Anarchism Part 11
From these two divergent points of view follows the endless series of irreconcilable divergencies between Realists and Idealists. For the former, evolution is a process that is accomplished quite unconsciously, and is determined exclusively by the condition at any time of the elements forming the aggregate, and their varying relations. The Idealist also likes to talk of an evolution of society, but since this is only the evolution of an idea, there can be no contradiction, and it is only right and fair for him to demand that this evolution should be accomplished in the direction of other and (as he thinks) higher ideas, the realisation of which is the object of society. So he comes to demand that society should realise the ideas of Freedom, Equality, and the like. A society which does not wish, or is unfitted to do this, can and must be overthrown and annihilated.
When we hear these destructive opinions, which are continually spreading, characterised as a lack of idealism, we cannot restrain a smile at the confusion of thought thus betrayed. As a matter of fact, the social revolutionaries of the present day, and especially the Anarchists, are idealists of the first rank, and that too not merely because of their nominalist way of regarding society, but they are idealists also in a practical sense. The society of the present is in their eyes utterly bad and incapable of improvement, because it does not correspond to the ideas of freedom and equality. But the fault of this does not lie in men as such, or in their natural attributes and defects, but in society, that is (since it is merely an idea), in the faulty conceptions and prejudices which men have as to the value of society. Men in themselves are good, n.o.ble, and possess the most brotherly sentiments; and not only that, but they are diligent and industrious from an innate impulse; society alone has spoiled them.
These a.s.sumptions we have seen in all Anarchists; they are the inevitable premises of their ideal of the future, an ideal of a free, just, and brotherly form of society; but they are the necessary consequence of the first a.s.sumption, of the idealist conception of society itself, which is common to all Anarchists, with the single exception of Proudhon, whose peculiarities and contradictions we have dealt with above.
Herbert Spencer, and with him the sociological school generally, cannot of course accept the conclusions of a premise which they do not a.s.sume. Comparative study of the life of primitive races, scientific anthropology, and exact psychology, all show this well-meaning a.s.sumption to be a mere delusion. Philoneism may be n.o.bler and more humane, but, unfortunately, it is only misoneism that is true.
Generally speaking, every man only works in order to avoid unpleasantness. One man is urged on by his experience that hunger hurts him, the other by the whip of the slave-driver. What he fears is either the punishment of circ.u.mstances, or the punishment given by someone set over him (_cf._ Spencer, _From Freedom to Restraint_, p.
8). Work is the enemy of man; he struggles with it because he must do so in order to live; his life is a continual struggle but not (as all the Anarchists from Proudhon down to Grave try to persuade themselves and others) a united struggle of man against nature, but a struggle of men one against the other, a murderous, fratricidal conflict, from which in the end only the most suitable and capable emerges ("the survival of the fittest"). Short-sighted people and one-sided doctrinaires can never be convinced of the fact that in this brutal fact lies not only the end but also the proper beginning of unfeigned morality. And so too in social relations. Conflict, war, and persecution stand at the beginning of every civilisation and every social development; but the ceaseless hostilities of man with man have populated the earth from pole to pole with those who are most capable, powerful, and most fitted for evolution; we owe to man's hatred and fear of work the rich blessings of civilisation; and only from the swamp of servitude can spring the flower of freedom.
But we must return once more to our idealists.
According to the view common to all Anarchists, the fault of our present circ.u.mstances, which scorn freedom and equality, lies not in the natural limitation of mankind, but in the limitation entailed upon him by society, that is, by his own faulty conceptions and ideas. It is therefore only a question of convincing men that they hitherto have erred, that they should see in the State their enemy and not their protector and champion--and the world is at once turned upside down "like an omelet," society as now const.i.tuted is annihilated, and Anarchy is triumphant. Anarchists since Bakunin are of the opinion that, in order to reach this end, there is no need of weary evolution or of an education of the human race for Anarchy; on the contrary, it can be set up at once, immediately, with these same men; it merely requires the trifling circ.u.mstance that men should be convinced of its truth. Therefore they despise every political means, and their whole strategy, not excepting the propaganda of action, only aims at convincing men of the nothingness of society as such, and of the harm done by its inst.i.tution. This fact can only be understood in view of the purely idealist starting-point from which the Anarchists proceed.
The man to whom society is a fact, a reality, only recognises an evolution that excludes any sudden leap, and above all, the leap into annihilation.
A radical error (as Herbert Spencer remarks in the very book which Ferri adduces as a proof of his Anarchist tendency) which prevails in the mode of thought of almost all political and social parties, is the delusion that there exist immediate and radical remedies for the evils that oppress us. "Only do thus, and the evil will disappear"; or "act according to my method and want will cease"; or "by such and such regulations the trouble will undoubtedly be removed"--everywhere we meet such fancies, or modes of action resulting from them. But the foundation of them is wrong. You may remove causes that increase the evil, you may change one evil into another, and you may, as frequently occurs, even increase the evil by trying to cure it: but an immediate cure is impossible. In the course of centuries mankind, owing to the increase of numbers, has been compelled to expand from the original, ancient condition, wherein small groups of men supported themselves upon the free gifts of nature, into a civilised condition, in which the things necessary to support life for such great ma.s.ses can only be acquired by ceaseless toil. The nature of man in this latter mode of existence is very different from what it was in the first period; and centuries of pain have been necessary to transform it sufficiently. A human const.i.tution that is no longer in harmony with its environment is necessarily in a miserable position, and a const.i.tution inherited from primitive man does not harmonise with the circ.u.mstances to which those of to-day have to adapt themselves. Consequently it is impossible to create immediately a social condition that shall bring happiness to all. A state of society which even to-day fills Europe with millions of armed warriors, eager for conquest or thirsting for revenge; which impels so-called Christian nations to vie with one another all over the world in piratical enterprises without any regard to the rights of the aborigines, while thousands of their priests and pastors watch them with approval; which, in intercourse with weaker races, goes far beyond the primitive law of revenge, "a life for a life," and for one life demands seven--such a state of human society, says Spencer, cannot under any circ.u.mstances be ripe for a harmonious communal existence. The root of every well-ordered social activity is the sense of justice, resting, on the one hand, on personal freedom, and, on the other on the sanct.i.ty of similar freedom for others; and this sense of justice is so far not present in sufficient quant.i.ty.
Therefore a further and longer continuance of a social discipline is necessary, which demands from each that he should look after his own affairs with due regard to the equal rights of others, and insists that everyone shall enjoy all the pleasures which naturally flow from his efforts, and, at the same time, not place upon the shoulders of others the inconveniences that arise from the same cause, in so far as others are not ready to undertake them. And therefore it is Spencer's conviction that the attempts to remove this form of discipline will not only fail, but will produce worse evils than those which it is sought to avoid.
We need not discuss Spencer's views further in a book about Anarchism.
But to those representatives of so-called scientific Socialism, as well as to those Liberals who are so ready to condemn as "Anarchist"
any inconvenient critic of their own opinions, we should like to remark that Anarchism will only be overcome by free and fearless scientific treatment, and not by violent measures dictated by stupidity and hatred.
CHAPTER VIII
THE SPREAD OF ANARCHISM IN EUROPE
First Period (1867-1880) -- The Peace and Freedom League -- The Democratic Alliance and the Jura.s.sic Bund -- Union with and Separation from the "International" -- The Rising at Lyons -- Congress at Lausanne -- The Members of the Alliance in Italy, Spain, and Belgium -- Second Period (from 1880) -- The German Socialist Law -- Johann Most -- The London Congress -- French Anarchism since 1880 -- Anarchism in Switzerland -- The Geneva Congress -- Anarchism in Germany and Austria -- Joseph Penkert -- Anarchism in Belgium and England -- Organisation of the Spanish Anarchists -- Italy -- Character of Modern Anarchism -- The Group -- Numerical Strength of the Anarchism of Action.
It is the custom to represent Bakunin as the St. Paul of modern Anarchism. It may be so. The Anarchism of violence only acquired significance, owing to later circ.u.mstances in which Bakunin had no share; but the kind of prelude of the Anarchist movement, which was noticeable at the end of the sixties and beginning of the seventies, may certainly be attributed to the influence of Bakunin.
With the growth of the organisation of the proletariat in its international relations in the second half of the sixties, it was only too readily understood that a part of this organisation rested upon an Anarchist basis, especially as the opposition to the social democratic tendency had not yet been developed in practice. Among workmen using the Romance languages, the free-collectivist doctrines of Proudhon gained much ground; prominent labour journals, such as the Geneva _Egalite_, the _Progres du Locle_, and others, often represented these views, and Switzerland especially was the chief country in which the working cla.s.ses had always inclined to radical opinions. We call to mind, for example, the union of handicraftsmen of the forties, the Young Germany, and the _Lemanbund_ (Lake of Geneva Union) which had been led by Marr and Doleke, to however small an extent, into an Anarchist channel. The same field was open to Bakunin as suitable for his operations, after he had long enough sought for one.
After his return from his Siberian exile, Bakunin had looked out for an organisation, by the help of which he could translate his Anarchist ideas into action and agitation, the which were the proper domain of his spirit. When, after restless wanderings, he came from Italy into Switzerland, it appeared as if this wish were to be fulfilled.
In Geneva there happened to be a meeting of the Peace Congress, which then had merely philanthropic aims, and was attended by members of the most diverse cla.s.ses of society and most different nations. Bakunin hoped to win over to his ideas this company, consisting for the most part of amiable enthusiasts, doctrinaires and congress haunters, and to create in it a background for his own activity. He, therefore, appeared at the Congress and made a speech that was highly applauded in which he came to the conclusion that international peace was impossible as long as the following principle, together with all its consequences, was not accepted; namely: "Every nation, feeble or strong, small or great, every province, every community has the absolute right to be free and autonomous, to live according to its interests and private needs and to rule itself; and in this right all communities and all nations have a certain solidarity to the extent that this principle cannot be violated for one of them without at the same time involving all the others in danger. So long as the present centralised States exist, universal peace is impossible; we must, therefore, wish for their dismemberment, in order that, on the ruins of these unities based on force and organised from above downwards by despotism and conquest, free unities organised from below upwards may develop as a free federation of communities with provinces, provinces with nations, and nations with the united States of Europe." In another speech at the same Congress he sums up the principles upon which alone peace and justice rest, in the following:--(1) "The abolition of everything included in the term of 'the historic and political necessity of the State,' in the name of any larger or smaller, weak or strong population, as well as in the name of all individuals who are said to have full power to dispose of themselves in complete freedom independently of the needs and claims of the State, wherein this freedom ought only to be limited by the equal rights of others; (2) Annulling of all the permanent contracts between the individual and the collective unity, a.s.sociations, departments or nations; in other words, every individual must have the right to break any contract, even if entered into freely; (3) Every individual, as well as every a.s.sociation, province and nation, must have the right to quit any union or alliance, with, however, the express condition that the party thus leaving it must not menace the freedom and independence of the State which it has left by alliance with a foreign power."
Although these utterances of the wily agitator implied a complete diversion of the views of the Congress from purely philanthropic intentions to open Collectivist Anarchism, yet they found support in the numerous radical elements which took part in the Congress.
Bakunin, who now settled in Switzerland, was elected a permanent member of the Central Committee of the newly-founded "Peace and Freedom League," with its headquarters in Bern, and he prepared for it his "proposal" already mentioned. Bakunin was feverishly active in trying to lead the League into an Anarchist channel. Already in the session of the Bern Central Committee, he proposed to the committee, with the support of Ogarjow, Jukowsky, the Poles Mrockowski and Zagorski, and the Frenchman Naquet, to accept a programme similar to that which he had laid before the Geneva Congress. Then he carried, by the aid of this submissive committee, a resolution, demanding the affiliation of the League with the International Union of Workers. But this demand of the League was refused by the congress of the "International" at Brussels; but, already greatly compromised by its position in regard to the League, the "International" still further left the path of safety when Bakunin recommended his Socialist programme to the congress of the League which sat at Bern in 1868.
Bakunin found himself in the minority, retired from the congress, and, with a small band of faithful adherents, including the brothers Reclus, Albert Richard, Jukowsky, mentioned above, and others, betook himself to Geneva.
These faithful followers formed the nucleus of the Socialist Democratic Alliance formed in Geneva in 1868, the first society with avowedly Anarchist tendencies. We have already quoted its official programme. It is an unimportant variation of Proudhon's Collectivism.
The "Alliance" was a union of public societies, as far as possible autonomous federations, such as the Jura.s.sic Bund; and, like the "International," it was divided into a central committee and national bureaus. But together with this division went a secret organisation.
Bakunin, the p.r.o.nounced enemy of all organisations in theory, created in practice a secret society quite according to the rules of Carbonarism--a hierarchy which was in total contradiction to the anti-authority tendencies of the society. According to the secret statutes of the "Alliance" three grades were recognised--(1) "The International Brethren," one hundred in number, who formed a kind of sacred college, and were to play the leading parts in the soon expected, immediate social revolution, with Bakunin at their head.
(2) "The National Brethren," who were organised by the International Brethren into a national a.s.sociation in every country, but who were allowed to suspect nothing of the international organisation.
(3) Lastly came the secret international alliance, the pendant to the public alliance, operating through the permanent Central Committee.
If the "Alliance" made rapid progress in the first year of its existence, and quickly spread into Switzerland, the South of France, and large parts of Spain and Italy, and even found adherents in Belgium and Russia, this was certainly not due to the playing at secret societies affected by the International Brethren. It is probably not a mistake to see in the growth of the first Anarchist organisation first and foremost a natural reaction against the stiff rule of the London General Council; but at the same time the Anarchism of Proudhon contained (contradictory as it may sound) in many respects an element of moderation, and was far more adapted to the limits of the _bourgeois_ intellect than the tendencies of the Social Democracy, which demand a full partic.i.p.ation in party interests and party life.
Just as we find later, so also we find now at the time of the "Alliance," numerous elements in the Anarchist ranks belonging to the superior artisan and lower middle cla.s.s. We therefore find strong Anarchist influences even within the "International" before the "Alliance" flourished. Thus one of the main events of the Brussels Congress early in September, 1868, was a proposal of Albert Richard, a follower of Bakunin, to found a bank of mutual credit and exchange quite after the manner of Proudhon. In the discussion upon it prominent representatives of Anarchist ideas took part, such as Eccarius, Tolain, and others. The Congress, however, buried the proposed statute in its sections--the last honor for Proudhon's much hara.s.sed project.
But in the congress of the next year the Anarchists made quite another kind of influence felt. In the meantime the "Alliance" had been absorbed in the "International." A first attempt of Bakunin to affiliate the "Alliance" to the great international a.s.sociation of workmen, and thereby to secure for himself a leading part in it, was a failure. The General Council, in which the influence of the clever agitator was evidently feared, refused in December, 1868, to a.s.sociate itself with the "Alliance." Some months later the "Alliance" again approached the General Council upon the question of affiliation, and declared itself ready to fulfil all its conditions. The chief of these was the dissolution of the "Alliance" as such and the division of its sections into those of the "International," as well as the abolition of its secret organisation. Thereupon the Bakuninist sections were in July, 1869, declared to be "International," although in London it was never believed that the members of the "Alliance" would keep the conditions. Not only the Central Committee continued as before, but also the secret organisation and Bakunin's leadership. If the amalgamation of both parties was at length completed, it only happened because at this stage each was in need of the other, and perhaps feared the other. But the very origin of the union, as will readily be understood, did not permit it to work together very harmoniously. And, moreover, apart from the main points of difference, there were also a series of minor divergencies of opinion, chiefly on the subject of tactics. The followers of Marx strove for greater centralisation of the directorate, the Bakuninists more for the autonomy of the separate sections. The men of the General Council eagerly urged the adoption of universal suffrage as the most prominent means of agitation for the purpose of proletariat emanc.i.p.ation; Bakunin entirely rejected any political action, including the exercise of the suffrage, since, in his opinion, this would only become an instrument of reaction, and since the workers could only use their rights by force and not votes.
It will be easily understood that the result of such differences of opinion was a sharp divergence inside the "International" between the "Marxists" and "Bakuninists"--a divergence that became irremediable at the Basle Congress of 1869. At this Congress the "Alliance" succeeded, if not in securing a decisive majority, yet in obtaining sufficient influence to give the Congress a decidedly Anarchist character.
As the first item on the programme, the Belgian Proudhonist, De Paepe, proposed to the Congress to declare (1) that society had the right to abolish individual ownership in the land, and give it back to the community; (2) that it was necessary to make the land common property.
Albert Richard vehemently opposed individual ownership as the source of all social inequalities and all poverty. "It arose from force and from unlawful seizure, and it must disappear: and property in land must be regulated by the federally organised communes." Bakunin himself supported De Paepe's proposal; but it is not hard to understand that opposition made itself felt in the Anarchist ranks. Several p.r.o.nounced Anarchists, especially Murat and Tolain, supported individual property with great decision and warmth. Nevertheless De Paepe's Collectivist proposal was accepted by fifty-four (or fifty-three) votes to four.
But the Bakuninists did not gain the same success in the next question, concerning the right of inheritance. This was a question quite characteristic of Bakunin. The proposal ran:
"In consideration of the fact that inheritance as an inseparable element in individual ownership contributes to the alienation of property in land and of social riches for the benefit of the few and the hurt of the majority; that consequently inheritance hinders land and social wealth from becoming common property: that, on the other hand, inheritance, however limited its operation may be, forms a privilege, the greater or lesser importance of which does not remove injustice, and continually threatens social rights; that, further, inheritance, whether it appears either in politics or economics, forms an essential element in all inequalities, because it hinders the individual having the same means of moral and material development; considering, finally, that the Congress has p.r.o.nounced in favour of collective property in land, and that this declaration would be illogical if it were not strengthened by this following declaration: the Congress recognises that inheritance must be completely and absolutely abolished, and its abolition is one of the most necessary conditions of the emanc.i.p.ation of labour."
One might have believed that a congress which had calmly agreed to the abolition of individual property in land could have no objection to make to the abolition of such an "unequal" and "feudal" inst.i.tution as inheritance. But it appears that it was desired to let Bakunin (whose hobby the struggle against inheritance was well known to be) plainly see that the Congress wished to have none of him, although they had not ventured to oppose the views of his adherents upon the far more important question. The proposal only received thirty-two votes for it, twenty-three against it, and seventeen delegates refrained from voting. Therefore the resolution was lost, since it could not obtain a decisive majority.
This procedure of the Basle Congress was calculated to embitter both parties. Open rupture could not be long delayed. Already, at the Romance Congress[1] at Chaux-de-Fonds on April 4, 1870, the admission of the Bakuninist sections had raised a veritable storm--twenty-one delegates voting for the admission, and eighteen against it, and the latter withdrew immediately from the Congress in consequence of the decision. Nevertheless, at this Congress Bakunin's views practically prevailed, for the Congress declared in favour of taking part in politics, and putting up working-men candidates at elections as a means of agitation.
[1] The first groups of the "International" in the Romance-speaking portions of Switzerland had increased so quickly that at a congress in Geneva in 1869 they united themselves into a league of their own, the "Romance Federation," in harmony with the "International," to which members of the "Alliance" and Marxists belonged in almost equal numbers.
The day on which the Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris (the 4th September, 1870) was considered by the "Alliance" to be the right moment "to unchain the hydra of Revolution." This was first done in Switzerland, where manifestoes were issued calling to the formation of a free corps against the Prussians. The manifestoes were seized, and the head of the revolutionary hydra cut off, as far as Switzerland was concerned. On September 28th, Bakunin tried to organise a riot at Lyons. Albert Richard, Bastelica, and Gaspard Blanc began it; the mob took possession of the Town Hall; Bakunin installed himself there, and decreed "abolition of the State." He had perhaps hoped that the example of Lyons would encourage other cities in the circ.u.mstances then prevailing, and these would likewise declare themselves to be free communes, and the State to be abolished. But the State,--as the opponents of the "Alliance" maliciously said,--in the shape of two companies of the National Guard, found a way into Lyons through a gate which the rioters had forgotten to watch, swept the Anarchists out of the Town Hall, and caused Bakunin to seek his way back to Geneva in great haste.
This intermezzo, the only historical moment which the "Alliance" had, did not, of course, contribute to strengthen any friendship between the Bakuninists and Marxists. The latter had a suitable excuse for shaking off Bakunin, and making the Anarchists subservient to them. In the conference at London (September, 1871) the sections of the Jura were recommended to join the "Romance Union," and in case this was not done, the conference determined the mountain sections should unite into the Jura.s.sic Federation. The conference pa.s.sed a severe resolution against Bakunin's tactics, and a resolution against Netschajew's proceedings was also really directed against the leader of the "Alliance."
Bakunin was right in taking this as a declaration of war, and his followers accepted the challenge. On November 12, 1871, the Jura sections met at a congress in Souvillier, in which they certainly accepted the name "Jura.s.sic Union," but declared the "Romance Union"
to be dissolved; appealed against the decisions of the London Conference as well as against their legality, and appealed to a general congress, to be called immediately.
These endless disputes came to a climax at the congress held at The Hague in 1872, when Bakunin was excluded from the "International"; whereupon the Anarchist sections finally separated from the Social Democrats, and in the same year called an "International Labour Congress" at St. Imier. Here a provisional union of "Anti-Authority Socialists" was resolved upon, and it was decided (1) that the annihilation of every political power was the first duty of the proletariat; (2) that every organisation of the political power, both provisory and revolutionary, was merely a delusion, and was as dangerous for the proletariat as any of the Governments now existing.
In the following year, 1873, another congress took place at Geneva, which founded a new "International," which placed all power completely in the hands of the sections, while the "Bureau" only was to serve as a link between the autonomous unions, and to give information.
This first international Anarchist organisation never became of practical importance; only the "Jura.s.sic Union" formed for almost ten years a much feared centre of Anarchism in Romance-speaking Switzerland and Southern France. Indeed it became the cradle of the "Anarchism of action" generally. "The Jura Federation,"[2] wrote Kropotkin, "has played a most important part in the development of the revolutionary idea. If, in speaking of Anarchy to-day, we can say that there are three thousand Anarchists in Lyons, and five thousand in the valley of the Rhone, and several thousands in the South, that is the work mainly of the Jura Federation. Indeed I must ask, How was this possible? Is Anarchy in Europe only ten years old? Of course the _Zeitgeist_ has carried us along with it; but this was first openly manifest in a group, the Jura Federation, which thus must gain credit for it." The Jura.s.sic Union was in fact the Anarchist party. The head and soul of this union was the Bakuninist, Paul Brousse, a zealous and reckless Anarchist and clever journalist, who in his paper _Avantgarde_ was one of the first to preach the "propaganda of action." In December, 1878, this paper was suppressed by the Swiss Government because it had approved the attempts of Hodel and n.o.beling.
Brousse himself was arrested and condemned to two months' imprisonment and ten years' banishment, but after undergoing his imprisonment he completely gave up Anarchism. Kropotkin, who had already helped him with the _Avantgarde_, took his place, and founded in Geneva the _Revolte_, directing with a feverish activity the work originally begun by Bakunin into new channels, and afterwards doing so from London.
[2] _Revolte_, July 8, 1862.
In the year 1876 the French Anarchists at the congress at Lausanne had finally separated themselves from every party, by declaring the Parisian Commune to be only another form of government by authority.
The congress of 1878 at Freiburg was of similar importance. Elisee Reclus moved for the appointment of a commission, which was to answer the following questions: (1) "Why we are revolutionaries"; (2) "Why we are Anarchists"; (3) "Why we are Collectivists." "We are revolutionaries," said Reclus, "because we desire justice. Progress has never been marked by mere peaceful development; it has always been called forth by a sudden resolution. We are Anarchists, and as such recognise no master. Morality resides only in freedom. We are international Collectivists, because we perceive that an existence without social grouping is impossible." The Congress accepted Reclus's motion, and decided (1) in favour of the general appropriation of social wealth; (2) for the abolition of the State in any form, even in that of a so-called central point of public administration. Further, the Congress declared in favour of the propaganda of theory, of insurrectionary and revolutionary activity, and against universal suffrage, since this was not adapted to secure the sovereignty of the mult.i.tude.
At a congress held in the following year (1879) at Chaux-de-Fonds, Kropotkin definitely urged the policy of the propaganda of action, and the Anarchist Labour Congress at Ma.r.s.eilles in the same year declared itself unhesitatingly in favour of universal expropriation. At the next Swiss Anarchist Congress in 1880 Kropotkin finally demanded the abolition of the term "Collectivism" which had hitherto been retained, and proposed to replace it by the term "Anarchist Communism."
Here we can see, even upon a point of theory, the deep divergence which was proceeding at this time. Hitherto Anarchism--and at least in this first period of its development we can speak of a party--has proceeded quite on the lines of Proudhon's Collectivism. Its main representative is the "Alliance," or rather Michael Bakunin, and after him the Jura.s.sic Federation. This period is, with the exception of a few revolutionary attempts, free from outrage and crime. But all this was changed at the London Congress. Before speaking of this, however, we must just glance at the branches of the "Alliance" in Spain, Italy, and elsewhere.
The Italian peninsula has always been one of the chief centres of Anarchism. It has been said that this is the fault of the weakness and deficiency of the police, although the Italian Government repeatedly, both in 1866 and 1876, and again recently, has required and supported the strengthening of the executive power in every possible way against certain phenomena of political and social pa.s.sion. The police alone, whether zealous or lax, is here, as elsewhere, only the most subordinate factor in history. But if we remember the proletariat that swarms in the numerous cities of Italy, in its economic misery and moral degradation; if we consider the peculiar tendency of this nation towards political crime and the paraphernalia of secret conspiracy; if we remember the days of the Carbonari, the Black Brothers, the Acoltellatori, and others,--we shall find in Italy, quite apart from the police and their work, sufficient other reasons for the growth of Anarchism.
During the war of independence, revolutionary literature in general, and especially the works of Herzen and Michael Bakunin, had a great sale among the younger generation, and so it came to pa.s.s that the idea of nationalism was imperceptibly fostered by Socialist and Nihilist influences. The leading part taken by a number of Italian revolutionaries, especially Cipriani,--afterwards the leader of the Apennine Anarchists,--in the Commune of 1871, contributed very considerably to promote Socialist demagogy in the revolutionary centres of Italy, in the Romagna, and the Marches. Closer contact with Bakunin proved to be the decisive touch.
In those memorable days when the "International" separated into two heterogeneous parts, we already find the majority of the Italian Socialists adopting the standpoint of Bakunin; indeed the Italians, even before the Hague Congress, took sides in favour of Bakunin against the "Authority-Communists" of Marx. This first Anarchist movement became no more important in Italy than elsewhere, and an attempt at riot in April, 1877, near Benevento, headed by Cafiero and Malatesta, gave an impression of childishness and comicality rather than of menace. It was put down by a handful of soldiers; Malatesta and Cafiero were taken prisoners, but set free. The severe repressive measures afterwards adopted by the Government kept Anarchism down for some time.
In Spain, also, at the beginning of the seventies, there was--as was the case with all the Romance countries--a strong Bakuninist party, which was said to have amounted to 50,000 men in 1873. During the Federalist risings the Anarchists made common cause with the Intransigeants, and succeeded in taking possession of several cities for a short time. Their successes, however, did not last long, and they were only able to hold out till 1874 in New Carthagena, where they had finally to surrender after a regular siege by the Government troops. The Anarchist societies and newspapers were suppressed, and the severest measures taken against Anarchists, which only roused them to the most sanguinary form of propaganda. The Anarchists declared that if they were to be treated as wild beasts, they would act as such, and cause death and destruction to the Government and to any existing form of society at any time, in any place, and by any means.
In Belgium about this period there was also a great increase of Proudhonish Anarchism, which, later on, as in Switzerland, Italy, and Spain, attached itself to Bakunin, and at the congress at The Hague formed the centre of the opposition to the Marxists. The rapid growth of Social Democracy in Belgium during the second half of the seventies almost extinguished Anarchism there.