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Title: Let Us Be Just Author: Warlaam Tcherkesoff Date: 1896 Language: en Source: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002918356
SIR,
Your two articles (“Justice,” Aug. 15. and 29., 1896) upon the Socialist
Congress of London, dwell a good deal upon anarchists. Of all that you,
in your capacity of connoisseur of our party, affirm, I understand that
the anarchists “have no more right to sit in a Socialist Congress than
the Czar or Rothschild,” that “there is nothing in common between
anarchism and socialism,” that “in all countries the anarchists are
petted by the bourgeoisie,” that they are your enemies and calumniate
you, “throw mud at your head”... and for this reason you make an
emergetic appeal to your friends, saying, “We have to fight the enemy!
We cannot allow the enemies to enter our army.”
You are indignant!… With reason, if the anarchists are such monsters.
Only I cannot quite understand to whom you are applying your epithets.
In your articles, you speak of Stirner and his pupil, your colleague,
Eugene Richter. I assure you, sir, that these persons and their works
are strangers to our party. You who know the anarchists “in the Old
World and in the New World,” can you inform the public what fraction of
anarchy is represented by your colleague Richter in Parliament? Since
when have anarchists adopted the stingy tactic of parliamentary
legislation? And, then, could you inform me for what anarchist paper
your “colleague” wrote? At what international congress he presented
himself as an anarchist delegate? Above all, sir, I should be much
obliged to you if you would inform me of the names of some of the works
of Stirner and his pupil, your colleague Richter, in which they
developed autonomous and revolutionary communism, that is to say,
anarchy?
You indicate nothing thus. “Stirner — Individualist,” and Richter,
“chief of the Socialist-killers,” are mentioned by you solely for the
purpose of demonstrating to your friends that the anarchists are not
socialists. Perhaps, for your friends, this seems clear, but I am
afraid, sir, that men of sense will find your arguments slightly
illogical. Following your method of argument, I should have the right to
say: “Liebknecht, and the Social-Democrats are always at war with the
anarchists; from another quarter, these latter are persecuted by Crispi
and other governments — ‘ergo’ Liebknecht and Crispi, the government
oppressors, and social-democracy are the same party.”—This is monstrous!
you say.
Yes, monstrous, but not more so than your own course of reasoning. I do
but imitate it.
You wish to show that the anarchists are not socialists? There exists a
very simple method, that of demonstration; it is enough to compare
formulas, the professions of faith of the true socialists, and of the
anarchists. Do you wish to do so? Let us take the communists of the
great Revolution, the socialists of 1848, the international Association,
and compare them with the anarchists’ professions of faith — not
forgetting your own programme.
You know, sir, that the Convention against which Babeuf, Buonarotti, and
the “Egaux” conspired, proclaimed all sorts of “libertés politiques,”
and that national edifices bore the device “Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity.” But the people remained in the same state of misery. What
was the cause of it? asked honest men. “The cause” said Buonarotti, “is
to be found in the inequality of fortunes… in individual
proprietorship”… It was to obtain economic equality that the ‘Egaux’
conspired against the Convention.
“There is no liberty” — let us read the proclamation of Blanqui, in 1848
— for him who is in want of bread!
“There is no equality when opulence parades itself side by side with
misery!
“There is no fraternity when the starving woman of the people drags
herself along with her children to the doors of the rich!
“The tyranny of capital is more merciless than that of the sword, and
the censer; it must be rushed.
“Let us have no more empty formulas!
“The economic emancipation of the working classes is the principal aim
to which all political action should be subordinated” — adopted by the
first International Congress, in 1866.
You see, sir, that economic equality, economic emancipation, the
“crushing” of the “tyranny of capital,” are the base of socialist
claims; that political rights without economic equality are “empty
formulas” for revolutionary socialists. And you, as supreme head of
“scientific” socialism, how did you formulate your claims?
In your article: “The Programme of German Socialism” (“Forum Library,
New York, April, 1895, page 28) you say:
What do we ask for?
Absolute liberty of the press, absolute liberty of religion, universal
suffrage for all representative bodies and in the Commune; national
education, all schools open to all, the same opportunities of learning
and education for all, abolition of standing armies and creation of
national militia, so that every citizen is a soldier and every soldier a
citizen: an international court of arbitration between different States,
equal rights for men and women, measures for the protection of the
working classes (limitatiron of hours of work, sanitary regulations,
etc.)
These are reforms already brought about, or in course of being realized
in advanced countries; and they are in complete accordance with
democracy.
All these freedoms, or abolitions, are magnificent and it is not we, the
anarchists, who are against them. It is precisely in order to guarantee
to humanity all the joys of liberty that we wish to destroy what is so
dear to you — the State. But in your claims one does not find a word
about “economic equality” and “economic emancipation” proclaimed by the
Socialists. So that your formula repeats that of the Convention
qualified by the Socialists as “empty formulas.”
What about the Anarchists?
While your extremely loyal friends, Will Thorne and Dr. Aveling, were
applying themselves to the task of thrusting the anarchists from the
doors of the Congress with the help of the agents of the police, the
anarchists were holding their conferences and drew up, among others, the
following declaration:
The Anti-parliamentarian and Anarchist Conference, considering that the
subjection of the working classes to the ruling classes is based on the
exploitation and economic submission of the workers, and that this
economic exploitation is the source of all evil, and of political,
moral, and intellectual oppression, declares that the principal aim of
the working class movement should be economic and social emancipation,
and that all political action should be subordinated to it.
Considering that legal and parliamentary tactics are not the only forms
of political action, the Conference declares itself against all attempts
at reduction of the socialist movement into a merely electoral and legal
movement, which can only create division among the workers.
Considering, moreover, that it was by revolutionary struggle that the
people have, in all times, gained any amelioration of their social and
economic conditions, the Conference declares for revolutionary political
action against the State, which is the incarnation of all injustice,
economic, political, and social.
As an honest man, you will admit that, in this resolution, anarchists
repeated the claims of Babeuf, Blanqui, and the “International.” They
have but extended the claims of these brave predecessors. That being so,
why do you, who know them so well, declare that the anarchists are
enemies of socialism? I am very desirous to know your reasons.
I am no less desirous to learn from you, who, among the well-known
anarchists, calumniated your party, your friends, or yourself?
Was it Bakunin, with whom you had an affair of honour? In your articles,
you merely name E. Richter, who is just as much of an Anarchist as
Crispi is of a social-democrat. Let us look into your affair with
Bakunin. Perhaps it was he who calumniated you.
In the ‘Memoire’, presented by the ‘Fédération Jurassienne’ of the
International Association of Workers, we read:
We cannot pass over in silence, apropos of the Congress of Bale (1869),
a personal incident of great importance. Bakunin had learnt that
Liebknecht, while speaking of him, had represented him as a spy of the
Russian Government….The jury was composed of ten members....Paepe,
Palix, Sentinon, Fritz Robert, Moritz Hess, Eccarius, and others. The
jury declared unanimously that Liebknecht had acted ill in repeating
infamous “calumnies.” Liebknecht, taking Bakunin by the hand, declared
that he looked on him as an honest man, and a good revolutionist. “I
have been deceived myself with regard to you” said he, “I have helped to
spread calumniating accusations and I owe you reparation.”(P.84)
As reparation, Liebknecht engaged himself to publish in his paper an
article of rectification. “Bakunin,” continues the Memoire, “gave him
the article with his own hands. What did Liebknecht do? He never
published it.”
You say, that the anarchists calumniate the social-democrats, “throwing
mud at their heads,” then one must suppose that in 1869, Liebknecht, the
anarchist, calumniated Bakunin, the social democrat! You are an honest
and impartial man; do then explain to me this flagrant contradiction.
A last question, sir. What does this phrase of yours mean? “In all
countries the anarchists are petted by the bourgeois.” Are we, as
individuals, “petted” by isolated members of the bourgeoisie or are we
“petted” as a party by the capitalistic organization of the State, that
defender of the bourgeoisie? It is evident that you speak of us as a
party “petted” by the entire bourgeoisie and by the State. And you could
write those lines, you a journalist, a politician?
What! don’t you know that the prisons and convict settlements of Italy,
France, Spain, Portugal are full of anarchists? That even in England,
and in the United States, there are anarchists condemned to hard labor.
And in Germany, where a stupid reaction pursues you and your friends,
was it not there that the anarchists, Landauer, Dr. Gumploviez, Grunan
and others submitted to 18 months’ imprisonment? Take no matter whom
among my anarchist friends, and you will see that they have, everyone,
been “petted” in prisons, during transportation and exile — Cipriani 16
years, Louise Michel 14 years, Borda 5 years, Kropotkin 5 years, Martin
5 years, Merlino, Malato, Faure, Grave, Pouget, Reclus, Malatesta,
Nicoll, — all, absolutely all of them, have been submitted to long years
of imprisonment, transportation, exile… And that is what you call being
“petted!”
Perhaps you were not aware of this? Let us assume so. But you knew
perfectly well that, during the last twenty years, capital punishment
for political offences in civilised countries, has been applied only to
anarchists. You knew of the execution of Reinsdorf and Caserio, for,
whether at your personal instigation or not, your paper excited against
them the hatred of the government and of the bourgeoisie.
You were perfectly well aware of the executions of Parson, Spies, and
other Chicago anarchists, of Vaillant, Pallas, Henry.…
You know perfectly well that it is the anarchist party which is
persecuted, martyrised.…
And you could set it down in black and white that the anarchists are
“petted” by the bourgeoisie? — Let all honest men, let the brave German
workmen in whose name you love to speak, now judge of these literary
proceedings of yours.