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Title: The Bandits Author: Victor Serge Date: January 4, 1912 Language: en Topics: illegalism Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/serge/1912/01/bandits.htm
M. Ernest La Jeunesse, a journalist whose usual specialty is the
praising and interring of Academicians, has become alarmed at what he
calls his red Christmas presents. In truth, we’ve had a not very happy
end of year for the potbellied gentlemen who have money in their pockets
and the bank. Barely had the deplorable story of the stolen postal trunk
fallen into discreet oblivion, than the same day some wretches, some
evil wretches, opened the tomb of Mlle Lantelme, while other wretches
attacked a messenger boy carrying funds on the Rue Ordener.
M. La Jeunesse is not completely wrong in being upset. These things have
a meaning. That in order to rob it they should tip carrion into a burial
ditch proves that there are living men who are determined to live. That
in the middle of the day they shot down a miserable bank boy proves that
men have finally understood the virtues of daring. All of these are
lessons that for men of M. La Jeunesses’s class are not in the least
pleasant.
Nothing is more wicked, it is said, than an enraged poltroon. And so it
is that M. La Jeunesse, who under the circumstances does nothing but
translate the mood of a social category, shows himself implacable. In
order to respond to bold crime, he says, rapid, inexorable, and decisive
justice is necessary: in summary, Lynch law. The bandits, “kill them
anonymously like what they are: mad dogs.”
Fortunately, this is quicker said than done.
And I hope that M. La Jeunesse experiences the sinister joke of
somewhere meeting up with one of these famous bandits he makes so little
case of.
Having no reason to fear for my safety, it will be understood that
Monsieur’s reasons touch me not at all.
Along with honest M. Gaby who, poor man, miserable wage earner,
consented to transport fortunes; with the miserable cowards who, not
understanding either daring or the will to live, vociferate against the
outlaws; with the police dogs, the journalist-squealers, the grocers
sweating in fear, and the rich as ferocious in their hatred for the
rebel as they would be cowardly in his presence, along with all these
people M. La Jeunesse joins in the mob respectful of the law.
But these laws they respect, I know they’re aimed at garroting the
weakest, to sanction their enslavement by brute force; that honesty they
proclaim I know to be falsehood, hiding the worst turpitudes,
permitting, even honoring theft, fraud, dupery when they are committed
in the shadow of the criminal code; this so called “respect for human
life” they never fail to speak of a propos of every murder. I know it to
be ignobly hypocritical, since they kill in its name by hunger, work,
subjection, and prison.
I am on the other side, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I’m with the
bandits. I find their role to be noble; sometimes I see in them men.
Elsewhere I see only fools and puppets.
The bandits demonstrate strength.
The bandits demonstrate daring.
The bandits demonstrate their firm determination to live.
At the same time, “the others” submit to the landlord, the boss and the
policeman; they vote, protest against iniquities and die as they lived:
miserably.
Whatever he might be, I prefer a man who fights. Perhaps he’ll die
younger; he’ll know pursuit and the penal colony. Perhaps he’ll end his
days under the abominable kiss of the “widow” [1]. It could be. I love
those who accept the risks of the great struggle: he is virile.
And anyway, victor or vanquished, is his lot not preferable to the
dismal vegetation and infinitely slow agony of the proletarian, who will
die stupefied and retired, without having profited from existence?
As for the bandit, he gambles. And so he has a chance of winning. And
that suffices.
The bandit is virile.
Haven’t we seen workers whose demonstrations are broken up by the kicks
of policemen. And workers who are kept in place by the shouts of he
boss. And young men lacking in valor that aren’t revolted by the insults
of non-coms. And idiotic tramps who, finding full purses, bring them to
the mocking policeman. And we’ve also seen the bourgeois of M. La
Jeunesse and Co. trembling the evenings of strikes or on May Day; we’ve
seen them assemble hundreds of cops to solemnly slaughter Liabeuf. [2]
We have so many times seen displayed the imbecility, the cowardice, the
ferocity of these masses and slaves that they have finished by inspiring
in us an insurmountable disgust.
But there are the bandits! A few, standing out from of the crowd, firmly
determined to not waste in servitude the precious hours of their lives,
have decided to fight. And without ambiguity, they set out in conquest
of the money that confers might. They dare. They attack. They often pay.
In any event, they live.
They kill.
Without a doubt. Is it their fault? Did they desire the fate that is
handed them? Many did nothing wrong other than wanting to be men and not
citizens, wage earners or soldiers. Some dreamed of working freely in a
world without masters. But the choice they were given was between
servitude and crime.
Vigorous and valiant, they chose battle: crime.
No, they won’t be pale hooligans, vague pimps, shady and sneaky rebels:
they will be bandits whose fearlessness will disconcert you. They will
be the anarchists whose ceaseless activity won’t allow you to sleep in
peace. They will respect neither the putrefied corpses of high whores
nor the imbecilic devotion of the wage earner to his master’s money.
They will respect nothing!
And it will be in vain that the severest measures will be passed against
them, the cruelest penalties. As long as the problem is posed as it is
posed, as long as men can only choose between theft and submission,
there will be enough brave men who will prefer all of rebellions’ risks
to passivity.
The bandits won’t disarm, for it is impossible that they disarm. Their
acts constitute the effects of causes situated beyond their
personalities. These causes will only disappear if the social order is
transformed. Until then the rebels – anarchists and bandits – will
remain, whatever might be done, the champions of the human will to live.
So let them try to apply Lynch law to them, as the excellent M. La
Jeunesse recommends. We’ll see if it’s a solution. We’ll see this soon,
for the cruel violence of the dominators has only ever succeeded in
exasperating the rebels.
[1] Familiar name for the guillotine
[2] Jean-Jacques Liabeuf. Shoemaker executed in 1910 after killing a
police officer. His execution was the cause of riots in Paris.