Violence and the Labor Movement Part 1

Violence and the Labor Movement.

by Robert Hunter.

PREFACE

This volume is the result of some studies that I felt impelled to make when, about three years ago, certain sections of the labor movement in the United States were discussing vehemently political action _versus_ direct action. A number of causes combined to produce a serious and critical controversy. The Industrial Workers of the World were carrying on a lively agitation that later culminated in a series of spectacular strikes. With ideas and methods that were not only in opposition to those of the trade unions, but also to those of the socialist party, the new organization sought to displace the older organizations by what it called the "one Big Union." There were many in the older organizations who firmly believed in industrial unionism, and the dissensions which arose were not so much over that question as over the antagonistic character of the new movement and its advocacy here of the violent methods employed by the revolutionary section of the French unions. The most forceful and active spokesman of these methods was Mr. William D.

Haywood, and, largely as a result of his agitation, _la greve generale_ and _le sabotage_ became the subjects of the hour in labor and socialist circles. In 1911 Mr. Haywood and Mr. Frank Bohn published a booklet, ent.i.tled _Industrial Socialism_, in which they urged that the worker should "use any weapon which will win his fight."[A] They declared that, as "the present laws of property are made by and for the capitalists, the workers should not hesitate to break them."[B]

The advocacy of such doctrines alarmed the older socialists, who were familiar with the many disasters that had overtaken the labor movement in its earlier days, and nearly all of them a.s.sailed the direct actionists. Mr. Eugene V. Debs, Mr. Victor L. Berger, Mr. John Spargo, Mr. Morris Hillquit, and many others, less well known, combated "the new methods" in vigorous language. Mr. Hillquit dealt with the question in a manner that immediately awakened the attention of every active socialist. Condemning without reserve every resort to lawbreaking and violence, and insisting that both were "ethically unjustifiable and tactically suicidal," Mr. Hillquit pointed out that whenever any group or section of the labor movement "has embarked upon a policy of 'breaking the law' or using 'any weapons which will win the fight,'

whether such policy was styled 'terrorism,' 'propaganda of the deed,'

'direct action,' 'sabotage,' or 'anarchism,' it has invariably served to demoralize and destroy the movement, by attracting to it professional criminals, infesting it with spies, leading the workers to needless and senseless slaughter, and ultimately engendering a spirit of disgust and reaction. It was this advocacy of 'lawbreaking' which Marx and Engels fought so severely in the International and which finally led to the disruption of the first great international parliament of labor, and the socialist party of every country in the civilized world has since uniformly and emphatically rejected that policy."[C]

There could be no better introduction to the present volume than these words of Mr. Hillquit, and it will, I think, be clear to the reader that the history of the labor movement during the last half-century fully sustains Mr. Hillquit's position. The problem of methods has always been a vital matter to the labor movement, and, for a hundred years at least, the quarrels now dividing syndicalists and socialists have disturbed that movement. In the Chartist days the "physical forcists" opposed the "moral forcists," and later dissensions over the same question occurred between the Bakouninists and the Marxists. Since then anarchists and social democrats, direct actionists and political actionists, syndicalists and socialists have continued the battle. I have attempted here to present the arguments made by both sides of this controversy, and, while no doubt my bias is perfectly clear, I hope I have presented fairly the position of each of the contending elements. Fortunately, the direct actionists have exercised a determining influence only in a few places, and everywhere, in the end, the victory of those who were contending for the employment of peaceable means has been complete.

Already in this country, as a result of the recent controversy, it is written in the const.i.tution of the socialist party that "any member of the party who opposes political action or advocates crime, sabotage, or other methods of violence as a weapon of the working cla.s.s to aid in its emanc.i.p.ation shall be expelled from members.h.i.+p in the party."[D] Adopted by the national convention of the party in 1911, this clause was ratified at a general referendum of all the members.h.i.+p of the party. It is clear, therefore, that the immense majority of socialists are determined to employ peaceable and legal methods of action.

It is, of course, perfectly obvious that the methods to be employed in the struggles between cla.s.ses, as between nations, cannot be predetermined. And, while the socialists everywhere have condemned the use of violent measures and are now exercising every power at their command to keep the struggle between labor and capital on legal ground, events alone will determine whether the great social problems of our day can be settled peaceably. The entire matter is largely in the hands of the ruling cla.s.ses. And, while the socialists in all countries are determined not to allow themselves to be provoked into acts of despair by temporary and fleeting methods of repression, conditions may of course arise where no organization, however powerful, could prevent the ma.s.ses from breaking into an open and b.l.o.o.d.y conflict. On one memorable occasion (March 31, 1886), August Bebel uttered some impressive words on this subject in the German Reichstag. "Herr von Puttkamer," said Bebel, "calls to mind the speech which I delivered in 1881 in the debate on the Socialist Law a few days after the murder of the Czar. I did not then glorify regicide. I declared that a system like that prevailing in Russia necessarily gave birth to Nihilism and must necessarily lead to deeds of violence. Yes, I do not hesitate to say that if you should inaugurate such a system in Germany it would of necessity lead to deeds of violence with us as well. (A deputy called out: 'The German Monarchy?') The German Monarchy would then certainly be affected, and I do not hesitate to say that I should be one of the first to lend a hand in the work, for all measures are allowable against such a system."[E] I take it that Bebel was, in this instance, simply pointing out to the German bureaucracy the inevitable consequences of the Russian system. At that very moment he was restraining hundreds of thousands of his followers from acts of despair, yet he could not resist warning the German rulers that the time might come in that country when no considerations whatever could persuade men to forego the use of the most violent retaliative measures. This view is, of course, well established in our national history, and our Declaration of Independence, as well as many of our State const.i.tutions, a.s.serts that it is both the right and the duty of the people to overthrow by any means in their power an oppressive and tyrannical government. This was, of course, always the teaching of what Marx liked to call "the bourgeois democrats." It was, in fact, their only conception of revolution.

The socialist idea of revolution is quite a different one. Insurrection plays no necessary part in it, and no one sees more clearly than the socialist that nothing could prove more disastrous to the democratic cause than to have the present cla.s.s conflict break into a civil war. If such a war becomes necessary, it will be in spite of the organized socialists, who, in every country of the world, not only seek to avoid, but actually condemn, riotous, tempestuous, and violent measures. Such measures do not fit into their philosophy, which sees, as the cause of our present intolerable social wrongs, not the malevolence of individuals or of cla.s.ses, but the workings of certain economic laws.

One can cut off the head of an individual, but it is not possible to cut off the head of an economic law. From the beginning of the modern socialist movement, this has been perfectly clear to the socialist, whose philosophy has taught him that appeals to violence tend, as Engels has pointed out, to obscure the understanding of the real development of things.

The dissensions over the use of force, that have been so continuous and pa.s.sionate in the labor movement, arise from two diametrically opposed points of view. One is at bottom anarchistic, and looks upon all social evils as the result of individual wrong-doing. The other is at bottom socialistic, and looks upon all social evils as in the main the result of economic and social laws. To those who believe there are good trusts and bad trusts, good capitalists and bad capitalists, and that this is an adequate a.n.a.lysis of our economic ills, there is, of course, after all, nothing left but hatred of individuals and, in the extreme case, the desire to remove those individuals. To those, on the other hand, who see in certain underlying economic forces the source of nearly all of our distressing social evils, individual hatred and malice can make in reality no appeal. This volume, on its historical side, as well as in its survey of the psychology of the various elements in the labor movement, is a contribution to the study of the reactions that affect various minds and temperaments in the face of modern social wrongs. If one's point of view is that of the anarchist, he is led inevitably to make his war upon individuals. The more sensitive and sincere he is, the more bitter and implacable becomes that war. If one's point of view is based on what is now called the economic interpretation of history, one is emanc.i.p.ated, in so far as that is possible for emotional beings, from all hatred of individuals, and one sees before him only the necessity of readjusting the economic basis of our common life in order to achieve a more nearly perfect social order.

In contrasting the temperaments, the points of view, the philosophy, and the methods of these two antagonistic minds, I have been forced to take two extremes, the Bakouninist anarchist and the Marxian socialist. In the case of the former, it has been necessary to present the views of a particular school of anarchism, more or less regardless of certain other schools. Proudhon, Stirner, Warren, and Tucker do not advocate violent measures, and Tolstoi, Ibsen, Spencer, Th.o.r.eau, and Emerson--although having the anarchist point of view--can hardly be conceived of as advocating violent measures. It will be obvious to the reader that I have not dealt with the philosophical anarchism, or whatever one may call it, of these last. I have confined myself to the anarchism of those who have endeavored to carry out their principles in the democratic movement of their time and to the deeds of those who threw themselves into the active life about them and endeavored to impress both their ideas and methods upon the awakening world of labor.

It is the anarchism of these men that the world knows. By deeds and not by words have they written their definition of anarchism, and I am taking and using the term in this volume in the sense in which it is used most commonly by people in general. If this offends the anarchists of the non-resistant or pa.s.sive-resistant type, it cannot be helped. It is the meaning that the most active of the anarchists have themselves given it.

I have sought to take my statements from first-hand sources only, although in a few cases I have had to depend on secondary sources. I am deeply indebted to Mr. Herman Schlueter, editor of the _New Yorker Volkszeitung_, for lending me certain rare books and pamphlets, and also for reading carefully and critically the entire ma.n.u.script. With his help I have managed to get every doc.u.ment that has seemed to me essential. At the end of the volume will be found a complete list of the authorities which I have consulted. I have to regret that I could not read, before sending this ma.n.u.script to the publisher, the four volumes just published of the correspondence between Marx and Engels (_Der Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx 1844 bis 1833, herausgegeben von A. Bebel und Ed. Bernstein_, J. H. W. Dietz, Stuttgart, 1913). I must also express here my grat.i.tude to Mr. Morris Hillquit and to Miss Helen Phelps Stokes for making many valuable suggestions, as well as my indebtedness to Miss Helen Bernice Sweeney and Mr. Sidney S. Bobbe for their most capable secretarial a.s.sistance.

Special appreciation is due my wife for her helpfulness and painstaking care at many difficult stages of the work.

Highland Farm, Noroton Heights, Connecticut.

November 1, 1913.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] P. 57.

[B] P. 57.

[C] The New York _Call_, November 20, 1911.

[D] Article II, Section 6.

[E] Quoted by Dawson, "German Socialism and Ferdinand La.s.salle," p. 272.

PART I

TERRORISM IN WESTERN EUROPE

CHAPTER I

THE FATHER OF TERRORISM

"Dante tells us," writes Macaulay, "that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a human form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them, and then a wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its antagonist. The serpent's tail divided into two legs; the man's legs intertwined themselves into a tail. The body of the serpent put forth arms; the arms of the man shrank into his body. At length the serpent stood up a man, and spake; the man sank down a serpent, and glided hissing away."[1] Something, I suppose, not unlike this appalling picture of Dante's occurs in the world whenever a man's soul becomes saturated with hatred. It will be remembered, for instance, that even Sh.e.l.ley's all-forgiving and sublime Prometheus was forced by the torture of the furies to cry out in anguish,

"Whilst I behold such execrable shapes, Methinks I grow like what I contemplate."

It would not be strange, then, if here and there a man's entire nature were transfigured when he sees a monster appear, cruel, pitiless, and unyielding, crus.h.i.+ng to the earth the weak, the weary, and the heavy-laden. Nor is it strange that in Russia--the blackest Malebolge in the modern world--a litter of avengers is born every generation of the savage brutality, the murderous oppression, the satanic infamy of the Russian government. And who does not love those innumerable Russian youths and maidens, driven to acts of defiance--hopeless, futile, yet necessary--if for no other reason than to fulfill their duty to humanity and thus perhaps quiet a quivering conscience? There is something truly Promethean in the struggle of the Russian youth against their overpowering antagonist. They know that the price of one single act of protest is their lives. Yet, to the eternal credit of humanity, thousands of them have thrown themselves naked on the spears of their enemy, to become an example of sacrificial revolt. And can any of us wonder that when even this tragic seeding of the martyrs proved unfruitful, many of the Russian youth, brooding over the irremediable wrongs of their people, were driven to insanity and suicide? And, if all that was possible, would it be surprising if it also happened that at least one flaming rebel should have developed a philosophy of warfare no less terrible than that of the Russian bureaucracy itself? I do not know, nor would I allow myself to suggest, that Michael Bakounin, who brought into Western Europe and planted there the seeds of terrorism, came to be like what he contemplated, or that his philosophy and tactics of action were altogether a reflection of those he opposed. Yet, if that were the case, one could better understand that bitter and bewildering character.

That there is some justification for speculation on these grounds is indicated by the heroes of Bakounin. He always meant to write the story of Prometheus, and he never spoke of Satan without an admiration that approached adoration. They were the two unconquerable enemies of absolutism. He was "the eternal rebel," Bakounin once said of Satan, "the first free-thinker and emanc.i.p.ator of the worlds."[2] In another place he speaks of Proudhon as having the instinct of a revolutionist, because "he adored Satan and proclaimed anarchy."[3] In still another place he refers to the proletariat of Paris as "the modern Satan, the great rebel, vanquished, but not pacified."[4] In the statutes of his secret organization, of which I shall speak again later, he insists that "principles, programs, and rules are not nearly as important as that the persons who put them into execution shall have the devil in them."[5]

Although an avowed and militant atheist, Bakounin could not subdue his wors.h.i.+p of the king of devils, and, had anyone during his life said that Bakounin was not only a modern Satan incarnate, but the eight other devils as well, nothing could have delighted him more. And no doubt he was inspired to this demon wors.h.i.+p by his implacable hatred of absolutism--whether it be in religion, which he considered as tyranny over the mind, or in government, which he considered as tyranny over the body. To Bakounin the two eternal enemies of man were the Government and the Church, and no weapon was unworthy of use which promised in any measure to a.s.sist in their entire and complete obliteration.

Absolutism was to Bakounin a universal destroyer of the best and the n.o.blest qualities in man. And, as it stands as an effective barrier to the only social order that can lift man above the beast--that of perfect liberty--so must the sincere warrior against absolutism become the universal destroyer of any and everything a.s.sociated with tyranny. How far such a crusade leads one may be gathered from Bakounin's own words: "The end of revolution can be no other," he declares, "than the destruction of all powers--religious, monarchical, aristocratic, and bourgeois--in Europe. Consequently, the destruction of all now existing States, with all their inst.i.tutions--political, juridical, bureaucratic, and financial."[6] In another place he says: "It will be essential to destroy everything, and especially and before all else, all property and its inevitable corollary, the State."[7] "We want to destroy all States," he repeats in still another place, "and all Churches, with all their inst.i.tutions and their laws of religion, politics, jurisprudence, finance, police, universities, economics, and society, in order that all these millions of poor, deceived, enslaved, tormented, exploited human beings, delivered from all their official and officious directors and benefactors, a.s.sociations, and individuals, can at last breathe with complete freedom."[8] All through life Bakounin clung tenaciously to this immense idea of destruction, "terrible, total, inexorable, and universal," for only after such a period of destructive terror--in which every vestige of "the inst.i.tutions of tyranny" shall be swept from the earth--can "anarchy, that is to say, the complete manifestation of unchained popular life,"[9] develop liberty, equality, and justice.

These were the means, and this was the end that Bakounin had in mind all the days of his life from the time he convinced himself as a young man that "the desire for destruction is at the same time a creative desire."[10]

Even so brief a glimpse into Bakounin's mind is likely to startle the reader. But there is no fiction here; he is what Carlyle would have called "a terrible G.o.d's Fact." He was a very real product of Russia's infamy, and we need not be surprised if one with Bakounin's great talents, wors.h.i.+ping Satan and preaching ideas of destruction that comprehended Cosmos itself, should have performed in the world a unique and never-to-be-forgotten role. It was inevitable that he should have stood out among the men of his time as a strange, bewildering figure. To his very matter-of-fact and much annoyed antagonist, Karl Marx, he was little more than a buffoon, the "amorphous pan-destroyer, who has succeeded in uniting in one person Rodolphe, Monte Cristo, Karl Moor, and Robert Macaire."[11] On the other hand, to his circle of wors.h.i.+pers he was a mental giant, a flaming t.i.tan, a Russian Siegfried, holding out to all the powers of heaven and earth a perpetual challenge to combat.

And, in truth, Bakounin's ideas and imagination covered a field that is not exhausted by the range of mythology. He juggled with universal abstractions as an alchemist with the elements of the earth or an astrologist with the celestial spheres. His workshop was the universe, his peculiar task the refas.h.i.+oning of Cosmos, and he began by declaring war upon the Almighty himself and every inst.i.tution among men fas.h.i.+oned after what he considered to be the absolutism of the Infinite.

It is, then, with no ordinary human being that we must deal in treating of him who is known as the father of terrorism. Yet, as he lived in this world and fought with his faithful circle to lay down the principles of universal revolution, we find him very human indeed. Of contradictions, for instance, there seems to be no end. Although an atheist, he had an idol, Satan. Although an eternal enemy of absolutism, he pleaded with Alexander to become the Czar of the people. And, although he fought pa.s.sionately and superbly to destroy what he called the "authoritarian hierarchy" in the organization of the International, he planned for his own purpose the most complete hierarchy that can well be imagined. His only tactic, that of _lex talionis_, also worked out a perfect reciprocity even in those common affairs to which this prodigy stooped in order to conquer, for he seemed to create infallibly every inst.i.tution he combated and to use every weapon that he execrated when employed by others. The most fertile of law-givers himself, he could not tolerate another. Pope of Popes in his little inner circle, he could brook no rival. Machiavelli's Prince was no richer in intrigue than Bakounin; yet he always fancied himself, with the greatest self-compa.s.sion, as the nave victim of the endless and malicious intrigues of others. However affectionate, generous, and open he seemed to be with those who followed him wors.h.i.+pfully, even they were not trusted with his secrets, and, if he was always cunning and crafty toward his enemies, he never had a friend that he did not use to his profit. Volatile in his fitful changes toward men and movements, rudderless as he often seemed to be in the incoherence of his ideas and of his policies, there nevertheless burned in his soul throughout life a great flaming, and perhaps redeeming, hatred of tyranny. At times he would lead his little bands into open warfare upon it, dreaming always that the world once in motion would follow him to the end in his great work of destruction. At other times he would go to it bearing gifts, in the hope, as we must charitably think, of destroying it by stealth.

In general outline, this is the father of terrorism as I see him. How he developed his views is not entirely clear, as very little is known of his early life, and there are several broken threads at different periods both early and late in his career. The little known of his youth may be quickly told. He was born in Russia in 1814, of a family of good position, belonging to the old n.o.bility. He was well educated and began his career in the army. Shortly after the Polish insurrection had been crushed, militarism and despotism became abhorrent to him, and the spectacle of that terrorized country made an everlasting impression upon him. In 1834 he renounced his military career and returned to Moscow, where he gave himself up entirely to the study of philosophy, and, as was natural at the period, he saturated himself with Hegel. From Moscow he went to St. Petersburg and later to Berlin, constantly pursuing his studies, and in 1842 he published under the t.i.tle, "_La reaction en Allemagne, fragment, par un Francais_," an article ending with the now famous line: "The desire for destruction is at the same time a creative desire."[12] This article appeared in the _Deutsche Jahrbucher_, in which publication he soon became a collaborator. The authorities, however, were hostile to the paper, and he went into Switzerland in 1843, only to be driven later to Paris. There he made the acquaintance of Proudhon, "the father of anarchism," and spent days and nights with him discussing the problems of government, of society, and of religion.

He also met Marx, "the father of socialism," and, although they were never sympathetic, yet they came frequently in friendly and unfriendly contact with each other. George Sand, George Herwegh, Arnold Ruge, Frederick Engels, William Weitling, Alexander Herzen, Richard Wagner, Adolf Reichel, and many other brilliant revolutionary spirits of the time, Bakounin knew intimately, and for him, as for many others, the period of the forties was one of great intellectual development.

In the insurrectionary period that began in 1848 he became active, but he appears to have done little noteworthy before January, 1849, when he went secretly to Leipsic in the hope of aiding a group of young Czechs to launch an uprising in Bohemia. Shortly afterward an insurrection broke out in Dresden, and he rushed there to become one of the most active leaders of the revolt. It is said that he was "the veritable soul of the revolution," and that he advised the insurrectionists, in order to prevent the Prussians from firing upon the barricades, to place in front of them the masterpieces from the art museum.[13] When that insurrection was suppressed, he, Richard Wagner, and some others hurried to Chemnitz, where Bakounin was captured and condemned to death.

Austria, however, demanded his extradition, and there, for the second time, he was condemned to be hanged. Eventually he was handed over to Russia, where he again escaped paying the death penalty by the pardon of the Czar, and, after six years in prison, he was banished to Siberia.

Great efforts were made to secure a pardon for him, but without success.

However, through his influential relatives, he was allowed such freedom of movement that in the end he succeeded in escaping, and, returning to Europe through j.a.pan and America, he arrived in England in 1861.

The next year is notable for the appearance of two of his brochures, "_Aux amis russes, polonais, et a tous les amis slaves_," and "_La Cause du Peuple, Romanoff, Pougatchoff, ou Pestel?_" One would have thought that twelve years in prison and in Siberia would have made him more bitter than ever against the State and the Czar; but, curiously, these writings mark a striking departure from his previous views. For almost the only time in his life he expressed a desire to see Russia develop into a magnificent "State," and he urged the Russians to drive the Tartars back to Asia, the Germans back to Germany, and to become a free people, exclusively Russian. By cooperative effort between the military powers of the Russian Government and the insurrectionary activities of the Slavs subjected to foreign governments, the Russian peoples could wage a war, he argued, that would create a great united empire. The second of the above-mentioned volumes was addressed particularly to Alexander II. In this Bakounin prophesies that Russia must soon undergo a revolution. It may come through terrible and b.l.o.o.d.y uprisings on the part of the ma.s.ses, led by some fierce and sanguinary popular idol, or it will come through the Czar himself, if he should be wise enough to a.s.sume in person the leaders.h.i.+p of the peasants. He declared that "Alexander II. could so easily become the popular idol, the first Czar of the peasants.... By leaning upon the people he could become the savior and master of the entire Slavic world."[14] He then pictures in glowing terms a united Russia, in which the Czar and the people will work harmoniously together to build up a great democratic State. But he threatens that, if the Czar does not become the "savior of the Slavic world," an avenger will arise to lead an outraged and avenging people.

He again declares, "We prefer to follow Romanoff (the family name of the Czar), if Romanoff could and would transform himself from the _Petersbourgeois_ emperor into the Czar of the peasants."[15] Despite much flattery and ill-merited praise, the Czar refused to be converted, and Bakounin rushed off the next year to Stockholm, in the hope of organizing a band of Russians to enter Poland to a.s.sist in the insurrection which had broken out there.

The next few years were spent mostly in Italy, and it was here that he conceived his plan of a secret international organization of revolutionists. Little is known of how extensive this secret organization actually became, but Bakounin said in 1864 that it included a number of Italian, French, Scandinavian, and Slavic revolutionists. As a scheme this secret organization is remarkable. It included three orders: I. The International Brothers; II. The National Brothers; III.

The semi-secret, semi-public organization of the International Alliance of Social Democracy. Without Bakounin's intending it, doubtless, the International Brothers resembled the circle of G.o.ds in mythology; the National Brothers, the circle of heroes; while the third order resembled the mortals who were to bear the burden of the fighting. The International Brothers were not to exceed one hundred, and they were to be the guiding spirits of the great revolutionary storms that Bakounin thought were then imminent in Europe. They must possess above all things "revolutionary pa.s.sion," and they were to be the supreme secret executive power of the two subordinate organizations. In their hands alone should be the making of the programs, the rules, and the principles of the revolution. The National Brothers were to be under the direction of the International Brothers, and were to be selected because of their revolutionary zeal and their ability to control the ma.s.ses.

They were "to have the devil in them." The semi-secret, semi-public organization was to include the mult.i.tude, and sections were to be formed in every country for the purpose of organizing the ma.s.ses.

However, the ma.s.ses were not to know of the secret organization of the National Brothers, and the National Brothers were not to know of the secret organization of the International Brothers. In order to enable them to work separately but harmoniously, Bakounin, who had chosen himself as the supreme law-giver, wrote for each of the three orders a program of principles, a code of rules, and a plan of methods all its own. The ultimate ends of this movement were not to be communicated to either the National Brothers or to the Alliance, and the ma.s.ses were to know only that which was good for them to know, and which would not be likely to frighten them. These are very briefly the outlines of the extraordinary hierarchy that was to form throughout all Europe and America an invisible network of "the real revolutionists."

This organization was "to accelerate the universal revolution," and what was understood by the revolution was "the unchaining of what is to-day called the bad pa.s.sions and the destruction of what in the same language is called 'public order.' We do not fear, we invoke anarchy, convinced that from this anarchy, that is to say, from the complete manifestation of unchained popular life, must come forth liberty, equality, justice ..."[16] It was clearly foreseen by Bakounin that there would be opponents to anarchy among the revolutionists themselves, and he declared: "We are the natural enemies of these revolutionists ... who ... dream already of the creation of new revolutionary States."[17] It was admitted that the Brothers could not of themselves create the revolution. All that a secret and well-organized society can do is "to organize, not the army of the revolution--the army must always be the people--but a sort of revolutionary staff composed of individuals who are devoted, energetic, intelligent, and especially sincere friends of the people, not ambitious nor self-conceited--capable of serving as intermediaries between the revolutionary idea and the popular instincts.

The number of these individuals does not have to be immense. For the international organization of all Europe, one hundred revolutionists, strongly and seriously bound together, are sufficient. Two or three hundred revolutionists will be sufficient for the organization of the largest country."[18]

The idea of a secret organization of revolutionary leaders proved to be wholly repugnant to many of even the most devoted friends of Bakounin, and by 1868 the organization is supposed to have been dissolved, because, it was said, secrets had leaked out and the whole affair had been subjected to much ridicule.[19] The idea of the third order, however, that of the International Alliance, was not abandoned, and it appears that Bakounin and a number of the faithful Brothers felt hopeful in 1867 of capturing a great "bourgeois" congress, called the "League of Peace and of Liberty," that had met that year in Geneva. Bakounin, elisee Reclus, Aristide Rey, Victor Jaclard, and several others in the conspiracy undertook to persuade the league to pa.s.s some revolutionary resolutions. Bakounin was already a member of the central committee of the league, and, in preparation for the battle, he wrote the ma.n.u.script afterward published under the t.i.tle, "_Federalisme, Socialisme, et Ant.i.theologisme_." But the congress of 1868 dashed their hopes to the ground, and the revolutionists separated from the league and founded the same day, September 25th, a new a.s.sociation, called _L'Alliance Internationale de la Democratie Socialiste_. The program now adopted by the Alliance, although written by Bakounin, expressed quite different views from those of the International Brothers. But it, too, began its revolutionary creed by declaring itself atheist. Its chief and most important work was "to abolish religion and to subst.i.tute science for faith; and human justice for divine justice." Second, it declared for "the political, economic, and social equality of the cla.s.ses" (which, it was a.s.sumed, were to continue to exist), and it intended to attain this end by the destruction of government and by the abolition of the right of inheritance. Third, it a.s.sailed all forms of political action and proposed that, in place of the community, groups of producers should a.s.sume control of all industrial processes. Fourth, it opposed all centralized organization, believing that both groups and individuals should demand for themselves complete liberty to do in all cases whatever they desired.[20] The same revolutionists who a short time before had planned a complete hierarchy now appeared irreconcilably opposed to any form of authority. They now argued that they must abolish not only G.o.d and every political State, but also the right of the majority to rule. Then and then only would the people finally attain perfect liberty.

These were the chief ideas that Bakounin wished to introduce into the International Working Men's a.s.sociation. That organization, founded in 1864 in London, had already become a great power in Europe, and Bakounin entered it in 1869, not only for the purpose of forwarding the ideas just mentioned, but also in the hope of obtaining the leaders.h.i.+p of it.