Our European Letter.

[From Liberty’s Special Correspondent.]

London, January 1, 1882. — Whenever, in the trying midnight hours, doubt seizes me and I despair of ever seeing the victorious realization of the ideas for which we have abandoned everything,— home, family, fortune, social position,— then I look over to Russia, where the spectacle afforded is sufficient to at once disperse the nightmares of the most pessimistic. If ever history shall be written by other than minds corrupted by the influence of their social surroundings, the famous three hundred of Thermopylae and the ten thousand of Xenophon will be looked upon as examples of courage, self-sacrifice, and sublimity a hundred-fold less imposing than those afforded by the men and women who brave death and — what is more — a living sepulchre in the icy steppes of Siberia, not for themselves, not for their own aggrandizement, bus for others unknown to them, for the wretched masses whom they love and refuse to exploit after the manner of the bourgeoisie. One hundred and twenty thousand have been sent to Siberia during the last three years! Thirty-seven have been hanged! And yet each day contributes to our ranks double the number thus taken from as.

You probably have beard the rumor that Ignatieff’s position has been much shaken on account of the various signs of life recently exhibited by our party. Put it down as a fabrication. Ignatieff stands firmer than ever, for he is the only man who is willing to continue the policy of adherence to governing on purely Asiatic principles, which the czar regards as the only cure for the growing spirit of dissatisfaction and rebellion.

Even the last remnants of the appearance of justice have now been abolished. All trials hereafter are to be held in strictest secrecy, newspapers are forbidden even to mention the fact of a trial or the names of the accused, and executions are to be accomplished in the presence of no witnesses. All newspapers except the organs of the government are suppressed, and the icy silence of death reigns throughout the vast dominions of Alexander III.

Tchernichevsky’s place of exile has now been changed for the fourth time. You will remember that at the International Literary Congress at Vienna it was moved to petition the czar for the release of the unfortunate romancier. The czar acceded to the demand officially, but give orders the same day for the removal of the exile to the utmost extreme of northern Siberia, facing the ever-frozen sea, where he has been given into the custody of some savage Exquimaux, even Russian cossacks being unable to endure the climate. He himself, even when free, is completely dead for our purposes, as only his body survives.

In Germany social politics, since the Pyrrhus-victory of the elections, has experienced a little lull, though you may prepare to hear news shortly showing it to have been but the lull before the storm. The popular vote cast by the socialists in Germany was two hundred thousand less than at the election of 1878. I do not follow the custom of all parties by counting all the votes not cast as ours. I should be glad to know that even five per cent of them were due to the policy of deliberate abstention. Bebel was defeated for the fourth time, in Mainz, too, where Liebknecht withdrew in his favor, and where thereby a constituency already won for the Social Democrats has been lost again. It is said that Bruno Geiser, Liebknecht’s son-in-law, will resign his seat for Chemnitz in order to make room for Bebel.

It is a natural law that, once started down an inclined plane, the rapidity of the fall increases in a geometrical ratio. A few days ago, in a public debate in the Reichstag, Hasenclever, a Social Democrat, revealed the fact that Hohm, a member of the revolutionary party, was a delegate to the London congress. Hohm is a married man with five children dependent upon him, and, in consequence of this infamous denunciation, will be completely ruined. Penkert, another valiant member of our party, has been arrested, through the denunciation of these same men, at Vienna.

The European newspapers have been circulating alarming reports about the state of Karl Marx’s health. I can inform you that, though having been very deeply affected by the death or his wife a few weeks ago, he has completely recovered from the shock, and is once more able to continue his subterranean warfare against the Anarchists.

Our European Letter.

[From Liberty's Special Correspondent.]

LONDON, September 19. - Last week two men desired to meet, perhaps in order to hatch some new scheme of wholesale slaughter. Their meeting would not have been extraordinary but for the fact that, in their whole vast empires, Mr. William and Mr. Alexander could not find a single spot, in spite of all their Mamelukes, soldiers, police agents, and spies, where to Prussia, in all Russia, there was not a single town, not a single village, not a single hamlet, where these two bandits considered themselves safe! They had to go on board of war ships, far away from land, on the Eastern sea, in the midst of waves that must have lashed their vessels' sides with fury at having to listen to the scoundrels' plots. This, at least, is one good result of the policy of Terrorism; and the day is not far off when no man will be found to prefer such a condition of perpetual fright and dread to a tranquil, unmolested life.

A so-called "Universal Socialistic Congress" will be held next month at Berne. [Cable dispatches announce that it has been held at Chur. -EDITOR] After having appealed in tones most pitiful to all existing and non-existing authorities in Switzerland, after having given solemn assurance that only "respectable," orderly, and lawful subjects shall be discussed on that occasion, and after promising that, if any black sheep shall find their way among the immaculate flock and have the impertinence to say anything about matters not on the schedule of "lawful" subjects, they will be summarily ejected into the fresh air, this conglomeration of eight-hour men, tobacco monopolists, and kindred reformers has obtained the gracious permission of the Swiss government to explain, within its territory, the merits of their different patent medicines. That the revolutionists of Europe hav nothing to hope from this meeting and will utterly ignore the same, you may easily understand. This congress, therefore, in spite of all its trumpeting, is of inferior significance.

In Germany everything is quiet, the lull before the storm.

The government, in order not to lose the habit, expels every day its regular number of Socialists and the so-called Social Democrats shower daily on the government fresh acclamation as of the new "imperial socialists" policy of the iron chancellor

All this will be changed in a few weeks, and the now formed Executive Committee of the German Revolutionists will very soon give to this glorious empire as much trouble as its Russian namesake gives to the czar.

The imitators in France of the strategy of the German Socialists made, at the last elections, a complete fiasco. In all France their whole party could master scarcely more than ten thousand votes.

The "respectable" newspapers are saying that things in Spain look very "gloomy." King Alfonso is suffering from a very severe "diarrhea," and has already packed his trunks. He considers it a very disagreeable phenomenon that in the last few months over a hundred manufactories have been burned down.

In Italy dissatisfaction is making its way in the guise of religious antipathies; for the keen observer the true cause of all the recent disturbances is easily found.

During the last few months I have made inquiries concerning an individual styling himself "John Baker," who from time to time cuts a rather pretentious figure in a few American papers. I am authorized by the Polish and Russian organizations at Geneva to declare that "John Baker" never was, and is not now, a member of any socialistic or revolutionary organization within their cognizance; that "John Baker" is entirely unknown to any of our partisans at Lemberg, Warschan, St. Petersburg, Geneva, or London; that "John Baker" has never received information from any of our organizations or from any member thereof; that "John Baker," though there is no positive proof showing him to be a spy in the service of the Russian government, is an individual against whom every revolutionist has reason to be on guard; and that, in short, "John Baker" is a perfect humbug.

So much for the "special" correspondent of that "newsy," "highly intelligent" (please stop laughing!) journal, the Springfield "Republican."

Last week I visited our friend Most at Clerkwell prison. He wears prison garb, and in all respects is treated as a common thief. He has to repair old clothes, and is allowed to neither write nor read anything but the pious tracts showered upon him daily in his sell by some kind soul who does not yet despair of saving him from the devil's claws. All intercourse with the outer world is cut off, except that he has permission, once in three months, to see one of his friends for five minutes behind iron bars and in the presence of a jailor. I will make no futile attempt to emphasize these facts by any comments of my own. Fortunately his health is good, and he hopes to be able ere long to repay with interest his debt to those who have deprived him of his liberty.

Kropotkine is staying, for the present at Thouon, a small village on French territory, five miles from Geneva. His wife will pass her examination in medicine sometime in October, after which he will proceed to London, where he will give a series of lectures on Russia and take up, probably, his permanent residence.

Our European Letter.

Our European Letter.

[From Liberty's Special Correspondent.]

ROTTERDAM, Holland, August 20. - How they turn and twist! How they try to laugh and ridicule in order to dissimulate their freight, whistling, like a boy in a dark room, to keep up their courage, our good bourgeois souls!

In spite of all their noisy contempt, - too noisy to be sincere, - our Congress must have given them a very serious bellyache, for they trumpet through all their newspapers that "the English government is not making earnest inquiries about the number and names of the delegates to the late Revolutionary Congress, in order to commence a prosecution against them." Well, up to to-day, the Dutch have never hanged anyone before catching them; neither, I suppose, have the English.

The reconstitution of the "International" was, at all events, a splendid stroke. New sections and groups are sending in their adhesions with astonishing rapidity. We expect that the United States, so ably represented at the Congress, will soon show that the hopes now inspiring the whole proletarian world anew with confidence and courage find a hearty echo within their borders. I submit to you the idea of an American Congress for the constitution of a national organization on that basis of, and in harmony with, the ideas of the "International." I consider this of vital importance and of little difficulty, the more so, as you have now "Liberty" a new organ at your disposition.

By the way, curious news comes by cable over the big pond from your "free country." Hartmann - missing? Vanishing before the brawling of a few stupid five-cents-a-columners? Indeed, I rated his courage higher; for, without doubt, there was and is no danger that the United States would deliver a political refugee over to Russia. And even should its government be so hypocritical, so infamous, so base, there is still something besides the government, namely, the people, who would never allow the perpetration of so monstrous a villainy. Hartmann, by this inconsiderate act, made himself ridiculous, a very bad sequel to the seven columns of "revelations" in the "New York Herald," which were not altogether to the taste of his friends in Europe. When the cruel and heartless war of European governments forces us to these inevitable and only means of resistance, we use them, considering them as a sacred right; but we use them always with a deep regret that they are the only ones, and never try to achieve notoriety for courage or intrepidity by telling our story to urbi et orbi.

Germany and France are now in full electoral agitation. A curious phenomenon in the former country is that fact that, for the first time, the elections will have a purely economical background, and that the old political parties are decomposing to make room for a new, economical organization. The formation of an anti-semitic party is based on reasons purely economical. The agitation is not directed against the Jewish religion, that having nothing to do with it. This stratagem, low and vile as it is, was one of Bismarck's master-strokes. The masses are always fond of seeking the cause of their misery in a positive being, in a visible, existing person, instead of in the system of exploitation itself. The misery and poverty which in some German provinces, by the ridiculous and disastrous financial schemes of Bismarck, have reached their highest point, must now find an object against which to direct their growing dissatisfaction. If they should find out the real cause, the State would be lost; therefore it must be the Jews. The Social Democrats, who, in the late parliament, had thirteen seats, will get this time only three or four, at the utmost, five. Some of their constituents have gone to the Progressist and liberal bourgeois parties, but the larger part, appreciating at last the delusion of suffrage, will abstain from voting, and intend to store up their election tickets to serve at the proper time - which they await none too patiently - as wadding for their rifles.

I am able to give you the first announcement of an important piece of news. When you receive this letter, the first number of the clandestine German periodical, "Der Kampf" (The Fight), printed in Germany itself on the secret press of the Executive Committee, will have appeared. This is the first step in the line of the new tactics, political and economical terrorism, - the first sign of the life of a new element in German socialistic agitation, to be soon followed by a series of acts.

The high court of Berlin gave its decision this week in the famous "high treason" process against forty-four of our friends. About thirty were discharged after nine months of detention, some were sent down to lower courts, and eleven are spared for the final trial in October. There is another process for high treason against fourteen persons, the result of which will be awaited by them with all tranquility of the soul, for they had the impoliteness not to accept the invitation of the Prussian government to appear, preferring to remain at London and Paris. Bismarck's satisfaction will therefore be most platonic in its nature.