Order and Anarchy.

[Translated from "Le Revolte."]

We are often reproached with having accepted as a motto the word anarchy, which so frightens many minds. “Tour ideas are excellent,” they tell us, “but confess that your party’s name is unfortunately chosen. Anarchy, in the current tongue, is a synonym of disorder, chaos; it awakens in the mind the idea of clashing interests, of individuals at war with each other and unable to establish harmony.”

Let us begin by observing that a party of action, a party representing a new tendency, is rarely allowed to choose its own name. The Gueux (beggars) of Brabant did not invent that name, which afterward became so popular. But, at first a nickname,— and a very felicitous one, too,— it was taken up by the party, generally accepted, and soon became its motto. It will be agreed, moreover, that the word contained a complete idea.

And the sans-culottes of 1793? It was the enemies of the popular revolution that flung that name; but did it not contain a complete idea, that of the revolt of the people, in tatters and tiled of misery, against all those royalists, soi-disant patriots, and jacobins, dressed well and with scrupulous neatness, who, in spite of their pompons speeches and the incense burned before their statues by the bourgeois historians, were the real enemies of the people, since they profoundly despised the people for their poverty, their love of liberty and equality, and their revolutionary spirit?

And so with the name Nihilists, which so puzzled journalists and was the occasion of so many plays upon words, good and bad, until it became understood that it denoted, not a sect of semi-religious cranks, but a real revolutionary power. Launched by Tourgueneff in his novel, “Fathers and Sons,” it was taken up by the “fathers,” who by this nickname revenged themselves for the disobedience of the “sons.” The “sons” accepted it, and when, later, they saw that it was the source of misunderstandings and tried to disembarrass themselves of it, it was impossible to do so. The press and public were unwilling to designate the Russian revolutionists by any other name than this. Moreover, the name is by no means badly chosen, for it contains an idea. It expresses the negation of the sum total of the facts of the existing civilization, based on the oppression of one class by another: the negation of the present economic regime, the negation of governmentalism and power, of bourgeois politics, of bourgeois morality, of routine science, of art placed at the service of exploiters, or the grotesque customs and usages, often detestable because of their hypocrisy, handed down from past centuries to existing soctety,— in short, the negation of all that the bourgeois civilization venerates to-day.

The same with the Anarchists. When there arose within the International a party denying authority in the bosom of the Association and revolting against authority in all its forms, that party first gave itself the name of Federalist, and later Anti-Stateist or Anti-Autoritaire. At that time it even avoided the name of Anarchists. The word an-archy (for so it was written then) seemed to connect the party too closely with the followers of Proudhon, to whose ideas of economic reform the International at that time was opposed. But for this very reason, in order to induce confusion, their enemies saw fit to use this name, saying, further, that the very name of the Anarchists proved that they desired only disorder and chaos, regardless of future results.

Then the Anarchistic party hastened to accept the name bestowed upon it. It insisted at first on the hyphen between an and archy, explaining that in this form the word an-archy, of Greek origin, signified no government, not “disorder;” but soon it accepted it just as it is, without giving useless trouble to proof-readers or a lesson in Greek to the people.

The word, then, has recovered its primitive, ordinary, common significance, expressed in 1816 in these words by an English philosopher, Bentham: “The philosopher who desires to reform a bad law does not preach insurrection against it. . . . The character of the Anarchist is very different. He denies the existence of the law, he rejects its validity, he excites men not to recognize it as law and to resist its execution.” To-day the meaning of the word has grown in breadth: the Anarchist denies not only existing laws, but all established power, all authority. Nevertheless, its essence remains the same: he revolts — and that is his starting-point — against power, authority, under whatever form it happens to exist.

But this word, they tell us, awakens in the mind the negation of order, and, consequently, the idea of disorder, chaos.

We will try, nevertheless, to understand each other. What order is in question? Is it the harmony that we Anarchists dream of? the harmony in human relations that will freely establish itself after humanity is no longer divided into two classes, one of which is sacrificed for the benefit of the other? the harmony that will spring spontaneously from the solidarity of interests, when all men shall form one and the same family, when each will labor for the good of all and all for the good of each? Clearly, no! Those who reproach anarchy with being the negation of order do not mean the harmony of the future; they mean order, as it is conceived to-day, in our present society. Let us see, then, what this order is that anarchy wishes to destroy.

Order, to-day,— what they mean by order,— is nine-tenths of humanity laboring to maintain a handful of idlers in luxury, enjoyment, and the satisfaction of the most execrable passions.

Order is the deprivation of these nine-tenths of every necessary condition of healthy life and rational intellectual development. To reduce nine-tenths of humanity to the condition of beasts of burden living from day to day, without ever daring to think of the enjoyment which man finds in the study of science and the pursuit of art,— that is order!

Order is misery and famine become the normal state of society. It is the Irish peasant dying of hunger; it is the peasant of one-third of Russia dying of diphtheria, of typhoid fever, of hunger in consequence of scarcity, amid carloads of wheat on their way to foreign countries; it is the people of Italy compelled to abandon their luxuriant fields to roam through Europe seeking some tunnel to dig, where they may run the risk of being massacred after having existed a few additional months. It is the land taken from the peasant for the rearing of cattle to feed the rich; it is the land allowed to lie fallow rather than be restored to him who asks no more than to cultivate it.

Order is woman selling herself to support her children, is the child compelled to be confined in a factory or die of inanition, is the workingman reduced to the state of a machine. It is the phantom of hunger ever present at the doors of the laborer, the phantom of the insurgent laborer at the doors of the rich, the phantom of the insurgent people at the doors of their governors.

Order is a minority of a few, versed in governmental affairs, imposing themselves for that reason on the majority and bringing up their children to fill the same offices later, in order to maintain the same privileges, by stratagem, corruption, force, and wholesale murder.

Order is the continual war of man upon man, of trade upon trade, of class upon class, of nation upon nation. It is the unceasing roar of the cannon in Europe, the devastation of the country, the sacrifice of entire generations on the battle-field, the destruction in one year of wealth accumulated by centuries of hard labor.

Order is servitude, thought in chains, the degradation of the human race, maintained by blood and the sword. It is hundreds of miners buried annually in the mines through the avarice of the owners, and mitrailleused, shot down, and bayoneted, if they dare to protest against these massacres.

Order, finally, is the Commune of Paris drowned in blood. It Is thirty thousand men, women, and children cut to pieces by shells, rained upon by the mitrailleuse, burled in quicklime beneath Parisian pavements. It is Young Russia within prison walls, buried in Siberian snows, its best, purest, most unselfish representatives strangling in the hangman’s noose.

That is order!

And disorder,— that which they call disorder?

It is the people in revolt against this ignoble order, breaking their chains, tearing down barriers, and marching toward a better future. It is all that is most glorious in the history or humanity.

It is the revolt of thought on the eve of revolutions; it if the overturning of hypotheses sanctioned by the inertia of centuries past; it is the birth of a whole flood of new ideas, of bold inventions, of audacious solutions of scientic problems.

Disorder is the abolition of ancient slavery, the insurrection of the communes, the abolition of feudal serfdom, the attempts at abolition of economic servitude.

Disorder is the peasants risen against the priests and lords, burning castles to make room for cottages, leaving their dens in search of tho sunlight. It is France abolishing royalty and dealing a mortal blow at serfdom throughout Western Europe.

Disorder is 1848 causing kings to tremble and proclaiming the right of labor. It is the people of Paris fighting for a new idea, and, though overpowered by massacre, bequeathing to humanity the idea of the free Commune and breaking the war for that revolution whose approach we now feel and which will be known as the Social Revolution.

Disorder — what they call disorder — is the epochs during which entire generations bear up in superhuman struggle and sacrifice themselves to prepare for humanity a better existence by relieving it of the chains of the past. It is the epochs during which the popular genius finds free scope, and in a few years takes those gigantic strides without which man would have remained in the state of ancient slavery, a servile being in abject misery.

Disorder is the flowering of the most beautiful passions and the grandest self-sacrifices; it is the epic history of the supreme love, the love of humanity.

The word anarchy, implying the negation of such an order and invoking the memory of the highest moments in humanity’s life,— is it not well chosen for a party which marches onward to the conquest of a better future?

Switzerland's Double Shame.

Read the outspoken utterance of Henri Rouchefort's journal "L'Intiansigeant," on the Kropotkin expulsion: -

A letter from Berne informs us that our friend, Princ Kropotkin, one of the most distinguished men in the Russian revolutionary party, has just been expelled from Switzerland by a decree of the federal council.

They accuse Pierre Kropotkin of having called himself Levaschof, which, it will be admitted, is not highly criminal; of having been editorially connected with "Le Révolté," which was his indisputable right; of having expressed no regret at the death of Alexander II, who had robbed him of his property and banished him; of having remained resolutely true in his republican faith and socialistic convictions; of having maintained sympathy for Sophie Perovskaya, Ryssakoff, Mikhatloff, Jelaboff, and their heroic friends hung at St. Petersburg on the fifteenth of last April; and, finally, of having taken part in the London revolutionary congress, which, it would seem, is England's affair alone.

It is evident that the ridiculous reasons alleged by the federal council in justification of the expulsion of Citizen Pierre Kropotkin only the more clearly reveal the odious character of the measure of which our friend is the victim. Switzerland refuses its hospitality to this proud republican in order to court the favor of Russian authority.

As long ago as 1878 the Swiss republic expelled Paul Brousse for a few newspaper articles; to-day is expels Pierre Kropotkin for a few words spoken at London or Geneva. a double shame will rest upon its shoulders in the eyes of all free peoples.

______________________________

Ministers, as a rule, know but little of public affairs, and they always account for the action of people they do not like or agree with by attributing to them the lowest and basest motives. This is the fruit of the pulpit, always has been, and probably always will be. -R. G. Ingersoll.

The Mistake of American Socialists.

A correspondent writing from this country to "Le Révolté," explains in a few words the true cause of the very slow progress of socialism in the United States. He says:

Socialist Propagandism in the United States is more difficult than elsewhere because of the extreme variety of nationalities composing the working class, each nationality coming here imbued with different aspirations, different cultures, and wholly different social conceptions. In spite of this the labor movement is developing with considerable rapidity in the United States.

Unfortunately it still allows itself to be direct by the so-called "Socialist Party," which accustoms the workers to content themselves with the trifles which the well-fed are pleased to throw them from time to time, so that when a revolutionist ventures to demand all rights in their fullest, they get as scared as the devil.

Report of the London Congress.

[Condensed from "Le Révolté."]

The following is the federation compact prepared by the London Congress for submission to all socialistic-revolutionary organizations. It will be seen that it does not differ from that adopted by the Congress of 1866 or 1873, except by some insignificant modifications of that portion of statutes revised at the Congress of 1873, in consequence of definitive abolition of the General Council. Whether to adopt or reject it the groups and federations will decide for themselves.

Whereas, the emancipation of the laborers must be the work of the laborers themselves, and

Whereas, the efforts of the laborers to achieve their emancipation must not tend to the constitutions of new privileges, but to establish for all the same rights and the same duties; and

Whereas, for this reason, the economic emancipation of the working-people is the great object to which all political movement ought to be subordinated; and

Whereas, all previous efforts have failed for want of solidarity between workmen of different trades in the same country and of fraternal union between the working-people of different countries; and

Whereas, the emancipation of the working people is not a mere local or national problem, but, on the contrary, one that interests all civilized nations, its solution being dependent necessarily on their co-operation in theory and practice; and

Whereas, the movement now in progress among the laborers of those countries farthest advanced industrially, in generating new hopes, gives a solemn warning against falling back into old errors, and advises a combination of all efforts still isolated;
For those reasons:

The Congress of the International Association of Working-People, held at Geneva, September 3, 1866, declares that this association recognizes Truth, Justice, Morality, as the proper rule of its own conduct, and that of all adherent societies or individuals, towards all human beings, without distinction of color, faith, or nationality.

The Congress considers it a duty to claim human and civil rights not only for its own members, but also for all persons who preform their duties. No duties without rights, no rights without duties.

The representatives of the revolutionary socialists of both worlds, assembled at London, July 14, 1881, unanimously favoring the total destruction, by force, of existing political and economic institutions, have accepted this declaration of principles.

They declare - in harmony, moreover, with the significance always given it by the International - that the word morality used in the preamble is not used in the sense given it by the bourgeoisie, but in the sense that we can arrive at morality only by abolition, by all methods, of the existing form of society, based on immorality.

Whereas, the time has arrived for passing from the period of affirmation to the period of action, and for adding to propagandism by voice and pen, which has shown to be ineffective, propagandism by fact and insurrectional action.
They propose to adherent groups the following resolution:

The International Association of Working-People declares itself an opponent of parliamentary politics.

Whoever adopts and defends the principles of the Association is eligible for membership.
Each adherent group shall have the right to correspond directly with all other groups and federations that may give it their addresses.

Nevertheless to facilitate relations, an international bureau of information shall be established. This bureau shall be composed of three members.

General expenses shall be covered by voluntary assessments to be remitted to said bureau.

Adhesions shall be received at this bureau and communicated to it by all groups.

An international congress shall be held whenever adherent groups and federations may decide in favor thereof.

Of course the Congress could not declare publicly its full opinion regarding revolutionary methods of action, but in the following resolutions it expressed a few ideas on this point:

Whereas, the International Working-People's Association has recognized the necessity of supplementing propagandism by voice and pen with propagandism by fact; and

Whereas, further, a general revolution is not far off, when the revolutionary elements will be called upon to show the extent of their devotion to the proletarian cause and of their power and action,

The Congress expresses the desire that organizations adherent to the International Working-People's Association may consider carefully the following propositions:

It is strictly necessary to make all possible efforts to spread by action the revolutionary idea and spirit of revolt among that large portion of the popular masses which does not yet take an active part in the movement and cherishes illusions regarding the morality and effectiveness of legal methods.

In abandoning the legal ground on which we have generally stood hitherto extend our action into the domain of illegality, which is the only road leading to revolution, it is necessary to to resort to methods in conformity to this end.

The persecution against which the revolutionary public press struggles in all countries make the organization of a clandestine press a necessity henceforth.

The great mass of laborers in the country still remaining outside of the socialistic-revolutionary movement, it is absolutely necessary to direct our efforts to that quarter, remembering the simplest fact, aimed at existing institutions, speaks louder to the masses than thousands of printed papers and floods of words, and that propagandism by fact in the country is still more important than in cities.

The technical and chemical sciences have already done service in the revolutionary cause and being destined to do still greater service in the future, the Congress recommends organizations and individuals belonging to the International Working-People's Association to give great weight to the study and application of these sciences as a method of defense and attack.
To the foregoing resolutions another was added as follows:

The Congress, recognizing that it has no other right than to indicate a general outline of what it considers the best form of revolutionary socialistic organization, leaves the groups to initiate such organizations, secret or not, as may seem to them useful in effecting the triumph of the Social Revolution.


In the list of delegates were to be found the following of the United States: No. 5, representing the German socialistic-revolutionary club of New York and Philedelphia; No. 7, representing the German section of the socialistic labor party of New York; No. 30, representing the revolutionists of Boston. The following are abstracts of the more important of the sectional reports submitted by the delegates.

America - The industrial situation is the same in New World as in the Old: the same divisions of rich and poor, idle and industrious. In spite of all the obstacles in the shape of political prejudice met in the propagation of socialism, perhaps in the United States, after all, the revolution is furthest advanced. The organizations represented by the present delegate agree in favoring violent revolution. The revolutionary groups are not yet as strong as they should be. Opportunities for overturning the government at Washington have not been taken advantage of. The great strike and the events at Pittsburgh made a great impression in the East. The late strike of the brewers did not tell in our favor, the revolutionary workers not being able to penetrate their councils, which is the more regrettable because the opportunity for revolutionary propagandism was a very good one. It is out opinion that we should join all labor organizations. We do not deny the necessity of open propagandism, since that must attract the masses still outside the movement; but we do not forget the necessity of secret organizations.

The Lower Rhine - The situation in Germany is well known, repression being almost as violent as Russia; the tendency then is absolutely revolutionary. We wish to make not only a defensive, but an offensive struggle. Formerly the socialist party was very strong. We had over 600,000 voters, but now our strength is very much reduced. Therefore we are organizing on a new basis. The capital is really revolutionary. In the cities, where the moderate party is the strongest, the socialist abstain from voting, as will be clearly seen at the approaching elections. In the Rhenish provinces the revolutionary spirit is very strong, and in Bavaria we can count on the peasants. There can be no longer any doubt that the social democrats of Austria are now inspired with our ideas.

Switzerland - In so-called free Switzerland the situation is the same as monarchical States. The liberty granted to socialists is quite as illusory as in other countries. The socialistic-revolutionary movement gains ground, while the parliamentary socialists continually lose, their best elements coming to join us.

France - The socialistic-revolutionary party of Lyons is absolutely inspired by anarchist ideas. It seeks to act on the great mass of laborers. Recently established, it has already obtained a firm footing in Lyons, and foresees an increased rate of growth after the Congress. It expends some of its efforts in neighboring towns, and there is reason to believe that a Lyonese federation, revolutionary in fact as well as words, will soon be definitively organized.

Spain - In spite of the persecution of the International in Spain, the organization has maintained itself intact since 1873. It is purely economic, being made up trade organizations and miscellaneous sections. Strikes are instituted, not as an end, but a means, with a view to organizing laborers. We do not expect to accomplish the revolution by a stroke, but we are sure that, unless the workingmen have some powerful organization of their own, the revolution can be easily defeated by the bourgeoisie. We have no continuous functions. Any one charged with a special duty returns to the ranks as soon as he has fulfilled it. By this means we have avoided individual ascendancy and kept the ambitious aloof. The regional bureaus of the seven organized regions are only as a medium of correspondence; likewise, the federal bureau, which has so little authority and is so powerless to assume any that the federations could get along perfectly well without it. Finally, we have a journal of our own, which, as far as means are concerned, is sure of continued existence.

Reports of similar tenor were submitted from Italy, Belgium, and other countries.

Labor Cutting its Own Throat.

In the columns of "Le Révolté," an excellent Anarchistic journal published at Geneva, occur the following admirable comments on the late riots at Marseilles between French and Italian laborers, ostensibly because of the Tunisian troubles, but really because of the effect of Italian labor on wages, the situation at Marseilles being similar in kind to that produced by the Chinese at San Francisco: -

Our readers abroad already know from the daily journals the particulars of the recent sad occurrences at Marseilles. As the French troops, returning from Tunis, were entering the city, a few people, excited by the rascally opportunists who seek to awaken in France the spirit of exclusive patriotism, rushed upon the Italian club-house under the pretext that hisses for the troops had proceeded therefrom. We can hardly believe that the club-house was the source of the hisses, as there was no one in it at the time. But, even if it was, what right have French workingmen to do with the malice of the Italian bourgeoisie against the French bourgeoisie arising from the act of the latter in depriving the former of a field of exploitation in Tunis. Let the bourgeoisie quarrel among themselves ; it is not for laborers to interfere.

But the altercations, succeeding one another, soon took on quite another character. French laborers rushed upon Italian laborers to drive them from Marseilles, where they come to work at cheap rates and reduce wages. Knife-thrusts, men thrown into the water, dozens severely wounded, a few killed, - these are the results of the sad days during which workingmen, allowing themselves to be excited by the dregs of the bourgeois press, cut one another's throats, instead of going in a body to demolish the presses of the journals that stirred up, by their false stories, a spirit of hatred between laborers of two nationalities.

The scoundrels who wish to achieve an autocratic reign in France desire war; they hope to stifle in a foreign war the revolution which they feel approaching, and which, bursting out in France, would embrace all Europe. That deputy tearing down the Italian escutcheon, does he not show clearly the aim of opportunism ? A war in order to obtain the dictatorship, to drown in the blood and smoke of battle the socialistic movement, - such is their object. And we, workingmen, shall we be stupid enough to become the instruments of their machination, the accomplices of the aspirants for power :

No! It is not by hunting down the starving men that came from Italy that the French laborer will succeed in improving his condition. It is by establishing an international alliance of the exploited of all countries in order to oppose to the international league of the famishers the international league of the famished. Let us not whet our knives for workingmen more wretched than ourselves. Let us whet them for the exploiters, the international bourgeoisie; and let us learn to strike hard that we may kill the venomous beast which feeds on our blood, sowing among us the seeds of hatred in order the better to rule us. Let us raise the flag which is the standard of all the oppressed, without distinction of race or nationality, the banished flag which makes our oppressors tremble, the flag of the International Working-people's Association.