 and of the social and political institutions that best harmonise with this nature4 ,their method was also that of the ,socialists4 ,a man of the #ahth century1 ,morelly1 to anticipate a mass of empty objections that would be endless1 lays down as an incontrovertible principle that in morals nature is one1 constant1 invariable 444 that its laws never change2 and that everything that may be advanced as to the variety in the morals of savage and civilised peoples1 by no means proves that nature varies2 that at the outside it only shows that from certain accidental causes which are foreign to it1 some nations have fallen away from the laws of nature2 others have remained submissive to them1 in some respects from mere habit2 finally1 others are subjected to them by certain reasoned-out laws that are not always in contradiction with nature2 in a word1 man may abandon the ,true1 but the ,true can never be annihilated6#a ,fourier relies upon the analysis of the human passions2 ,robert ,owen starts from certain considerations on the formation of human character2 ,saint ,simon1 despite his deep comprehension of the historical evolution of humanity1 constantly returns to human nature in order to explain the laws of this evolution2 the ,saint-,simonians declared their philosophy was based upon a new conception of human nature4 ,the ,socialists of the various schools may quarrel as to the cause of their different conceptions of human nature2 all1 without a single exception1 are convinced that social science has not and cannot have1 any other basis than an adequate concept of this nature4 ,in this they in no wise differ from the ,materialists of the #ahth century4 ,human nature is the one criterion they invariably apply in their criticism of existing society1 and in their search after a social organisation as it should be1 after a perfect legislation4 ,morelly1 ,fourier1 ,saint ,simon1 ,owen--we look upon all of them to-day as ,utopian ,socialists4 ,since we know the general point of view that is common to them all1 we can determine exactly what the ,utopian point of view is4 ,this will be the more useful1 seeing that the opponents of ,socialism use the word ,utopian without attaching to it any1 even approximately1 definite meaning4 ,the ,utopian is one who1 starting from an abstract principle1 seeks for a perfect social organisation4 ,the abstract principle which served as starting point of the ,utopians was that of human nature4 ,of course there have been ,utopians who applied the principle indirectly through the intermediary of concepts derived from it4 ,thus1 e4g41 in seeking for perfect legislation1 for an ideal organisation of society1 one may start from the concept of the ,rights of ,man4 ,but it is evident that in its ultimate analysis this concept derives from that of human nature4 ,it is equally evident that one may be a ,utopian without being a ,socialist4 ,the bourgeois tendencies of the ,french ,materialists of the last century are most noticeable in their investigations of a perfect legislation4 ,but this in no wise destroys the ,utopian character of these enquires4 ,we have seen that the method of the ,utopian ,socialist does not in the least differ from that of d',holbach or ,helvtius1 those champions of the revolutionary ,french bourgeoisie4 ,nay1 more4 ,one may have the profoundest contempt for all music of the future1 one may be convinced that the social world in which one has the good fortune to live is the best possible of all social worlds1 and yet in spite of this one may look at the structure and life of the body social from the same point of view as that from which the ,utopians regarded it4 ,this seems a paradox1 and yet nothing could be more true4 ,take but one example4 ,in #agec there appeared ,morelly's work1 ,les ,isles ,flottantes ou la ,basiliade du clbre ,pelpai1 traduit de l',indien4#b ,now1 note the arguments with which a review1 ,la ,bibliothque ,impartiale1 combated the communistic ideas of the author3--,one knows well enough that a distance separates the finest speculations of this kind and the possibility of their realisation4 ,for in theory one takes imaginary men who lend themselves obediently to every arrangement1 and who second with equal zeal the views of the legislator2 but as soon as one attempts to put these things into practice one has to deal with men as they are1 that is to say1 submissive1 lazy1 or else in the thraldom of some violent passion4 ,the scheme of equality especially is one that seems most repugnant to the nature of man2 they are born to command or to serve1 a middle term is a burden to them4 ,men are born to command or to serve4 ,we cannot wonder1 therefore1 if in society we see masters and servants1 since human nature wills it so4 ,it was all very well for ,la ,bibliothque ,impartiale to repudiate these communist speculations4 ,the point of view from which it itself looked upon social phenomena1 the point of view of human nature1 it had in common with the ,utopian ,morelly4 ,and it cannot be urged that this review was probably not sincere in its arguments1 and that it appealed to human nature with the single object of saying something in favour of the exploiters1 in favour of those who command4 ,but sincere or hypocritical in its criticism of ,morelly1 the ,bibliothque ,impartiale adopted the standpoint common to all the writers of this period4 ,they all of them appeal to human nature conceived of in one form or another1 with the sole exception of the retrogrades who1 living shadows of passed times1 continued to appeal to the will of ,god4 ,as we know1 this concept of human nature has been inherited by the #aith century from its predecessor4 ,the ,utopian ,socialists had no other4 ,but here again it is easy to prove that it is not peculiar to the ,utopians4 ,even at the period of the ,restoration1 the eminent ,french historian1 ,guizot1 in his historical studies1 arrived at the remarkable conclusion that the political constitution of any given country depended upon the condition of property in that country4 ,this was an immense advance upon the ideas of the last century which had almost exclusively considered the action of the legislator4 ,but what in its turn did these conditions of property depend on8 ,guizot is unable to answer this question1 and after long1 vain efforts to find a solution of the enigma in historical circumstances1 he returns1 falls back nolens volens1 upon the theory of human nature4 ,augustin ,thierry1 another eminent historian of the ,restoration1 found himself in almost the same case1 or rather he would have done so if only he had tried to investigate this question of the condition of property and its historical vicissitudes4 ,in his concept of social life1 ,thierry was never able to go beyond his master ,saint ,simon1 who1 as we have seen above1 held firmly to the point of view of human nature4 ,the example of the brilliant ,saint ,simon1 a man of encyclopdic learning1 demonstrates more clearly perhaps than any other1 how narrow and insufficient was this point of view1 in what confusion worse confounded of contradictions it landed those who applied it4 ,says ,saint ,simon1 with the profoundest conviction3 ,the future is made up of the last terms of a series1 the first of which consist of the past4 ,when one has thoroughly mastered the first terms of any series it is easy to put down their successors2 thus from the past carefully observed one can easily deduce the future4 ,this is so true that one asks oneself at the first blush why a man who had so clear a conception of the connection between the various phases of historical evolution1 should be classed among the ,utopians4 ,and yet1 look more closely at the historical ideas of ,saint ,simon1 and you will find that we are not wrong in calling him a ,utopian4 ,the future is deducible from the past1 the historical evolution of humanity is a process governed by law4 ,but what is the impetus1 the motive power that sets in motion the human species1 that makes it pass from one phase of its evolution to another8 ,of what does this impetus consist8 ,where are we to seek it8 ,it is here that ,saint ,simon comes back to the point of view of all the ,utopians1 to the point of view of human nature4 ,thus1 according to him1 the essential fundamental cause of the ,french ,revolution was a change in the temporal and spiritual forces1 and1 in order to direct it wisely and conclude it rightly1 it was necessary to put into direct political activity the forces which had become preponderant4 ,in other words1 the manufacturers and the savants ought to have been called upon to formulate a political system corresponding to the new social conditions4 ,this was not done1 and the ,revolution which had began so well was almost immediately directed into a false path4 ,the lawyers and metaphysicians became the masters of the situation4 ,how to explain this historical fact8 ,it is in the nature of man1 replies ,saint ,simon1 to be unable to pass without some intermediate phase from any one doctrine to another4 ,this law applies most stringently to the various political systems1 through which the natural advance of civilisation compels the human species to pass4 ,thus the same necessity which in industry has created the element of a new temporal power1 destined to replace military power1 and which in the positive sciences1 has created the element of a new spiritual power1 called upon to take the place of theological power1 must have developed and set in activity 7before the change in the conditions of society had begun to be very perceptible7 a temporal or spiritual power of an intermediary1 bastard1 and transitory nature1 whose only mission was to bring about the transition from one social system to another4 ,so we see that the historical series of ,saint ,simon really explained nothing at all2 they themselves need explanation1 and for this we have again to fall back upon this inevitable human nature4 ,the ,french ,revolution was directed along a certain line1 because human nature was so and so4 ,one of two things4 ,either human nature is1 as ,morelly thought1 invariable1 and then it explains nothing in history1 which shows us constant variations in the relations of man to society2 or it does vary according to the circumstances in which men live1 and then1 far from being the cause1 it is itself the effect of historical evolution4 ,the ,french ,materialists knew well enough that man is the product of his social surroundings4 ,man is all education1 said ,helvtius4 ,this would lead one to suppose that ,helvtius must have abandoned the human nature point of view in order to study the laws of the evolution of the environment that fashion human nature1 giving to socialised man such or such an education4 ,and indeed ,helvtius did make some efforts in this direction4 ,but not he1 nor his contemporaries1 nor the ,socialists of the first half of our century1 nor any representatives of science of the same period1 succeeded in discovering a new point of view that should permit the study of the evolution of the social environment2 the cause of the historical education of man1 the cause of the changes which occur in his nature4 ,they were thus forced back upon the human nature point of view as the only one that seemed to supply them with a fairly solid basis for their scientific investigations4 ,but since human nature in its turn varied1 it became indispensable to make abstraction from its variations1 and to seek in nature only stable properties1 fundamental properties preserved in spite of all changes of its secondary properties4 ,and in the end all that these speculations resulted in was a meagre abstraction1 like that of the philosophers1 e4g41 man is a sentient and reasonable being1 which seemed all the more precious a discovery in that it left plenty of room for every gratuitous hypothesis1 and every fantastical conclusion4 ,a ,guizot had no need to seek for the best of social organisations for a perfect legislation4 ,he was perfectly satisfied with the existing ones4 ,and assuredly the most powerful argument he could have advanced to defend them from the attacks of the malcontents would still have been human nature1 which he would have said renders every serious change in the social and political constitution of ,france impossible4 ,the malcontents condemned this same constitution1 making use of the same abstraction4 ,and since this abstraction1 being completely empty1 left1 as we have said1 full room for every gratuitous hypothesis and the logical consequences resulting therefrom1 the scientific mission of these reformers assumed the appearance of a geometrical problem2 given a certain nature1 find what structure of society best corresponds with it4 ,so ,morelly complains bitterly because our old teachers failed to attempt the solution of this excellent problem--to find the condition in which it should be almost impossible for men to be depraved1 or wicked1 or at any rate1 minima de malis4 ,we have already seen that for ,morelly human nature was one1 constant1 invariable4 ,we now know what was the scientific method of the ,utopians4 ,before we leave them let us remind the reader that in human nature1 an extremely thin and therefore not very satisfying abstraction1 the ,utopians really appealed1 not to human nature in general1 but to the idealised nature of the men of their own day1 belonging to the class whose social tendencies they represented4 ,the social reality1 therefore1 inevitably appears in the words of the ,utopians1 but the ,utopians were unconscious of this4 ,they saw this reality only across an abstraction which1 thin as it was1 was by no means translucent4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,see ,code de la ,nature1 ,paris1 #ahda4 ,villegardelle's edition1 ,note to p4 #ff4 #b ,the floating islands or the ,basiliades of the celebrated ,pelpai1 translated from the ,indian4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,point ,,of ,,view ,,of ,,scientific ,,socialism ,the great idealistic philosophers of ,germany1 ,schelling and ,hegel1 understood the insufficiency of the human nature point of view4 ,hegel1 in his ,philosophy of ,history1 makes fun of the ,utopian bourgeoisie in search of the best of constitutions4 ,german ,idealism conceived history as a process subject to law1 and sought the motive-power of the historical movement outside the nature of man4 ,this was a great step towards the truth4 ,but the ,idealists saw this motive-power in the absolute idea1 in the ,weltgeist2 and as their absolute idea was only an abstraction of our process of thinking1 in their philosophical speculation upon history1 they reintroduced the old love of the ,materialist philosophers--human nature--but dressed in robes worthy of the respectable and austere society of ,german thinkers4 ,drive nature out of the door1 she flies in at the window6 ,despite the great services rendered to social science by the ,german ,idealists1 the great problem of that science1 its essential problem1 was no more solved in the time of the ,german ,idealists than in the time of the ,french ,materialists4 ,what is this hidden force that causes the historic movement of humanity8 ,no one knew anything about it4 ,in this field there was nothing to go upon save a few isolated observations1 more or less accurate1 more or less ingenious--sometimes indeed1 very accurate and ingenious--but always disjointed and always incomplete4 ,that social science at last emerged from this ,no ,thoroughfare1 it owes to ,karl ,marx4 ,according to ,marx1 legal relations1 like forms of ,state1 can neither be understood in themselves nor from the so-called general development of the human mind1 but are rather rooted in those material conditions of life1 whose totality ,hegel1 following the ,english and the ,french of the #ahth century1 summed up under the name of 'bourgeois society4' ,this is almost the same as ,guizot meant when he said that political constitutions had their roots in the condition of property4 ,but while for ,guizot the condition of property remained a mystery which he vainly sought to elucidate with the help of reflections upon human nature1 for ,marx this condition had nothing mysterious2 it is determined by the condition of the productive forces at the disposal of a given society4 ,the anatomy of bourgeois society is to be sought in political economy4 ,but ,marx himself shall formulate his own conception of history4 ,in the social production of their lives1 men enter upon certain definite1 necessary relations1 relations independent of their will1 relations of production that correspond with definite degrees of development of their material productive forces4 ,the totality of these relations of production constitute the economic structure of society1 the true basis from which arises a juridical and political superstructure to which definite social forms of consciousness correspond4 ,the mode of production of material life determines the social1 political and intellectual processes of life4 ,it is not the consciousness of mankind that determines their being1 but1 on the contrary1 their social being that determines their consciousness4 ,in a certain stage of their development1 the material forces of production of society come into contradiction with the existing relations of production1 or1 which is only a juridical expression for the same thing1 with the relations of property within which they had hitherto moved4 ,from forms for the development of these forces of production1 they are transformed into their fetters4 ,we then enter upon an epoch of social revolution4#c ,this completely materialist conception of history is one of the greatest discoveries of our century1 so rich in scientific discoveries4 ,thanks to it alone sociology has at last1 and for ever1 escaped from the vicious circle in which it had1 until then1 turned2 thanks to it alone this science now possesses a foundation as solid as natural science4 ,the revolution made by ,marx in social science may be compared with that made by ,kopernicus in astronomy4 ,in fact1 before ,kopernicus1 it was believed that the earth remained stationary1 while the sun turned round it4 ,the ,polish genius demonstrated that what occurred was the exact contrary4 ,and so1 up to the time of ,marx1 the point of view taken by social science1 was that of human nature2 and it was from this point of view that men attempted to explain the historical movement of humanity4 ,to this the point of view of the ,german genius is diametrically opposed4 ,while man1 in order to maintain his existence1 acts upon nature outside himself1 he alters his own nature4 ,the action of man upon the nature outside himself1 pre-supposes certain instruments1 certain means of production2 according to the character of their means of production men enter into certain relations within the process of production 7since this process is a social one71 and according to their relations in this social process of production1 their habits1 their sentiments1 their desires1 their methods of thought and of action1 in a word1 their nature1 vary4 ,thus it is not human nature which explains the historical movement2 it is the historical movement which fashions diversely human nature4 ,but if this is so1 what is the value of all the more or less laborious1 more or less ingenious enquiries into perfect legislation and the best of possible social organisations8 ,none2 literally none6 ,they can but bear witness to the lack of scientific education in those who pursue them4 ,their day is gone for ever4 ,with this old point of view of human nature must disappear the ,utopias of every shade and colour4 ,the great revolutionary party of our day1 the ,international ,social-,democracy1 is based not upon some new conception of human nature1 nor upon any abstract principle1 but upon a scientifically demonstrable economic necessity4 ,and herein lies the real strength of this party1 making it as invincible as the economic necessity itself4 ,the means of production and exchange on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up1 were generated in feudal society4 ,at a certain stage in the development of these means of production and exchange1 the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged1 the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry1 in one word1 the feudal relations of property become no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces1 they become so many fetters4 ,they had to be burst asunder2 they were burst asunder4 ,into their place stepped free competition1 accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it1 and by the economical and political sway of the bourgeois class4 ,a similar movement is going on before our own eyes4 ,modern bourgeois society1 with its relations of production1 of exchange1 and of property1 a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange1 is like the sorcerer1 who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells4 ,for many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeoisie and its rule4 ,it is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put on its trial1 each time more threateningly1 the existence of the entire bourgeois society4444 ,the weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself4#d ,the bourgeoisie destroyed the feudal conditions of property2 the proletariat will put an end to the bourgeois conditions of property4 ,between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie a struggle1 an implacable war1 a war to the knife1 is as inevitable as1 was in its way1 the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the privileged estates4 ,but every class war is a political war4 ,in order to do away with feudal society the bourgeoisie had to seize upon political power4 ,in order to do away with capitalist society the proletariat must do the same4 ,its political task is therefore traced out for it beforehand by the force of events themselves1 and not by any abstract consideration4 ,it is a remarkable fact that it is only since ,karl ,marx that ,socialism has taken its stand upon the class war4 ,the ,utopian ,socialists had no notion--even an inexact one--of it4 ,and in this they lagged behind their contemporary theorists of the bourgeoisie1 who understood very well the historical significance at any rate of the struggle of the third estate against the nobles4 ,if every new conception of human nature seemed to supply very definite indications as to the organisation of the society of the future1 ,scientific ,socialism is very chary of such speculations4 ,the structure of society depends upon the conditions of its productive forces4 ,what these conditions will be when the proletariat is in power we do not know4 ,we now know but one thing--that the productive forces already at the disposal of civilised humanity imperatively demand the socialisation and systematised organisation of the means of production4 ,this is enough to prevent our being led astray in our struggle against the reactionary mass4 ,the ,communists1 therefore1 are practically the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country 444 theoretically they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march1 the conditions1 and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement4#e ,these words1 written in #ahdh1 are to-day incorrect only in one sense3 they speak of working class parties independent of the ,communist party2 there is to-day no working class party which does not more or less closely follow the flag of ,scientific ,socialism1 or1 as it was called in the ,manifesto1 ,communism4 ,once again1 then1 the point of view of the ,utopian ,socialists1 as indeed of all social science of their time1 was human nature1 or some abstract principle deriving from this idea4 ,the point of view of the social science1 of the ,socialism of our time is that of economic reality1 and of the immanent laws of its evolution4 ,it is easy1 therefore1 to form an idea of the impression made upon modern ,socialists by the arguments of the bourgeois theorists who sing ceaselessly the same old song of the incompatibility of human nature and communism4 ,it is as though one would wage war upon the ,darwinians with arms drawn from the scientific arsenal of ,cuvier's time4 ,and a most noteworthy fact is that the evolutionists like ,herbert ,spencer1 themselves are not above piping to the same tune4#f ,and now let us see what relation there may be between modern ,socialism and what is called ,anarchism4 ,,footnotes3 #c ,zur ,kritik der ,politischen ,o,ekonomie1 ,berlin1 #ahei4 ,preface iv4 v4 #d ,manifesto of the ,communist ,party4 ,by ,karl ,marx and ,frederick ,engels4 ,authorised ,english translation by ,s4 ,moore1 pp4 #aa-ab4 #e ,communist ,manifesto1 p4 #af4 #f ,the belief not only of the ,socialists1 but also of those so-called ,liberals who are diligently preparing the way for them1 is that by due skill an ill-working humanity may be framed into well-working institutions4 ,it is a delusion4 ,the defective nature of citizens will show themselves in the bad acting of whatever social structure they are arranged into4 ,there is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts4--,herbert ,spencer's ,the ,man versus the ,state1 p4 #dc4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,the ,,historical ,,development ,,of ,,the ,,anarchist ,,doctrine ,,the ,,point ,,of ,,view ,,of ,,anarchism4 ,i have often been reproached with being the father of ,anarchism4 ,this is doing me too great an honour4 ,the father of ,anarchism is the immortal ,proudhon1 who expounded it for the first time in #ahdh4 ,thus spoke ,peter ,kropotkin in his defence before the ,correctional ,tribunal of ,lyons at his trial in ,january1 #ahhc4 ,as is frequently the case with my amiable compatriot1 ,kropotkin has here made a statement that is incorrect4 ,for the first time ,proudhon spoke of ,anarchism was in his celebrated book ,qu'est-ce que le ,proprit1 ou ,recherches sur le principe du droit et du ,gouvernement1 the first edition of which had already appeared in #ahdj4 ,it is true that he expounds very little of it here2 he only devotes a few pages to it4#g ,and before he set about expounding the ,anarchist theory in #ahdh1 the job had already been done by a ,german1 ,max ,stirner 7the pseudonym of ,caspar ,schmidt7 in #ahde1 in his book ,der ,einzige und sein ,eigenthum4#h ,max ,stirner has therefore a well defined claim to be the father of ,anarchism4 ,immortal or not1 it is by him that the theory was expounded for the first time4 ,,max ,,stirner ,the ,anarchist theory of ,max ,stirner has been called a caricature of the philosophy of religion of ,ludwig ,feuerbach4 ,it is thus1 e4g41 that ,ueberweg in his ,grundzge der ,geschichte der ,philosophie1 7#crd4 part1 ,philosophie der ,neu ,zeit7 speaks of it4 ,some have even supposed that the only object ,stirner had in writing his book was to poke fun at this philosophy4 ,this supposition is absolutely gratuitous4 ,stirner in expounding his theory was not joking4 ,he is in deadly earnest about it1 though he now and again betrays a tendency1 natural enough in the restless times when he wrote1 to outdo ,feuerbach and the radical character of his conclusions4 ,for ,feuerbach1 what men call ,divinity1 is only the product of their phantasy1 of a psychological aberration4 ,it is not ,divinity that has created man1 but man who creates ,divinity in his own image4 ,in ,god man only adores his own being4 ,god is only a fiction1 but a very harmful fiction4 ,the ,christian ,god is supposed to be all love1 all pity for poor suffering humanity4 ,but in spite of this1 or rather because of it1 every ,christian really worthy the name1 hates1 and must hate1 the ,atheists1 who appear to him the living negation of all love and all pity4 ,thus the god of love becomes the god of hate1 the god of persecution2 the product of the phantasy of man becomes a real cause of his suffering4 ,so we must make an end of this phantasmagoria4 ,since in ,divinity man adores only his own being1 we must once for all rend and scatter to the winds the mystic veil beneath which this being has been enveloped4 ,the love of humanity must not extend beyond humanity4 ,der ,mensch ist dem ,menschen das hchste ,wesen 7,man is the highest being for man74 ,thus ,feuerbach4 ,max ,stirner is quite at one with him1 but wishes to deduce what he believes to be the final1 the most radical consequences of his theory4 ,he reasons in this fashion4 ,god is only the product of phantasy1 is only a spook4 ,agreed4 ,but what is this humanity the love of which you prescribe to me8 ,is not this also a spook1 an abstract thing1 a creature of the imagination8 ,where is this humanity of yours8 ,where does it exist but in the minds of men1 in the minds of individuals8 ,the only reality1 therefore1 is the individual1 with his wants1 his tendencies1 his will4 ,but since this is so1 how can the individual1 the reality1 sacrifice himself for the happiness of man1 an abstract being8 ,it is all very well for you to revolt against the old ,god2 you still retain the religious point of view1 and the emancipation you are trying to help us to is absolutely theological1 i4e41 ,god-inspired4 ,the highest ,being is certainly that of man1 but because it is his ,being and is not he himself1 it is quite indifferent if we see this ,being outside of him as ,god1 or find it in him and call it the ',being of ,mankind' or ',man4' ,i am neither ,god nor ,man1 neither the highest ,being1 nor my own ,being1 and therefore it is essentially a matter of indifference if ,i imagine this ,being in myself or outside myself4 ,and1 indeed1 we do always imagine the highest being in the two future states1 in the internal and external at once2 for the ',spirit of ,god' is1 according to the ,christian conception1 also 'our spirit' and 'dwells within us4' ,it dwells in heaven and dwells in us2 but we poor things are but its 'dwelling-place1' and if ,feuerbach destroys its heavenly dwelling-place and forces it to come down to us bag and baggage1 we1 its earthly abode1 will find ourselves very over-crowded4#i ,to escape the inconveniences of such over-crowding1 to avoid being dominated by any spook1 to at last place our foot upon actual ground1 there is but one way3 to take as our starting-point the only real being1 our own ,ego1 ,away then with everything that is not wholly and solely my own affair6 ,you think my own concerns must at least be 'good ones8' ,a fig for good and evil6 ,i am ,i1 and ,i am neither good nor evil4 ,neither has any meaning for me4 ,the godly is the affair of ,god1 the human that of humanity4 ,my concern is neither the ,godly nor the ,human1 is not the ,true1 the ,good1 the ,right1 the ,free1 etc41 but simply my own self1 and it is not general1 it is individual1 as ,i myself am individual4 ,for me there is nothing above myself4#aj ,religion1 conscience1 morality1 right1 law1 family1 state1 are but so many fetters forced upon me in the name of an abstraction1 but so many despotic lords whom ,i1 the individual conscious of my own concerns1 combat by every means in my power4 ,your morality1 not merely the morality of the bourgeois philistines1 but the most elevated1 the most humanitarian morality is only religion which has changed its supreme beings4 ,your right1 that you believe born with man1 is but a ghost1 and if you respect it1 you are no farther advanced than the heroes of ,homer who were afraid when they beheld a god fighting in the ranks of their enemies4 ,right is might4 ,whoever has might1 he has right2 if you have not the former you have not the latter4 ,is this wisdom so difficult of attainment8#aa ,you would persuade me to sacrifice my interests to those of the ,state4 ,i1 on the contrary1 declare war to the knife to all ,states1 even the most democratic4 ,every ,state is a despotism1 whether it is the despotism of one or many1 or whether1 as one might suppose would be the case in a ,republic1 all are masters1 i4e41 one tyrannises over the rest4 ,for this is the case whenever a given law1 the expressed will perhaps of some assemblage of the people1 is immediately to become a law to the individual1 which he must obey1 and which it is his duty to obey4 ,even if one were to suppose a case in which every individual among the people had expressed the same will1 and thus a perfect will of all had easily been arrived at1 the thing would still be the same4 ,should ,i not to-day and in the future be bound by my will of yesterday8 ,in this event my will would be paralyzed4 ,fatal stagnation6 ,my creation1 i4e41 a certain expression of will would have become my master4 ,but ,i1 in my will should be constrained1 ,i1 the creator should be constrained in my development1 my working out4 ,because ,i was a fool yesterday1 ,i must remain one all my life4 ,so that in my life in relation to the ,state ,i am at best--,i might as well say at worst--a slave to my own self4 ,because yesterday ,i had a will1 ,i am to-day without one2 yesterday free1 to-day bound4#ab ,here a partisan of the ,people's ,state might observe to ,stirner1 that his ,i goes a little too far in his desire to reduce democratic liberty to absurdity2 further1 that a bad law may be abrogated as soon as a majority of citizens desire it1 and that one is not forced to submit to it all one's life4 ,but this is only an insignificant detail1 to which1 moreover1 ,stirner would reply that the very necessity for appealing to a majority proves that ,i am no longer the master of my own conduct4 ,the conclusions of our author are irrefutable1 for the simple reason that to say1 ,i recognize nothing above myself1 is to say1 ,i feel oppressed by every institution that imposes any duty upon me4 ,it is simply tautology4 ,it is evident that no ,ego can exist quite alone4 ,stirner knows this perfectly1 and this is why he advocates ,leagues of ,egoists1 that is to say1 free associations into which every ,ego enters1 and in which he remains when and so long as it suits his interests4 ,here let us pause4 ,we are now face to face with an egoist system par excellence4 ,it is1 perhaps1 the only one that the history of human thought has to chronicle4 ,the ,french ,materialists of the last century have been accused of preaching egoism4 ,the accusation was quite wrong4 ,the ,french ,materialists always preached ,virtue1 and preached it with such unlimited zeal that ,grimm could1 not without reason1 make fun of their capucinades on the subject4 ,the question of egoism presented to them a double problem4 7#a7 ,man is all sensation 7this was the basis of all their speculations upon man72 by his very nature he is forced to shun suffering and to seek pleasure2 how comes it then that we find men capable of enduring the greatest sufferings for the sake of some idea1 that is to say1 in its final analysis1 in order to provide agreeable sensations for their fellow-men4 7#b7 ,since man is all sensation he will harm his fellow-man if he is placed in a social environment where the interests of an individual conflict with those of others4 ,what form of legislation therefore can harmonise public good and that of individuals8 ,here1 in this double problem1 lies the whole significance of what is called the materialist ethics of the #ahth century4 ,max ,stirner pursues an end entirely opposed to this4 ,he laughs at ,virtue1 and1 far from desiring its triumph1 he sees reasonable men only in egoists1 for whom there is nothing above their own ,ego4 ,once again1 he is the theorist par excellence of egoism4 ,the good bourgeois whose ears are as chaste and virtuous as their hearts are hard2 they who1 drinking wine1 publicly preach water1 were scandalised to the last degree by the immorality of ,stirner4 ,it is the complete ruin of the moral world1 they cried4 ,but as usual the virtue of the philistines showed itself very weak in argument4 ,the real merit of ,stirner is that he has spoken the last word of the young atheist school 7i4e41 the left wing of the ,hegelian school71 wrote the ,frenchman1 ,st4 ,rn ,taillandier4 ,the philistines of other lands shared this view of the merits of the daring publicist4 ,from the point of view of modern ,socialism this merit appears in a very different light4 ,to begin with1 the incontestable merit of ,stirner consists in his having openly and energetically combated the sickly sentimentalism of the bourgeois reformers and of many of the ,utopian ,socialists1 according to which the emancipation of the proletariat would be brought about by the virtuous activity of devoted persons of all classes1 and especially of those of the possessing-class4 ,stirner knew perfectly what to expect from the devotion of the exploiters4 ,the rich are harsh1 hard-hearted1 but the poor 7the terminology is that of our author7 are wrong to complain of it1 since it is not the rich who create the poverty of the poor1 but the poor who create the wealth of the rich4 ,they ought to blame themselves then if their condition is a hard one4 ,in order to change it they have only to revolt against the rich2 as soon as they seriously wish it1 they will be the strongest and the reign of wealth will be at an end4 ,salvation lies in struggle1 and not in fruitless appeals to the generosity of the oppressors4 ,stirner1 therefore1 preaches the class war4 ,it is true that he represents it in the abstract form of the struggle of a certain number of egoist ,egos against another smaller number of ,egos not less egoist4 ,but here we come to another merit of ,stirner's4 ,according to ,taillandier1 he has spoken the last word of the young atheist school of ,german philosophers4 ,as a matter of fact he has only spoken the last word of idealist speculation4 ,but that word he has incontestably the merit of having spoken4 ,in his criticism of religion ,feuerbach is but half a ,materialist4 ,in worshipping ,god1 man only worships his own ,being idealised4 ,this is true4 ,but religions spring up and die out1 like everything else upon earth4 ,does this not prove that the human ,being is not immutable1 but changes in the process of the historical evolution of societies8 ,clearly1 yes4 ,but1 then1 what is the cause of the historical transformation of the human ,being8 ,feuerbach does not know4 ,for him the human ,being is only an abstract notion1 as human ,nature was for the ,french ,materialists4 ,this is the fundamental fault of his criticism of religion4 ,stirner said that it had no very robust constitution4 ,he wished to strengthen it by making it breathe the fresh air of reality4 ,he turns his back upon all phantoms1 upon all things of the imagination4 ,in reality1 he said to himself1 these are only individuals4 ,let us take the individual for our starting-point4 ,but what individual does he take for his starting-point8 ,tom1 ,dick1 or ,harry8 ,neither4 ,he takes the individual in general--he takes a new abstraction1 the thinnest of them all--he takes the ,ego4 ,stirner navely imagined that he was finally solving an old philosophical question1 which had already divided the ,nominalists and the ,realists of the ,middle ,ages4 ,no ,idea has an existence1 he says1 for none is capable of becoming corporeal4 ,the scholastic controversy of ,realism and ,nominalism had the same content4 ,alas6 ,the first ,nominalist he came across could have demonstrated to our author by the completest evidence1 that his ,ego is as much an ,idea as any other1 and that it is as little real as a mathematical unit4 ,tom1 ,dick and ,harry have relations with one another that do not depend upon the will of their ,ego1 but are imposed upon them by the structure of the society in which they live4 ,to criticise social institutions in the name of the ,ego1 is therefore to abandon the only profitable point of view in the case1 i4e41 that of society1 of the laws of its existence and evolution1 and to lose oneself in the mists of abstraction4 ,but it is just in these mists that the ,nominalist ,stirner delights4 ,i am ,i--that is his starting-point2 not ,i is not ,i--that is his result4 ,i,i,ietc4--is his social ,utopia4 ,it is subjective ,idealism1 pure and simple applied to social and political criticism4 ,it is the suicide of idealist speculation4 ,but in the same year 7#ahde7 in which ,der ,einzige of ,stirner appeared1 there appeared also1 at ,frankfort-on-,maine the work of ,marx and ,engels1 ,die heilige ,familie1 oder ,kritik der ,kritischen ,kritik1 gegen ,bruno ,bauer und ,consorten4#ac ,in it ,idealist speculation was attacked and beaten by ,materialist dialectic1 the theoretical basis of modern ,socialism4 ,der ,einzige came too late4 ,we have just said that ,i,i,ietc4 represents the social ,utopia of ,stirner4 ,his ,league of ,egoists is1 in fact1 nothing but a mass of abstract quantities4 ,what are1 what can be the basis of their union8 ,their interests1 answers ,stirner4 ,but what will1 what can be the true basis of any given combination of their interests8 ,stirner says nothing about it1 and he can say nothing definite since from the abstract heights on which he stands1 one cannot see clearly economic reality1 the mother and nurse of all the ,egos1 egoistic or altruistic4 ,nor is it surprising that he is not able to explain clearly even this idea of the class struggle1 of which he nevertheless had a happy inkling4 ,the poor must combat the rich4 ,and after1 when they have conquered these8 ,then every one of the former poor1 like every one of the former rich1 will combat every one of the former poor1 and against every one of the former rich4 ,there will be the war of all against all4 7,these are ,stirner's own words47 ,and the rules of the ,leagues of ,egoists will be so many partial truces in this colossal and universal warfare4 ,there is plenty of fight in this idea1 but of the realism ,max ,stirner dreamed of1 nothing4 ,but enough of the ,leagues of ,egoists4 ,a ,utopian may shut his eyes to economic reality1 but it forces itself upon him in spite of himself2 it pursues him everywhere with the brutality of a natural force not controlled by force4 ,the elevated regions of the abstract ,i do not save ,stirner from the attacks of economic reality4 ,he does not speak to us only of the ,individual2 his theme is the ,individual and his property4 ,now1 what sort of a figure does the property of the ,individual cut8 ,it goes without saying1 that ,stirner is little inclined to respect property as an acquired right4 ,only that property will be legally and lawfully another's which it suits you should be his property4 ,when it ceases to suit you1 it has lost its legality for you1 and any absolute right in it you will laugh at4#ad ,it is always the same tune3 ,for me there is nothing above myself4 ,but his scant respect for the property of others does not prevent the ,ego of ,stirner from having the tendencies of a property-owner4 ,the strongest argument against ,communism1 is1 in his opinion1 the consideration that ,communism by abolishing individual property transforms all members of society into mere beggars4 ,stirner is indignant at such an iniquity4 ,communists think that the ,commune should be the property-owner4 ,on the contrary1 ,i am a property-owner1 and can only agree with others as to my property4 ,if the ,commune does not do as ,i wish ,i rebel against it1 and defend my property1 ,i am the owner of property1 but property is not sacred4 ,should ,i only be the holder of property 7an allusion to ,proudhon78 ,no1 hitherto one was only a holder of property1 assured of possession of a piece of land1 because one left others also in possession of a piece of land2 but now everything belongs to me1 ,i am the owner of everything ,i need1 and can get hold of4 ,if the ,socialist says1 society gives me what ,i need1 the ,egoist says1 ,i take what ,i want4 ,if the ,communists behave like beggars1 the ,egoist behaves like an owner of property4#ae ,the property of the egoist seems pretty shaky4 ,an ,egoist1 retains his property only as long as the other ,egoists do not care to take it from him1 thus transforming him into a beggar4 ,but the devil is not so black as he is painted4 ,stirner pictures the mutual relations of the ,egoist proprietors rather as relations of exchange than of pillage4 ,and force1 to which he constantly appeals1 is rather the economic force of a producer of commodities freed from the trammels which the ,state and ,society in general impose1 or seem to impose1 upon him4 ,it is the soul of a producer of commodities that speaks through the mouth of ,stirner4 ,if he falls foul of the ,state1 it is because the ,state does not seem to respect the property of the producers of commodities sufficiently4 ,he wants his property1 his whole property4 ,the ,state makes him pay taxes2 it ventures to expropriate him for the public good4 ,he wants a jus utendi et abutendi2 the ,state says agreed--but adds that there are abuses and abuses4 ,then ,stirner cries stop thief6 ,i am the enemy of the ,state1 says he1 which is always fluctuating between the alternative3 ,he or ,i4444 ,with the ,state there is no property1 i4e41 no individual property1 only ,state property4 ,only through the ,state have ,i what ,i have1 as it is only through the ,state that ,i am what ,i am4 ,my private property is only what the ,state leaves me of its own1 while it deprives other citizens of it3 that is ,state property4 ,so down with the ,state and long live full and complete individual property6 ,stirner translated into ,german ,j4 ,b4 ,say's ,trait ,d',economie ,politique ,pratique 7,leipsic1 #ahde-df74 ,and although he also translated ,adam ,smith1 he was never able to get beyond the narrow circle of the ordinary bourgeois economic ideas4 ,his ,league of ,egoists is only the ,utopia of a petty bourgeois in revolt4 ,in this sense one may say he has spoken the last word of bourgeois individualism4 ,stirner has also a third merit--that of the courage of his opinions1 of having carried through to the very end his individualist theories4 ,he is the most intrepid1 the most consequent of the ,anarchists4 ,by his side ,proudhon1 whom ,kropotkin1 like all the present day ,anarchists1 takes for the father of ,anarchism1 is but a straight-laced ,philistine4 ,,footnotes3 #g ,see pages #bie-cje of the #ahda edition4 #h ,the ,individual and his ,property4 #i ,der ,einzige und sein ,eigenthum4 #bnd ed41 ,leipzig1 #ahhb1 pp4 #ce-cf4 7,american translation3 ,the ,ego and his ,own4 ,new ,york3 #aijg47 #aj ,ibid4 ,pp4 #g-h4 #aa ,ibid4 pp4 #aif-aig4 #ab ,ibid4 p4 #bjj4 #ac ,the ,holy ,family1 or ,criticism of ,critical ,criticism1 against ,bruno ,bauer and ,company4 #ad ,der ,einzige und sein ,eigenthum4 #ae ,ibid4 p4 #bff4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,proudhon ,if ,stirner combats ,feuerbach1 the immortal ,proudhon imitates ,kant4 ,what ,kant did some sixty years ago for religion1 what he did earlier for certainty of certainties2 what others before him had attempted to do for happiness or supreme good1 the ',voice of the ,people' proposes to do for the ,government1 pompously declares the father of ,anarchism4 ,let us examine his methods and their results4 ,according to ,proudhon1 before ,kant1 the believer and the philosopher moved by an irresistible impulse1 asked themselves1 ,what is ,god8 ,they then asked themselves ,which1 of all religions1 is the best8 ,in fact1 if there does exist a ,being superior to ,humanity1 there must also exist a system of the relations between this ,being and ,humanity4 ,what then is this system8 ,the search for the best religion is the second step that the human mind takes in reason and in faith4 ,kant gave up these insoluble questions4 ,he no longer asked himself what is ,god1 and which is the best religion1 he set about explaining the origin and development of the ,idea of ,god2 he undertook to work out the biography of this idea4 ,and the results he attained were as great as they were unexpected4 ,what we seek1 what we see1 in ,god1 as ,malebranche said 444 is our own ,ideal1 the pure essence of ,humanity4444 ,the human soul does not become conscious of its ,ego through premeditated contemplation1 as the psychologists put it2 the soul perceives something outside itself1 as if it were a different ,being face to face with itself1 and it is this inverted image which it calls ,god4 ,thus morality1 justice1 order1 law1 are no longer things revealed from above1 imposed upon our free will by a so-called ,creator1 unknown and ununderstandable2 they are things that are proper and essential to us as our faculties and our organs1 as our flesh and our blood4 ,in two words religion and society are synonymous terms1 man is as sacred to himself as if he were ,god4 ,belief in authority is as primitive1 as universal as belief in ,god4 ,whenever men are grouped together in societies there is authority1 the beginning of a government4 ,from time immemorial men have asked themselves1 ,what is authority8 ,which is the best form of government8 ,and replies to these questions have been sought for in vain4 ,there are as many governments as there are religions1 as many political theories as systems of philosophy4 ,is there any way of putting an end to this interminable and barren controversy8 ,any means of escape from this impasse6 ,assuredly6 ,we have only to follow the example of ,kant4 ,we have only to ask ourselves whence comes this idea of authority1 of government8 ,we have only to get all the information we can upon the legitimacy of the political idea4 ,once safe on this ground and the question solves itself with extraordinary ease4 ,like religion1 government is a manifestation of social spontaneity1 a preparation of humanity for a higher condition4 ,what humanity seeks in religion and calls ,god1 is itself4 ,what the citizen seeks in ,government and calls king1 emperor1 or president1 is again himself1 is liberty4 ,outside humanity there is no ,god2 the theological concept has no meaning3--outside liberty no government1 the political concept has no value4 ,so much for the biography of the political idea4 ,once grasped it must enlighten us upon the question as to which is the best form of government4 ,the best form of government1 like the most perfect of religions1 taken in a literal sense1 is a contradictory idea4 ,the problem is not to discover how we shall be best governed1 but how we shall be most free4 ,liberty commensurate and identical with ,order1--this is the only reality of government and politics4 ,how shall this absolute liberty1 synonymous with order1 be brought about8 ,we shall be taught this by the analysis of the various formulas of authority4 ,for all the rest we no more admit the governing of man by man than the exploitation of man by man4#af ,we have now climbed to the topmost heights of ,proudhon's political philosophy4 ,it is from this that the fresh and vivifying stream of his ,anarchist thought flows4 ,before we follow the somewhat tortuous course of this stream let us glance back at the way we have climbed4 ,we fancied we were following ,kant4 ,we were mistaken4 ,in his ,critique of ,pure ,reason ,kant has demonstrated the impossibility of proving the existence of ,god1 because everything outside experience must escape us absolutely4 ,in his ,critique of ,practical ,reason ,kant admitted the existence of ,god in the name of morality4 ,but he has never declared that ,god was a topsy-turvy image of our own soul4 ,what ,proudhon attributes to ,kant1 indubitably belongs to ,feuerbach4 ,thus it is in the footsteps of the latter that we have been treading1 while roughly tracing out the biography of the political ,idea4 ,so that ,proudhon brings us back to the very starting point of our most unsentimental journey with ,stirner4 ,no matter4 ,let us once more return to the reasoning of ,feuerbach4 ,it is only itself that humanity seeks in religion4 ,it is only himself1 it is liberty that the citizen seeks in ,government4444 ,then the very essence of the citizen is liberty8 ,let us assume this is true1 but let us also note that our ,french ,kant has done nothing1 absolutely nothing1 to prove the legitimacy of such an ,idea4 ,nor is this all4 ,what is this liberty which we are assuming to be the essence of the citizen8 ,is it political liberty which ought in the nature of things to be the main object of his attention8 ,not a bit of it6 ,to assume this would be to make of the citizen an authoritarian democrat4 ,it is the absolute liberty of the individual1 which is at the same time commensurate and identical with ,order1 that our citizen seeks in ,government4 ,in other words1 it is the ,anarchism of ,proudhon which is the essence of the citizen4 ,it is impossible to make a more pleasing discovery1 but the biography of this discovery gives us pause4 ,we have been trying to demolish every argument in favour of the ,idea of ,authority1 as ,kant demolished every proof of the existence of ,god4 ,to attain this end we have--imitating ,feuerbach to some extent1 according to whom man adored his own ,being in ,god--assumed that it is liberty which the citizen seeks in ,government4 ,and as to liberty we have in a trice transformed this into absolute liberty1 into ,anarchist liberty4 ,eins1 zwei1 drei2 ,geschwindigkeit ist keine ,hexerei6#ag ,since the citizen only seeks absolute liberty in ,government the ,state is nothing but a fiction 7this fiction of a superior person1 called the ',state'71 and all those formulas of government for which people and citizens have been cutting one another's throats for the last sixty centuries1 are but the phantasmagoria of our brain1 which it would be the first duty of free reason to relegate to the museums and libraries4 ,which is another charming discovery made en passant4 ,so that the political history of humanity has1 for sixty centuries1 had no other motive power than a phantasmagoria of our brain6 ,to say that man adores in ,god his own essence is to indicate the origin of religion1 but it is not to work out its biography4 ,to write the biography of religion is to write its history1 explaining the evolution of this essence of man which found expression in it4 ,feuerbach did not do this--could not do it4 ,proudhon1 trying to imitate ,feuerbach1 was very far from recognising the insufficiency of his point of view4 ,all ,proudhon has done is to take ,feuerbach for ,kant1 and to ape his ,kant-,feuerbach in a most pitiful manner4 ,having heard that ,divinity was but a fiction1 he concluded that the ,state is also a figment3 since ,god does not exist1 how can the ,state exist8 ,proudhon wished to combat the ,state and began by declaring it non-existent4 ,and the readers of the ,voix du ,peuple applauded1 and the opponents of ,m4 ,proudhon were alarmed at the profundity of his philosophy6 ,truly a tragi-comedy6 ,it is hardly necessary for modern readers to add that in taking the ,state for a fiction we make it altogether impossible to understand its essence or to explain its historical evolution4 ,and this was what happened to ,proudhon4 ,in every society ,i distinguish two kinds of constitution1 says he2 the one which ,i call social1 the other which is its political constitution2 the first innate in humanity1 liberal1 necessary1 its development consisting above all in weakening1 and gradually eliminating the second1 which is essentially factitious1 restrictive1 and transitory4 ,the social constitution is nothing but the equilibration of interests based upon free contract and the organisation of the economic forces1 which1 generally speaking1 are labour1 division of labour1 collective force1 competition1 commerce1 money1 machinery1 credit1 property1 equality in transactions1 reciprocity of guarantees1 etc4 ,the principle of the political constitution is authority4 ,its forms are3 distinction of classes1 separation of powers1 administrative centralisation1 the judicial hierarchy1 the representation of sovereignty by elections1 etc4 ,the political constitution was conceived and gradually completed in the interest of order1 for want of a social constitution1 the rules and principles of which could only be discovered as a result of long experience1 and are even to-day the object of ,socialist controversy4 ,these two constitutions1 as it is easy to see1 are by nature absolutely different and even incompatible3 but as it is the fate of the political constitution to constantly call forth and produce the social constitution something of the latter enters into the former1 which1 soon becoming inadequate1 appears contradictory and odious1 is forced from concession to concession to its final abrogation4#ah ,the social constitution is innate in humanity1 necessary4 ,yet it could only be discovered as the result of long experience1 and for want of it humanity had to invent the political constitution4 ,is not this an entirely ,utopian conception of human nature1 and of the social organisation peculiar to it8 ,are we not coming back to the standpoint of ,morelly who said that humanity in the course of its history has always been outside nature8 ,no--there is no need to come back to this standpoint1 for with ,proudhon we have never1 for a single instant1 got away from it4 ,while looking down upon the ,utopians searching after the best form of government1 ,proudhon does not by any means censure the ,utopian point of view4 ,he only scoffs at the small perspicacity of men who did not divine that the best political organisation is the absence of all political organisation1 is the social organisation1 proper to human nature1 necessary1 immanent in humanity4 ,the nature of this social constitution is absolutely different from1 and even incompatible with1 that of the political constitution4 ,nevertheless it is the fate of the political constitution to constantly call forth and produce the social constitution4 ,this is tremendously confusing6 ,yet one might get out of the difficulty by assuming that what ,proudhon meant to say was that the political constitutions act upon the evolution of the social constitution4 ,but then we are inevitably met by the question4 ,is not the political constitution in its turn rooted--as even ,guizot admitted--in the social constitution of a country8 ,according to our author no2 the more emphatically no1 that the social organisation1 the true and only one1 is only a thing of the future1 for want of which poor humanity has invented the political constitution4 ,moreover1 the ,political ,constitution of ,proudhon covers an immense domain1 embracing even class distinctions1 and therefore non-organised property1 property as it ought not to be1 property as it is to-day4 ,and since the whole of this political constitution has been invented as a mere stop-gap until the advent of the anarchist organisation of society1 it is evident that all human history must have been one huge blunder4 ,the ,state is no longer exactly a fiction as ,proudhon maintained in #ahdh2 the governmental formulas for which people and citizens have been cutting one another's throats for sixty centuries are no longer a mere phantasmagoria of our brain1 as the same ,proudhon believed at this same period2 but these formulas1 like the ,state itself1 like every political constitution1 are but the product of human ignorance1 the mother of all fictions and phantasmagorias4 ,at bottom it is always the same4 ,the main point is that ,anarchist 7social7 organisation could only be discovered as the result of many experiences4 ,the reader will see how much this is to be regretted4 ,the political constitution has an unquestionable influence upon the social organisation2 at any rate it calls it forth1 for such is its fate as revealed by ,proudhon1 master of ,kantian philosophy and social organisation4 ,the most logical conclusion to be drawn therefrom is that the partisans of social organisation must make use of the political constitution in order to attain their end4 ,but logical as this deduction is1 it is not to the taste of our author4 ,for him it is but a phantasmagoria of our brain4 ,to make use of the political constitution is to offer a burnt offering to the terrible god of authority1 to take part in the struggle of parties4 ,proudhon will have none of this4 ,no more parties1 he says2 no more authority1 absolute liberty of the man and the citizen--in three words1 such is our political and social profession of faith4#ai ,every class-struggle is a political struggle4 ,whosoever repudiates the political struggle by this very act1 gives up all part and lot in the class-struggle4 ,and so it was with ,proudhon4 ,from the beginning of the ,revolution of #ahdh he preached the reconciliation of classes4 ,here e4g41 is a passage from the ,circular which he addressed to his electors in ,doubs1 which is dated #crd ,april of this same year3 ,the social question is there2 you cannot escape from it4 ,to solve it we must have men who combine extreme ,radicalism of mind with extreme ,conservatism of mind4 ,workers1 hold out your hands to your employers2 and you1 employers1 do not deliberately repulse the advances of those who were your wage-earners4 ,the man whom ,proudhon believed to combine this extreme ,radicalism of mind with extreme ,conservatism of mind1 was himself--,p4 ,j4 ,proudhon4 ,there was1 on the one hand1 at the bottom of this belief1 a fiction1 common to all ,utopians who imagine they can rise above classes and their struggles1 and navely think that the whole of the future history of humanity will be confined to the peaceful propagation of their new gospel4 ,on the other hand1 this tendency to combine ,radicalism and ,conservatism shows conclusively the very essence of the ,father of ,anarchy4 ,proudhon was the most typical representative of petty bourgeois socialism4 ,now the fate of the petty bourgeois--in so far as he does not adopt the proletarian standpoint--is to constantly oscillate between ,radicalism and ,conservatism4 ,to make more understandable what we have said1 we must bear in mind what the plan of social organisation propounded by ,proudhon was4 ,our author shall tell us himself4 ,it goes without saying that we shall not escape a more or less authentic interpretation of ,kant4 ,thus the line we propose to follow in dealing with the political question and in preparing the materials for a constitution will be the same as that we have followed hitherto in dealing with the social question4 ,the ,voix du ,peuple while completing the work of its predecessors1 the two earlier journals1 will follow faithfully in their footsteps4#bj ,what did we say in these two publications1 one after the other of which fell beneath the blows of the reaction and the state of siege8 ,we did not ask1 as our precursors and colleagues had done1 ,which is the best system of community8 ,the best organisation of property8 ,or again3 ,which is the better1 property or the community8 ,the theory of ,st4 ,simon or that of ,fourier8 ,the system of ,louis ,blanc or that of ,cabet8 ,following the example of ,kant we stated the question thus3 ,how is it that man possesses8 ,how is property acquired8 ,how lost8 ,what is the law of its evolution and transformation8 ,whither does it tend8 ,what does it want8 ,what1 in fine1 does it represent8444 ,then how is it that man labours8 ,how is the comparison of products instituted8 ,by what means is circulation carried out in society8 ,under what conditions8 ,according to what laws8 ,and the conclusion arrived at by this monograph of property was this3 ,property indicates function or attribution2 community2 reciprocity of action2 usury ever decreasing1 the identity of labour and capital 7sic674 ,in order to set free and to realise all these terms1 until now hidden beneath the old symbols of property1 what must be done8 ,the workers must guarantee one another labour and a market2 and to this end must accept as money their reciprocal pledges4 ,good6 ,to-day we say that political liberty1 like industrial liberty1 will result for us from our mutual guarantees4 ,it is by guaranteeing one another liberty that we shall get rid of this government1 whose destiny is to symbolise the republican motto3 ,liberty1 ,equality1 ,fraternity1 while leaving it to our intelligence to bring about the realisation of this4 ,now1 what is the formula of this political and liberal guarantee8 ,at present universal suffrage2 later on free contract4444 ,economic and social reform through the mutual guarantee of credit2 political reform through the inter-action of individual liberties2 such is the programme of the ,voix du ,peuple4#ba ,we may add to this that it is not very difficult to write the biography of this programme4 ,in a society of producers of commodities1 the exchange of commodities is carried out according to the labour socially necessary for their production4 ,labour is the source and the measure of their exchange-value4 ,nothing could seem more just than this to any man imbued with the ideas engendered by a society of producers of commodities4 ,unfortunately this justice is no more eternal than anything else here below4 ,the development of the production of commodities necessarily brings in its train the transformation of the greater part of society into proletarians1 possessing nothing but their labour-power1 and of the other part into capitalists1 who1 buying this power1 the only commodity of the proletarians1 turn it into a source of wealth for themselves4 ,in working for the capitalists the proletarian produces the income of his exploiter1 at the same time as his own poverty1 his own social subjection4 ,is not this sufficiently unjust8 ,the partisan of the rights of the producer of commodities deplores the lot of the proletarians2 he thunders against capital4 ,but at the same time he thunders against the revolutionary tendencies of the proletarians who speak of expropriating the exploiter and of a communistic organisation of production4 ,communism is unjust1 it is the most odious tyranny4 ,what wants organising is not production but exchange1 he assures us4 ,but how organise exchange8 ,that is easy enough1 and what is daily going on before our eyes may serve to show us the way4 ,labour is the source and the measure of the value of commodities4 ,but is the price of commodities always determined by their value8 ,do not prices continually vary according to the rarity or abundance of these commodities8 ,the value of a commodity and its price are two different things2 and this is the misfortune1 the great misfortune of all of us poor1 honest folk1 who only want justice1 and only ask for our own4 ,to solve the social question1 therefore we must put a stop to the arbitrariness of prices1 and to the anomaly of value 7,proudhon's own expressions74 ,and in order to do this we must constitute value2 i4e41 see that every producer shall always1 in exchange for his commodity1 receive exactly what it costs4 ,then will private property not only cease to be theft1 it will become the most adequate expression of justice4 ,to constitute value is to constitute small private property1 and small private property once constituted1 everything will be justice and happiness in a world now so full of misery and injustice4 ,and it is no good for proletarians to object1 they have no means of production3 by guaranteeing themselves credit gratis1 all who want to work will1 as by the touch of a magic wand1 have everything necessary for production4 ,small property and small parcelled-out production1 its economic basis1 was always the dream of ,proudhon4 ,the huge modern mechanical workshop always inspired him with profound aversion4 ,he says that labour1 like love1 flies from society4 ,no doubt there are some industries--,proudhon instances railways--in which association is essential4 ,in these1 the isolated producer must make way for companies of workers4 ,but the exception only proves the rule4#bb ,small private property must be the basis of social organization4 ,small private property is tending to disappear4 ,the desire not merely to preserve it1 but to transform it into the basis of a new social organisation is extreme conservatism4 ,the desire at the same time to put an end to the exploitation of man by man1 to the wage-system1 is assuredly to combine with the most conservative the most radical aspirations4 ,we have no desire here to criticise this petty bourgeois ,utopia4 ,this criticism has already been undertaken by a master hand in the works of ,marx3 ,la ,misre de la ,philosophie1 and ,zur ,kritik der ,politischen ,oekonomie4 ,we will only observe the following3-- ,the only bond that unites the producers of commodities upon the domain of economics is exchange4 ,from the juridical point of view1 exchange appears as the relation between two wills4 ,the relation of these two wills is expressed in the contract4 ,the production of commodities duly constituted is therefore the reign of absolute individual liberty4 ,by finding myself bound through a contract that obliges me to do such and such a thing1 ,i do not renounce my liberty4 ,i simply use it to enter into relations with my neighbours4 ,but at the same time this contract is the regulator of my liberty4 ,in fulfilling a duty that ,i have freely laid upon myself when signing the contract1 ,i render justice to the rights of others4 ,it is thus that absolute liberty becomes commensurate with order4 ,apply this conception of the contract to the political constitution and you have ,anarchy4 ,the idea of the contract excludes that of government4 ,what characterises the contract1 reciprocal convention1 is that by virtue of this convention the liberty and well-being of man are increased1 while by the institution of authority both are necessarily decreased4444 ,contract is thus essentially synallagmatic2 it lays upon the contracting parties no other obligation than that which results from their personal promise of reciprocal pledges2 it is subject to no external authority2 it alone lays down a law common to both parties1 and it can be carried out only through their own initiative4 ,if the contract is already this in its most general acceptation and in its daily practice1 what will the social contract be--that contract which is meant to bind together all the members of a nation by the same interest8 ,the social contract is the supreme act by which every citizen pledges to society his love1 his intellect1 his labour1 his service1 his products1 his possessions1 in exchange for the affection1 the ideas1 the labour1 products1 service1 and possessions of his fellows2 the measure of right for each one being always determined by the extent of his own contribution1 and the amount recoverable being in accordance with what has been given4444 ,the social contract must be freely discussed1 individually consented to1 signed manu propri1 by all who participate in it4 ,if its discussion were prevented1 curtailed or burked2 if consent to it were filched2 if the signature were given to a blank document in pure confidence1 without a reading of the articles and their preliminary explanation2 or even if1 like the military oath1 it were all predetermined and enforced1 then the social contract would be nothing but a conspiracy against the liberty and well-being of the most ignorant1 the most weak1 and most numerous individuals1 a systematic spoliation1 against which every means of resistance or even of reprisal might become a right and a duty4444 ,the social contract is of the essence of the reciprocal contract2 not only does it leave the signer the whole of his possessions2 it adds to his property2 it does not encroach upon his labour2 it only affects exchange4444 ,such1 according to the definitions of right and universal practice1 must be the social contract4#bc ,once it is admitted as an incontestable fundamental principle that the contract is the only moral bond that can be accepted by free and equal human beings nothing is easier than a radical criticism of the political constitution4 ,suppose we have to do with justice and the penal law1 for example8 ,well1 ,proudhon would ask you by virtue of what contract society arrogates to itself the right to punish criminals4 ,where there is no compact there can be1 so far as any external tribunal is concerned1 neither crime nor misdemeanour4 ,the law is the expression of the sovereignty of the people2 that is1 or ,i am altogether mistaken1 the social contract and the personal pledge of the man and the citizen4 ,so long as ,i did not want this law1 so long as ,i have not consented to it1 voted for it1 it is not binding upon me1 it does not exist4 ,to make it a precedent before ,i have recognised it1 and to use it against me in spite of my protests is to make it retroactive1 and to violate this very law itself4 ,every day you have to reverse a decision because of some formal error4 ,but there is not a single one of your laws that is not tainted with nullity1 and the most monstrous nullity of all1 the very hypothesis of the law4 ,soufflard1 ,lacenaire1 all the scoundrels whom you send to the scaffold turn in their graves and accuse you of judicial forgery4 ,what answer can you make them8#bd ,if we are dealing with the administration and the police ,proudhon sings the same song of contract and free consent4 ,cannot we administer our goods1 keep our accounts1 arrange our differences1 look after our common interests at least as well as we can look after our salvation and take care of our souls8 ,what more have we to do with ,state legislation1 with ,state justice1 with ,state police1 and with ,state administration than with ,state religion8#be ,as to the ,ministry of ,finance1 it is evident that its raison d'tre is entirely included in that of the other ministries4444 ,get rid of all the political harness and you will have no use for an administration whose sole object is the procuring and distribution of supplies4#bf ,this is logical and radical2 and the more radical1 that this formula of ,proudhon's--constituted value1 free contract--is a universal one1 easily1 and even necessarily applicable to all peoples4 ,political economy is1 indeed1 like all other sciences2 it is of necessity the same all over the world2 it does not depend upon the arrangements of men or nations1 it is subject to no one's caprice4 ,there is no more a ,russian1 ,english1 ,austrian1 ,tartar1 or ,hindoo political economy than there is a ,hungarian1 ,german1 or ,american physics or geometry4 ,truth is everywhere equal to itself3 ,science is the unity of the human race4 ,if science1 therefore1 and no longer religion or authority is taken in all countries as the rule of society1 the sovereign arbiter of all interests1 government becomes null and void1 the legislators of the whole universe are in harmony4#bg ,but enough of this6 ,the biography of what ,proudhon called his programme is now sufficiently clear to us4 ,economically it is but the ,utopia of a petty bourgeois1 who is firmly convinced that the production of commodities is the most just of all possible modes of production1 and who desires to eliminate its bad sides 7hence his ,radicalism7 by retaining to all eternity its good sides 7hence his ,conservatism74 ,politically the programme is only the application to public relations of a concept 7the contract7 drawn from the domain of the private right of a society of producers of commodities4 ,constituted value in economics1 the contract in politics--these are the whole scientific truth of ,proudhon4 ,it is all very well for him to combat the ,utopians2 he is a ,utopian himself to his finger tips4 ,what distinguishes him from men like ,saint ,simon1 ,fourier1 and ,robert ,owen is his extreme pettiness and narrowness of mind1 his hatred of every really revolutionary movement and idea4 ,proudhon criticised the political constitution from the point of view of private right4 ,he wished to perpetuate private property1 and to destroy that pernicious fiction the ,state1 for ever4 ,guizot had already said that the political constitution of a country has its root in the conditions of property existing there4 ,for ,proudhon the political constitution owes its origin only to human ignorance1 has only been imagined in default of the social organisation at last invented by him1 ,proudhon1 in the year of our ,lord so and so4 ,he judges the political history of mankind like a ,utopian4 ,but the ,utopian negation of all reality by no means preserves us from its influence4 ,denied upon one page of a ,utopian work1 it takes its revenge on another1 where it often appears in all its nakedness4 ,thus ,proudhon denies the ,state4 ,the ,state--no1 no--,i will none of it1 even as servant2 ,i reject all government1 even direct government1 he cries ad nauseam4 ,but1 oh6 irony of reality6 ,do you know how he invents the constitution of value8 ,it is very funny4 ,the constitution of value is the selling at a fair price1 at the cost price4#bh ,if a merchant refuses to supply his merchandise at cost price it is because he is not certain of selling a sufficient quantity to secure a due return1 and further he has no guarantee that he will get quid pro quo for his purchases4 ,so he must have guarantees4 ,and there may be various kinds of these guarantees4 ,here is one4 ,let us suppose that the ,provisional ,government or the ,constituent ,assembly 444 had seriously wished to help along business1 encourage commerce1 industry1 agriculture1 stop the depreciation of property1 assure work to the workers--it could have been done by guaranteeing1 e4g41 to the first #aj1jjj contractors1 factory owners1 manufacturers1 merchants1 etc41 in the whole ,republic1 an interest of #e per cent4 on the capital1 say1 on the average1 #ajj1jjj francs1 that each of them had embarked in his competitive business4 ,for it is evident that the ,state 444 ,enough6 ,it is evident that the ,state has forced itself upon ,proudhon1 at least as servant4 ,and it has done this with such irresistible force that our author ends by surrendering1 and solemnly proclaiming3 ,yes1 ,i say it aloud3 the workers' associations of ,paris and the departments hold in their hands the salvation of the people1 the future of the revolution4 ,they can do everything1 if they set about it cleverly4 ,renewed energy on their part must carry the light into the dullest minds1 and at the election of #aheb he wrote this in the summer of #ahea must place on the order of the day1 and at the head of it1 the constitution of value4#bi ,thus ,no more parties6 ,no politics6 when it is a question of the class struggle--and ,hurrah for politics6 ,hurrah for electoral agitation6 ,hurrah for ,state interference6 when it is a question of realising the vapid and meagre ,utopia of ,proudhon6 ,destruam et dificabo1 says ,proudhon1 with the pompous vanity peculiar to him4 ,but on the other hand--to use the phrase of ,figaro--it is the truest truth of all he has ever uttered in his life4 ,he destroys and he builds4 ,only the mystery of his destruction reveals itself completely in his formula1 ,the ,contract solves all problems4 ,the mystery of his dificatio is in the strength of the social and political bourgeois reality with which he reconciled himself1 the more readily in that he never managed to pluck from it any of its secrets4 ,proudhon will not hear of the ,state at any price4 ,and yet--apart from the political propositions such as the constitution of value1 with which he turns to the odious fiction--even theoretically he builds up the ,state as fast as he destroys it4 ,what he takes from the ,state he bestows upon the communes and departments4 ,in the place of one great ,state we see built up a number of small states2 in the place of one great fiction a mass of little ones4 ,to sum up1 anarchy resolves itself into federalism1 which among other advantages has that of making the success of revolutionary movements much more difficult than it is under a centralised ,state4#cj ,so endeth ,proudhon's ,general ,idea of the ,revolution4 ,it is a curious fact that ,saint ,simon is the father of ,proudhon's anarchy4 ,saint ,simon has said that the end of social organisation is production1 and that1 therefore1 political science must be reduced to economics1 the art of governing men must give way to the art of administration of things4 ,he has compared mankind to the individual1 who1 obeying his parents in childhood1 in his ripe age ends by obeying no one but himself4 ,proudhon seized upon this idea and this comparison1 and with the help of the constitution of value1 built up anarchy4 ,but ,saint ,simon1 a man of fertile genius1 would have been the very first to be alarmed at what this ,socialistic petty bourgeois made of his theory4 ,modern scientific ,socialism has worked out the theory of ,saint ,simon very differently1 and while explaining the historical origin of the ,state1 shows in this very origin1 the conditions of the future disappearance of the ,state4 ,the ,state was the official representative of society as a whole1 the gathering of it together into a visible embodiment4 ,but it was this only in so far as it was the ,state of that class which itself represented1 for the time being1 society as a whole2 in ancient times the ,state of slave-owning citizens2 in the middle ages1 the feudal lords2 in our own time1 the bourgeoisie4 ,when at last it becomes the real representative of the whole of society1 it renders itself unnecessary4 ,as soon as there is no longer any social class to be held in subjection2 as soon as class rule and the individual struggle for existence based on our present anarchy in production1 with the collisions and excesses arising from these are removed1 nothing more remains to be repressed1 and a special repressive force1 a ,state1 is no longer necessary4 ,the first act by virtue of which the ,state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society1 the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society1 this is1 at the same time1 its last independent act as a ,state4 ,state interference in social relations becomes1 in one domain after another1 superfluous1 and then dies out of itself2 the government of persons is replaced by the administration of things1 and by the conduct of processes of production4 ,the ,state is not 'abolished4' ,it dies out4#ca ,,footnotes3 #af ,for all these quotations see the preface to the third edition of the ,confessions d'un ,rvolutionnaire4 ,this preface is simply an article reprinted from the ,voix du ,peuple1 ,november1 #ahdi4 ,it was not till #ahdi that ,proudhon began to expound his ,anarchist theory4 ,in #ahdh1 pace ,kropotkine1 he only expounded his theory of exchange1 as anyone can see for himself by reading the sixth volume of his complete works 7,paris1 #ahfh74 ,this critique of ,democracy1 written in ,march1 #ahdh1 did not yet expound his ,anarchist theory4 ,this critique forms part of his work1 ,solution du ,problme ,social1 and ,proudhon proposes to bring about this solution without taxes1 without loans1 without cash payments1 without paper-money1 without maximum1 without levies1 without bankruptcy1 without agrarian laws1 without any poor tax1 without national workshops1 without association 7671 without any participation or intervention by the ,state1 without any interference with the liberty of commerce and of industry1 without any violation of property1 in a word and above all1 without any class war4 ,a truly immortal idea and worthy the admiration of all bourgeois1 peace-loving1 sentimental1 or bloodthirsty--white1 blue1 or red6 #ag ,one1 two1 three2 legerdemain isn't witchcraft4 #ah ,les ,confessions d'un ,rvolutionnaire4 ,vol4 ix41 #ahfh edition of the complete works of ,proudhon1 pages #aff and #afg4 #ai ,confessions1 pp4 #be-bf4 #bj ,he is speaking of the two papers ,le ,peuple and ,le ,rprsentant du ,peuple1 which he had published in #ahdh-i before the ,voix du ,peuple4 #ba ,confessions1 pp4 #g-h4 #bb ,for ,proudhon the principle of association invoked by most schools 7he means the various ,socialist schools71 a principle essentially sterile1 is neither an industrial force nor an economic law 444 it supposes government and obedience1 two terms excluded by the ,revolution4 7,ide ,gnrale de la ,rvolution au ,,xix ,sicle1 #b ed41 ,paris #ahea1 p4 #agc74 #bc ,ide ,gnrale de la ,revolution4 ,paris1 #ahea1 pp4 #abd-abg4 #bd ,ide ,gnrale1 pp4 #bih-bii4 #be ,ide ,gnrale1 p4 #cjd4 #bf ,ibid4 p4 #cbd4 #bg ,ibid4 p4 #cbh4 #bh ,it was thus that ,proudhon understood the determining of value by labour4 ,he could never understand a ,ricardo4 #bi ,ide ,gnrale1 p4 #bfh4 #cj ,see his book1 ,du ,principe ,fdratif4 #ca ,socialism3 ,utopian and ,scientific4 ,by ,f4 ,engels4 ,translated by ,edward ,aveling4 ,pp4 #ge-gg4 ,,chapter ,v ,,bakounine ,we have seen that in their criticism of the political constitution1 the fathers of anarchy always based themselves on the ,utopian point of view4 ,each one of them based his theories upon an abstract principle4 ,stirner upon that of the ,ego1 ,proudhon upon that of the ,contract4 ,the reader has also seen that these two fathers were individualists of the first water4 ,the influence of ,proudhonian individualism was1 for a time1 very strong in the ,romance countries 7,france1 ,belgium1 ,italy1 ,spain7 and in the ,slaav countries1 especially ,russia4 ,the internal history of the ,international ,working ,men's ,association is the history of this struggle between ,proudhonism and the modern ,socialism of ,marx4 ,not only men like ,tolain1 ,chemal or ,murat1 but men very superior to them1 such as ,de ,paepe1 e4g41 were nothing but more or less opinionated1 more or less consistent ,mutualists4 ,but the more the working class movement developed1 the more evident it became that ,mutualism could not be its theoretical expression4 ,at the ,international ,congresses the ,mutualists were forced by the logic of facts to vote for the ,communist resolutions4 ,this was the case1 e4g41 at ,brussels in the discussion on landed property4#cb ,little by little the left wing of the ,proudhonian army left the domain of ,individualism to intrench itself upon that of ,collectivism4 ,the word ,collectivism was used at this period in a sense altogether opposed to that which it now has in the mouths of the ,french ,marxists1 like ,jules ,guesde and his friends4 ,the most prominent champion of ,collectivism was at this time ,michel ,bakounine4 ,in speaking of this man we shall pass over in silence his propaganda in favour of the ,hegelian philosophy1 as far as he understood it1 the part he played in the revolutionary movement of #ahdh1 his ,panslavist writings in the beginning of the sixties1 and his pamphlet1 ,roumanow1 ,pougatchew or ,pestel#cc 7,london1 #ahfb71 in which he proposed to go over to ,alexander ,,ii41 if the latter would become the ,tzar of the ,moujiks4 ,here we are exclusively concerned with his theory of ,anarchist ,collectivism4 ,a member of the ,league of ,peace and ,liberty1 ,bakounine1 at the ,congress of this ,association at ,berne in #ahfi1 called upon the ,league--an entirely bourgeois body--to declare in favour of the economical and social equalisation of classes and of individuals4 ,other delegates1 among whom was ,chaudey1 reproached him with advocating ,communism4 ,he indignantly protested against the accusation4 ,because ,i demand the economic and social equalisation of classes and individuals1 because1 with the ,workers' ,congress of ,brussels1 ,i have declared myself in favour of collective property1 ,i have been reproached with being a ,communist4 ,what difference1 ,i have been asked1 is there between ,communism and ,collectivism4 ,i am really astounded that ,m4 ,chaudey does not understand this difference1 he who is the testamentary executor of ,proudhon6 ,i detest ,communism1 because it is the negation of liberty1 and ,i cannot conceive anything human without liberty4 ,i am not a ,communist1 because ,communism concentrates and causes all the forces of society to be absorbed by the ,state1 because it necessarily ends in the centralisation of property in the hands of the ,state1 while ,i desire the abolition of the ,state--the radical extirpation of this principle of the authority and the tutelage of the ,state1 which1 under the pretext of moralising and civilising men1 has until now enslaved1 oppressed1 exploited1 and depraved them4 ,i desire the organisation of society and of collective or social property from below upwards1 by means of free association1 and not from above downwards by means of some authority of some sort4 ,desiring the abolition of the ,state1 ,i desire the abolition of property individually hereditary1 which is nothing but an institution of the ,state1 nothing but a result of the principle of the ,state4 ,this is the sense1 gentlemen1 in which ,i am a ,collectivist1 and not at all a ,communist4 ,in another speech at the same ,congress ,bakounine reiterates what he had already said of ,statist ,communism4 ,it is not we1 gentlemen1 he said1 who systematically deny all authority and all tutelary powers1 and who in the name of ,liberty demand the very abolition of the authoritarian principle of the ,state2 it is not we who will recognise any sort of political and social organisation whatever1 that is not founded upon the most complete liberty of every one4444 ,but ,i am in favour of collective property1 because ,i am convinced that so long as property1 individually hereditary1 exists1 the equality of the first start1 the realisation of equality1 economical and social1 will be impossible4#cd ,this is not particularly lucid as a statement of principles4 ,but it is sufficiently significant from the biographical point of view4 ,we do not insist upon the ineptitude of the expression the economic and social equalisation of classes2 the ,general ,council of the ,international dealt with that long ago4#ce ,we would only remark that the above quotations show that ,bakounine-- #a4 ,combats the ,state and ,communism in the name of the most complete liberty of everybody2 #b4 ,combats property1 individually hereditary1 in the name of economic equality2 #c4 ,regards this property as an institution of the ,state1 as a consequence of the very principles of the ,state2 #d4 ,has no objection to individual property1 if it is not hereditary2 has no objection to the right of inheritance1 if it is not individual4 ,in other words3 #a4 ,bakounine is quite at one with ,proudhon so far as concerns the negation of the ,state and ,communism2 #b4 ,to this negation he adds another1 that of property1 individually hereditary2 #c4 ,his programme is nothing but a total arrived at by the adding up of the two abstract principles--that of liberty1 and that of equality2 he applies these two principles1 one after the other1 and independently one of the other1 in his criticism of the existing order of things1 never asking himself whether the results of these two negations are reconcilable with one another4 #d4 ,he understands1 just as little as ,proudhon1 the origin of private property and the causal connection between its evolution and the development of political forms4 #e4 ,he has no clear conception of the meaning of the words individually hereditary4 ,if ,proudhon was a ,utopian1 ,bakounine was doubly so1 for his programme was nothing but a ,utopia of ,liberty1 reinforced by a ,utopia of ,equality4 ,if ,proudhon1 at least to a very large extent1 remained faithful to his principle of the contract1 ,bakounine1 divided between liberty and equality1 is obliged from the very outset of his argument constantly to throw over the former for the benefit of the latter1 and the latter for the benefit of the former4 ,if ,proudhon is a ,proudhonian sans reproche1 ,bakounine is a ,proudhonian adulterated with detestable ,communism1 nay even by ,marxism4 ,in fact1 ,bakounine has no longer that immutable faith in the genius of the master ,proudhon1 which ,tolain seems to have preserved intact4 ,according to ,bakounine ,proudhon1 in spite of all his efforts to get a foothold upon the firm ground of reality1 remained an idealist and metaphysician4 ,his starting point is the abstract side of law2 it is from this that he starts in order to arrive at economic facts1 while ,marx1 on the contrary1 has enunciated and proved the truth1 demonstrated by the whole of the ancient and modern history of human societies1 of peoples and of states1 that economic facts preceded and precede the facts of political and civil law4 ,the discovery and demonstration of this truth is one of the greatest merits of ,m4 ,marx4#cf ,in another of his writings he says1 with entire conviction1 ,all the religions1 and all the systems of morals that govern a given society are always the ideal expression of its real1 material condition1 that is1 especially of its economic organisation1 but also of its political organisation1 the latter1 indeed1 being never anything but the juridical and violent consecration of the former4 ,and he again mentions ,marx as the man to whom belongs the merit of having discovered and demonstrated this truth4#cg ,one asks oneself with astonishment how this same ,bakounine could declare that private property was only a consequence of the principle of authority4 ,the solution of the riddle lies in the fact that he did not understand the materialist conception of history2 he was only adulterated by it4 ,and here is a striking proof of this4 ,in the ,russian work1 already quoted1 ,statism and ,anarchy1 he says that in the situation of the ,russian people there are two elements which constitute the conditions necessary for the social 7he means ,socialist7 revolution4 ,the ,russian people can boast of excessive poverty1 and unparalleled slavery4 ,their sufferings are innumerable1 and they bear these1 not with patience1 but with a profound and passionate despair1 that twice already in our history has manifested itself in terrible outbursts3 in the revolt of ,stephan ,razine1 and in that of ,pougatschew4#ch ,and that is what ,bakounine understood by the material conditions of a ,socialist revolution6 ,is it necessary to point out that this ,marxism is a little too sui generis8 ,while combating ,mazzini from the standpoint of the materialist conception of history1 ,bakounine himself is so far from understanding the true import of this conception1 that in the same work in which he refutes the ,mazzinian theology1 he speaks1 like the thorough-faced ,proudhonian that he is1 of absolute human morality1 and he bolsters up the idea of this morality--the morality of solidarity1--with such arguments as these3 ,every actual being1 so long as he exists1 exists only by virtue of a principle which is inherent in himself1 and which determines his particular nature2 a principle that is not imposed upon him by a divine law-giver of any sort 7this is the materialism of our author671 but is the protracted and constant result of combinations of natural causes and effects2 that is not1 according to the ludicrous idea of the idealists1 shut up in him like a soul within its body1 but is1 in fact1 only the inevitable and constant form of his real existence4 ,the human1 like all other species1 has inherent principles quite special to itself1 and all these principles are summed up in1 or are reducible to1 a single principle1 which we call solidarity4 ,this principle may be formulated thus3 ,no human individual can recognise his own humanity1 nor1 therefore1 realise it in his life except by recognising it in others1 and by helping to realise it for others4 ,no man can emancipate himself1 except by emancipating with him all the men around him4 ,my liberty is the liberty of everyone1 for ,i am not truly free1 free not only in thought but in deed1 except when my liberty and my rights find their confirmation1 their sanction1 in the liberty and the rights of all men1 my equals4#ci ,as a moral precept1 solidarity1 as interpreted by ,bakounine1 is a very excellent thing4 ,but to set up this a morality1 which by the way is not at all absolute1 as principle inherent in humanity and determining human nature1 is playing with words1 and completely ignoring what materialism is4 ,humanity only exists by virtue of the principle of solidarity4 ,this is coming it a little too strong4 ,how about the class war1 and the cursed ,state1 and property1 individually hereditary--are these only manifestations of solidarity1 inherent in humanity1 determining its special nature1 etc41 etc8 ,if this is so1 everything is all right1 and ,bakounine was wasting his time in dreaming of a social revolution4 ,if this is not so1 this proves that humanity may have existed by virtue of other principles than that of solidarity1 and that this latter principle is by no means inherent in it4 ,indeed1 ,bakounine only enunciated his absolute principle in order to arrive at the conclusion that no people could be completely free1 free with solidarity1 in the human sense of the word1 if the whole of humanity is not free also4#dj ,this is an allusion to the tactics of the modern proletariat1 and it is true in the sense that--as the rules of the ,international ,workingmen's ,association put it--the emancipation of the workers is not a merely local or national problem1 but1 on the contrary1 a problem concerning every civilised nation1 its solution being necessarily dependent upon their theoretical and practical cooperation4 ,it is easy enough to prove this truth by reference to the actual economic situation of civilised humanity4 ,but nothing is less conclusive1 here as elsewhere1 than a demonstration founded upon a ,utopian conception of human nature4 ,the solidarity of ,bakounine only proves that he remained an incorrigible ,utopian1 although he became acquainted with the historical theory of ,marx4 ,,footnotes3 #cb 444 ,among those who call themselves ,mutualists1 and whose economic ideas incline1 on the whole1 to the theories of ,proudhon1 in the sense that they1 like the great revolutionary writer1 demand the suppression of all levies of capital upon labour1 the suppression of interest1 reciprocity of service1 equal exchange of products on the basis of cost price1 free reciprocal credit1 several voted for the collective ownership of the land4 ,such1 e4g41 are the four ,french delegates1 ,aubry of ,rouen1 ,delacour of ,paris1 ,richard of ,lyons1 ,lemonnier of ,marseilles1 and among the ,belgians1 ,companions ,a4 ,moetens1 ,verricken1 ,de ,paepe1 ,marichal1 etc4 ,for them there is no contradiction between ,mutualism applicable to the exchange of services and the exchange of products on the basis of cost price1 that is to say1 the quantity of labour contained in the services and the products1 and collective property applicable to the land1 which is not a product of labour1 and therefore does not seem to them to come under the law of exchange1 under the law of circulation4--,reply to an article by ,dr4 ,coullery in the ,voix de l',avenir1 ,september1 #ahfh1 by the ,belgians ,vanderhouten1 ,de ,paepe1 ,delasalle1 ,hermann1 ,delplanque1 ,roulants1 ,guillaume ,brasseur1 printed in the same newspaper and reprinted as a document in the ,mmoire of the ,fdration ,jurasienne1 ,souvillier1 #ahgc1 pp4 #ai-bj4 #cc ,roumanow is the name of the reigning family in ,russia--derived 7if we overlook the adultery of ,catherine ,,ii41 admitted by herself in her memoirs7 from ,peter ,,iii41 the husband of ,catherine ,,ii41 and ,prince of ,holstein-,gottorp4 ,pougatchew1 the pretended ,peter ,,iii41 was a ,cossack1 who placed himself at the head of a ,russian peasant rising in #aggc4 ,pestel was a ,republican conspirator1 hanged by ,nicolas in #ahbf4 #cd ,see the documents published with the ,mmoire de la ,fdration ,jurasienne1 pp4 #bh1 #bi1 #cg4 #ce ,the equalisation of classes1 wrote the ,general ,council to the ,alliance of ,bakounine1 who desired to be admitted into the ,international ,working ,men's ,association1 and had sent the ,council its programme in which this famous equalisation phrase occurs1 literally interpreted comes to the harmony of capital and labour1 so pertinaciously advocated by bourgeois ,socialists4 ,it is not the equalisation of classes1 logically a contradiction1 impossible to realise1 but on the contrary1 the abolition of classes1 the real secret of the proletarian movement1 which is the great aim of the ,international ,working ,men's ,association4 #cf ,statism and ,anarchy1 #ahgc 7the ,russian place of publication is not given71 pp4 #bbc-bbd 7,russian74 ,we know the word ,statism is a barbarism1 but ,bakounine uses it1 and the flexibility of the ,russian language lends itself to such forms4 #cg ,la ,thologie ,politique de ,mazzini et l',internationale1 ,neuchatel1 #ahga1 pp4 #fi and #gh4 #ch ,ibid4 ,appendix ,a1 p4 #g4 #ci ,la ,thologi ,politique de ,mazzini1 p4 #ia4 #dj ,ibid4 pp4 #aaj1 #aaa4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,bakounine--7,,concluded7 ,we have said that the principal features of ,bakounine's programme originated in the simple addition of two abstract principles3 that of liberty and that of equality4 ,we now see that the total thus obtained might easily be increased by the addition of a third principle1 that of solidarity4 ,indeed1 the programme of the famous ,alliance1 adds several others4 ,for example1 ,the ,alliance declares itself ,atheist2 it desires the abolition of religions1 the substitution of science for faith1 of human for divine justice4 ,in the proclamation with which the ,bakounists placarded the walls of ,lyons1 during the attempted rising at the end of ,september1 #ahgj1 we read 7,article #da7 that ,the ,state1 fallen into decay1 will no longer be able to intervene in the payment of private debts4 ,this is incontestably logical1 but it would be difficult to deduce the non-payment of private debts from principles inherent in human nature4 ,since ,bakounine in tacking his various absolute principles together does not ask himself1 and does not need to ask himself--thanks to the absolute character of his method--whether one of these principles might not somewhat limit the absolute power of others1 and might not in its turn be limited by them1 he finds it an absolute impossibility to harmonise the various items of his programme whenever words no longer suffice1 and it becomes necessary to replace them by more precise ideas4 ,he desires the abolition of religion4 ,but1 the ,state having fallen into decay1 who is to abolish it8 ,he desires the abolition of property1 individually hereditary4 ,but what is to be done if1 the ,state having fallen into decay1 it should continue to exist8 ,bakounine himself feels the thing is not very clear1 but he consoles himself very easily4 ,in a pamphlet written during the ,franco-,german war1 ,lettres un franais sur la crise actuelle1 while demonstrating that ,france can only be saved by a great revolutionary movement1 he comes to the conclusion that the peasants must be incited to lay hands upon the land belonging to the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie4 ,but so far1 the ,french peasants have been in favour of property1 individually hereditary1 so this unpleasant institution would be bolstered up by the new ,social ,revolution8 ,not at all1 answers ,bakounine1 once the ,state is abolished they 7i4e41 the peasants7 will no longer have the juridical and political consecration1 the guarantee of property by the ,state4 ,property will no longer be a right1 it will be reduced to the condition of a simple fact4 7,the italics are ,bakounine's own47 ,this is very reassuring4 ,the ,state having fallen into decay1 any fellow that happens to come along1 stronger than ,i1 will incontinently possess himself of my field1 without having any need to appeal to the principal of solidarity2 the principle of liberty will sufficiently answer his purpose4 ,a very pleasant equalisation of individuals6 ,it is certain1 ,bakounine admits1 that at first things won't work in an absolutely peaceful manner2 there will be struggles2 public order1 that arch saint of the bourgeois1 will be disturbed1 and the just deeds which will result from such a state of things may constitute what one is agreed to call a civil war4 ,but do you prefer to hand over ,france to the ,prussians8444 ,moreover1 do you fear that the peasants will devour one another2 even if they tried to do so in the beginning1 they would soon be convinced of the material impossibility of persisting in this course1 and then we may be sure they would try to arrive at some understanding1 to come to terms1 to organise among themselves4 ,the necessity of eating1 of providing for their families1 and the necessity therefore of safeguarding their houses1 their families1 and their own lives against unforeseen attacks1 all this would soon force them individually to enter into mutual arrangements4 ,and do not believe1 either1 that in these arrangements1 arrived at outside all official tutelage 7italicised by ,bakounine71 by the mere force of events1 the strongest1 the richest1 will exercise a predominant influence4 ,the wealth of the wealthy1 no longer guaranteed by juridical institutions1 will cease to be a power4444 ,as to the most cunning1 the strongest1 they will be rendered innocuous by the collective strength of the mass of the small1 and very small peasants1 as well as by the agricultural proletarians1 a mass of men to-day reduced to silent suffering1 but whom the revolutionary movement will arm with an irresistible power4 ,please note that ,i do not contend that the agricultural districts which will thus reorganise themselves1 from below upwards1 will immediately create an ideal organisation1 agreeing at all points with the one of which we dream4 ,what ,i am convinced of is that this will be a living organisation1 and as such1 one a thousand times superior to what exists now4 ,moreover1 this new organisation being always open to the propaganda of the towns1 as it can no longer be held down1 so to say petrified by the juridical sanction of the ,state1 it will progress freely1 developing and perfecting itself indefinitely1 but always living and free1 never decreed nor legalised1 until it attains as reasonable a condition as we can hope for in our days4 ,the idealist ,proudhon was convinced that the political constitution had been invented for want of a social organisation immanent in humanity4 ,he took the pains to discover this latter1 and having discovered it1 he could not see what further raison d'tre there was for the political constitution4 ,the materialist ,bakounine has no social organisation of his own make4 ,the most profound and rational science1 he says1 cannot divine the future forms of social life4#da ,this science must be content to distinguish the living social forms from those that owe their origin to the petrifying action of the ,state1 and to condemn these latter4 ,is not this the old ,proudhonian antithesis of the social organisation immanent in humanity1 and of the political constitution invented exclusively in the interests of order8 ,is not the only difference that the materialist transforms the ,utopian programme of the idealist1 into something even more ,utopian1 more nebulous1 more absurd8 ,to believe that the marvellous scheme of the universe is due to chance1 is to imagine that by throwing about a sufficient number of printers' characters at hazard1 we might write the ,iliad4 ,so reasoned the ,deists of the #ahth century in refuting the ,atheists4 ,the latter replied that in this case everything was a question of time1 and that by throwing about the letters an infinite number of times1 we must certainly1 at some period1 make them arrange themselves in the required sequence4 ,discussions of this kind were to the taste of the #ahth century1 and we should be wrong to make too much fun of them now-a-days4 ,but it would seem that ,bakounine took the ,atheist argument of the good old times quite seriously1 and used it in order to make himself a programme4 ,destroy what exists2 if only you do this often enough you are bound at last to produce a social organisation1 approaching at any rate the organisation you dream of4 ,all will go well when once the revolution has come to stay4 ,is not this sufficiently materialist8 ,if you think it is not1 you are a metaphysician1 dreaming of the impossible6 ,the ,proudhonian antithesis of the social organisation and the political constitution reappears living and in its entirety in what ,bakounine is for ever reiterating as to the social revolution on the one hand1 and the political revolution on the other4 ,according to ,proudhon the social organisation has unfortunately1 up to our own days1 never existed1 and for want of it humanity was driven to invent a political constitution4 ,according to ,bakounine the social revolution has never yet been made1 because humanity1 for want of a good social programme had to content itself with political revolutions4 ,now that this programme has been found1 there is no need to bother about the political revolution2 we have quite enough to do with the social revolution4 ,every class struggle being necessarily a political struggle1 it is evident that every political revolution1 worthy of the name1 is a social revolution2 it is evident also that for the proletariat the political struggle is as much a necessity as it has always been for every class struggling to emancipate itself4 ,bakounine anathematises all political action by the proletariat2 he extols the social struggle exclusively4 ,now what is this social struggle8 ,here our ,proudhonian once again shows himself adulterated by ,marxism4 ,he relies as far as possible upon the ,rules of the ,international ,workingmen's ,association4 ,in the preamble of these ,rules it is laid down that the subjection of the worker to capital lies at the bottom of all servitude1 political1 moral and material1 and that therefore the economic emancipation of the workers is the great end to which all political movements must be subordinated as a means4 ,bakounine argues from this that every political movement which has not for its immediate and direct object the final and complete economic emancipation of the workers1 and which has not inscribed upon its banner quite definitely and clearly1 the principle of economic equality1 that is1 the integral restitution of capital to labour1 or else the social liquidation--every such political movement is a bourgeois one1 and as such must be excluded from the ,international4 ,but this same ,bakounine has heard it said that the historical movement of humanity is a process in conformity with certain laws1 and that a revolution cannot be improvised at a moment's notice4 ,he is therefore forced to ask himself1 what is the policy which the ,international is to adopt during that more or less prolonged period of time which separates us from the terrible social revolution which everyone foresees to-day8 ,to this he replies1 with the most profound conviction1 and1 as if quoting the ,rules of the ,international3 ,without mercy the policy of the democratic bourgeois1 or bourgeois-,socialists1 must be excluded1 which1 when these declare that political freedom is a necessary condition of economic emancipation1 can only mean this3 political reforms1 or political revolutions must precede economic reforms or economic revolutions2 the workers must therefore join hands with the more or less ,radical bourgeois1 in order to carry out the former together with them1 then1 being free1 to turn the latter into a reality against them4 ,we protest loudly against this unfortunate theory1 which1 so far as the workers are concerned1 can only result in their again letting themselves be used as tools against themselves1 and handing them over once more to bourgeois exploitation4 ,the ,international commands us to disregard all national or local politics2 it must give the working-class movement in all countries an essentially economic character1 by setting up as final aim the shortening of the hours of labour1 and the increase of wages1 and as a means the association of the working masses1 and the starting of funds for fighting4 ,it is needless to add that the shortening of the hours of labour must1 of course1 be obtained without any intervention from the accursed ,state4#db ,bakounine cannot understand that the working class in its political action can completely separate itself from all the exploiting parties4 ,according to him1 there is no other rle in the political movement for the workers than that of satellite of the ,radical bourgeoisie4 ,he glorifies the essentially economic tactics of the old ,english ,trade ,unions1 and has not the faintest idea that it was these very tactics that made the ,english workers the tail of the ,liberal ,party4 ,bakounine objects to the working class lending a hand in any movement whose object is the obtaining or the extension of political rights4 ,in condemning such movements as bourgeois1 he fancies himself a tremendous revolutionist4 ,as a matter of fact he thus proves himself essentially ,conservative1 and if the working class were ever to follow this line of inaction the ,governments could only rejoice4#dc ,the true revolutionists of our days have a very different idea of ,socialist tactics4 ,they everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things2#dd which does not prevent them 7but quite the contrary7 from forming the proletariat into a party separate from all the exploiter parties1 opposed to the whole reactionary mass4 ,proudhon1 who we know had not any overwhelming sympathy for politics1 nevertheless advised the ,french workers to vote for the candidates who pledged themselves to constitute value4 ,bakounine would not have politics at any price4 ,the worker cannot make use of political liberty3 in order to do so he needs two little things--leisure and material means4 ,so it is all only a bourgeois lie4 ,those who speak of working-class candidates are but mocking the proletariat4 ,working-class candidates1 transferred to bourgeois conditions of life1 and into an atmosphere of completely bourgeois political ideas1 ceasing to be actually workers in order to become statesmen1 will become bourgeois1 and possibly will become even more bourgeois than the bourgeois themselves4 ,for it is not the men who make positions1 but1 on the contrary1 positions which make the men4#de ,this last argument is about all ,bakounine was able to assimilate of the materialist conception of history4 ,it is unquestionably true that man is the product of his social environment4 ,but to apply this incontestable truth with advantage it is necessary to get rid of the old1 metaphysical method of thought which considers things one after the other1 and independently one of the other4 ,now ,bakounine1 like his master1 ,proudhon1 in spite of his flirtation with the ,hegelian philosophy1 all his life remained a metaphysician4 ,he does not understand that the environment which makes man may change1 thus changing man its own product4 ,the environment he has in his mind's eye when speaking of the political action of the proletariat1 is the bourgeois parliamentary environment1 that environment which must necessarily fatally corrupt labour representatives4 ,but the environment of the electors1 the environment of a working-class party1 conscious of its aim and well organised1 would this have no influence upon the elected of the proletariat8 ,no6 ,economically enslaved1 the working class must always remain in political servitude2 in this domain it will always be the weakest2 to free itself it must begin by an economic revolution4 ,bakounine does not see that by this process of reasoning he inevitably arrives at the conclusion that a victory of the proletariat is absolutely impossible1 unless the owners of the means of production voluntarily relinquish their possessions to them4 ,in effect the subjection of the worker to capital is the source not only of political but of moral servitude4 ,and how can the workers1 morally enslaved1 rise against the bourgeoisie8 ,for the working class movement to become possible1 according to ,bakounine1 it must therefore first make an economic revolution4 ,but the economic revolution is only possible as the work of the workers themselves4 ,so we find ourselves in a vicious circle1 out of which modern ,socialism can easily break1 but in which ,bakounine and the ,bakounists are for ever turning with no other hope of deliverance than a logical salto mortale4 ,the corrupting influence of the ,parliamentary environment on working-class representatives is what the ,anarchists have up to the present considered the strongest argument in their criticism of the political activity of ,social-,democracy4 ,we have seen what its theoretical value amounts to4 ,and even a slight knowledge of the history of the ,german ,socialist party will sufficiently show how in practical life the ,anarchist apprehensions are answered4 ,in repudiating all politics ,bakounine was forced to adopt the tactics of the old ,english ,trade ,unions4 ,but even he felt that these tactics were not very revolutionary4 ,he tried to get out of the difficulty by the help of his ,alliance1 a kind of international secret society1 organised on a basis of frenetic centralisation and grotesque fancifulness4 ,subjected to the dictatorial rule of the sovereign pontiff of ,anarchy1 the international and the national brethren were bound to accelerate and direct the essentially economic revolutionary movement4 ,at the same time ,bakounine approved of riots1 of isolated risings of workers and peasants which1 although they must inevitably be crushed out1 would1 he declared1 always have a good influence upon the development of the revolutionary spirit among the oppressed4 ,it goes without saying that with such a programme he was able to do much harm to the working class movement1 but he was not able to draw nearer1 even by a single step1 to that immediate economic revolution of which he dreamed4#df ,we shall presently see the result of the ,bakounist theory of riots4 ,for the present let us sum up what we have said of ,bakounine4 ,and here1 he shall help us himself4 ,upon the ,pangermanic banner i4e41 also upon the banner of ,german ,social-,democracy1 and consequently upon the ,socialist banner of the whole civilised world is inscribed3 ,the conservation and strengthening of the ,state at all costs2 on the ,socialist-revolutionary banner 7read ,bakounist banner7 is inscribed in characters of blood1 in letters of fire3 the abolition of all ,states1 the destruction of bourgeois civilisation2 free organisation from the bottom to the top1 by the help of free associations2 the organisation of the working populace 7sic67 freed from all trammels1 the organisation of the whole of emancipated humanity1 the creation of a new human world4 ,it is with these words that ,bakounine concludes his principal work ,statism and ,anarchy 7,russian74 ,we leave our readers to appreciate the rhetorical beauties of this passage4 ,for our own part we shall be content with saying that it contains absolutely no human meaning whatsoever4 ,the absurd1 pure and simple--that is what is inscribed upon the ,bakounist banner4 ,there is no need of letters of fire and of blood to make this evident to any one who is not hypnotised by a phraseology more or less sonorous1 but always void of sense4 ,the ,anarchism of ,stirner and of ,proudhon was completely individualist4 ,bakounine did not want individualism1 or to speak more correctly1 one particular phase of individualism4 ,he was the inventor of ,collectivist-,anarchism4 ,and the invention cost him little4 ,he completed the liberty ,utopia1 by the equality ,utopia4 ,as these two ,utopias would not agree1 as they cried out at being yoked together1 he threw both into the furnace of the permanent revolution where they were both at last forced to hold their tongues1 for the simple reason that they both evaporated1 the one as completely as the other4 ,bakounine is the dcadent of ,utopism4 ,,footnotes3 #da ,statism and ,anarchy1 ,appendix ,a4 ,but for ,russia the science of ,bakounine was quite equal to divining the future forms of social life2 there is to be the ,commune1 whose ulterior development will start from the actual rural commune4 ,it was especially the ,bakounists who in ,russia spread the notion about the marvellous virtues of the ,russian rural commune4 #db ,see ,bakounine's articles on the ,politics of the ,international in the ,egalit of ,geneva1 ,august1 #ahfi4 #dc ,the anathemas pronounced by ,bakounine against political liberty for a time had a very deplorable influence upon the revolutionary movement in ,russia4 #dd ,communist ,manifesto1 p4 #cj4 #de ,egalit1 #bhth ,august1 #ahfi4 #df ,on the action of ,bakounine in the ,international1 see the two works published by the ,general ,council of that organisation3 ,les ,prtendus ,scissions dans l',internationale1 and ,l',alliance de la ,democratic ,sociale4 ,see also ,engels' article ,die ,bakunisten an der ,arbeit1 reprinted in the recently published pamphlet1 ,internationales aus dem ,volkstaat 7i4e41 a series of articles published in the ,volkstaat17 #ahgc-ge4 ,berlin1 #ahid4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,smaller ,,fry ,among our present-day ,anarchists some1 like ,john ,mackay1 the author of ,die ,anarchisten1 ,kulturgemlde aus dem ,ende des xix4 ,jahrhunderts1 declare for individualism1 while others--by far the more numerous--call themselves ,communists4 ,these are the descendants of ,bakounine in the ,anarchist movement4 ,they have produced a fairly considerable literature in various languages1 and it is they who are making so much noise with the help of the propaganda by deed4 ,the prophet of this school is the ,russian refugee1 ,p4 ,a4 ,kropotkine4 ,i shall not here stop to consider the doctrines of the ,individualist-,anarchist of to-day1 whom even their brethren1 the ,communist-,anarchists1 look upon as bourgeois4#dg ,we will go straight on to the ,anarchist-,communist4 ,what is the standpoint of this new species of ,communism8 ,as to the method followed by the ,anarchist thinker1 it entirely differs from that of the ,utopists1 ,kropotkine assures us4 ,the ,anarchist thinker does not resort to metaphysical conceptions 7like 'natural rights1' the 'duties of the ,state' and so on7 to establish what are1 in his opinion1 the best conditions for realising the greatest happiness of humanity4 ,he follows1 on the contrary1 the course traced by the modern philosophy of evolution4444 ,he studies human society as it is now1 and was in the past2 and1 without either endowing men altogether1 or separate individuals1 with superior qualities which they do not possess1 he merely considers society as an aggregation of organisms trying to find out the best ways of combining the wants of the individual with those of cooperation for the welfare of the species4 ,he studies society and tries to discover its tendencies1 past and present1 its growing needs1 intellectual and economical1 and in this he merely points out in which direction evolution goes4#dh ,so the ,anarchist-,communists have nothing in common with the ,utopians4 ,they do not1 in the elaborating of their ideal1 turn to metaphysical conceptions like natural rights1 the duties of the ,state1 etc4 ,is this really so8 ,so far as the duties of the ,state are concerned1 ,kropotkine is quite right2 it would be too absurd if the ,anarchists invited the ,state to disappear in the name of its own duties4 ,but as to natural rights he is altogether mistaken4 ,a few quotations will suffice to prove this4 ,already in the ,bulletin de la ,fdration ,jurasienne 7,no4 #c1 #ahgg71 we find the following very significant declaration3 ,the sovereignty of the people can only exist through the most complete autonomy of individuals and of groups4 ,this most complete autonomy1 is it not also a metaphysical conception8 ,the ,bulletin de la ,fdration ,jurasienne was an organ of ,collectivist ,anarchism4 ,at bottom there is no difference between ,collectivist and ,communist ,anarchism4 ,and yet1 since it might be that we are making the ,communists responsible for the ,collectivists1 let us glance at the ,communist publications1 not only according to the spirit but the letter4 ,in the autumn of #ahib a few companions appeared before the ,assize ,court of ,versailles in consequence of a theft of dynamite at ,soisy-sous-,etiolles4 ,among others there was one ,g4 ,etivant1 who drew up a declaration of ,anarchist-,communist principles4 ,the tribunal would not allow him to read it1 whereupon the official organ of the ,anarchists1 ,la ,rvolte1 undertook to publish this declaration1 having taken great pains to secure an absolutely correct copy of the original4 ,the ,declaration of ,g4 ,etivant made a sensation in the ,anarchist world1 and even cultured men like ,octave ,mirbeau quote it with respect along with the works of the theorists1 ,bakounine1 ,kropotkine1 the unequalled ,proudhon1 and the aristocratic ,spencer6 ,now this is the line of ,etivant's reasoning3 ,no idea is innate in us2 each idea is born of infinitely diverse and multiple sensations1 which we receive by means of our organs4 ,every act of the individual is the result of one or several ideas4 ,the man is not therefore responsible4 ,in order that responsibility should exist1 will would have to determine the sensations1 just as these determine the idea1 and the idea1 the act4 ,but as it is1 on the contrary1 the sensations which determine the will1 all judgment becomes impossible1 every reward1 every punishment unjust1 however great the good or the evil done may be4 ,thus one cannot judge men and acts unless one has a sufficient criterion4 ,now no such criterion exists4 ,at any rate it is not in the laws that it could be found1 for true justice is immutable and laws are changeable4 ,it is with laws as with all the rest 7674 ,for if laws are beneficent what is the good of deputies and senators to change them8 ,and if they are bad what is the good of magistrates to apply them8 ,having thus demonstrated liberty1 ,etivant passes on to equality4 ,from the zoophytes to men1 all beings are provided with more or less perfect organs destined to serve them4 ,all these beings have therefore the right to make use of their organs according to the evident will of mother ,nature4 ,so for our legs we have the right to all the space they can traverse2 for our lungs to all the air we can breathe2 for our stomach to all the food we can digest2 for our brain to all we can think1 or assimilate of the thoughts of others2 for our faculty of elocution to all we can say2 for our ears to all we can hear2 and we have a right to all this because we have a right to life1 and because all this constitutes life4 ,these are the true rights of man6 ,no need to decree them1 they exist as the sun exists4 ,they are written in no constitution1 in no law1 but they are inscribed in ineffaceable letters in the great book of ,nature and are imprescriptible4 ,from the cheese-mite to the elephant1 from the blade of grass to the oak1 from the atom to the star1 everything proclaims it4 ,if these are not metaphysical conceptions1 and of the very worst type1 a miserable caricature of the metaphysical materialism of the eighteenth century1 if this is the philosophy of evolution1 then we must confess that it has nothing in common with the scientific movement of our day4 ,let us hear another authority1 and quote the now famous book of ,jean ,grave1 ,la ,socit mourante et l',anarchie1 which was recently condemned by ,french judges1 who thought it dangerous1 while it is only supremely ridiculous4 ,anarchy means the negation of authority4 ,now1 ,government claims to base the legitimacy of its existence upon the necessity of defending social institutions3 the family1 religion1 property1 etc4 ,it has created a vast machinery in order to assure its exercise and its sanction4 ,the chief are3 the law1 the magistracy1 the army1 the legislature1 executive powers1 etc4 ,so that the ,anarchist idea1 forced to reply to everything1 was obliged to attack all social prejudices1 to become thoroughly penetrated by all human knowledge1 in order to demonstrate that its conceptions were in harmony with the physiological and psychological nature of man1 and in harmony with the observance of natural laws1 while our actual organisation has been established in contravention of all logic and all good sense4444 ,thus1 in combating authority1 it has been necessary for the ,anarchists to attack all the institutions which the ,government defends1 the necessity for which it tries to demonstrate in order to legitimate its own existence4#di ,you see what was the development of the ,anarchist ,idea4 ,this ,idea denied authority4 ,in order to defend itself1 authority appealed to the family1 religion1 property4 ,then the ,idea found itself forced to attack institutions1 which it had not1 apparently1 noticed before1 and at the same time the ,idea1 in order to make the most of its conceptions1 penetrated to the very depths of all human knowledge 7it is an ill wind that does not blow some good67 ,all this is only the result of chance1 of the unexpected turn given by authority to the discussion that had arisen between itself and the ,idea4 ,it seems to us that however rich in human knowledge it may be now1 the ,anarchist ,idea is not at all communistic2 it keeps its knowledge to itself1 and leaves the poor companions in complete ignorance4 ,it is all very well for ,kropotkine to sing the praises of the ,anarchist thinker2 he will never be able to prove that his friend ,grave has been able to rise even a little above the feeblest metaphysics4 ,kropotkine should read over again the ,anarchist pamphlets of ,elise ,reclus--a great theorist this--and then1 quite seriously tell us if he finds anything else in them but appeals to justice1 liberty1 and other metaphysical conceptions4 ,finally1 ,kropotkine himself is not so emancipated from metaphysics as he fancies he is4 ,far from it6 ,here1 e4g41 is what he said at the general meeting of the ,federation of the ,jura1 on the #abth ,october1 #ahgi1 at ,chaux-de-,fonds3-- ,there was a time when they denied ,anarchists even the right to existence4 ,the ,general ,council of the ,international treated us as factious1 the press as dreamers2 almost all treated us as fools2 this time is past4 ,the ,anarchist party has proved its vitality2 it has surmounted the obstacles of every kind that impeded its development2 to-day it is accepted4 ,by whom8 ,to attain to this1 it has been necessary1 above all else1 for the party to hold its own in the domain of theory1 to establish its ideal of the society of the future1 to prove that this ideal is the best2 to do more than this--to prove that this ideal is not the product of the dreams of the study1 but flows directly from the popular aspirations1 that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas4 ,this work has been done1 etc4444 ,this hunt after the best ideal of the society of the future1 is not this the ,utopian method par excellence8 ,it is true that ,kropotkine tries to prove that this ideal is not the product of dreams of the study1 but flows directly from the popular aspirations1 that it is in accord with the historical progress of culture and ideas4 ,but what ,utopian has not tried to prove this equally with himself8 ,everything depends upon the value of the proofs1 and here our amiable compatriot is infinitely weaker than the great ,utopians whom he treats as metaphysicians1 while he himself has not the least notion of the actual methods of modern social science4 ,but before examining the value of these proofs1 let us make the acquaintance of the ideal itself4 ,what is ,kropotkine's conception of ,anarchist society8 ,pre-occupied with the reorganising of the governmental machine1 the revolutionist-politicians1 the ,jacobins 7,kropotkine detests the ,jacobins even more than our amiable ,empress1 ,catherine ,,ii41 detested them7 allowed the people to die of hunger4 ,the ,anarchists will act differently4 ,they will destroy the ,state1 and will urge on the people to the expropriation of the rich4 ,once this expropriation accomplished1 an inventory of the common wealth will be made1 and the distribution of it organised4 ,everything will be done by the people themselves4 ,just give the people elbow room1 and in a week the business of the food supply will proceed with admirable regularity4 ,only one who has never seen the hard-working people at their labour1 only one who has buried himself in documents1 could doubt this4 ,speak of the organising capacity of the ,great ,misunderstood1 the ,people1 to those who have seen them at ,paris on the days of the barricades 7which is certainly not the case of ,kropotkine7 or in ,london at the time of the last great strike1 when they had to feed half a million starving people1 and they will tell you how superior the people is to all the hide-bound officials4#ej ,the basis upon which the enjoyment in common of the food supply is to be organised will be very fair1 and not at all ,jacobin4 ,there is but one1 and only one1 which is consistent with sentiments of justice1 and is really practical4 ,the taking in heaps from what one possesses abundance of6 ,rationing out what must be measured1 divided6 ,out of #cej millions who inhabit ,europe1 #bjj millions still follow this perfectly natural practice--which proves1 among other things1 that the ,anarchist ideal flows from the popular aspirations4 ,it is the same with regard to housing and clothing4 ,the people will organise everything according to the same rule4 ,there will be an upheaval2 that is certain4 ,only this upheaval must not become mere loss1 it must be reduced to a minimum4 ,and it is again--we cannot repeat it too often--by turning to those immediately interested and not to bureaucrats that the least amount of inconvenience will be inflicted upon everybody4#ea ,thus from the beginning of the revolution we shall have an organisation2 the whims of sovereign individuals will be kept within reasonable bounds by the wants of society1 by the logic of the situation4 ,and1 nevertheless1 we shall be in the midst of full-blown ,anarchy2 individual liberty will be safe and sound4 ,this seems incredible1 but it is true2 there is anarchy1 and there is organisation1 there are obligatory rules for everyone1 and yet everyone does what he likes4 ,you do not follow4 ',tis simple enough4 ,this organisation--it is not the authoritarian revolutionists who will have created it2--these rules1 obligatory upon all1 and yet anarchical1 it is the ,people1 the ,great ,misunderstood1 who will have proclaimed them1 and the ,people are very knowing as anyone who has seen1--what ,kropotkine never had the opportunity of seeing--days of barricade riots1 knows4#eb ,but if the ,great ,misunderstood had the stupidity to create the bureaux so detested of ,kropotkine8 ,if1 as it did in ,march1 #ahga1 it gave itself a revolutionary ,government8 ,then we shall say the people is mistaken1 and shall try to bring it back to a better state of mind1 and if need be we will throw a few bombs at the hide bound officials4 ,we will call upon the ,people to organise1 and will destroy all the organs it may provide itself with4 ,this then is the way in which we realise the excellent ,anarchist ideal--in imagination4 ,in the name of the liberty of individuals all action of the individuals is done away with1 and in the name of the ,people we get rid of the whole class of revolutionists2 the individuals are drowned in the mass4 ,if you can only get used to this logical process1 you meet with no more difficulties1 and you can boast that you are neither authoritarian nor ,utopian4 ,what could be easier1 what more pleasant8 ,but in order to consume1 it is necessary to produce4 ,kropotkine knows this so well that he reads the authoritarian ,marx a lesson on the subject4 ,the evil of the present organisation is not in that the 'surplus value' of production passes over to the capitalist--as ,rodbertus and ,marx had contended--thus narrowing down the ,socialist conception1 and the general ideas on the capitalist regime4 ,surplus value itself is only a consequence of more profound causes4 ,the evil is that there can be any kind of 'surplus value1' instead of a surplus not consumed by each generation2 for1 in order that there may be 'surplus value1' men1 women1 and children must be obliged by hunger to sell their labour powers1 for a trifling portion of what these powers produce1 and1 especially of what they are capable of producing 7poor ,marx1 who knew nothing of all these profound truths1 although so confusedly expounded by the learned ,prince67444 ,it does not1 indeed1 suffice to distribute in equal shares the profits realised in one industry1 if1 at the same time1 one has to exploit thousands of other workers4 ,the point is to produce with the smallest possible expenditure of human labour power the greatest possible amount of products necessary for the well being of all4 7,italicised by ,kropotkine himself47 ,ignorant ,marxists that we are6 ,we have never heard that a ,socialist society pre-supposes a systematic organisation of production4 ,since it is ,kropotkine who reveals this to us1 it is only reasonable that we should turn to him to know what this organisation will be like4 ,on this subject also he has some very interesting things to say4 ,imagine a ,society comprising several million inhabitants engaged in agriculture1 and a great variety of industries--,paris1 for example1 with the ,department of ,seine-et-,oise4 ,imagine that in this ,society all children learn to work with their hand as well as with their brain4 ,admit1 in fine1 that all adults1 with the exception of the women occupied with the education of children1 undertake to work five hours a day from the age of twenty or twenty-two to forty-five or fifty1 and that they spend this time in any occupations they choose1 in no matter what branch of human labour considered necessary4 ,such a ,society could1 in return1 guarantee well-being to all its members1 i4e41 far greater comfort than that enjoyed by the bourgeoisie to-day4 ,and every worker in this ,society would moreover have at his disposal at least five hours a day1 which he could devote to science1 to art1 and to those individual needs that do not come within the category of necessities1 while later on1 when the productive forces of man have augmented1 everything may be introduced into this category that is still to-day looked upon as a luxury or unattainable4#ec ,in ,anarchist ,society there will be no authority1 but there will be the ,contract 7oh6 immortal ,monsieur ,proudhon1 here you are again2 we see all still goes well with you67 by virtue of which the infinitely free individuals agree to work in such or such a free commune4 ,the contract is justice1 liberty1 equality2 it is ,proudhon1 ,kropotkine1 and all the ,saints4 ,but1 at the same time1 do not trifle with the contract6 ,it is a thing not so destitute of means to defend itself as would seem4 ,indeed1 suppose the signatory of a contract freely made does not wish to fulfil his duty8 ,he is driven forth from the free commune1 and he runs the risk of dying of hunger--which is not a particularly gay outlook4 ,i suppose a group or a certain number of volunteers1 combining in some enterprise1 to secure the success of which all rival each other in zeal1 with the exception of one associate1 who frequently absents himself from his post4 ,should they1 on his account1 dissolve the group1 appoint a president who would inflict fines1 or else1 like the ,academy1 distribute attendance-counters8 ,it is evident that we shall do neither the one nor the other1 but that one day the comrade who threatens to jeopardise the enterprise will be told3 ',my friend1 we should have been glad to work with you1 but as you are often absent from your post1 or do your work negligently1 we must part4 ,go and look for other comrades who will put up with your off-hand ways4'#ed ,this is pretty strong at bottom2 but note how appearances are saved1 how very ,anarchist is his language4 ,really1 we should not be at all surprised if in the ,anarchist-,communist society people were guillotined by persuasion1 or1 at any rate1 by virtue of a freely-made contract4 ,but farther1 this very ,anarchist method of dealing with lazy free individuals is perfectly natural1 and is practised everywhere to-day in all industries1 in competition with every possible system of fines1 stoppages from wages1 espionage1 etc42 the workman may go to his shop at the regular hour1 but if he does his work badly1 if he interferes with his comrades by his laziness or other faults1 if they fall out1 it is all over4 ,he is obliged to leave the workshop4#ee ,thus is the ,anarchist ,ideal in complete harmony with the tendencies of capitalist society4 ,for the rest1 such strong measures as these will be extremely rare4 ,delivered from the yoke of the ,state and capitalist exploitation1 individuals will of their own free motion set themselves to supply the wants of the great ,all of society4 ,everything will be done by means of free arrangement4 ,well1 ,citizens1 let others preach industrial barracks1 and the convent of ,authoritarian ,communism1 we declare that the tendency of societies is in the opposite direction4 ,we see millions and millions of groups constituting themselves freely in order to satisfy all the varied wants of human beings1 groups formed1 some by districts1 by streets1 by houses2 others holding out hands across the walls 767 of cities1 of frontiers1 of oceans4 ,all made up of human beings freely seeking one another1 and having done their work as producers1 associating themselves1 to consume1 or to produce articles of luxury1 or to turn science into a new direction4 ,this is the tendency of the nineteenth century1 and we are following it2 we ask only to develop it freely1 without let or hindrance on the part of governments4 ,liberty for the individual6 ,take some pebbles1 said ,fourier1 put them into a box and shake them2 they will arrange themselves into a mosaic such as you could never succeed in producing if you told off some one to arrange them harmoniously4#ef ,a wit has said that the profession of faith of the ,anarchists reduces itself to two articles of a fantastic law3 7#a7 ,there shall be nothing4 7#b7 ,no one is charged with carrying out the above article4 ,this is not correct4 ,the ,anarchists say3 7#a7 ,there shall be everything4 7#b7 ,no one is held responsible for seeing that there is anything at all4 ,this is a very seductive ,ideal1 but its realisation is unfortunately very improbable4 ,let us now ask1 what is this free agreement which according to ,kropotkine1 exists even in capitalist society8 ,he quotes two kinds of examples by way of evidence3 7a7 those connected with production and the circulation of commodities2 7b7 those belonging to all kinds of societies of amateurs--learned societies1 philanthropic societies1 etc4 ,take all the great enterprises3 the ,suez ,canal1 e4g41 ,trans-,atlantic navigation1 the telegraph that unites the two ,americas4 ,take1 in fine1 this organisation of commerce1 which provides that when you get up in the morning you are sure to find bread at the bakers' 444 meat at the butchers'1 and everything you want in the shops4 ,is this the work of the ,state8 ,certainly1 to-day we pay middlemen abominably dearly4 ,well1 all the more reason to suppress them1 but not to think it necessary to confide to the ,government the care of providing our goods and our clothing4#eg ,remarkable fact6 we began by snapping our fingers at ,marx1 who only thought of suppressing surplus value1 and had no idea of the organisation of production1 and we end by demanding the suppression of the profits of the middleman1 while1 so far as production is concerned1 we preach the most bourgeois laissez-faire1 laissez passer4 ,marx might1 not without reason1 have said1 he laughs best who laughs last6 ,we all know what the free agreement of the bourgeois entrepreneur is1 and we can only admire the absolute navt of the man who sees in it the precursor of communism4 ,it is exactly this ,anarchic arrangement that must be got rid of in order that the producers may cease to be the slaves of their own products4#eh ,as to the really free societies of savants1 artists1 philanthropists1 etc41 ,kropotkine himself tells us what their example is worth4 ,they are made up of human beings freely seeking one another after having done their work as producers4 ,although this is not correct--since in these societies there is often not a single producer--this still farther proves that we can only be free after we have settled our account with production4 ,the famous tendency of the nineteenth century1 therefore1 tells us nothing on the main question--how the unlimited liberty of the individual can be made to harmonise with the economic requirements of a communistic society4 ,and as this tendency constitutes the whole of the scientific equipment of our ,anarchist thinker1 we are driven to the conclusion that his appeal to science was merely verbiage1 that he is1 in spite of his contempt for the ,utopians1 one of the least ingenious of these1 a vulgar hunter in search of the best ,ideal4 ,the free agreement works wonders1 if not in ,anarchist society1 which unfortunately does not yet exist1 at least in ,anarchist arguments4 ,our present society being abolished1 individuals no longer needing to hoard in order to make sure of the morrow1 this1 indeed being made impossible1 by the suppression of all money or symbol of value--all their wants being satisfied and provided for in the new society1 the stimulus of individuals being now only that ideal of always striving towards the best1 the relations of individuals or groups no longer being established with a view to those exchanges in which each contracting party only seeks to 'do' his partner 7the free agreement of the bourgeois1 of which ,kropotkine has just spoken to us7 these relations will now only have for object the rendering of mutual services1 with which particular interests have nothing to do1 the agreement will be rendered easy1 the causes of discord having disappeared4#ei ,question3 ,how will the new society satisfy the needs of its members8 ,how will it make them certain of the morrow8 ,answer3 ,by means of free agreements4 ,question3 ,will production be possible if it depends solely upon the free agreement of individuals8 ,answer3 ,of course6 ,and in order to convince yourself of it1 you have only to assume that your morrow is certain1 that all your needs are satisfied1 and1 in a word1 that production1 thanks to free agreement1 is getting on swimmingly4 ,what wonderful logicians these companions are1 and what a beautiful ideal is that which has no other foundation than an illogical assumption6 ,it has been objected that in leaving individuals free to organise as they like1 there would arise that competition between groups which to-day exists between individuals4 ,this is a mistake1 for in the society we desire money would be abolished1 consequently there would no longer be any exchange of products1 but exchange of services4 ,besides1 in order that such a social revolution as we contemplate can have been accomplished we must assume that a certain evolution of ideas will have taken place in the mind of the masses1 or1 at the least1 of a considerable minority among them4 ,but if the workers have been sufficiently intelligent to destroy bourgeois exploitation1 it will not be in order to re-establish it among themselves1 especially when they are assured all their wants will be supplied4#fj ,it is incredible1 but it is incontestably true3 the only basis for the ,ideal of the ,anarchist-,communists1 is this petitio principii1 this assumption of the very thing that has to be proved4 ,companion ,grave1 the profound thinker1 is particularly rich in assumptions4 ,as soon as any difficult problem presents itself1 he assumes that it is already solved1 and then everything is for the best in the best of ideals4 ,the profound ,grave is less circumspect than the learned ,kropotkine4 ,and so it is only he who succeeds in reducing the ideal to absolute absurdity4 ,he asks himself what will be done if in the society of the day after the revolution there should be a papa who should refuse his child all education4 ,the papa is an individual with unlimited rights4 ,he follows the ,anarchist rule1 ,do as thou wouldst4 ,no one has any right1 therefore1 to bring him to his senses4 ,on the other hand1 the child also may do as he likes1 and he wants to learn4 ,how to get out of this conflict1 how resolve the dilemma without offending the holy laws of ,anarchy8 ,by an assumption4 ,relations 7between citizens7 being much wider and more imbued with fraternity than in our present society1 based as it is upon the antagonism of interests1 it follows that the child by means of what he will see passing before his eyes1 by what he will daily hear1 will escape from the influence of the parent1 and will find every facility necessary for acquiring the knowledge his parents refuse to give him4 ,nay more1 if he finds himself too unhappy under the authority they try to force upon him1 he would abandon them in order to place himself under the protection of individuals with whom he was in greater sympathy4 ,the parents could not send the gendarmes after him to bring back to their authority the slave whom the law to-day gives up to them4#fa ,it is not the child who is running away from his parents1 but the ,utopian who is running away from an insurmountable logical difficulty4 ,and yet this judgment of ,solomon has seemed so profound to the companions that1 it has been literally quoted by ,emil ,darnaud in his book ,la ,socit ,future 7,foix4 #ahij1 p4 #bf7--;a book especially intended to popularise the lucubrations of ,grave4 ,anarchy1 the ,no-government system of ,socialism1 has a double origin4 ,it is an outgrowth of the two great movements of thought in the economical and the political fields which characterise our century1 and especially its second part4 ,in common with all ,socialists1 the ,anarchists hold that the private ownership of land1 capital1 and machinery has had its time2 that it is condemned to disappear2 and that all requisites of production must1 and will1 become the common property of society1 and be managed in common by the producers of wealth4 ,and1 in common with the most advanced representatives of political ,radicalism1 they maintain that the ideal of the political organisation of society is a condition of things where the functions of government are reduced to a minimum1 and the individual recovers his full liberty of initiative and action for satisfying1 by means of free groups and federations--freely constituted--all the infinitely varied needs of the human being4 ,as regards ,socialism1 most of the ,anarchists arrive at its ultimate conclusion1 that is1 at a complete negation of the wage-system1 and at ,communism4 ,and with reference to political organisation1 by giving a farther development to the above-mentioned part of the ,radical programme1 they arrive at the conclusion that the ultimate aim of society is the reduction of the functions of governments to nil--that is1 to a society without government1 to ,anarchy4 ,the ,anarchists maintain1 moreover1 that such being the ideal of social and political organisation they must not remit it to future centuries1 but that only those changes in our social organisation which are in accordance with the above double ideal1 and constitute an approach to it1 will have a chance of life and be beneficial for the commonwealth4#fb ,kropotkine here reveals to us1 with admirable clearness1 the origin and nature of his ,ideal4 ,this ,ideal1 like that of ,bakounine1 is truly double2 it is really born of the connection between bourgeois ,radicalism1 or rather that of the ,manchester school1 and ,communism2 just as ,jesus was born in connection between the ,holy ,ghost and the ,virgin ,mary4 ,the two natures of the ,anarchist ideal are as difficult to reconcile as the two natures of the ,son of ,god4 ,but one of these natures evidently gets the better of the other4 ,the ,anarchists want to begin by immediately realising what ,kropotkine calls the ultimate aim of society1 that is to say1 by destroying the ,state4 ,their starting point is always the unlimited liberty of the individual4 ,manchesterism before everything4 ,communism only comes in afterwards4#fc ,but in order to reassure us as to the probable fate of this second nature of their ,ideal1 the ,anarchists are constantly singing the praises of the wisdom1 the goodness1 the forethought of the man of the future4 ,he will be so perfect that he will no doubt be able to organise ,communist production4 ,he will be so perfect that one asks oneself1 while admiring him1 why he cannot be trusted with a little authority4 ,,footnotes3 #dg ,the few ,individualists we come across are only strong in their criticism of the ,state and of the law4 ,as to their constructive ideal1 a few preach an idyll that they themselves would never care to practise1 while others1 like the editor of ,liberty1 ,boston1 fall back upon an actual bourgeois system4 ,in order to defend their ,individualism they reconstruct the ,state with all its attributes 7law1 police1 and the rest7 after having so courageously denied them4 ,others1 finally1 like ,auberon ,herbert1 are stranded in a ,liberty and ,property ,defence ,league--a ,league for the defence of landed property4 ,la ,rvolte1 ,no4 #ch1 #ahic1 ,a lecture on ,anarchism4 #dh ,anarchist-,communism2 its ,basis and ,principles1 by ,peter ,kropotkine1 republished by permission of the ,editor of the ,nineteenth ,century4 ,february and ,august1 #ahhg1 ,london4 #di l4c41 pp4 #a-b4 #ej ,la ,conqute du ,pain4 ,paris1 #ahib4 pp4 #gg-gh4 #ea ,ibid41 p4 #aaa4 #eb ,as1 however1 ,kropotkine was in ,london at the time of the great ,dock ,strike1 and therefore had an opportunity of learning how the food supply was managed for the strikers1 it is worth pointing out that this was managed quite differently from the method suggested above4 ,an organised ,committee1 consisting of ,trade ,unionists helped by ,state ,socialists 7,champion7 and ,social-,democrats 7,john ,burns1 ,tom ,mann1 ,eleanor ,marx ,aveling1 etc47 made contracts with shopkeepers1 and distributed stamped tickets1 for which could be obtained certain articles of food4 ,the food supplied was paid for with the money that had been raised by subscriptions1 and to these subscriptions the bourgeois public1 encouraged by the bourgeois press1 had very largely contributed4 ,direct distributions of food to strikers1 and those thrown out of work through the strike1 were made by the ,salvation ,army1 an essentially centralised1 bureaucratically organised body1 and other philanthropic societies4 ,all this has very little to do with the procuring and distributing of the food supply1 the day after the revolution2 with the organising of the service for supplying food4 ,the food was there1 and it was only a question of buying and dividing it as a means of support4 ,the ,people1 i4e41 the strikers1 by no means helped themselves in this respect2 they were helped by others4 #ec ,la ,conqute du ,pain1 pp4 #abh-abi4 #ed ,ibid41 pp4 #bja-bjb4 #ee ,ibid41 p4 #bjb4 #ef ,l',anarchie dans l',evolution socialiste4 ,lecture at the ,salle ,levis1 ,paris1 #ahhh1 pp4 #bj-ba4 #eg ,ibid41 p4 #ai4 #eh ,kropotkine speaks of the ,suez ,canal6 ,why not the ,panama ,canal8 #ei ,la ,socit au lendemain de la ,rvolution4 ,j4 ,grave1 #ahhi1 ,paris1 pp4 #fa-fb4 #fj ,ibid41 p4 #dg4 #fa ,ibid41 p4 #ii4 #fb ,anarchist ,communism1 p4 #c4 #fc ,l',anarchia il funzionamento armonico di tutte le autonomie1 risolventesi nella eguaglianza totale delle condizioni umane4 ,l',anarchia nella scienza e nelle evoluzione4 7,traduzione dello ,spagnuolo7 ,piato1 ,toscana1 #ahib1 p4 #bf4 ,anarchy is the harmonious functioning of all autonomy resolved in the complete equalisation of all human conditions4 ,anarchy in ,science and ,evolution4--,italian1 translated from the ,spanish4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,so-,,called ,,anarchist ,,tactics4 ,,their ,,morality ,the ,anarchists are ,utopians4 ,their point of view has nothing in common with that of modern scientific ,socialism4 ,but there are ,utopias and ,utopias4 ,the great ,utopians of the first half of our century were men of genius2 they helped forward social science1 which in their time was still entirely ,utopian4 ,the ,utopians of to-day1 the ,anarchists1 are the abstracters of quintessence1 who can only fully draw forth some poor conclusions from certain mummified principles4 ,they have nothing to do with social science1 which1 in its onward march1 has distanced them by at least half a century4 ,their profound thinkers1 their lofty theorists1 do not even succeed in making the two ends of their reasoning meet4 ,they are the decadent ,utopians1 stricken with incurable intellectual anmia4 ,the great ,utopians did much for the development of the working class movement4 ,the ,utopians of our days do nothing but retard its progress4 ,and it is especially their so-called tactics that are harmful to the proletariat4 ,we already know that ,bakounine interpreted the ,rules of the ,international in the sense that the working class must give up all political action1 and concentrate its efforts upon the domain of the immediately economic struggle for higher wages1 a reduction of the hours of labour1 and so forth4 ,bakounine himself felt that such tactics were not very revolutionary4 ,he tried to complete them through the action of his ,alliance2 he preached riots4#fd ,but the more the class consciousness of the proletariat develops1 the more it inclines towards political action1 and gives up the riots1 so common during its infancy4 ,it is more difficult to induce the working men of ,western ,europe1 who have attained a certain degree of political development1 to riot1 than1 for example1 the credulous and ignorant ,russian peasants4 ,as the proletariat has shown no taste for the tactics of riot1 the companions have been forced to replace it by individual action4 ,it was especially after the attempted insurrection at ,benevento in ,italy in #ahgg that the ,bakounists began to glorify the propaganda of deed4 ,but if we glance back at the period that separates us from the attempt of ,benevento1 we shall see that this propaganda too assumed a special form3 very few riots1 and these quite insignificant1 a great many personal attempts against public edifices1 against individuals1 and even against property--individually hereditary1 of course4 ,it could not be otherwise4 ,we have already seen numerous revolts by people who wished to obtain urgent reforms1 says ,louise ,michel1 in an interview with a correspondent of the ,matin1 on the occasion of the ,vaillant attempt4 ,what was the result8 ,the people were shot down4 ,well1 we think the people has been sufficiently bled2 it is better large-hearted people should sacrifice themselves1 and1 at their own risk1 commit acts of violence whose object is to terrorise the ,government and the bourgeois4#fe ,this is exactly what we have said--only in slightly different words4 ,louise ,michel has forgotten to say that revolts1 causing the bloodshed of the people1 figured at the head of the ,anarchists' programme1 until the ,anarchists became convinced1 not that these partial risings in no way serve the cause of the workers1 but that the workers1 for the most part1 will not have anything to do with these risings4 ,error has its logic as well as truth4 ,once you reject the political action of the working-class1 you are fatally driven--provided you do not wish to serve the bourgeois politicians--to accept the tactics of the ,vaillants and the ,henrys4 ,the so-called ,independent 7,unabhngige7 members of the ,german ,socialist ,party have proved this in their own persons4 ,they began by attacking ,parliamentarism1 and to the reformist tactics of the old members they opposed--on paper1 of course--the revolutionary struggle1 the purely economic struggle4 ,but this struggle1 developing naturally1 must inevitably bring about the entry of the proletariat into the arena of political struggles4 ,not wishing to come back to the very starting-point of their negation1 the ,independents1 for a time1 preached what they called political demonstrations1 a new kind of old ,bakounist riots4 ,as riots1 by whatever name they are called1 always come too late for the fiery revolutionists1 there was only left to the ,independents to march forward1 to become converts to ,anarchy1 and to propagate--in words--the propaganda of deed4 ,the language of the young ,landauers and ,co4 is already as revolutionary as that of the oldest ,anarchists4 ,reason and knowledge only thou despise ,the highest strength in man that lies6 ,let but the lying spirit bind thee1 ,with magic works and shows that blind thee1 ,and ,i shall have thee fast and sure4 ,as to the magic work and shows1 they are innumerable in the arguments of the ,anarchists against the political activity of the proletariat4 ,here hate becomes veritable witchcraft4 ,thus ,kropotkine turns their own arm--the materialist conception of history--against the ,social-,democrats4 ,to each new economical phase of life corresponds a new political phase1 he assures us4 ,absolute monarchy--that is ,court-rule--corresponded to the system of serfdom4 ,representative government corresponds to capital-rule4 ,both1 however1 are class-rule4 ,but in a society where the distinction between capitalist and labourer has disappeared1 there is no need of such a government2 it would be an anachronism1 a nuisance4#ff ,if ,social-,democrats were to tell him they know this at least as well as he does1 ,kropotkine would reply that possibly they do1 but that then they will not draw a logical conclusion from these premises4 ,he1 ,kropotkine1 is your real logician4 ,since the political constitution of every country is determined by its economic condition1 he argues1 the political action of ,socialists is absolute nonsense4 ,to seek to attain ,socialism or even 767 an agrarian revolution by means of a political revolution1 is the merest ,utopia1 because the whole of history shows us that political changes flow from the great economic revolutions1 and not vice vers4#fg ,could the best geometrician in the world ever produce anything more exact than this demonstration8 ,basing his argument upon this impregnable foundation1 ,kropotkine advises the ,russian revolutionists to give up their political struggle against ,tzarism4 ,they must follow an immediately economic end4 ,the emancipation of the ,russian peasants from the yoke of serfdom that has until now weighed upon them1 is therefore the first task of the ,russian revolutionist4 ,in working along these lines he directly and immediately works for the good of the people 444 and he moreover prepares for the weakening of the centralised power of the ,state and for its limitation4#fh ,thus the emancipation of the peasants will have prepared the way for the weakening of ,russian ,tzarism4 ,but how to emancipate the peasants before overthrowing ,tzarism8 ,absolute mystery6 ,such an emancipation would be a veritable witchcraft4 ,old ,liscow was right when he said1 ,it is easier and more natural to write with the fingers than with the head4 ,however this may be1 the whole political action of the working-class must be summed up in these few words3 ,no politics6 ,long live the purely economic struggle6 ,this is ,bakounism1 but perfected ,bakounism4 ,bakounine himself urged the workers to fight for a reduction of the hours of labour1 and higher wages4 ,the ,anarchist-,communists of our day seek to make the workers understand that they have nothing to gain from such child's play as this1 and that society can only be transformed by destroying the institutions which govern it4#fi ,the raising of wages is also useless4 ,north ,america and ,south ,america1 are they not there to prove to us that whenever the worker has succeeded in getting higher wages1 the prices of articles of consumption have increased proportionately1 and that where he has succeeded in getting #bj francs a day for his wages1 he needs #be to be able to live according to the standard of the better class workman1 so that he is always below the average8#gj ,the reduction of the hours of labour is at any rate superfluous since capital will always make it up by a systematic intensification of labour by means of improved machinery4 ,marx himself has demonstrated this as clearly as possible4#ga ,we know1 thanks to ,kropotkine1 that the ,anarchist ideal has a double origin4 ,and all the ,anarchist demonstrations also have a double origin4 ,on the one hand they are drawn from the vulgar hand books of political economy1 written by the most vulgar of bourgeois economists1 e4g41 ,grave's dissertation upon wages1 which ,bastiat would have applauded enthusiastically4 ,on the other hand1 the companions1 remembering the somewhat ,communist origin of their ideal1 turn to ,marx and quote1 without understanding1 him4 ,even ,bakounine has been sophisticated by ,marxism4 ,the latter-day ,anarchists1 with ,kropotkine at their head1 have been even more sophisticated4 ,the ignorance of ,grave1 the profound thinker1 is very remarkable in general1 but it exceeds the bounds of all probability in matters of political economy4 ,here it is1 only equalled by that of the learned geologist ,kropotkine1 who makes the most monstrous statements whenever he touches upon an economic question4 ,we regret that space will not allow us to amuse the reader with some samples of ,anarchist economics4 ,they must content themselves with what ,kropotkine has taught them about ,marx's surplus-value4 ,all this would be very ridiculous1 if it were not too sad1 as the ,russian poet ,lermontoff says4 ,and it is sad indeed4 ,whenever the proletariat makes an attempt to somewhat ameliorate its economic position1 large-hearted people1 vowing they love the proletariat most tenderly1 rush in from all points of the compass1 and depending on their halting syllogisms1 put spokes into the wheel of the movement1 do their utmost to prove that the movement is useless4 ,we have had an example of this with regard to the eight hours day1 which the ,anarchists combated1 whenever they could1 with a zeal worthy of a better cause4 ,when the proletariat takes no notice of this1 and pursues its immediately economic aims undisturbed--as it has the fortunate habit of doing--the same large-hearted people re-appear upon the scene armed with bombs1 and provide the government with the desired and sought for pretext for attacking the proletariat4 ,we have seen this at ,paris on ,may #a1 #ahij2 we have seen it often during strikes4 ,fine fellows these large-hearted men6 ,and to think that among the workers themselves there are men simple enough to consider as their friends1 these personages who are1 in reality1 the most dangerous enemies of their cause6 ,an ,anarchist will have nothing to do with parliamentarism1 since it only lulls the proletariat to sleep4 ,he will none of reforms1 since reforms are but so many compromises with the possessing classes4 ,he wants the revolution1 a full1 complete1 immediate1 and immediately economic revolution4 ,to attain this end he arms himself with a saucepan full of explosive materials1 and throws it amongst the public in a theatre or a caf4 ,he declares this is the revolution4 ,for our own part it seems to us nothing but immediate madness4 ,it goes without saying that the bourgeois governments1 whilst inveighing against the authors of these attempts1 cannot but congratulate themselves upon these tactics4 ,society is in danger6 ,caveant consules6 ,and the police consuls become active1 and public opinion applauds all the reactionary measures resorted to by ministers in order to save society4 ,the terrorist saviours of society in uniform1 to gain the respect of the ,philistine masses must appear with the halo of true sons of 'holy order1' the daughter of ,heaven rich in blessings1 and to this halo the school-boy attempts of these ,terrorists help them4 ,such a silly fool1 lost in his fantastical imaginings1 does not even see that he is only a puppet1 whose strings are pulled by a cleverer one in the ,terrorist wings2 he does not see that the fear and terror he causes only serve to so deaden all the senses of the ,philistine crowd1 that it shouts approval of every massacre that clears the road for reaction4#gb ,napoleon ,,iii4 already indulged from time to time in an outrage in order once again to save society menaced by the enemies of order4 ,the foul admissions of ,andrieux1#gc the acts and deeds of the ,german and ,austrian agents provocateurs1 the recent revelations as to the attempt against the ,madrid ,parliament1 etc41 prove abundantly that the present ,governments profit enormously by the tactics of the companions1 and that the work of the ,terrorists in uniform would be much more difficult if the ,anarchists were not so eager to help in it4 ,thus it is that spies of the vilest kind1 like ,joseph ,peukert1 for long years figured as shining lights of ,anarchism1 translating into ,german the works of foreign ,anarchists2 thus it is that the ,french bourgeois and priests directly subvention the companions1 and that the law-and-order ministry does everything in its power to throw a veil over these shady machinations4 ,and so1 too1 in the name of the immediate revolution1 the ,anarchists become the precious pillars of bourgeois society1 inasmuch as they furnish the raison d'tre for the most immediately reactionary policy4 ,thus the reactionary and ,conservative press has always shown a hardly disguised sympathy for the ,anarchists1 and has regretted that the ,socialists1 conscious of their end and aim1 will have nothing to do with them4 ,they drive them away like poor dogs1 pitifully exclaims the ,paris ,figaro1 propos of the expulsion of the ,anarchists from the ,zurich ,congress4#gd ,an ,anarchist is a man who--when he is not a police agent--is fated always and everywhere to attain the opposite of that which he attempts to achieve4 ,to send working men to a ,parliament1 said ,bordat1 before the ,lyons tribunal in #ahic1 is to act like a mother who would take her daughter to a brothel4 ,thus it is also in the name of morality that the ,anarchists repudiate political action4 ,but what is the outcome of their fear of parliamentary corruption8 ,the glorification of theft1 7,put money in thy purse1 wrote ,most in his ,freiheit1 already in #ahhj71 the exploits of the ,duvals and ,ravachols1 who in the name of the cause commit the most vulgar and disgusting crimes4 ,the ,russian writer1 ,herzen1 relates somewhere how on arriving at some small ,italian town1 he met only priests and bandits1 and was greatly perplexed1 being unable to decide which were the priests and which the bandits4 ,and this is the position of every impartial person to-day2 for how are you going to divine where the companion ends and the bandit begins8 ,the ,anarchists themselves are not always sure1 as was proved by the controversy caused in their ranks by the ,ravachol affair4 ,thus the better among them1 those whose honesty is absolutely unquestionable1 constantly fluctuate in their views of the propaganda of deed4 ,condemn the propaganda of deed8 says ,elyse ,reclus4 ,but what is this propaganda except the preaching of well-doing and love of humanity by example8 ,those who call the propaganda of deed acts of violence prove that they have not understood the meaning of this expression4 ,the ,anarchist who understands his part1 instead of massacring somebody or other1 will exclusively strive to bring this person round to his opinions1 and to make of him an adept who1 in his turn1 will make propaganda of deed by showing himself good and just to all those whom he may meet4#ge ,we will not ask what is left of the ,anarchist who has divorced himself from the tactics of deeds4 ,we only ask the reader to consider the following lines3 ,the editor of the ,sempre ,avanti wrote to ,elyse ,reclus asking him for his true opinion of ,ravachol4 ',i admire his courage1 his goodness of heart1 his greatness of soul1 the generosity with which he pardons his enemies1 or rather his betrayers4 ,i hardly know of any men who have surpassed him in nobleness of conduct4 ,i reserve the question as to how far it is always desirable to push to extremities one's own right1 and whether other considerations moved by a spirit of human solidarity ought not to prevail4 ,still ,i am none the less one of those who recognise in ,ravachol a hero of a magnanimity but little common4'#gf ,this does not at all fit in with the declaration quoted above1 and it proves irrefutably that citizen ,reclus fluctuates1 that he does not know exactly where his companion ends and the bandit begins4 ,the problem is the more difficult to solve that there are a good many individuals who are at the same time bandits and ,anarchists4 ,ravachol was no exception4 ,at the house of the ,anarchists1 ,oritz and ,chiericotti1 recently arrested at ,paris1 an enormous mass of stolen goods were found4 ,nor is it only in ,france that you have the combination of these two apparently different trades4 ,it will suffice to remind the reader of the ,austrians ,kammerer and ,stellmacher4 ,kropotkine would have us believe that ,anarchist morality1 a morality free from all obligations or sanction1 opposed to all utilitarian calculations1 is the same as the natural morality of the people1 the morality from the habit of well doing4#gg ,the morality of the ,anarchists is that of persons who look upon all human action from the abstract point of view of the unlimited rights of the individual1 and who1 in the name of these rights1 pass a verdict of ,not guilty on the most atrocious deeds1 the most revolting arbitrary acts4 ,what matter the victims1 exclaimed the ,anarchist poet ,laurent ,tailhade1 on the very evening of ,vaillant's outrage1 at the banquet of the ,plume ,society1 provided the gesture is beautiful8 ,tailhade is a decadent1 who1 because he is blas has the courage of his ,anarchist opinions4 ,in fact the ,anarchists combat democracy because democracy1 according to them1 is nothing but the tyranny of the majority as against the minority4 ,the majority has no right to impose its wishes upon the minority4 ,but if this is so1 in the name of what moral principle do the ,anarchists revolt against the bourgeoisie8 ,because the bourgeoisie are not a minority8 ,or because they do not do what they will to do8 ,do as thou would'st1 proclaim the ,anarchists4 ,the bourgeoisie want to exploit the proletariat1 and do it remarkably well4 ,they thus follow the ,anarchist precept1 and the companions are very wrong to complain of their conduct4 ,they become altogether ridiculous when they combat the bourgeoisie in the name of their victims4 ,what matters the death of vague human beings--continues the ,anarchist logician ,tailhade--if thereby the individual affirms himself8 ,here we have the true morality of the ,anarchists2 it is also that of the crowned heads4 ,sic volo1 sic jubeo6#gh ,thus1 in the name of the revolution1 the ,anarchists serve the cause of reaction2 in the name of morality they approve the most immoral acts2 in the name of individual liberty they trample under foot all the rights of their fellows4 ,and this is why the whole ,anarchist doctrine founders upon its own logic4 ,if any maniac may1 because he wants to1 kill as many men as he likes1 society1 composed of an immense number of individuals1 may certainly bring him to his senses1 not because it is its caprice1 but because it is its duty1 because such is the conditio sine qu non of its existence4 ,,footnotes3 #fd ,in their dreams of riots and even of the ,revolution1 the ,anarchists1 burn1 with real passion and delight1 all title-deeds of property1 and all governmental documents4 ,it is ,kropotkine especially who attributes immense importance to these auto-da-fe4 ,really1 one would think him a rebellious civil servant4 #fe ,republished in the ,peuple of ,lyons1 ,december #bj1 #ahic4 #ff ,anarchist ,communism1 p4 #h4 #fg ,kropotkine's preface to the ,russian edition of ,bakounine's pamphlet ,la ,commune de ,paris et la notion de l',etat4 ,geneva1 #ahib1 p4 #e4 #fh ,ibid41 same page4 #fi ,j4 ,grave ,la ,socit ,mourante et ,l',anarchie1 p4 #bec4 #gj ,ibid41 p4 #bdi4 #ga ,ibid41 pp4 #bej-bea4 #gb ,vorwrts1 ,january #bc1 #ahid4 #gc ,the companions were looking for someone to advance funds1 but infamous capital did not seem in a hurry to reply to their appeal4 ,i urged on infamous capital1 and succeeded in persuading it that it was to its own interest to facilitate the publication of an ,anarchist paper4444 ,but don't imagine that ,i with frank brutality offered the ,anarchists the encouragement of the ,prefect of police4 ,i sent a well-dressed bourgeois to one of the most active and intelligent of them4 ,he explained that having made a fortune in the druggist line1 he wanted to devote a part of his income to advancing the ,socialist propaganda4 ,this bourgeois1 anxious to be devoured1 inspired the companions with no suspicion4 ,through his hands ,i placed the caution-money caution-money has to be deposited before starting a paper in ,france in the coffers of the ,state1 and the journal1 ,la ,rvolution ,sociale1 made its appearance4 ,it was a weekly paper1 my druggist's generosity not extending to the expenses of a daily4--,souvenirs d'un ,prfet de ,police4 ,memoirs of a ,prefect of ,police4 ,by ,j4 ,andrieux4 7,jules ,rouff et ,cie1 ,paris1 #ahhe47 ,vol4 ,i41 p4 #ccg1 etc4 #gd ,in passing1 we may remark that it is in the name of freedom of speech that the ,anarchists claim to be admitted to ,socialist ,congresses4 ,yet this is the opinion of the ,french official journal of the ,anarchists upon these ,congresses3--,the ,anarchists may congratulate themselves that some of their number attended the ,troyes ,congress4 ,absurd1 motiveless1 and senseless as an ,anarchist ,congress would be1 just as logical is it to take advantage of ,socialist ,congresses in order to develop our ideas there4--,la ,rvolte1 #f-ab ,january1 #ahhi4 ,may not we also1 in the name of freedom1 ask the companions to leave us alone8 #ge ,see in the ,l',etudiant ,socialiste of ,brussels1 ,no4 #f 7#ahid7 the republication of the declaration made by ,elyse ,reclus1 to a correspondent who had questioned him upon the ,anarchist attempts4 #gf ,the ,twentieth ,century1 a weekly ,radical magazine1 ,new ,york1 ,september1 #ahib1 p4 #ae4 #gg ,see ,kropotkine's ,anarchist ,communism1 pp4 #cd-ce2 also his ,anarchie dans l',evolution ,socialiste1 pp4 #bd-be1 and many passages in his ,morale ,anarchiste4 #gh ,the papers have just announced that ,tailhade was wounded by an explosion at the ,restaurant ,foyot4 ,the telegram 7,la ,tribune de ,genve1 #eth ,april1 #ahid7 adds--,m4 ,tailhade is constantly protesting against the ,anarchist theories he is credited with4 ,one of the house surgeons1 having reminded him of his article and the famous phrase quoted above1 ,m4 ,tailhade remained silent1 and asked for chloral to alleviate his pain4 ,,chapter ,,ix--,,conclusion ,,the ,,bourgeoisie1 ,,anarchism1 ,,and ,,socialism ,the father of ,anarchy1 the immortal ,proudhon1 bitterly mocked at those people for whom the revolution consisted of acts of violence1 the exchange of blows1 the shedding of blood4 ,the descendants of the father1 the modern ,anarchists1 understand by revolution only this brutally childish method4 ,everything that is not violence is a betrayal of the cause1 a foul compromise with authority4#gi ,the scared bourgeoisie does not know what to do against them4 ,in the domain of theory they are absolutely impotent with regard to the ,anarchists1 who are their own enfants terribles4 ,the bourgeoisie was the first to propagate the theory of laissez faire1 of dishevelled individualism4 ,their most eminent philosopher of to-day1 ,herbert ,spencer1 is nothing but a conservative ,anarchist4 ,the companions are active and zealous persons1 who carry the bourgeois reasoning to its logical conclusion4 ,the magistrates of the ,french bourgeois ,republic have condemned ,grave to prison1 and his book1 ,la ,socit ,mourante et l',anarchie to destruction4 ,the bourgeois men of letters declare this puerile book a profound work1 and its author a man of rare intellect4 ,and not only has the bourgeoisie#hj no theoretical weapons with which to combat the ,anarchists2 they see their young folk enamoured of the ,anarchist doctrine4 ,in this society1 satiated and rotten to the marrow of its bones1 where all faiths are long since dead1 where all sincere opinions appear ridiculous1 in this monde o l'on s'ennui1 where after having exhausted all forms of enjoyment they no longer know in what new fancy1 in what fresh excess to seek novel sensations1 there are people who lend a willing ear to the song of the ,anarchist siren4 ,amongst the ,paris companions there are already not a few men quite comme il faut1 men about town who1 as the ,french writer1 ,raoul ,allier1 says1 wear nothing less than patent leather shoes1 and put a green carnation in their button-holes before they go to meetings4 ,decadent writers and artists are converted to ,anarchism and propagate its theories in reviews like the ,mercure de ,france1 ,la ,plume1 etc4 ,and this is comprehensible enough4 ,one might wonder indeed if ,anarchism1 an essentially bourgeois doctrine1 had not found adepts among the ,french bourgeoisie1 the most blase of all bourgeoisies4 ,by taking possession of the ,anarchist doctrine1 the decadent1 fin-de-sicle writers restore to it its true character of bourgeois individualism4 ,if ,kropotkine and ,reclus speak in the name of the worker1 oppressed by the capitalist1 ,la ,plume and the ,mercure de ,france speak in the name of the individual who is seeking to shake off all the trammels of society in order that he may at last do freely what he wants to4 ,thus ,anarchism comes back to its starting-point4 ,stirner said3 ,nothing for me goes beyond myself4 ,laurent ,tailhade says3 ,what matters the death of vague human beings1 if thereby the individual affirms himself4 ,the bourgeoisie no longer knows where to turn4 ,i who have fought so much for ,positivism1 moans ,emile ,zola1 well1 yes6 after thirty years of this struggle1 ,i feel my convictions are shaken4 ,religious faith would have prevented such theories from being propagated2 but has it not almost disappeared to-day8 ,who will give us a new ideal8 ,alas1 gentlemen1 there is no ideal for walking corpses such as you6 ,you will try everything4 ,you will become ,buddhists1 ,druids1 ,srs1 ,chaldeans1 ,occultists1 ,magi1 ,theosophists1 or ,anarchists1 whichever you prefer--and yet you will remain what you are now--beings without faith or principle1 bags1 emptied by history4 ,the ideal of the bourgeois has lived4 ,for ourselves1 ,social-,democrats1 we have nothing to fear from the ,anarchist propaganda4 ,the child of the bourgeoisie1 ,anarchism1 will never have any serious influence upon the proletariat4 ,if among the ,anarchists there are workmen who sincerely desire the good of their class1 and who sacrifice themselves to what they believe to be the good cause1 it is only thanks to a misunderstanding that they find themselves in this camp4 ,they only know the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat under the form which the ,anarchists are trying to give it4 ,when more enlightened they will come to us4 ,here is an example to prove this4 ,during the trial of the ,anarchists at ,lyons in #ahhc1 the working man ,desgranges related how he had become an ,anarchist1 he who had formerly taken part in the political movement1 and had even been elected a municipal councillor at ,villefranche in ,november1 #ahgi4 ,in #ahha1 in the month of ,september1 when the dyers' strike broke out at ,villefranche1 ,i was elected secretary of the strike committee1 and it was during this memorable event 444 that ,i became convinced of the necessity of suppressing authority1 for authority spells despotism4 ,during this strike1 when the employers refused to discuss the matter with the workers1 what did the prefectural and communal administrations do to settle the dispute8 ,fifty gendarmes1 with sword in hand1 were told off to settle the question4 ,that is what is called the pacific means employed by ,governments4 ,it was then1 at the end of this strike1 that some working men1 myself among the number1 understood the necessity of seriously studying economic questions1 and1 in order to do so1 we agreed to meet in the evening to study together4#ha ,it is hardly necessary to add that this group became ,anarchist4 ,that is how the trick is done4 ,a working man1 active and intelligent1 supports the programme of one or the other bourgeois party4 ,the bourgeois talk about the well-being of the people1 the workers1 but betray them on the first opportunity4 ,the working man who has believed in the sincerity of these persons is indignant1 wants to separate from them1 and decides to study seriously economic questions4 ,an ,anarchist comes along1 and reminding him of the treachery of the bourgeois1 and the sabres of the gendarmes1 assures him that the political struggle is nothing but bourgeois nonsense1 and that in order to emancipate the workers political action must be given up1 making the destruction of the ,state the final aim4 ,the working man who was only beginning to study the situation thinks the companion is right1 and so he becomes a convinced and devoted ,anarchist6 ,what would happen1 if pursuing his studies of the social question further1 he had understood that the companion was a pretentious ignoramus1 that he talked twaddle1 that his ,ideal is a delusion and a snare1 that outside bourgeois politics there is1 opposed to these1 the political action of the proletariat1 which will put an end to the very existence of capitalist society8 ,he would have become a ,social-,democrat4 ,thus the more widely our ideas become known among the working classes1 and they are thus becoming more and more widely known1 the less will proletarians be inclined to follow the ,anarchist4 ,anarchism1 with the exception of its learned housebreakers1 will more and more transform itself into a kind of bourgeois sport1 for the purpose of providing sensations for individuals who have indulged too freely in the pleasures of the world1 the flesh and the devil4 ,and when the proletariat are masters of the situation1 they will only need to look at the companions1 and even the finest of them will be silenced2 they will only have to breathe to disperse all the ,anarchist dust to the winds of heaven4 ,,footnotes3 #gi ,it is true that men like ,reclus do not always approve of such notions of the revolution4 ,but again we ask1 what is left of the ,anarchist when once he rejects the propaganda of deed8 ,a sentimental1 visionary bourgeois--nothing more4 #hj ,in order to obtain some idea of the weakness of the bourgeois theorists and politicians in their struggle against the ,anarchists1 it suffices to read the articles of ,c4 ,lombroso and ,a4 ,brard in the ,revue des ,revues1 #aeth ,february1 #ahid1 or the article of ,j4 ,bourdeau in the ,revue de ,paris1 #aeth ,march1 #ahid4 ,the latter can only appeal to human nature which1 he thinks1 will not be changed through the pamphlets of ,kropotkine and the bombs of ,ravachol4 #ha ,see report of the ,anarchist trial before the ,correctional ,police and the ,court of ,appeal of ,lyons2 ,lyons1 #ahhc1 pp4 #ij-ia4