On Picket Duty.

We are now prepared to furnish the portrait of Michael Bakounine (published in Liberty several weeks ago) separately and on large, heavy paper. It ought to adorn the library walls of every true radical. Consult our advertising column for further information.

The Philadelphia “Press” refers to the British house of commons as a “band of chuckle-headed dullards.” So exact an appreciation of the tools of the governing classes is worthy of Liberty, who hastens to acknowledge her encouragement at hearing her opinions echoed by her influential contemporaries.

On another page will be found along extract from a newly published pamphlet on “Natural Law,” written by that veteran but ever young reformer and philosopher, Lysander Spooner. The whole pamphlet is a powerful and closely argued statement of the philosophy of Liberty, showing the unrighteousness of the government of man by man. It is, however, but an, introduction to a large volume intended to be exhaustive of the subject. Nevertheless it is an integral, and not a fragmentary portion of the work, and maybe read with satisfaction and profit by all. Liberty trusts that each of her readers and friends will pay immediate heed to the advertisement in another column, and order a copy forthwith.

Elsewhere may be found resolutions adopted by active and earnest coworkers in Jersey City in support of the act of George Hendrix in defacing the monument erected by Cyrus W. Field in honor of Major Andre. Against these resolutions Liberty feels bound to protest. We fully agree that Mr. Cyrus W. Field is a thoroughly contemptible being, whose soul, if he has one, will shrivel in hell, if there is one. But, as long as he shall remain on earth, he will have rights, the same rights that every other man has, and in his exercise thereof Liberty will ever defend him even against her own friends. Among these rights is the right to worship any god or man he pleases and in his own way. Whoever disturbs or interferes with him in such worship strikes an unwarrantable blow at freedom of expression, and in so far is false to Liberty. We heartily join in condemnation of the illegal arrest of Mr. Hendrix, not only as the act of a compulsory government which is not entitled to arrest anybody, but as a denial of one of the prerogatives which said government itself pretends to guarantee to its citizens. Still we remember that, if Mr. Hendrix is guilty, his arrest is simply one outrage of Liberty in return for another. The monument erected at Tappautown should be allowed to stand inviolate until taken down by Mr. Field impelled by a sense of his own shame. This, first, for a principle’s sake, because Mr. Field had a right to erect it, and, second, for policy’s sake, because while it stands, it will commemorate ehieny, not the act of Andre, but the folly and servility of his small-souled admirer. Remember! He is no fit soldier of Liberty who refuses to accord Liberty to his enemy.

Patrick Ford has issued through his journal, the “Irish World,” a strong personal declaration on the Irish land question. As a whole it is manly and has the right ring. To be sure, it contains one rhetorically resonant passage glorifying the “Holy Catholic Church” and her infallibility and pledging the writer to a total change of his opinions the instant the “Mother of the Living” shall announce her antagonism thereto, perhaps the most eloquent piece of self-stultification to utter which any man ever soared to the skies with his voice or grovelled in the mire with his intellect. But such things are to be expected from Patrick Ford, the Catholic and slave of superstition. Patrick Ford, the reformer and light-spreader, in whom alone Liberty takes interest, is quite another person. He declares afresh and in unmistakable terms his adherence to the “No Rent” standard, and rebukes, in words that would shame any but shameless men, those who would nullify the grand work already achieved for Ireland by abandoning the Land League with victory almost within its grasp to engage in a hopeless struggle for “home rule” and Irish independence. Home rule, forsooth! As if that were not as bad as any rule! As if Ireland had not suffered too much from the rule already! What she needs now is no rule, anarchy, with which will come peace. For where there is no rule there will be no monopoly; and where there is no monopoly there will be no rent; and where there is no rent there will be no disturbing land question, and every other question of human welfare will be started on the road to its speedy solution.

Of the absolute correctness of the principle, and advisability of the policy, of free trade there can be no reasonable doubt, but it must be thorough-going free trade,— no such half-way arrangement as that which the so-called “free traders” would have adopted. David A. Wells, Professor Perry, and all the economists of the Manchester school are fond of clamoring for “free trade,” but an examination of their position always shows them the most ardent advocates of monopoly in the manufacture of money; the bitterest opponents of free trade in credit. They agree and insist that it is nothing less than tyranny for the government to clip a large slice out of the foreign product which any one chooses to import, but are unable to detect any violation of freedom in the exclusive license given by the government to a conspiracy of note-sharing corporations called national banks, which are enabled by this monopoly to clip anywhere from three to fifteen per cent out of the credit which the people are compelled to buy of them. Such “free trade” as this is the most palpable sham to any one who really looks into it. It makes gold a privileged product, the king of commodities. And as long as this royalty of gold exists, the protectionists who make so much of the theory of the “balance of trade” will occupy an invulnerable position. While gold is king, the nation which absorbs it — that is, the nation whose exports largely exceed its imports — will surely govern the world. But dethrone this worst of despots, and that country will be the most powerful which succeeds to the largest extent in getting rid of its gold in exchange for products more useful. In other word, the republicanization of specio must precede the freedom of trade.

England and the Czardom.

The following is the closing portion of an interesting letter received, not long since, by Liberty, from one of her numerous friends across the Atlantic:

As one who has lived in Russia, And as a stanch admirer of Michael Bakounine, I thank you for the portrait you have given us of this most excellent man, earnest-patriot, and unflinching enemy of despotism. Further, I have to than you for the straightforward, manly way in which you have referred to him, setting off his likeness in the most honorable frame the Apostle of Anarchy could desire,— a record of his own brave deeds. His escape from Siberia should alone be enough to deserve undying fame. But for such unselfish pioneers of Liberty, you and I would still be as his countrymen are.

Before this reaches you the English magazines for December will be in your hands. May I ask your attention to an article in “Fraser” on “The New Departure in Russia” by O.K.? You have doubtless seen some of this lady’s pen-and-ink performance before, but I doubt if she has ever written anything so daring in untruth and reaction previously. To me it is clear that this article is written for reproduction in Russia. It will be read by some thousands in this country alone, the grater number of whom will be influenced by party passion in their judgment, and not at all by a knowledge of the subject. For I regret to say that the whole demeanor of England towards Russia is a ludicrous anachronism. Russia is a slow and conservative country. Its government, as every one knows, is autocratic, despotic, damnable. And yet this is the power, above all others, that Liberal England takes under its wing, shields, defends against the attacks of the Tories, who alone seem to recognize (of course, for their own purposes) the systematic coercion and intriguing determination by which it continually penetrates further into the territory of independent tribes, oppressing them — hitherto free- with the same kind of bondage as that which, with cruel consistency, it inflicts upon its own people. Surely, parties in this country should change their relative positions! As a radical I am disgusted with what I see every week in our press — slavish adulation of Russian institutions and an utter absence of truthful exposures on the part of the Liberal papers, while on the other hand, the Conservative press, led by the “Telegraph,” loses no opportunity of venting party spleen on a government and on institutions which are essentially of a conservative nature. I earnestly trust that English Liberals will soon perceive the foolish attitude they have assumed, bravely admit their error, and consistently withdraw from the positions. Meantime, I am obliged to support a party I otherwise detest, in so far as its foreign policy in this particular is concerned.

Excuse a man’s hobby, dear friend Tucker, when it does no harm to others, but rather good. Russia is my hobby. It is a large one, and I find much in it to admire. If it could only succeed in establishing a republic and in disbanding its two great armies, the Tchinóvnikes (officials) and Soldátes (soldiers),— the curse of every country, but especially the curse of Russia,— a vast slice of this earth would be returned to its primitive use,— that of furnishing and abode for a naturally happy, jovial, contented people, a people not naturally cursed with “earth-hunger,” whose great fault for some centuries has born the belief that life is not worth living without a czar and attendant satellites.

With best wishes, I am sincerely yours,

Paskiarechki.

London, December 8, 1881.

Michael Bakounine.

As announced in our last number, we present on this page, for the first time in America, a faithful portrait of the founder of Nihilism,— the physical lineaments of an heroic reformer, of whom we are willing to hazard the judgment that coming history will yet place him in the very front ranks of the world’s great social saviours. The grand head and face speak for themselves regarding the immense energy, lofty character, and innate nobility of the man. We should have esteemed it among the chief honors of our life to have known him personally, and should account it a great piece of good fortune to talk with one who was personally intimate with him and the essence and full meaning of his thought and aspiration. In the absence of any direct knowledge of the man and his own interpretation of his life-work we can do no more than publish a brief sketch of his career, gathered from various German and French writings, with such inferences as appear to us just and natural.

Michael Bakounine was born in 1814 of an ancient aristocratic Russian family. His father was a wealthy proprietor of Torchok in the governmental department of Twer. He was at an early age sent to the cadet school of St. Petersburg, and entered as ensign in the artillery. In that day the artillery branch of military service was one in which the most favored aristocracy were enrolled, and it had always been the traditional policy of the czars to permit greater freedom of thought and research in that branch of the service than in any other. The immunities and privileges there enjoyed corresponded with that license which the German monarchs have always suffered in the universities, and it was there that Bakounine first nurtured the germs of those great revolutionary ideas which were destined to make his life so eventful, so heroic, and so significant in the evolution of sociological drifts.

With a deep yearning to thoroughly master the leading philosophical thought of his time, and having been commissioned as commandant of an obscure and isolated district, he became restless and disgusted, and in 1841 quitted Russia, and took up his abode in Berlin in order to become master of the Hegelian philosophy, which had already seized upon the young students and thinkers of Germany with a bewitching fascination. Here he entered assiduously into the whole realm of philosophy, especially the Hegelian, which he characterized as the “Algebra of Revolution,” and visited Dresden, Leipzig, and every other locality where he might exchange thought with the leading progressive spirits of the times. He published numerous philosophical writings over the name of Jules Elisard. In 1843 he visited Paris. Here he became an enthusiastic admirer of Proudhon, who probably seasoned his thought with those anarchistic tendencies that in later days developed his logic into what constitutes the philosophical method of Nihilism, which now appals and confounds despotism and challenges the attention of the whole world.

From Paris he next went to Switzerland, where he remained from 1843 to 1847. Here he entered into the new social movement, being en rapport with the Polish exiles. But already he had excited the gravest suspicions on the part of the Russian government, and his permis to sojourn abroad was rescinded. Instead of obeying, he returned to Paris, and there delivered a public appeal to the Poles and Russians to unite in a grand Pan-Slavonic revolutionary confederation. At the demand of the czar he was expelled in 1848 from France, and ten thousand rubles were offered for his arrest and return to Russia. But the revolution of February soon brought him back to Paris, which he quitted again, however, for Prague to attend the Congress of Slavs. The following year he went to Dresden, and became one of the chiefs of the May revolution and a member of the insurrectionary government. Forced to fly from Dresden, he was captured, sent to prison, and condemned to be executed in May, 1850. His sentence, however, was commuted to imprisonment for life. Escaping into Austria, he was again captured and again sentenced to death,— this time for high treason. But again his sentence was commuted to perpetual imprisonment. Upon repeated threats and entreaties the Austrian government was constrained to deliver him up to Russia.

As if hardly knowing how to dispose of so dear a prize, he was kept for several years in a dungeon in the fortress of Neva, and finally deported to Siberia. He spent several years in a penal colony, suffering the most cruel hardships, but finally succeeded in escaping from Siberia, a feat which he alone, it is said, ever accomplished. After a journey of one thousand miles, under hardships which approach the miraculous, he reached the sea, and obtained passage to Japan. From there he sailed to California, thence to New York, and in 1860, as if descending from the clouds, Michael Bakounine alighted, like a thunderbolt, in London.

Experiences like those already suffered would have cooled the ardor of most men, but hardly had Bakounine stepped foot in London when he took up his revolutionary schemes with redoubled enthusiasm. He issued numerous addresses to the Poles and Russians to join in a grand revolutionary confederation of Slavs. Associated with Herzen and Ogareff he published a revolutionary sheet called “The Kolokol” (The Bell). But so grand and deep and searching was his philosophy that he led all his co-laborers beyond their depth. The anarchistic philosophy which he had imbibed from Proudhon permeated all his schemes. He was now precipitated into an ever-deepening conflict with the revolutionary socialists of the Karl Marx school. At the great socialist congress in Geneva in 1870 he took direct and positive issue with the governmental wing of the party. He demanded the abolition of the State and all organized “machines” of social and religious administration. At the congress of the International at Hague in 1872 he was expelled, but succeeded in carrying thirty delegates with him, which body of anarchistic radicals finally waxed strong enough to overthrow the International Association, only to reorganize it later (as they did this last summer) under their own direction. Michael Bakounine now formulated his system of scientific anarchy as fully as his resources would permit. His hope was to crown his life-work by setting in motion a revolution throughout the world, looking to the abolition of the State and the substitution of that natural order which comes of justice, selection, and liberty. His ruling idea was: Given equality of conditions, and organized State and Church become unnecessary. The absence of equality of conditions is due to the existence of the State, and the State alone. Abolish the State! was the banner which he set up to conquer despotism, and erect upon its ruins a reign of true order and natural government. His philosophy and purposes he elaborated in several pamphlets, now very rare, principal among which was one entitled, “Dieu et l’Etat” (God and the State).

Russia, his native country, was the land in which he sought to inaugurate the grand revolution. The result is seen to-day in Nihilism, of which he is the father. Though the flippant, self-sufficient literati of the world may call Michael Bakounine a mad fanatic and visionary, there is one man who sees method in his madness, if not a wisdom akin to his sublime heroism. That man is the czar. Michael Bakounine has doomed the czardom, if not imperialism throughout Europe. His soul is marching on, and his ideas, baptized in living martyrdom, are a terror to all despots, though they may feign iguorance of him.

With hands and heart and brain full of revolutionary material, our hero died at Berne, Switzerland, in 1876. Even a tame sketch of his sufferings and adventures in the cause of liberty would make a tale alike touching and sublime. For several years of his life he was practically outlawed in every land on the planet he sought to redeem. No country would recognize him in a passport, even had he dared to ask for one. He was a refugee and an exile from every land. Despotism had standing rewards for his body. He was early disowned by his family, although his name figures among some of the chief officers near the Russian court to-day. The executioner stood waiting for him in several countries. He was everywhere tracked by spies and detectives. He dared not expose his name on the continent outside of Switzerland. He has no biographer, no authoritative defender, and possibly no authenticated grave. But his thought lives after him, and to the new world of Liberty, Justice, Peace, and Love, to establish which he suffered and died, remains the honor of doing his memory the justice denied him while living. Liberty is not afraid to honor him, being assured that posterity will yet search out his lonely resting-place and bear him from it aloft among the great founders of the new heavens and the new earth.