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Title: The “Illegalists”
Author: Doug Imrie
Date: 1994–95
Language: en
Topics: AJODA, expropriation, history, illegalism, individualist, propaganda of the deed
Source: Retrieved on August 13, 2010 from http://recollectionbooks.com/siml/library/illegalistsDougImrie.htm
Notes: From Anarchy: a Journal Of Desire Armed, Fall-Winter, 1994–95

Doug Imrie

The “Illegalists”

“It is idiotic that those who have figured things out are forced to wait

for the mass of cretins who are blocking the way to evolve. The herd

will always be the herd. So let’s leave it to stagnate and work on our

own emancipation (...) Put your old refrains aside. We have had enough

of always sacrificing ourselves for something. The Fatherland, Society

and Morality have fallen (...) That’s fine, but don’t contribute to

reviving new entities for us: the Idea, the Revolution, Propaganda,

Solidarity; we don’t give a damn. What we want is to live, to have the

comforts and well-being we have a right to. What we want to accomplish

is the development of our individuality in the full sense of the word,

in its entirety. The individual has a right to all possible well-being,

and must try to attain it all the time, by any means...” (Hégot, an

illegalist, writing to the anarchist journal Les Temps Nouveaux in 1903,

on behalf of a “small circle” who shared his opinions.)

Parallel to the social, collectivist anarchist current there was an

individualist one whose partisans emphasized their individual freedom

and advised other individuals to do the same. Individualist anarchist

activity spanned the full spectrum of alternatives to authoritarian

society, subverting it by undermining its way of life facet by facet.

The vast majority of individualist anarchists were caught in the trap of

wage labor like their collectivist comrades and the proletariat in

general: they had to work for peanuts or starve. Some individualists

rebelled by withdrawing from the economy and forming voluntary

associations to achieve self-sufficiency. Others took the route of

illegalism, attacking the economy through the direct individual

reappropriation of wealth. Thus theft, counterfeiting, swindling and

robbery became a way of life for hundreds of individualists, as it was

already for countless thousands of proletarians. The wave of anarchist

bombings and assassinations of the 1890s (Auguste Vaillant, Ravachol,

Emile Henry, Sante Caserio) and the practice of illegalism from the

mid-1880s to the start of the First World War (Clément Duval, Pini,

Marius Jacob, the Bonnot gang) were twin aspects of the same proletarian

offensive, but were expressed in an individualist practice, one that

complemented the great collective struggles against capital. The

illegalist comrades were tired of waiting for the revolution. The acts

of the anarchist bombers and assassins (“propaganda by the deed”) and

the anarchist burglars (“individual reappropriation”) expressed their

desperation and their personal, violent rejection of an intolerable

society. Moreover, they were clearly meant to be exemplary, invitations

to revolt.

All of society’s snares lay in wait for the illegalists, and to survive

they were forced to make compromises, such as dealing with organized

crime. They were constantly at risk of being set up by informers and

agents provocateurs. When their nearly inevitable arrests occurred, some

made deals with the cops and turned in their friends; others did long

prison terms. In France the laws were draconian then. Prisons were much

worse and the penal colonies were basically death camps [1]. The

guillotines were constantly supplied with fresh meat. Hundreds of

illegalists were imprisoned. Many abandoned their anarchist politics,

degenerating to the point where they behaved in a completely mercenary

way. What started out as a revolt against bourgeois society usually

turned into a purely economic affair, reproducing the cycle of “crime”

and repression.

Marius Jacob was one of the foremost exponents and practitioners of

anarchist illegalism in pre-war France. He was born to working class

parents in Marseilles on Sept. 27, 1879. After finishing school he went

to sea to train as a sailor. His sailing included a long voyage along

the west coast of Africa. At 16 he had to abandon his life as a sailor

for health reasons, and returned to France. By then he had already been

introduced to the anarchist milieu by a friend, and became an anarchist.

Soon after, in 1896, at the end of the period of “propaganda by the

deed” in France, he was set up by an agent provocateur who procured

explosives then snitched him off. He was sentenced to six months’

imprisonment at age 17. After his release, the police systematically

visited each of his employers and got him fired. Together with two

anarchist friends be hatched a scheme to pass himself off as a senior

police officer, and carried out a fake raid on a pawnshop in Marseilles

in May, 1899. He then traveled to Spain and Italy. Upon his return to

France he was arrested in Toulon, then imprisoned in Aix-la-Provenec. He

escaped and turned to illegalism on a full-time basis.[2]

Around 1900, Jacob formed a band of anarchist illegalists who

specialized in burglaries and fencing stolen goods. The band was based

in Paris but operated throughout France, as well as in Italy and

Belgium. The band was well-organized and very professional. The members’

activities fell into three main categories: the scouts, who went from

town to town looking for homes whose owners were absent and collected

the information necessary to make the break-ins function flawlessly; the

burglars, with a set of first-rate tools at their disposal, valued at

10,000 francs (easily $2500); and a fencing operation to sell the loot.

Jacob persuaded some of the members to contribute ten percent of their

take to anarchist propaganda efforts; some refused on individualist

grounds, preferring to keep their share. The band stole only from

“social parasites” like priests, the wealthy and military officers. They

spared the poor and those whose occupations the considered useful, like

doctors, architects and writers. By common agreement, murder was

excluded as an option except in cases of legitimate self-defense. The

band was armed. To minimize the risk of violence, they perfected a

system of door seats which they attached to all exits of the buildings

they were “working” in. Jacob later admitted that he participated in 106

burglaries, whose take was estimated at 5 million francs (an estimate,

by the way, that Jacob considerably inflated). One of the most memorable

break-ins was at the Cathedral of Tours, where the band stole 17^(th)

century tapestries valued at 200,000 francs. They left behind a

graffito: “All-powerful god, find your thieves!”

In late 1903, three members of the band were caught in Abbeville by a

cop, Provost, who was shot dead. The burglars escaped, but two were

caught in a trap set for them in Paris, and this arrest led to the

arrests of most of the members. After 18 months investigation by a

magistrate, the trial of 23 out of the 29 accused members began in March

1905. Most were found guilty: Jacob and Bour (who apparently killed

Provost) were sentenced to hard labor for life in the penal colonies.

Fourteen other members received sentences totaling 100 years. Another

ten, among them Jacob’s mother, were acquitted. Jacob was deported to

the penal colony in the lies du Saint in January 1906 and served twenty

years, including 8 years 11 months in chains. Due to a campaign for his

release organized primarily by his mother, he was released in 1925. He

took up work as a traveling salesman, selling hosiery and clothing until

his death by a deliberate morphine overdose on Aug. 28, 1954. The

accounts of his friends show that Marius Jacob did not commit suicide

out of despair, but out of a calm desire to avoid the infirmities of old

age.

Looking back on his experiences in 1948 Jacob observed: “I don’t think

that illegalism can free the individual in present-day society. If he

manages to free himself of a few constraints using this means, the

unequal nature of the struggle will create others that are even worse

and, in the end, will lead to the loss of his freedom, the little

freedom he had, and sometimes his life. Basically, illegalism,

considered as an act of revolt, is more a matter of temperament than of

doctrine. This is why it cannot have an educational effect on the

working masses as a whole. By this, I mean a worthwhile educational

effect.

[1] For a good account of what the penal colonies were like, see Dry

Guilliotine: Fifteen Years Among the Living Dead , René Belbenoit (E.P.

Dutton, 1938).

[2] For good accounts of Jacob’s life, see A. Sergeant’s Un anarchiste

de la belle epoque, Marius Jacob (Ed. Le Seuil, 1950), Bernard Thomas’

Jacob (Ed. Tchou) and Jacob’s text of Sept. 1948, Souvenirs d’un

demi-siécle. Richard Parry’s The Bonnot Gang (Rebel Pr.) is an excellent

account of the illegalist individualists whose actions followed Jacob’s

arrest by a mere five years. Highly recommended. Finally, The Art of

Anarchy (Cienfuegos Pr.) contains magnificent illustrations by anarchist

Flavio Costantini that portray the actions of Jacob’s band and of other

illegatists.