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Title: Anarchists – Bandits Author: Victor Serge Date: February 6, 1909 Language: en Topics: illegalism, insurrectionary anarchy Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1909/02/anarchist-bandits.htm
Last week the dailies related in detail a tragic incident of the social
struggle. In the suburbs of London (in Tottenham) two of our Russian
comrades attacked the accountant of a factory and, pursued by the crowd
and the police, held out in a desperate struggle, the mere recounting of
which is enough to make one shiver...
After almost two hours of resistance, having exhausted their munitions,
and wounded 22 people, three of them mortally, they reserved for
themselves their final bullets. One, our comrade Joseph Lapidus (the
brother of the terrorist Stryge, killed in Paris in the Vincennes woods
in 1906) killed himself; the other was taken seriously wounded.
Words seem powerless to express admiration or condemnation before their
ferocious heroism. Lips are still; the pen isn’t strong enough, sonorous
enough.
Nevertheless, in our ranks there will be the timorous and the fearful
who will disavow their act. But we, for our part, insist on loudly
affirming our solidarity.
We are proud to have had among us men like Duval, Pini, and Jacob [1].
We today insist on saying loudly and clearly: The London “bandits” were
at one with us!
Let this be known. Let it be finally understood that in the current
society we are the vanguard of a barbarous army. That we have no respect
for what constitutes virtue, morality, honesty, that we are outside or
laws and regulations. They oppress us, they persecute us, they pursue
us. Rebels constantly find themselves before the sad alternative:
submit, that is, abolish their will and return to the miserable herd of
the exploited, or accept combat against the entire social organism.
We prefer combat. Against us, all arms are good; we are in an enemy
camp, surrounded, harassed. The bosses, judges, soldiers, cops unite to
bring us down. We defend ourselves – not by all means, for the most
peremptory response we can give them is to be better than them – but
with a profound contempt for their codes, their morals, their
prejudices.
By refusing us the right to free labor society gives us the right to
steal. In taking possession of the wealth of the world the bourgeois
give us the right to take back, however we can, what we need to satisfy
our needs. Anti-authoritarian, we have the burning determination to live
free without oppressing anyone, without being oppressed by anyone.
Current society, based on the absurd egoism of the strongest, on
iniquity and oppression, denies us this. In order not to die of hunger
we are forced to have recourse to various expedients: accept the
stupefying and demoralizing existence of the wage earner: work, or the
dangerous existence of the illegal: steal, and get ourselves out of our
mess through means on the margin of the law.
Let this be known! In order to wrest an existence, working – submitting
ourselves to the slavery of the workshop – is as much an expedient as
stealing. As long as we haven’t conquered the ample and large life for
which we fight, the various means which the social organization will
force us to have recourse to will be nothing to us but a last resort.
And so we choose, in keeping with our temperaments and the
circumstances, those that are most appropriate to us.
Your codes, your laws, your “honesty”: you can’t imagine how we laugh at
them!
This is why, in the face of the fuming bourgeoisie, in the face of those
who judge, of honest brutes, of the prostitutes of journalism, we insist
on proclaiming: “The bandits of London are ours!”
They are also, incidentally, noble bandits, and we can be proud of them.
We won’t have vain words of regret, vain tears for them. No! But may
their deaths be an example and etch in our memories the sublime motto of
the Russian comrades: “Anarchists never surrender!”
Anarchists don’t surrender! No more under policemen’s bullets than
before the shouts of the crowd or the condemnation of those who judge!
Anarchists don’t surrender!
Resolved to live as rebels and to pitilessly defend themselves to the
bitter end, they know, when it’s necessary, to accept the epithet of
“bandits.”
I can guess, dear reader, the sentimental objection that is on your
lips: But the 22 unfortunates wounded by your comrades’ bullets were
innocent! Have you no remorse?”
No! For those who pursued them could have been nothing but “honest”
citizens, believers in the state, in authority. Perhaps oppressed, but
oppressed who, by their criminal weakness, perpetuate oppression.
Enemies!
Unthinking, you will answer. Yes, but the ferocious bourgeois is also
unthinking. For us the enemy is he who prevents us from living. We are
under attack, and we defend ourselves.
And so we don’t have words of condemnation for our daring comrades
fallen in Tottingham, rather much admiration for their peerless bravery,
and much sadness this evening to have thus lost, in the fullness of
their vigor, men of an exceptional courage and energy.
[1] Clement Duval (1850-1935) – leader of a group of illegalist
anarchists called “La Panthére des Batignolles.” Pini (1850-189?) –
anarchist shoemaker and partisan of “individual expropriation.”
Marius-Alexander Jacob (1879-1954) – Thief and head of a band of
anarchist criminals.