Part 7 (1/2)

”Anarchy, the No-government system of Socialism, has a double origin. It is an outgrowth of the two great movements of thought in the economical and the political fields which characterise our century, and especially its second part. In common with all Socialists, the Anarchists hold that the private owners.h.i.+p of land, capital, and machinery has had its time; that it is condemned to disappear; and that all requisites of production must, and will, become the common property of society, and be managed in common by the producers of wealth. And, in common with the most advanced representatives of political Radicalism, they maintain that the ideal of the political organisation of society is a condition of things where the functions of government are reduced to a minimum, and the individual recovers his full liberty of initiative and action for satisfying, by means of free groups and federations--freely const.i.tuted--all the infinitely varied needs of the human being. As regards Socialism, most of the Anarchists arrive at its ultimate conclusion, that is, at a complete negation of the wage-system, and at Communism. And with reference to political organisation, by giving a farther development to the above-mentioned part of the Radical programme, they arrive at the conclusion that the ultimate aim of society is the reduction of the functions of governments to _nil_--that is, to a society without government, to Anarchy. The Anarchists maintain, moreover, that such being the ideal of social and political organisation they must not remit it to future centuries, but that only those changes in our social organisation which are in accordance with the above double ideal, and const.i.tute an approach to it, will have a chance of life and be beneficial for the commonwealth.”[62]

Kropotkine here reveals to us, with admirable clearness, the origin and nature of his ”Ideal.” This Ideal, like that of Bakounine, is truly ”double;” it is really born of the connection between bourgeois Radicalism, or rather that of the Manchester school, and Communism; just as Jesus was born in connection between the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary. The two natures of the Anarchist ideal are as difficult to reconcile as the two natures of the Son of G.o.d. But one of these natures evidently gets the better of the other. The Anarchists ”want” to begin by immediately realising what Kropotkine calls ”the ultimate aim of society,” that is to say, by destroying the ”State.” Their starting point is always the unlimited liberty of the individual. Manchesterism before everything. Communism only comes in afterwards.[63] But in order to rea.s.sure us as to the probable fate of this second nature of their Ideal, the Anarchists are constantly singing the praises of the wisdom, the goodness, the forethought of the man of the ”future.” He will be so perfect that he will no doubt be able to organise Communist production.

He will be so perfect that one asks oneself, while admiring him, why he cannot be trusted with a little ”authority.”

FOOTNOTES:

[47] The few Individualists we come across are only strong in their criticism of the State and of the law. As to their constructive ideal, a few preach an idyll that they themselves would never care to practise, while others, like the editor of _Liberty_, Boston, fall back upon an actual bourgeois system. In order to defend their Individualism they reconstruct the State with all its attributes (law, police, and the rest) after having so courageously denied them. Others, finally, like Auberon Herbert, are stranded in a ”Liberty and Property Defence League”--a League for the defence of landed property. _La Revolte_, No.

38, 1893, ”A lecture on Anarchism.”

[48] ”Anarchist-Communism; its Basis and Principles,” by Peter Kropotkine, republished by permission of the Editor of the _Nineteenth Century_. February and August, 1887, London.

[49] _l.c._, pp. 1-2.

[50] ”La Conquete du Pain.” Paris, 1892. pp. 77-78.

[51] Ibid., p. 111.

[52] As, however, Kropotkine was in London at the time of the great Dock Strike, and therefore had an opportunity of learning how the food supply was managed for the strikers, it is worth pointing out that this was managed quite differently from the method suggested above. An organised Committee, consisting of Trade Unionists helped by State Socialists (Champion) and Social-Democrats (John Burns, Tom Mann, Eleanor Marx Aveling, etc.) made _contracts_ with shopkeepers, and distributed stamped tickets, for which could be obtained certain articles of food.

The food supplied was paid for with the money that had been raised by subscriptions, and to these subscriptions the _bourgeois_ public, encouraged by the _bourgeois_ press, had very largely contributed.

Direct distributions of food to strikers, and those thrown out of work through the strike, were made by the Salvation Army, an essentially centralised, bureaucratically organised body, and other philanthropic societies. All this has very little to do with the procuring and distributing of the food supply, ”the day after the revolution;” with the organising of the ”service for supplying food.” The food was there, and it was only a question of buying and dividing it as a means of support. The ”People,” _i.e._, the strikers, by no means helped themselves in this respect; they were helped by others.

[53] ”La Conquete du Pain,” pp. 128-129.

[54] Ibid., pp. 201-202.

[55] Ibid., p. 202.

[56] ”_L'Anarchie dans l'Evolution socialiste._” Lecture at the Salle Levis, Paris, 1888, pp. 20-21.

[57] Ibid., p. 19.

[58] Kropotkine speaks of the Suez Ca.n.a.l! Why not the Panama Ca.n.a.l?

[59] ”La Societe au lendemain de la Revolution.” J. Grave, 1889, Paris, pp. 61-62.

[60] Ibid., p. 47.

[61] Ibid., p. 99.

[62] Anarchist Communism, p. 3.

[63] ”L'Anarchia e il funzionamento armonico di tutte le autonomie, risolventesi nella eguaglianza totale delle condizioni umane.”

L'Anarchia nella scienza e nelle evoluzione. (Traduzione dello Spagnuolo) Piato, Toscana, 1892, p. 26. ”Anarchy is the harmonious functioning of all autonomy resolved in the complete equalisation of all human conditions.” ”Anarchy in Science and Evolution.”--Italian, translated from the Spanish.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SO-CALLED ANARCHIST TACTICS. THEIR MORALITY

The Anarchists are Utopians. Their point of view has nothing in common with that of modern scientific Socialism. But there are Utopias and Utopias. The great Utopians of the first half of our century were men of genius; they helped forward social science, which in their time was still entirely Utopian. The Utopians of to-day, the Anarchists, are the abstracters of quintessence, who can only fully draw forth some poor conclusions from certain mummified principles. They have nothing to do with social science, which, in its onward march, has distanced them by at least half a century. Their ”profound thinkers,” their ”lofty theorists,” do not even succeed in making the two ends of their reasoning meet. They are the decadent Utopians, stricken with incurable intellectual anaemia. The great Utopians did much for the development of the working cla.s.s movement. The Utopians of our days do nothing but r.e.t.a.r.d its progress. And it is especially their so-called tactics that are harmful to the proletariat.