Anarchism Part 7

Bakunin has expressly excepted secret societies and plots from the means of bringing about this revolution. But this did not hinder him from becoming himself, as occasion suited, the head of a secret society, formed according to all the rules of the conspirator's art.

Fundamentally opposed as our minds must be to men like Proudhon and Stirner, we yet readily recognise in them their undoubted personal talents, both of mind, spirit, and character, and, above all, have never questioned their good faith. But we cannot speak thus of Bakunin. In all the changes and chances of a life that was singularly rich in change, there were far too many dark points, to which evil report had ample opportunity to attach itself. We do not see in Bakunin that proletarian in wooden sabots and blouse, with the eager thirst for knowledge and keen desire to raise himself, who dreams as he works before the compositor's frame of a juster order of things in this world, yet more for others than for himself, and would like to arrange society itself laboriously in a well-ordered compositor's case; nor do we see in Bakunin that plain German schoolmaster who would people society with mere sons of Prometheus, while he himself totters starving to the grave; who dedicates his gospel of a doctrine that would overthrow the world from pole to pole "to his Darling, Marie Donhardt," as though it were a tender love-song. Bakunin remains to us for ever as the commercial traveller of eternal revolution in a magnificent pose, and from the red cloak so picturesquely cast around him peeps out unpleasantly the dagger of Caserio.

We cannot leave Bakunin without a pa.s.sing mention of his favourite pupil Sergei Netschajew,[7] although he was still less of a pure Anarchist than Bakunin, and can still less easily be separated from Russian Nihilism.

[7] For Netschajew, cf. the article "Anarchism" in Wurm's _Volks-lexicon_, vol. i., and in the _Handworterbuch der Staatswissenschaften_, Jena, 1890, vol. i.; also E. von Laveleye, _Socialism of the Present_ (German ed. by Ch.

Jasper, Halle, A.D. S., 1895). All these, however, are based almost exclusively on the information in the memoir, _L'Alliance de la Democratie Socialiste et l'a.s.sociation Internationale des Travailleurs_: Report and doc.u.ments published by order of the International Congress at The Hague (London and Hamburg, 1873)--a very one-sided party brochure of the Marxists against the Bakuninists, which has been proved wrong on more points than one. We regret all the more that we are limited to this source of information.

But a picture of this pair of twin brothers will show us better than long essays how much of the total phenomenon of modern Anarchism is a product of Western hyper-philosophy, and how much is an inheritance of Russian Nihilism. Sergei Netschajew, the apostle and saint of Nihilist poesy, was born at St. Petersburg in 1846, the son of a court official, and in time became teacher at a parish school in his native town. In 1865 he went to Moscow, where he became a.s.sociated with the students of the Academy of Agriculture, and founded a secret society that called itself "The People's Tribunal," and formed ostensibly the "Russian Branch of the International Workers' Union." Both in St.

Petersburg and elsewhere he appeared as the founder of such branch societies, attached to the Bakuninist section of the "International,"

and chiefly recruited from the ranks of youthful students. In a pamphlet issued later (1869), in conjunction with his master, Bakunin, called _Words Addressed to Students_, he exhorted the students not to trouble about this "empty knowledge" in whose name it was meant to bind their hands, but to leave the University and go among the people.[8] The Russian people, he said, were now in the same condition as in the time of Alexis, the father of Peter the Great, when Stenka Razin, a robber chieftain, placed himself at the head of a terrible insurrection. The young people who now leave their place in society and lead the life of the people would form an invincible, collective Stenka Razin, who would put themselves at the head of the fight for emanc.i.p.ation, and carry it through successfully. For this purpose they should not merely turn to the peasants and make them revolt, but also call in the help of robbers. "Robbery," he said, "was one of the most honourable forms of Russian national life." The robber is a hero, the protector and avenger of the people, the irreconcilable enemy of the State, and of all civic and social order founded by the State, who fights to the death against all this civilisation of officials, n.o.bles, priests, and the crown. The Russian robber is the true and only revolutionary, the revolutionary _sans phrase_, without rhetoric derived from books, indefatigable, irreconcilable, and in action irresistible, a social revolutionary of the people, not a political revolutionary of the cla.s.ses.

[8] The expression "go among the people" has since become a well-known Nihilist term.

This was the programme of the society called "The People's Tribunal,"

as it was that of Nihilism generally, and, transferred from this into Western conditions, became the active programme of the "propaganda of action." At the same time as the _Words_, there were circulating in the circles influenced by Netschajew other writings, either written exclusively by himself or in conjunction with Bakunin, such as the _Formula of the Revolutionary Question, the Principles of Revolution, the Publications of the People's Tribunal_,--all of which preached "total destruction" and Anarchism. The opponents of the Bakuninists maintain that the only purpose of these writings was, by their bloodthirsty tone, to compromise genuine revolutionaries, and give the police a weapon against them. But the whole spirit of Bakunin is expressed in the revolutionary _Catechism_,[9] first made accessible to the public in the trial of Netschajew. It was formerly thought that Bakunin was the author, but now it is pretty well agreed that it was Netschajew.

[9] The _Catechism_ is reproduced in the before-mentioned memoir, _L'Alliance de la Democratie Socialiste_, viii.

(_L'Alliance en Russie et le Catechisme Revolutionnaire_), pp. 90-95.

The catechism, a condensation of revolutionary fanaticism, commands the revolutionary to break with all that is dear to him, and, troubling nought about law or morality, family or State, joy or sorrow, to devote himself wholly to his task of total _boulevers.e.m.e.nt_. "If he continues to live in this world, it is only in order to annihilate it all the more surely. A revolutionary despises everything _doctrinaire_, and renounces the science and knowledge of this world in order to leave it to future generations; he knows but one science: that of destruction. For that, and that only, he studies mechanics, physics, chemistry, and even medicine. For the same purpose he studies day and night living science--men, their character, positions, and all the conditions of the existing social order in all imaginary spheres. The object remains always the same: the quickest and most effective way possible of destroying the existing order" (---- 2, 3). "For him exists only one pleasure, one consolation, one reward, one satisfaction, the reward of revolution.

Day and night he must have but one thought--inexorable destruction" (-- 6). "For the purpose of irrevocable destruction a revolutionary can, and may, often live in the midst of society and appear to have the most complete indifference as to his surroundings. A revolutionary may penetrate everywhere, into high society, among the n.o.bility, among shopkeepers, into the military, official, or literary world, into the 'third section' [the secret police], and even into the Imperial palace" (-- 14). The catechism divides society into several categories: those in the first of these categories are condemned to death without delay. "In the first place we must put out of the world those who stand most in the way of the revolutionary organisation and its work"

(-- 16). The members of the second category are to be allowed to live "provisionally," in order that, "by a series of abominable deeds they may drive the people into unceasing revolt" (-- 17). The third cla.s.s, the rich and influential, must be exploited for the sake of the revolution, and made to become "our slaves." With the fourth cla.s.s, Liberals of various shades of opinion, arrangements must be made on the basis of their programme, they must be initiated and compromised, and made use of for the perturbation of the State. The fifth cla.s.s, the doctrinaires, must be urged forward; while the sixth and most important cla.s.s consists of the women, for making use of whom for the purposes of the revolution Netschajew gives explicit directions. It is the tactics of the Jesuits in all their details that are here recommended for the inauguration of the most moral ordering of the universe. The last section of the catechism, which treats of the duty of the People's Tribunal Society towards the people, reads: "The Society has no other purpose but the complete emanc.i.p.ation and happiness of the people, _i. e._, of hardworking humanity. But proceeding from the conviction that this emanc.i.p.ation and this happiness can only be reached by means of an all-destroying popular revolution, the Society will use every effort and every means to heighten and increase the evils and sorrows which at length will wear out the patience of the people and encourage an insurrection _en ma.s.se_. By a popular revolution the Society does not mean a movement regulated according to the cla.s.sic patterns of the West, which is always restrained in face of property and of the traditional social order of so-called civilisation and morality, and which has. .h.i.therto been limited merely to exchanging one form of politics for another, and at most to founding a so-called revolutionary State. The only revolution that can do any good to the people is that which utterly annihilates every political idea. With this end in view, the People's Tribunal has no intention of imposing on the people an organisation coming from above. The future organisation will, without doubt, proceed from the movement and life of the people; but that is the business of future generations. Our task is terrible, inexorable, and universal destruction."

The views thus expressed are quite in harmony with what Netschajew has written about revolutionary action in the writings mentioned above.

"Words," he exclaims, "have no value for us, unless followed at once by action. But all is not action that is so-called: for example, the modest and too-cautious organisation of secret societies without external announcements to outsiders is in our eyes merely ridiculous and intolerable child's-play. By external announcements we mean a series of actions that positively destroy something--a person, a cause, a condition that hinders the emanc.i.p.ation of the people.

Without sparing our lives, we must break into the life of the people with a series of rash, even senseless, actions, and inspire them with a belief in their powers, awake them, unite them, and lead them on to the triumph of their cause."

The tendency which here develops into the recommendation of violence should be carefully noticed; outrage is no longer recommended, because the purposes of revolution can be served thereby directly, but indirectly, as a kind of sanguinary advertis.e.m.e.nt to the indolent ma.s.ses, who would thus have their attention drawn to the theory by such terrible events. That is the diabolical basis of the "propaganda of action," which was defined by another follower of Bakunin--Paul Brousse, the man of the Jura Federation (see the chapter on "The Spread of Anarchy"). "Deeds," says Brousse, "are talked of on all sides; the indifferent ma.s.ses inquire about their origin, and thus pay attention to the new doctrine, and discuss it. Let men once get as far as this, and it is not hard to win over many of them." Therefore he recommended revolution and outrage, not in order to upset existing society thereby, but for the purpose of the "propaganda." Brousse only had to borrow the thought, as we see, from Netschajew; and it is not difficult to say whence the latter got it. The opinion which ascribes the authors.h.i.+p of the _Catechism of Revolution_, and of the other writings above mentioned not to Netschajew but to Bakunin himself, has perhaps some foundation. But it matters little who is the author of these works. Netschajew is thoroughly imbued with his master's spirit, and he might even say to him (p. 115):

"... What thou hast thought in thy mind That I do, that I perform.

And e'en though years may pa.s.s away I never rest, until to fact Is changed the word that thou did'st say, 'T is thine to think and mine to act.

Thou art the judge, the headsman I; And as a servant I obey; The sentence which thou dost imply, E'en though unjust, I never stay.

In ancient Rome, a lictor dark An axe before the consul bore; Thou hast a lictor too, but mark!

The axe comes after, not before.

I am thy lictor; and alway With bare, bright axe behind thee tread; I am the deed, be what it may, Begotten from thy thought unsaid."

In the year 1869 a sudden end was put to Netschajew's activity in Russia. Among his most trusted friends in Moscow was a certain Iwanow, one of the most respected and influential members of the secret society. Iwanow himself lived in ascetic seclusion, and in his leisure time gave the peasants instruction gratis, establis.h.i.+ng cla.s.ses of poor students, and so forth. He was a fanatic in his belief in the social revolution. He had also established cheap eating-houses for poor students, and one day these were closed by the police, and their founder vanished, because Netschajew had placarded revolutionary appeals in them. In despair at this, Iwanow wished to retire from the secret society. Netschajew, believing that he might betray its secrets, enticed Iwanow one evening into a remote garden, and with the help of two fellow-conspirators, Pryow and Nicolajew, shot him, and threw the corpse into a pond. He then fled, and arrived safely in Switzerland, where, in conjunction with Bakunin, he produced the literary efforts referred to above. Soon, however, he quarrelled with Bakunin, owing to certain sharp practices of which he was guilty, went to London, edited a paper called _The Commonwealth_ (_Die Giemeinde_), in which he bitterly attacked his former master, and at last, in 1872, was handed over to Russia at the request of the Russian Government.

Since then nothing more was heard of him; Netschajew disappeared, like the demon in a pantomime, "down below."

CHAPTER V

PETER KROPOTKIN AND HIS SCHOOL

Biography -- Kropotkin's Main Views -- Anarchist Communism and the "Economics of the Heap" (_tas_) -- Kropotkin's Relation to the Propaganda of Action -- Elisee Reclus: his Character and Anarchist Writings -- Jean Grave -- Daniel Saurin's _Order through Anarchy_ -- Louise Michel and G.

Elievant -- A. Hamon and the Psychology of Anarchism -- Charles Malato and other French Writers on Anarchist Communism -- The Italians: Cafiero, Merlino, and Malatesta.

"Seek not to found your comfort and freedom on the servitude of another; so long as you rule others, you will never be free yourself. Increase your power of production by studying nature; your powers will grow a thousandfold, if you put them at the service of Humanity. Free the individual: for without the freedom of the individual, it is impossible for society to become free. If you wish to emanc.i.p.ate yourselves, set not your hope on any help from this life or the next: help yourselves! Next you must free yourselves from all your religious and political prejudices. Be free men and trust the nature of a free man: all his faults proceed from the power which he exercises over his own kind or under which he groans."--P. KROPOTKIN.

One more Russian, a _decla.s.se_, as Bakunin was, has exercised considerable influence on the development of modern Anarchism; and, in fact, although he has introduced but few new doctrines into it, has made, in the truest sense, a school of his own. Kropotkin, is regarded everywhere as the father of "Anarchist Communism," which is, to some extent, directly opposed both to the collectivist and evolutionist Anarchism of Proudhon and to the other philosophic and individual Anarchism of Stirner. In future we must carefully discriminate between these two directions of individual and communal Anarchism; moreover they are sharply distinguished not only in their intellectual but also their actual form. The former tendency seems more adapted to the Teutonic races in Germany, England, and America, whilst the Anarchists of the Romance nations, but especially the French, are devoted to the latter--the communist doctrine of Kropotkin.

Peter Alexandriewitsch Kropotkin is a descendant of the royal house of the Ruriks, and it used to be said in jest in the revolutionary circles of St. Petersburg that he had more right to the Russian throne than the Czar Alexander II., who was only a German. Born at Moscow in 1842, he was first a page at court, then an officer in the Amur Cossacks, and next, Chamberlain to the Czarina. In this atmosphere grew up the man who is now developing a perfectly feverish activity not only in the realm of intellect and science, but also in propaganda of the most destructive character. Prince Kropotkin studied mathematics in his youth at the High School, and during his extensive travels, which led him to Siberia and even to China, acquired a great knowledge of geography. The dreaded Anarchist is and has always been active as a writer of geographical and geological works, and enjoys a considerable reputation in these sciences, apart from his activity as a Socialist teacher and agitator. During a journey to Switzerland and Belgium in the year 1872, Prince Kropotkin became more closely connected with the "International," and especially with men of Bakunin's school; and so shortly as a year later we find him in his native land compromised and arrested because of Nihilist intrigues. He spent three years as a prisoner in the fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, where, however, he was allowed to pursue his scientific studies.[1] In the year 1876 he succeeded in escaping from there and reaching Switzerland. Here Kropotkin devoted himself to a feverish activity in the service of the new doctrines by which he is known. In Geneva he immediately joined the leaders of the Anarchist agitation known as the "Jura.s.sic Union" (see the chapter on the "Spread of Anarchy"), founded the paper _Revolt_, and greatly a.s.sisted in extending the Union so widely in Switzerland and the South of France. After a short stay in England we find him at the beginning of the eighties in France, busy here and there with the founding of "groups," delivery of lectures, and so forth. In the sensational Anarchist trial at Lyons in 1883 he was also involved, and was condemned to five years' imprisonment upon his own confession of having been the "intellectual instigator" of the b.l.o.o.d.y demonstrations and riots at Montceau-les-Mines and Lyons in 1882. Kropotkin was, however, set free after only three years'

imprisonment, and betook himself to London, where he has lived till recently.[2] But the more watchful supervision of Anarchists that has been exercised since the murder of President Sadi Carnot, appears to have disgusted him with London, for his present place of abode is not known.

[1] See his life in Stepniak, _u. s._, pp. 90-101.

[2] He was living in Kent in 1897.--TRANS.

Kropotkin's Anarchism rests upon the most scientific and humane foundations, and yet a.s.sumes the most unscientific and brutal forms.

To him the Anarchist theory appears to be nothing but a necessary adaptation of social science to that modern tendency in all other sciences which, leaving on one side abstract and collective generality, turn to the individual, as, _e. g._, the cellular theory, the study of molecular forces, and so on. Just as all great discoveries of modern science have proceeded by rejecting the unfruitful deductive method and beginning to build up from below, so also, Kropotkin maintains, society must be built up afresh by realising all power, all reality, all purpose in individuals, and can only arise again new-born synthetically, from the free grouping of these individuals. With unconscious self-irony, Kropotkin remarks that he would like to call this system the "synthetic," if Herbert Spencer had not already applied that name "to another system." Anyone who would conclude from this that the learned prince would build up scientifically a well-founded system, as his earlier predecessors tried to do, would be mistaken. With a few exceptions, Kropotkin has only published short works, though certainly numerous, in which he uses epithets rather than arguments, and those in an intentionally trivial tone; indeed he sometimes mocks at the "wise and learned theorists," and regards one deed as worth more than a thousand books.[3] The same internal contrast is seen in him in another direction. He is apparently a philanthropist of the purest water, wis.h.i.+ng to see the foundation of an universal brotherhood of humanity, based upon what he regards as the innate feeling of solidarity in man; we seem to see in this Proudhon's "justice," Comte's "love," in short, the moral order of the world, however materialist Kropotkin may be in action, and however much he may deny all moral element therein. But how does he mean to bring about this moral order? By any means that is suitable, even by the sanguinary "propaganda of action," and finally by the re-establishment of the actual conditions of the primeval ape-man, or tribal life on the level of the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego.

[3] The chief work of Kropotkin is _La Conquete du Pain_, Paris, 1892. (The chapter on agriculture was printed separately as a pamphlet in 1892.) We quote below his numerous smaller writings in the editions which we possess, without vouching for the chronological order or completeness of the list. _Les Paroles d'un Revolte_, 1885; _Revolutionary Governments_ (trans. from German to French, Anarchist Library, vol. i.); _Un Siecle d'Attente_, 1789-1889, Paris, 1893; _La Grande Revolution_, Paris, 1893; _Les Temps Nouveaux_ (conference at London), Paris, 1894; _Jeunes Gens_, 4th ed., Paris, '93; _La Loi et l'Autorite_, 6th ed., Paris, '92; _Les Prisons_, 2d ed., Paris, '90; _L'Anarchie dans l'evolution Socialiste_, 2d ed., Paris, '92; _Esprit de Revolte_, Paris, '92, 5th ed.; _le Salariat_, 2d ed., Paris, '92; _La Morale Anarchiste_, 1890; "Anarchist Communion: its Basis and Principles" (republished by permission of the editor of the _Nineteenth Century_), London, 1887.

For Kropotkin Anarchy consists in (1) the liberation of the producer from the yoke of capital, in production in common, and the free enjoyment of all products of common work; (2) in freedom from any yoke of government, in the free development of individuals in groups, of groups in federations, in free organisation rising from the simple to the complex according to men's needs and mutual endeavours; and (3) in liberation from religious morality, and a free morality without duty or sanctions proceeding and becoming customary from the life of the community itself.[4]

[4] _L'Anarchie_, p. 26.

The postulate of the abolition of the authority of the State is the well-known, old stock proposal of the Anarchists. But it is noticeable that Kropotkin attacks the State among other things, because it does not carry out the maxim of _laisser faire_ so often imposed upon it by another party. Kropotkin thinks that the State acts rather on the principle of _not laisser faire_, and is always intervening in favour of the exploiter as against the exploited (_Les Temps Nouveaux_, p.

46). The State is accordingly a purely civic idea (_l'idee bourgeoise_), utterly rotten and decaying, only held together by the plague of laws. All law and dominion, including parliamentary government, must therefore be put aside, and be replaced by the "system of no government" and free arrangement (_la libre entente_).

Kropotkin sees everywhere already, even at present in public, and especially in economic life, germs of this free understanding or _entente_, in which government never intervenes; what, for example, in isolated cases two railway companies do in making a free arrangement about fares and time-tables, is to be the universal form of society.

In this society the feeling of solidarity alone, which Kropotkin a.s.sumes as a sort of _a priori_ axiom of society, will determine men's actions: "Each must retain the right of acting as he thinks best, and the right of society to punish any one for a social action in any way must be denied...." "We are not afraid of doing without judges and their verdicts," says he, in _La Morale Anarchiste_. "With Guyon we renounce each and every approval of morality or any duties to morality. We do not shrink from saying: Do what pleases you! Act as you think fit! for we are convinced that the great majority of mankind, in proportion to their enlightenment and to the completeness with which they throw off their present fetters, will always act in a manner beneficial to society--just as we are certain that some day or other a child will walk upon its two feet and not on all fours, because it is born of parents that belong to the genus _h.o.m.o_." But the comparison is incorrect. There are, as a matter of fact, degenerate children of human kind who, deprived of all understanding, creep on all fours quite unconcernedly. Equally insufficient is another proof adduced by Kropotkin, who is a great friend of animals, from the animal world. Looking around among animals, he finds in them also an innate feeling of sympathy with their own species, expressed in mutual a.s.sistance in time of need or danger. By this he wishes to prove that men likewise would act in the same way to their fellow-men merely from the feeling of solidarity, and without laws or government.

Elsewhere certainly, in a later work, he has to confess that there are among men an enormous number of individuals who do not understand that the welfare of the individual is identical with that of the race. But supposing that man were exactly like the animals, then--speaking in Kropotkin's manner--he would stand no higher in morality than they.

But then do we really find that, in the animal world, the number of cases in which they act from a feeling of solidarity is greater than those in which they simply make use of brute force or blind want of forethought, and have animals the sense to do away with organised solidarity, the State, in order to replace it by something unorganised and consequently less valuable?

But Prince Kropotkin, who appears to be such a stern materialist, is a very enthusiast, who gives way to utter self-deception as to human nature. "We do not want to be governed!" he says; "and do we not thereby declare that we ourselves wish to rule no one? We do not wish to be deceived; we always would hear nothing but the truth. Do we not declare by this that we ourselves wish to deceive no one, and that we promise to speak always the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" Who can fail to recognise here the exact opposite to the real facts of the case? The Anarchists, and especially those who acknowledge Kropotkin as their highest "authority," do not wish force used against them, yet use it themselves; they do not wish to be killed, and yet kill others. Can there be a stronger refutation of Anarchist morality?

Kropotkin has finally broken with the Communism of Proudhon, and placed Anarchist Communism in its stead. Proudhon, and, to a certain extent, Bakunin also--who always called himself a Collectivist, and repelled the charge of Communism[5]--certainly attacked property as _rente_ or profit derived from the appropriation of the forces of nature; but they have also not only not denied the right to individual possession of property, but even sought to make it general. Everyone should become a possessor of property; only land and the means of labour, which must be accessible to all, may not be appropriated; they are collective property, and are applied to employment in a proportion equal to the quotient of the amount of land at disposal, or the means of production on the one hand and the number of members of free "groups" on the other. We have already seen to what a complicated organisation of economic life this led in the case of Proudhon's theory; but he did not entrust the maintenance of this economic order to the strong hand of the State, but believed that life, when once brought into equilibrium or "balance," could never fall away from it again. We will not repeat here what an illusion is contained in this.

Collectivism left to itself must degenerate again at once into a state of economic inequality, and accordingly those Collectivists who make the maintenance of economic equilibrium the business of the State, possess at least the merit of consistency. But then the very foundation idea of Anarchism is hereby lost.

[5] At the Peace Congress at Bern in 1869, Bakunin defended himself against the reproach of Communist tendencies, saying: "I abominate Communism, because it is a denial of freedom, and I cannot understand anything human without freedom. I am no Communist, because Communism concentrates all the forces of society in the State, and lets them be absorbed by it, because it necessarily results in the centralisation of property in the hands of the State; whereas I wish to do away with the State, to utterly root out the principle of the authority and guardians.h.i.+p of the State, which, under the pretence of improving and idealising men, has. .h.i.therto enslaved, oppressed, exploited, and ruined them. I wish for the organisation of society and of collective and social property from below upwards, by means of free a.s.sociation, and not from above downwards by means of authority, be it what it may. In demanding the abolition of the State, I mean to abolish the inheritance of property by an individual, _i. e._, of property that is only a matter of the State's arrangement, and is only a consequence of the principle of the State itself. In this sense I am a Collectivist and by no means a Communist."

This irreconcilable contradiction between Anarchism and Collectivism decided Kropotkin to give up the latter entirely, and to set up in its stead Anarchist Communism, thus attaching himself to the lines already indicated by Hess and Grun. He criticised unsparingly (in _La Conquete du Pain_ and _Le Salariat_) every system of reward or wages, whether based on Saint-Simon's principle of "To each according to his capacity, and to every capacity according to its results"; or on Proudhon's rule, "to each according to his powers, to each according to his needs." With the reward of labour he rejects the period of labour, possession even in the form of Collective possession, and also the payment of labour (_les bons du travail_), equally with other forms of property, capital, or exploitation. He even attacks the theory of the full result of labour that ought to accrue to every labourer, this most stalwart hobby-horse of Socialism. "It would mean the annihilation of the race," he says, "if the mother would not sacrifice her life to save the life of her children; if man would not give where he could expect no recompense."

Kropotkin's motto, that has been so eagerly accepted by the Anarchists of Romance nationality, is on the contrary: "Everything belongs to all," _tout est a tous; i. e._, no one is any longer a possessor; if after the Revolution all goods and property were expropriated and given back to the community, then everybody would take what he pleased, according to his needs. Anyone might just as well appropriate the land as another object or commodity. "Heap together all the means of life, and let them be divided according to each man's need," he cries[6]; "let each choose freely from this heap everything of which there is a superfluity, and let only those commodities be divided of which there might be some lack. That is a solution of the problem according to the wish of the people." Again, "free choice from the heap in all means of life that are abundant, proper division (_rationement_) of all those things the production of which is limited; division according to needs, with special regard to children, old people, and the weak generally. The enjoyment of all this not in a social feeding-inst.i.tution (_dans la marmite sociale_), but at home in the family circle with our friends, according to the taste of the individual, that is the ideal of the ma.s.ses, whose mouthpiece we are."