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Title: The Anarchist Movement Today
Author: Alexander Berkman
Date: January, 1934
Language: en
Topics: history; anarchist movement; anarchist publications; 1930s; periodicals
Source: Retrieved on November 17, 2020 from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=1241.

Alexander Berkman

The Anarchist Movement Today

The history of human civilization is not a straight, continuously

forward-moving line. Its diagram is a zigzag, now advancing, now

retreating. Progress is measured by the distance separating man from his

primitive conditions of ignorance and barbarism.

At the present time mankind seems to be on the retreat. A wave of

reaction is sweeping the countries of Europe; its effects and influence

are felt all over the world. There is fascism in Italy, Hitlerism in

Germany, despotism in Russia, destructive dictatorship in other

countries.

Every progressive and radical party, every revolutionary movement has

suffered from the present reaction. In some countries they had been

entirely crushed; in others their activities are paralyzed for the time

being. It is the essence of all tyrannies and dictatorship, of whatever

name or color, to suppress and eradicate everything that stands in the

wake of its exclusive domination and triumph. Thus in Russia, for

instance, the active anarchist elements (as also the Mensheviki and the

Socialist-Revolutionaries) have either been shot or are being kept in

prison and exile for indefinite periods. A similar fate has overtaken

them in Italy and Germany.

But though anarchism has suffered from the reaction, as have all other

liberal and revolutionary movements, it is fundamentally and essentially

lost much less than the socialist parties. The reason for it is to be

found in certain causes underlying the worldwide reaction. It is

generally believe that the war, with its brutalization of man and

destruction of higher values, the financial bankruptcy which followed,

and the great crisis have brought about the present situation. But these

immediate causes are entirely insufficient to explain the incredibly

rapid development and success of fascism in Italy and Germany and its

spread throughout the civilized world. Other and more potent factors

have been at work, resulting in the great reaction.

Those factors are of a psychologic rather than a political or economic

character. Broadly speaking, there were two of them. One was the Russian

Revolution; the other, Marxism.

The Russian Revolution flamed across the world as a beacon of promise

and hope to the oppressed and disinherited. It filled the hearts of the

masses in every country with inspiration and enthusiasm. The workers of

Germany even tried to follow the example of the Russian brothers. But

that beacon was soon extinguished. The Bolsheviki, Marxists par

excellence by Lenin’s interpretation, curbed the popular aspirations of

the people and perverted the revolutionary aims and purposes into one of

the bloodiest dictatorships the world had ever seen. The despotism of a

political party, of a clique, took the place of Czarist autocracy. The

result brought bitter disillusionment to millions of workers in every

land, a disillusionment that has proven a powerful aid to the

reactionary forces in every land.

Yet that disillusionment would not have necessarily become such an

effective lever in the hands of reaction but for another important

factor. It was the spirit of authority, of Statism, the worship of

government, with which the masses have for years been imbued by Marxism

and by the Socialist political parties everywhere. It served to weaken

their self-reliance, robbed them of independence in thought and action,

and deepened their revolutionary faith and ardor. The Social Democracy

of Germany, in particular, has done the greatest harm in this regard.

For more than two generations it trained the proletariat in

parliamentary inactivity, in systematic compromise, in reliance upon

political leaders and in blind authoritarianism. This training lamed the

initiative and revolutionary efforts of labor, destroyed the workers’

faith in their economic power, and made them dependent on the Marxist

Messiah who was to lead them into the promised land of Socialism.

At a certain psychologic moment the Messiah came, and the expectant

people “heard him gladly”. He was not indeed kosher Marxist, but the

odor of “socialist” was strong about him and his Nazi party. That

sufficed, particularly after the bitter experiences of the German

workers with their Socialist governments, which betrayed labor,

oppressed and exploited the workers the same as the Junker régimes had

done before them.

It is tragic that Socialism, which originated as a liberating movement,

has in the course of time become so emasculated of all revolutionary

spirit and purpose as to fall a victim to the reactionary Frankenstein

it had itself helped to create. If history teaches anything at all, it

is this: all progress has been a getting away from authority, a

liberation from it — liberation from the authority of the village chief

and of the tribal totem: from God, Church and the State. The essence of

progress is anti-authoritarian. Man’s historic advance has been along

the line of more and ever more individual liberty and popular freedom,

of greater independence in thought and action, higher culture and

improved social well-being. Everything that retarded or hindered that

process has served to enthralled man and resulted in regress and

reaction.

It is because of the above basic truths that the Anarchist movement has

suffered much less from the present reaction than have the Socialist

parties. The latter now see their organizations annihilated and the

millions of their voters become the obedient and submissive followers of

the Mussolinis and Hitlers. They did not have enough revolutionary

resistance even to put up a fight. More: the very foundations of

Socialism are broken, its theories proved false, its methods condemned

by experience. Socialism has lost not only its followers but also its

ideology. No wonder the Socialist Parties of America, of Sweden and

Belgium, the neo-Socialists of France and other countries have now

decided to turn from the proletariat to the bourgeoisie for the

realization of Socialism!

The Anarchist movement, on the contrary, has sustained only physical,

superficial losses. It preserves what is the most vital thing in the

life and growth of a world-liberating movement: its ideology, its ideal.

Indeed, Anarchism is, essentially, strengthened and verified now by life

itself. Parliamentarism has failed utterly. Marxist dogmas have been

refuted by experience. Socialist panaceas have been tried and found

wanting. The masses will never return to Socialism any more. The

experience of Russia and betrayal by Socialist governments in other

countries have embittered the workers and made the very name of

political Socialism synonymous with treachery and failure.

The present wave of reaction will pass. Experience will teach the people

that emancipation from tyranny, oppression and exploitation can be

achieved only through Anarchism — in a social organization based on

free, solidaric cooperation without any admixture of the vitiating and

destructive spirit of authoritarianism. Solidarity without freedom is

impossible; it inevitably leads back to slavery, open or masked. The

future belongs to Anarchism.

Regarding the condition of the Anarchist movement at the present, the

following may be said:

Anarchism is not a political party. Its strength cannot be measured by

counting heads or ballots. The Anarchist movement is a vital factor of

life, based on man’s inherent love of liberty and desire for well-being

Anarchism finds expression in every form of human endeavor — in the

economic and social, as well as in the cultural and artistic phases of

existence.

As a movement, Anarchism may be considered in its two-fold aspect:

First, as a determining factor in the activities of the masses; and

second, as work within the Anarchist organizations themselves, in the

groups and federations. As an illustration of mass activity inspired by

the ideal and methods of revolutionary Anarchism mat [sic] serve the

labor movement of Spain. Within one year (in February and December,

1933) two revolutionary uprisings have taken place in that country, both

of a predominantly Anarcho-Syndicalist character, as expressed by the

I.W.M.A. (the International Working Men’s Association, known in the

European countries as the A.I.T.)

Anarchist groups and federations exist in every country, including

Japan, Korea and China. Their work consists in spreading Anarchism by

means of the spoken and written word. An approximation of this activity

can be gained from the appended list of Anarchist publications in the

various countries and languages.

It must be noted, however, that the literature of a great philosophy and

social movement like Anarchism is not limited to the newspapers and

magazines of Anarchist tendency existing at a given moment. That is

accidental, depending on greater or lesser persecution. A true estimate

must include, basically, the entire literature on the subject, and its

continuous development up to the present.

Anarchist literature does not deal with the superficial, local political

or economic conditions of life. It deals with the foundations — social,

ethical, cultural, as well as political and economic — that underlie

present-day society, and it is idealist in character. It is therefore

that Anarchist literature does not go out of date. It keeps its social

and practical value, as does philosophy and art, whatever the shallow

surface changes in our authoritarian, capitalist civilization.

The finest expression of Anarchist thought and sentiment is to be found

in works like William Godwin’s “Inquiry concerning political Justice and

its Influence on general virtue and happiness (1793); in the many works

of Proudhon, like the keen analysis of 1848 French governmentalism in

“Les Confessions d’un Révolutionnaire” (1849); in Max Stirner’s “Der

Einzige und sein Eigenthum” (1845); in the numerous writings of Michael

Bakunin, some of which are collected in Oeuvres, 6 volumes (Paris,

1895–1913); in the “Idées sur l’Organization sociale”, by James

Guillaume (1876); in the works of the Italian Anarchist, Errico

Malatesta, practical theoretician and active militant from the seventies

up to his death in 1932; in “Les paroles d’un Revolté”, (composed

1879–1882) by Peter Kropotkin, as well as in the many other works of

this Anarchist thinker and scientist; in “L’Evolution, la Révolution et

l’Idéal anarchique” by Elisée Reclus (1897); in the “Collected Essays”

of Voltairine de Cleyre, (New York, 1914); in the writings of numerous

Spanish Anarchists, such as Ricardo Mella, A. Pellicer Paraire, Tarrida

del Marmol, Francisco Ferrer, and others; in the “Aufruf zum

Sozialismus”, by Gustav Landauer (1911); in the works of Benjamin

Tucker, the Individualist Anarchist of America, a man of clear and

analytical mind; in those of Josiah Warren, Stephen B. Andrews, Lysander

Spooner, Dyer D. Lum, Albert Parsons, C. L. James, Thoreau, William

Morris, Edward Carpenter — to name but a few Anglo-Saxon thinkers of

Anarchist tendency; in the books and other publications of Ernest

Coeurderoy, Carlo Cafiera, Steinlen, Ibsen, Johann Most, Emma Goldman,

Rudolf Rocker, Max Nettlau, Luigi Galleani, and in many other writers,

including some memorable pages of Leo Tolstoi.

The Anarchist literature of the world is exceedingly rich. An

approximate figure would comprise over 20,000 titles, of which about

3,000 would cover periodicals of longer or shorter duration, issued in

30 or 40 languages in about 40 countries.

“By efficient investigation and careful work on existing materials”,

writes Dr. Max Nettlau, the erudite Anarchist historian, “a list of this

extent could be compiled, with a margin of inaccessible or lost

publications, not counting the tens of thousands of smaller items,

brochures, leaflets, pictures, etc., and not even referring to the

evidence of Anarchist influence in literature, art, the drama”.

In the face of these figures, the greater or smaller output of Anarchist

literature at a given moment is of little account. The persecution and

suppression of Anarchist publications here and there are incidents in a

never-ceasing propaganda which has produced efforts of the greatest

continuity.

Thus, to cite but a few instances. The New York Yiddish Anarchist

weekly, Freie Arbeiter Stimme, has been appearing uninterruptedly since

October, 1899. The Geneva Le Reveil and Il Rèsveglio, edited by Luigi

Bertoni, was first issued in July, 1900. Le Libertaire (Paris) was

founded in Feb. 1895 by Sébastien Faure, a militant Anarchist since

1888, who is not publishing the Encyclopèdie Anarchiste, of which 2,592

immense pages have already appeared. Peter Kropotkin started Le Révolté

in Geneva in February, 1879; later, after his imprisonment and

expulsion, the paper was continued by other comrades with Jean Grave as

editor (January, 1884), — the same Jean Grave who issues now, fifty

years later, his periodical Anarchist cahiers, Publications de “La

Révolté” et des “Temps Nouveaus”. La Revista Blanca, founded by

Frederico Urales in Madrid in 1898, is still appearing under his

editorship in Barcelona, having weathered even the storms of last

December (1933).

These are but a few of the various forces that carry on the Anarchist

ideal in unbroken continuity, and they by far outweigh the meager list

to which persecution reduces at times the Anarchist press. At present

there appear, in France: Le Libertaire, plus loin, Le Semeur, La Voix

libertaire, l’en dehors, Action Libertaire, Le Combat Syndicaliste, Le

Refractaire, La Brochure Manuelle, Le Flambeau, Germinal, etc. In

Switzerland: Le Réveil et Il Resveglio. In England: Freedom, and Freedom

Bulletin. In Belgium: L’Emnancipateur; Pensée et Action.

A number of Anarchist and Anarcho-Syndicalist publications appear in

Holland (Grondslagen, Syndicalist, etc.); Sweden (Arbetaren, and

others); in Norway; in Lithuania (Auszrina, the Dawn); Bulgaria (Misal i

Volya; Rabotnik, etc,), and other European countries, as well as in

Japan and China, most of those papers being issued underground.

In Spain there are Tierra y Libertad; Solidaridad Obrera (daily); C. N.

T. (the daily of the National Confederation of Labor); La Revista

Blanca; El Libertario; Estudios, and a number of others. The NEWS

SERVICE and BULLETINS of the International Working Men’s Association

(I.W.M.A. or A. I. T.), issued in Spanish, French, German and English,

are also published in Spain.

In South America there appear numerous Anarchist and Anarcho-Syndicalist

papers and magazines. Frequently suppressed, they as frequently

reappear, sometimes under different names. In Buenos Aires is published

the daily, La Protesta, founded in June, 1897, as La Protesta humana;

Nervio an Anarchist journal of criticsim, art and letters; and other

papers, like the weekly Il Pensiero (Anarcho-Communist), Culmine

(Individualist), Sorgiamo, etc. In Uruguay Luigi Fabbri issues the

Anarchist review Studi Sociali (Montevideo). And so on. In Melbourne

(Australia) appears L’Avanguardia Libertaria.

Anarchist papers in the Italian language are published in the United

States, among them L’Adunata dei Refrattari, in Newark, New Jersey;

Cronaca Sovversiva in New London Conn., and other publications. Also

Cultura Proletaria, in Spanish; Dielo Truda and other jounrals in

Russian. Among the English-language publications are Freedom (formerly

weekly, now monthly, in New York; Vanguard, Clarion, Man! (San

Francisco), and others.

In conclusion I want to say that the Anarchist movement will get bigger

and stronger in proportion as the masses will become familiar with

Anarchist ideals and ideas and will realize the necessity of putting

them into practice. Historic experience and growing disillusionment with

all forms of parliamentarism, authoritarianism and dictatorship will

gradually make the people understand that emancipation from political

oppression, economic slavery and cultural decadence is not possible

except under Anarchism — in a society based on individual liberty, equal

opportunity and social well-being. The propaganda of Anarchist ideas

will help to enlighten the people and enable them the clearer and more

intelligently to find the way out of the present stupid and criminal

pseudo-civilization. It is therefore that the life, example and

propagandistic work of Anarchist individuals and groups are so necessary

and vital in furthering the cause of Anarchism.

(Alexander Berkman)

January, 1934

France