Part 1

Confessions of an Anarchist

CONFESSIONS OF AN ANARCHIST

By W. C. HART

“Last came Anarchy; he rode On a white horse, splashed with blood; He was pale even to the lips, Like Death in the Apocalypse.”

SHELLEY.

LONDON E. GRANT RICHARDS 1906

INTRODUCTORY.

The author of this work has spent some ten years among Anarchists, and in the study of Anarchist publications. He was for some time secretary to two Anarchist “groups,” and a well-known figure in Anarchist circles. Besides this, he was an occasional contributor with his pen to the _Torch of Anarchy_, _Freedom_, _The Commonweal_, _Liberty_, and _The Alarm_. He has, consequently, some claim to be considered an authority on the subject of which he treats.

CONTENTS

Page

I. Anarchy a Negation of Morals and Principles 1

II. Anarchists Immoral and Unprincipled 7

III. Police-paid Spies 17

IV. Anarchist “Literature” 26

V. The “Groups” 32

VI. Bomb-making 40

VII. Anarchists at Work 51

VIII. An Anarchist Conference 67

IX. Anarchist Communities 74

X. Anarchism in England: Its History, Leaders, and Principles 89

XI. Some Anarchist Apostles 99

XII. Anarchist Precepts 123

XIII. How Anarchist Assassins are made 136

XIV. The Lighter side of Anarchism 147

XV. The Absurdities of Anarchism 160

XVI. Anarchism a Bundle of Contradictions 169

XVII. “Propaganda by Deed” 185

XVIII. Does Socialism lead to Anarchism? 192

XIX. A plea for the Suppression of Violent Anarchist Publications 198

ILLUSTRATIONS.

Page.

Some Anarchist Papers _Frontispiece_

An Anarchist Print _To face page_ 28

Mateo Morale ” 36

“Pineapple Bomb” used against King Alfonso ” 46

A Russian Revolutionist ” 52

Luccheni ” 62

Leon Czolgosz ” 64

The “Red Virgin” of the Commune ” 120

Anarchism and Socialism ” 196

I.

ANARCHY A NEGATION OF MORALS AND PRINCIPLES.

Association with Anarchists is not calculated to inspire one with feelings of love for such people. Rather the contrary. Lamartine, the historian, in a fit of disgust on witnessing some extra revolting spectacle of “man’s inhumanity to man,” is said to have exclaimed: “The more I see of my fellow-creatures the more I respect my dog.” Substitute “Anarchists” for “fellow-creatures,” and the phrase admirably sums up my sentiments regarding the preachers and promoters of Anarchy.

Happening, some years back, to become possessed of some of the writings of Prince Kropotkin, Elisée Reclus, and other Anarchist idealists, and being at the time of a somewhat utopian turn of mind, I became enamoured with the Anarchist idea of “emancipating” humanity from the “tyranny” of Parliaments, county councils and school boards, and replacing these “useless and effete institutions” with a spanking brand new set of arrangements, under which it was confidently expected everything would work out the very pink of perfection. I became a full-blown Anarchist, joined the “party,” and in course of time became secretary, first of one Anarchist “group,” and later of another. Like other devotees of the cult, I somehow managed to convince myself that every evil under the sun had its source in “Government;” and, having thus, in the Supreme Court of Anarchy, found the culprit guilty, I, like other Anarchists, straightway pronounced sentence of death on this “monster of iniquity,” confident in the belief that with its abolition would disappear--_hey, presto!_ like--all the ills to which human flesh is heir, and life on this “vale of tears” at once become a veritable Eden _minus_ the Tempter. Disillusion followed shortly on making closer acquaintance with the “companions.” Far from being the “perfect beings”--“laws unto themselves”--I had pictured them in my mind before joining the party, I found them quite the reverse. I left them ultimately in utter disgust, they themselves having convinced me of the folly (not to say criminality) of the whole Anarchist scheme. And here, lest it should be said I am misrepresenting, I hasten to confess my acquaintance with many calling themselves Anarchists whose lives prove them to have reached as near the pinnacle of perfection as is humanly possible. But these are merely _fancied_ Anarchists, and not such in reality: their whole creed and life proclaiming them to be altogether out of touch with logical Anarchist formulæ. Defining their particular “Anarchism” as the “right of the individual to do as he pleases, _provided that in so doing he does not infringe the like liberty of others_,” they have nothing in common with that of the real Anarchist--who believes in the _absolute and unrestricted_ liberty of the individual, and the total abolition of government and authority in all its forms--and are in reality the actual opposite of Anarchists, for they admit, by their definition, the necessity of authority and laws to enforce the will of society on its refractory members.

It will be said, no doubt, that to condemn an idea because of the anti-social and criminal characteristics of its professors is both unfair and misleading. That this would be so as regards most principles I readily admit. But this of Anarchism is an exception, inasmuch as, being an immoral and anti-social doctrine in itself (as I shall prove), it follows as a natural and consequential result that, in course of time, its practical followers must become demoralised also. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

Before entering into detail, let me endeavour to substantiate my case. Anarchism being the doctrine which affirms the sacred, sovereign, and absolute right of the individual to do as he likes under all circumstances, at once shuts out of court, as incompatible with its “principles,” all governance, all organisation, all system, all ideas of society, all order, all restraint on the evilly-disposed, all ideas of morality--all institutions and principles, in short, which contradistinguish civilisation from barbarism, and denote the upward progress of man from savagedom, through slavedom and serfdom, to present-day commercial civilisation. This is not mere assertion--the statement carries its own proof.

Bearing in mind the foregoing, who then will be surprised to learn that the Anarchist affirms the total irresponsibility of man; that the individual is not accountable for his or her actions; that, to put it in plain language, the world is a huge lunatic asylum, and all its inmates more or less “touched”? Self-confessedly “up the pole” (to use a vulgarism) the Anarchist, of course, pictures everyone else in the same elevated position. George Etiévant, a prominent French Anarchist, stole dynamite cartridges, and, on his trial, pleaded that he was not responsible. Instead of consigning him to a lunatic asylum, the administrators of the law sentenced him to five years’ penal servitude. On his release, he gave further proof, if proof were needed, of the futility of the law’s attempt to cure mental disease with imprisonment, by stabbing two policemen whom he had never seen before, and firing into a police-station.

Now a consequence of a belief in the non-responsibility of man is the rejection of the idea of good and evil; of right and wrong. “There is no justice;” writes one Anarchist, “right nor wrong; no truth; no good, no evil.... You have no ‘rights’ except the rights you win by might.... Take what you can, and _all_ you can; and take it while you may.”

Talk to the average Anarchist of morality and he will laugh in your face. And this reminds me. Some time back a number of Anarchists who had been expelled from Ticino and Northern Italy arrived in London. One of these was fond of telling how the “comrades” in Italy procured the wherewithal to carry on the “propaganda.” A large audience would be drawn together by means of placards to listen to an eloquent orator of the party discourse on the deliberately chosen subject of “Anarchist Morality,” the while others of the “comrades” scattered themselves among the spell-bound listeners, and quietly eased them of their watches and purses!

But to return. I have said that a logical Anarchist despises morality. Try to reason with him, and he will argue somewhat in this strain: “Every action of the individual, whether viewed from the orthodox moral standpoint as good, bad, or indifferent, is really performed because the individual cannot help performing it; _ergo_, there are no such acts as good and bad acts--all actions are indifferent.” So that, as was candidly admitted by a speaker at the Paris Anarchist Congress of September, 1889, and reported in the London Anarchist Journal _Freedom_, “_Anarchy is a negation of both morals and principles._”

II.

ANARCHISTS IMMORAL AND UNPRINCIPLED.

I have shown, on the admission of Anarchists themselves, that Anarchy is _minus_ morals and principles; that the words “good” and “evil” are not to be found in an Anarchist vocabulary. Putting aside the fact that Anarchists themselves give the lie to their teaching by battling against what they are pleased to term the “evil” of authority, I think sufficient evidence has been adduced to warrant the assertion that a belief in Anarchism must tend to corrupt rather than to elevate those who embrace its doctrines. Thus it comes about that the logical Anarchist is often a person of shady reputation. Will anyone be surprised to learn that the Anarchist has strong objections to hard work? Many Anarchists I have met abstain from work “on principle.” An article in the _Sheffield Anarchist_, headed “Don’t Work,” recommended “total abstinence,” so that industrious British workmen who like it in plenty may have their fill. The stricture upon Anarchists as a body, once passed in _Justice_, the organ of the Social Democratic Federation, of being “without moral character,” is certainly accurate. Criminals abound in the “party.” Surprising as it must appear to some to learn that Socialists are the bitterest enemies of Anarchists and Anarchism, yet anyone acquainted with the two theories will see at once that this is as it should be, for Socialism is the exact opposite of Anarchism, both in theory and tactics. The late Herr Leibknecht, the well-known Socialist Member of the German Reichstag, once divided the Anarchists into three divisions: (1) criminals and semi-criminals who throw an Anarchist cloak over their crime; (2) police agents; and (3) the defenders of so-called “propaganda by deed.” Strictly speaking, there is another section: (4) that of the “perfect beings” I have already mentioned; but these, as I said, are Anarchists only in name. As to which of the four sections predominate in the party it would be hard to say--certainly not the last-mentioned.

Class 1 comprises rogues of every description--pickpockets, “individual expropriators” (commonly called burglars and thieves), abortionists, professional swindlers, members of the “long firm,” _souteneurs_ (these are confined to the French and German colony in and around Soho), dealers in bogus businesses, medical quacks (at least four can be seen in the streets and market-places of London), makers and passers of counterfeit coin, forgers, practisers of the “propaganda by deed” (Anarchist phraseology for murder and theft), incendiaries who fire houses for the insurance (some few years back this was reduced to a fine art among the foreign Anarchists of America until discovered, and several prominent Anarchists were sent to prison as a result), and the various other kinds of rogue that from time to time figure in the Criminal Courts.

At the back of a small shop in a certain street in St. Luke’s, Clerkenwell, as choice a set of desperadoes collected as ever met under one roof. They styled themselves the “Free Initiative Anarchist Group.” Among its members were well-known (to the police) Anarchist pickpockets, burglars, long firm schemers, clever jewel thieves, and so on. Here was hatched many a successful burglary and jewel robbery. One of the failures was the attempt of one of its members to secure £420 worth of jewels from a shop in Oxford Street by smashing the window with a brick draped in an Anarchist newspaper. One of the favourite dodges of the members of this “group” to secure the “needful” was to rent a shop (or, rather, not to rent it, for they had conscientious objections to paying rent), stock it well with empty boxes, so as to give it the appearance of substantiality, adding a little genuine stock procured by means of the long firm, then advertising the “business” for sale as a well-established concern. By this means they would net between £20 and £30 on each “business” disposed of, generally the hard-earned savings of some working man anxious to start in business for himself.

For nearly two years a large number of the most active members of the German Anarchist Group of the International Working Peoples’ Association in New York City, and of the Social Revolutionary Club, another German Anarchist organisation in that city, were persistently engaged in getting money by insuring their property for amounts far in excess of the real value thereof, secretly removing everything that they could, setting fire to the premises, swearing to heavy losses, and exacting corresponding sums from the insurance companies. Explosion of kerosene lamps was usually the device they employed. Some seven or eight fires, at least, of this sort were set in New York and Brooklyn in 1884 by members of the gang, netting the beneficiaries an aggregate profit of thousands of dollars. In 1885 nearly twenty were set, with equally profitable results. The record for the first three months of 1886 was six, if not more. The business was carried on with the most astounding audacity. One of these men had his premises insured, fired them, and presented his bill of loss to the company within twenty-four hours after getting his policy, and before the agent had reported the policy to the company. The bill was paid, and a few months later the same fellow, under another name, played the game over again, though not quite so speedily. In one of the fires set in 1885 a woman and two children were burned to death. The two guilty parties in this case were members of the Bohemian Anarchist Group and are now serving life-sentences in prison. Another of the fires was started in a six-storey tenement house, endangering the lives of hundreds, but fortunately injuring no one but the incendiary. In one case in 1886 the fireman saved two women whom they found clinging to their bedposts in a half-suffocated condition. In another, a man, woman and baby lost their lives. Three members of the gang were arrested in 1886 for murdering and robbing an old woman in Jersey City. Two others were convicted for carrying concealed weapons and assaulting an officer--they were, in fact, walking arsenals, and the circumstances under which they were found led to the suspicion that they were about to perpetrate a murder as well as a robbery.

A remarkable article in the New York _Sun_ of May 3rd, 1886, corroborates the above by giving names and dates, together with facts and figures from the official records.

Of this class of Anarchists (Class 1 in our category) one may say with truth that they have no more compunction in “besting” one of their own comrades than in robbing outsiders; while for preference they would rather “do” their fellow-associate, relying on the victim’s detestation of the law not to hand them over into its clutches.

Consummate hypocrites and accomplished liars, they unite in their persons all the roguery and dishonesty of East-end sweaters, mingled with the unprincipled characteristics of Seven Dials rascaldom. Regard for honesty and morality they have none. Tired of theorising, the members of the Autonomie Anarchist Club would resort to practice by raiding the Grafton Anarchist Club; and the members of the latter would return the compliment by swooping down on the Autonomie in a body. And so on. It is said there is honour among thieves. But among this particular section of Anarchists this virtue is conspicuous by its absence. I speak on this subject with a feeling of bitterness, for I have been a victim to these rogues time and again.

Of Class 2 (spies in the pay of the police) I speak elsewhere. Of the believers in so-called “propaganda by deed” (Class 3), the major portion is composed of those who incite, or endeavour to incite, others to do that which they have not the courage to do themselves. “Propaganda by deed,” I have explained, is Anarchist jargon for murder, robbery, and crimes against morality. “Pillage and murder the rich” was the favourite theme of _Le Père Peinard_, the French Anarchist slang journal, and there are few Anarchists but who will and do endorse those sentiments. Some will even go further, and declare themselves at war, not merely with the rich, but with everyone else. Ravachol--thief, murderer, forger, counterfeiter, plunderer of graves--is the Anarchists’ patron saint, and is held up to the world as a “hero” whose “example is worthy of emulation.”

Scattered throughout this work will be found many extracts from the “literature” of Anarchism--advocating and applauding the most barbarous outrages conceivable, and recommending inhumanities and immoralities more to be expected among savages than among civilised men; articles approving the firing of opera houses, burning policemen alive, assassination of judges, jurymen, politicians, kings, presidents, etc., by knife, torch, bomb, strangulation, poison, etc.--writings favouring burglary, incendiarism, forgery, stopping trains for purpose of plunder, brigandage, prostitution, abortion. Such is the glorious gospel of Anarchy!

I could never understand, when among the Anarchists, why so many of them are so remiss in paying their debts, and loose in money matters generally, until enlightened by Dr. Creaghe, editor of the _Sheffield Anarchist_. “Let me tell you clearly,” he says, “once and for all, that I believe in, and as long as I live shall do all in my power to encourage, resistance on the part of the workers _to all kinds of payment_, be it rent or otherwise. I shall also try to persuade them to TAKE whatever they are short of, be it food or other things, _wherever they find them_.” The doctor soon found that this new and convenient “principle” could be applied in other ways than those he had contemplated. His own patients rapidly became ardent converts, and the doctor was soon glad to shake the dust of Sheffield off his feet, and seek out fresh fields and pastures new, having become, let us hope, a sadder but a wiser man.

The German Anarchist paper _Vorbote_ once deploringly lamented the fact that many of the “companions” are given to “borrowing as much money as possible from their comrades, and, when asked to repay it, reply with a phrase from the programme of the party!”

Much more could be said on this subject of “propaganda by deed,” but the Sheffield Anarchists, in a “Manifesto to Criminals,” sum up all I could possibly say by candidly confessing that the “only difference between the criminal and the Anarchist is that the former thinks he is doing wrong, while the Anarchist knows he is doing right.” And of such is the fraternity of Anarchy! What a hell upon earth would these misguided wretches bring about if only they could have their way!

III.

POLICE-PAID SPIES.

It is, of course, impossible to speak on this subject with absolute certainty. But association with Anarchists brings one into contact with so many questionable characters that doubts naturally arise in one’s mind as to the genuineness of many active members of the party. Continued association confirms these doubts, and raises them almost to a feeling of certitude. But most of them “give the game away” (to use a vulgarism) by being extraordinarily flush of money whilst doing little or no work. Some will stump the country ostensibly for Anarchism, but really for Scotland Yard. Visiting the various “groups” in Scotland and England (there are none in Ireland) periodically, they usually stay just sufficiently long in each case to learn the movements and intentions of the local Anarchists, and then return to communicate the information they have gathered to the police authorities in London.

It may not be generally known that the notorious and now-dissolved “Club Autonomie” was closed simply and solely because it had become notorious as a rendezvous for spies in the pay of almost every European Government, who notified their respective Governments of every move on the part of the Anarchists here in London and the provinces.

The ranks of Anarchy are simply honey-combed with spies. Not only is Scotland Yard well represented in the secret councils of the party, but so also is the secret political police of every Continental Government. And of this the Anarchists are perfectly well aware, for mutual suspicion reigns supreme among them. So great is this feeling of distrust that few of the “companions” escape suspicion. David Nicoll, who, it will be remembered, underwent eighteen months’ imprisonment for an article in the _Commonweal_ inciting to the murder of Mr. Justice Hawkins and the then Chief-Inspector Melville, has denounced two of the most respected and prominent financiers of the movement--Drs. Nettlau and Macdonald--as spies in the pay of the police. In this connection it is only fair to add that a dozen or so active and well-known Anarchists have replied through _Freedom_ with a note of confidence in the two gentlemen named.

At the trial of the Walsall Anarchists for bomb conspiracy, it transpired that one of the prominent personages in the affair was in regular receipt of secret service money. Chief-Inspector Melville, then head of the political branch of the Criminal Investigation Department, charged solely with the care of Anarchists and Fenians, confessed at the Walsall trial to having “paid lots of Anarchists money.” And these people who sell their own comrades, are the people who prate of regenerating the world! Pah!