Part 4
The year 1894 was a year of great Anarchist activity. In England, the Anarchist Martial Bourdin blew himself to pieces with his own bomb while bent on destroying the Royal Observatory in Greenwich Park. Two Italian Anarchists, Polti and Farnara, who had given a Blackfriars Road firm of engineers an order for iron bomb-shells, were sentenced in June to ten and twenty years respectively. It is surmised that their intention was to blow up the Stock Exchange or the Houses of Parliament. In this year, also, David Nicoll, editor of the notorious _Commonweal_, was sent to prison for an article advising murder. In July, the compositor and assistant of this paper were sentenced to six months apiece for seditious libel. This year, also, Rolla Richards, a Deptford Anarchist, was condemned to seven years for blowing up a number of post-offices in South London. A Birmingham Anarchist, C. C. Davis, for smashing a jeweller’s window with a brick wrapped in a copy of the _Walsall Anarchist_, and scattering the jewellery in the roadway, was sent to eighteen months’ imprisonment. In France, the chief Anarchist event was the assassination of President Carnot. As the French President was driving at Lyons a young Anarchist named Caserio Santo mortally wounded him with a dagger. The assassin acted on his own initiative alone, but the police depositions made it abundantly clear that he must have heard the assassination of Carnot continually discussed in Anarchist circles. On July 26, the Anarchist Meunier, extradited from England, was sent to penal servitude for life for an explosion at the Café Very. Early in the year Emile Henri threw a bomb from the balcony of the Café Terminus, wounding twenty-four persons and causing two deaths. He also confessed himself to be the author of the abortive attempt in 1893 against the Carmaux’s Company’s office, and was afterwards guillotined. On March 15, Joseph Pauwells exploded a bomb and himself at the Madeleine Church, Paris; and an unsuccessful attempt was made to blow up the Chamber of Deputies at Rome. On April 4, an explosion occurred at the Café Foyet, opposite the Luxembourg Palace, wounding an Anarchist poet named Laurent Tailhade. In the same year, a bomb placed over the door of a room in the Rue Saint Jacques, by an unknown person giving the fictitious name of “Rabardy,” wounded the landlady, Madame Calabresi, who afterwards died. The police were directed by “Rabardy” to a house in the Rue Faubourg St. Martin, where also a bomb was placed over a door, but this was detected and exploded by them at a safe distance, by means of electric wires. For these crimes a German Anarchist named Muller, in May, confessed himself the author. A French Anarchist shoemaker, Leauthier by name, aged twenty years, was this year condemned to hard labour for life for wounding M. Georgevitch, the Servian Minister in France, at a Paris restaurant. From the age of sixteen, when Leauthier first became an Anarchist, his character was observed to change; he showed signs of a disturbed mind; became morose; and in November of 1893 wrote to Sebastian Faure, the Anarchist leader, saying that he felt he must attack a _bourgeois_. In Italy an attempt was made to assassinate Signor Crispi.
The two following years saw a lull in Anarchist activity, due mainly to the severe repressive measures employed by the various Governments. But in 1897 occurred the murder of Antonio Canovas del Castillo, the Spanish Premier, by the Anarchist Angiolillo.
This was followed shortly after, in 1898, by the cowardly murder of the Empress Elizabeth of Austria by an Anarchist named Luccheni, who, condemned to life-long solitary confinement, is reported to be more or less demented, spending the grey hours of his silent existence in abyssmal despair, varied by periods of ethereal and frightful excitement.
In 1900, King Humbert of Italy was stabbed to death by the Anarchist Bresci, who, unable to endure the terrible punishment of solitary immurement for life, preferred to die in his cell by his own hand.
In the following year, 1901, President McKinley was assassinated by a Polish Anarchist named Czolgosz while in the act of holding a reception at the Temple of Music in the Buffalo Exhibition. On February 27, this same year, M. Bogoliepoff, Russian Minister of Education, was killed.
In 1902, Hirch le Kuch, a Russian Anarchist, made a murderous attack on Lieutenant-General Whal, Governor of Wilna, for which he was hanged on June 11. April 15 saw the assassination of M. Sipiaguine, Russian Minister of the Interior, who was shot four times in the vestibule of the Council of the Empire, in St. Petersburg.
In 1903, the Russian General Bogdanovitch, Governor of Ufa, was killed on May 19.
1904 saw the assassination of General Bobrikoff, Governor of Finland. In the same year, M. de Plehve, the iron-handed Russian Minister of the Interior, was blown to pieces by a bomb as he was driving through St. Petersburg on July 28. Only a month before he had said: “My police easily control the Nihilists--every one of them is known.” A ragged man standing in the door of a café threw the De Plehve bomb. “If the police persists in its present policy M. de Plehve’s successor will meet with the same doom,” he told the police.
In 1905--on January 19--an extraordinary attempt was made to assassinate the Czar, Alexander III.--a cannon loaded with case shot being fired at him during the ceremony of blessing the waters of the Neva in St. Petersburg. The crime failed in its object, but a policeman was killed by one of the bullets, while two other persons were injured. Bullets also broke the windows of the Winter Palace. The astonishing feature of this attempt was that the loaded cannon--one of a battery of eight saluting guns--was fired by the Guards corps, who are the custodians of the Emperor’s person. On February 16, the Russian Grand Duke Sergius was blown to pieces by a bomb, in revenge for the events of “Red Sunday” (January 22) when peaceful men, women, and children were massacred in the streets of St. Petersburg, while exercising their constitutional right of petitioning their sovereign. Prince Andronnikoff, also, was stabbed to death in Warsaw for the part he took in these outrages, and so also was Prince Vasiltchykoff “removed.”
On March 23, 1905, was concluded the sensational trial at Amiens of the Abbeville gang of forty Anarchist thieves, with the passing of life-sentences on the leader, Marius Jacob, and Bour. Ferré was sentenced to ten years’ solitary confinement, and Pelisard to eight years’ penal servitude. Jacob’s mother, and the woman Lazarine, Roux, and Ferré each received five years’ imprisonment. Shorter terms were served out to the lesser members of this unique organisation. They received their sentences with cries of “Long live Anarchy!”
An attempt to assassinate General Maximovitch, Governor-General of Warsaw, was frustrated on May 19, by two detectives, who paid with their lives the penalty of their zeal. On going to arrest the would be assassin, an Anarchist named Dobrowolski, the bomb exploded, killing all three. An attempt was also made this year to assassinate the King of Spain in Paris, a bomb being thrown at the carriage in which His Majesty and the President of the French Republic were driving after a visit to the Opera.
At the Old Bailey, two Italian Anarchists, Adolfo Antonelli and Francesca Barberi, were sentenced to ten months’ and nine months’ imprisonment respectively for publishing in _L’Insurrezione_, a justification of political assassination, and inciting to the murder of the sovereigns and rulers of Europe, notably King Victor Emmanuel III. of Italy.
On March 17, 1906, the notorious Johann Most died in Cincinnatti, U.S.A., of erysipelas. In 1881 he was sent to prison here for applauding the assassination of the Czar, and his paper, _Die Freiheit_, and printing-press, were confiscated.
A bomb was thrown at the carriage in which the King and Queen of Spain were returning from their wedding on Thursday, May 31, 1906, fatally injuring twenty-five people and inflicting serious wounds on thirty-four others. The assassin, an Anarchist named Mateo Moral, escaped, but was arrested on June 2, fourteen miles from the scene of the outrage, by a gendarme, whom he shot on the spot, afterwards turning the weapon on himself.
VIII.
AN ANARCHIST CONFERENCE.
The Anarchist is nothing if not unconventional. At his “conferences” chairmen, voting on resolutions, and the other necessary conditions for the preservation of order, are altogether dispensed with, as savouring of the “authority” he so much detests, with, of course, the consequence that order is conspicuous by its absence, and, more often than not, the “conference” ends up in a free fight between the various factions present.
My first experience at an Anarchist conference was as follows:--An announcement had appeared in the _Commonweal_ to the effect that a conference of London and provincial Anarchists would be held on a certain date at a notorious rendezvous of the cult off Tottenham Court Road, to which “all comrades were invited.” I decided to accept the invitation and be present at their deliberations. The subject down for the “comrades’” discussion was “The Right of Individual Expropriation,” or, in plain English, “The Right to Thieve.” Presenting myself to time at the place of meeting, and finding the door ajar, I walked in, and found myself in a narrow passage which led into a small hall, where I took a seat among the other “companions” assembled.
Right here let me explain that, contrary to general belief, among Anarchists, the various paraphernalia of Freemasonry--signs, passwords, etc.--are altogether dispensed with, being contrary to Anarchist “principles,” which allow of no form of authority or organisation whatsoever. No credentials are required, for the Anarchist does not admit the possibility of one person representing anyone but himself. Secretarial work, according to the Anarchist theory, is done by anyone who feels that way inclined; and if volunteers are not forthcoming the work remains undone.
But to resume my story. Once inside the hall, a spectacle greeted my sight I shall not soon forget. Seated about in confusion were a number of evil-looking men and women of almost every nationality--shouting, stamping, and gesticulating. On the walls, in gorgeous red, were painted a number of Anarchistic mottoes in German, and at the end of the hall a small stage was erected, on the facia of which, in bold English, appeared the legend--“Anarchy is Order.” Among the distinguished personages present I noticed Louise Michel, E. Malatesta, and several Continental Anarchists who later ended their careers on the gallows or under the guillotine.
An hour beyond the advertised time had passed, and there were no signs of the seance commencing. Suddenly, one of the “comrades” was heard shrieking for order, which, after great trouble, was obtained. A “comrade” of unmistakably Jewish countenance rose and addressed the meeting. His sentiments were nothing more or less than incitements to all kinds of crime. “Pillage and murder the rich,” he shrieked. That was the sentiment of the whole meeting. Space will not allow of my reproducing any of the speeches, which were revolting in the extreme. Suffice it to say that the speakers declaimed hotly anent the injustice of everything in general, and the necessity for the “removal” of monarchs and all in authority, who, they claimed, were responsible for the ills of the world. One speaker held up Ravachol, the Anarchist scoundrel who lived by thieving, coining, and forgery, and who ended under the guillotine for brutally murdering an old man in order to get his money, as a “hero” worth copying. “We want some English Ravachols,” he shrieked. These sentiments, however, roused the ire of the more peaceably inclined, who are known as “Christian Anarchists,” and more potent arguments than words were the outcome of the debate.
During the progress of the conference a thick bordered mourning card was distributed among those assembled--
“IN LOVING MEMORY of MARTIAL BOURDIN; who was killed by the bursting of a bomb in Greenwich Park.”
and containing the following piece of alleged poetry:--
“Spurning the name of a slave, Fearless of gaol or of grave, Fighting for Freedom, he gave His life in the Revolution. Time shall not rob him of fame; Hating the tyrant, and game In the spirit that rings in his name, He died for the Revolution.”
At this conference it was proposed to burn monarchs, lawyers, and persons in authority in effigy, as a means of calling attention to the Anarchist propaganda. A discussion arose as to the advisability of a “No Rent” campaign. One “comrade” formulated a plan of occupying model dwellings, and a French “comrade” told how they worked the “Anti-Broker Brigade” in Paris. There, he said, whenever a comrade is in trouble with his landlord, six or seven Anarchists go to his house in a body and carry off the furniture. This, he explained, would be easy work in England, as in Paris every house has a porter, who usually tries to interfere with the departure of the household goods, and has to be knocked down before he will be quiet--while in London this is not the case. He concluded by saying: “Persevere with this propaganda, comrades; there is none better.”
Then an ex-editor of _Le Père Peinard_, who had escaped from France to avoid imprisonment, urged the claims of “Expropriation” (Anarchist jargon for stealing). He pressed the “comrades” to do their utmost to persuade the people to seize upon the wealth of the capitalists on every possible occasion; and, after some discussion it was agreed that the “principle” was good, and that we should preach and practise it whenever possible.
The conference was brought to a close by the singing of revolutionary songs, one of which extolled the virtues of “Petroleum” as the “stuff which makes the _bourgeois_ fly!” and concluding with the terrible “Carmagnole,” the last verse of which goes as follows:--
“O what is it the people cry? Arms! Arms! to make our rulers fly! Bombs, powder, pikes and lead Shall bring our brothers bread! Cold on the earth shall tyrants lie! Vive le son, du canon!”
IX.
ANARCHIST COMMUNITIES.
There have been many communities founded on Anarchist methods (or rather, lack of methods), but everyone has resulted in ignominious failure. From 1890 to 1894 there existed at Palmira, in Brazil, a community of 300 Italian Anarchists known as the Cecilia Community. Its object was to illustrate Anarchist teaching by practical example. The colonists were, indeed, a motley crowd; they included peasants, mechanics, criminals, professional men, illiterate men, and men highly trained--men of every shade of personal character, religious faith, and technical ability. Everyone had in his or her turn been an active propagandist of Anarchist theories, but yearned to see their practical application. The Cecilia Community, consequently, was founded that the unbelieving world might witness the possibility and desirability of living in a condition of absolute freedom, without laws or restrictions of any kind whatever. Everybody in Cecilia did as they “darned-well pleased.” There was no social organisation, no rules, no officials, and everyone was free to work or not, as he pleased. Anything which savoured of system was religiously tabooed as being contrary to the Anarchist evangel; there was no programme, no table of hours, no standard of efficiency of labour. Laws were relegated to limbo; voting and the settlement of differences by majority-rule, being contrary to Anarchist “principles,” were consigned to the same place. Their village, which they designated “Anarchy,” consisted of log-huts 6 feet long, 4 feet deep, and 9 feet high; some had a wooden flooring, but most had only the earth stamped down; a bed constituted the regulation furniture, but some possessed the luxury of a table. During their four years’ existence as a community their clothes remained the same, and presented a sorry picture of patchwork. Their diet consisted mainly of vegetables, and bacon was looked upon as a great luxury. One of the balance-sheets shows an item of £263 received from the Brazilian Government for mending roads, showing that the Anarchists were partly dependent on the enemy for their livelihood.
Dr. Rossi, one of the colonists, describing his experiences, says: “Our life was filled with a systematic spirit of contradiction, which caused us to lose many working hours in endless discussion; when we met in the evening, the noise of our conversation could be heard nearly a mile off, though the doors were shut.” Everywhere was universal mistrust, quarrelling, and back-biting; and of course Anarchist “principles” admitted of no method of remedying these evils. The result was soon seen. Acting in accordance with the Anarchist principle of separating, rather than submit to majority or any other rule, the larger number went its own way and the minority took up its position outside the communal land. But later on differences again sprang up, and, following the same and only permissible policy with Anarchists, they separated once more, and thus, instead of remaining one harmoniously-acting body, they became disunited into four. Shortly again, fresh differences showed themselves, and again they separated into eight parts, and so on, until, out of the 300 “emancipated” colonists but a mere handful remained, and the “community” was surrounded on all sides by minorities larger than itself. This last handful sold the place to a group of seceders, paid all the debts with the proceeds, and finally disbanded, having proved conclusively the impracticability and rank idiocy of Anarchist “principles” in practice.
In England there have been at least two Anarchist colonies. One was established in 1895 at Clousden Hill Farm, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, and was conducted on Anarchist-Communist principles. Some Anarchists resident in the vicinity of Newcastle and Sunderland had become impressed by an article by the Russian ex-prince Kropotkin (the leader of London Anarchists) in one of the magazines describing the “advanced” methods of agriculture in operation in Guernsey and the Channel Islands, where almost everything is reared under glass. In this article Kropotkin prophesied that “before long immense vineries would grow up round the coal-pits of Northumberland, where artificial heat can be obtained from coals selling at 3s. per ton.” With the financial assistance of a wealthy London Anarchist, the Newcastle “comrades” were enabled to purchase the farm before-mentioned, which they converted into an Anarchist colony. A portion of the land they covered with glass, and organised a poultry and dairy farm, besides vegetable gardens and orchards, the produce from which they despatched weekly to the local co-operative store and the Newcastle market. Their aim was “to give an object lesson” in Anarchism. The colonists, who comprised men and women of several nationalities, had large ideas regarding the regeneration of mankind, but, as is usually the case, forgot to apply them to themselves. The rule of the colony was no rule, everybody doing as he or she pleased, and disputes were supposed to be settled on “love and brotherhood” principles. Even the live stock on the farm approved the general Anarchist principle of do-as-you-like, for, according to one of the colonists, the fowls would not lay, the bees refused to swarm, the rabbits ran away, and the ducks died. One of their cows proved to be blind, another went mad, whilst a third died when calving. With horses matters fared no better. One fine-looking young beast became so infatuated with Anarchist principles of revolt that he contracted a habit of bolting whenever he was yoked; a second preferred lying down to pulling a load for tyrant man, and another manifested his contempt for things communal by kicking the front out of every cart to which he was harnessed.
Very few of the colonists had had any previous experience of the work they were undertaking. An amateur built a 30-feet smoke shaft, and disdained the use of such a simple tool as a plumb-line. The consequence was that the shaft refused to maintain its tower of Pisa-like position, and came to earth with a crash.
The colony prospered for a while, but when differences began to show themselves the members saw at once the impossibility of settling them amicably without discarding the Anarchist principles upon which the colony was founded. They flung Anarchy to the winds, and for days spent their time in framing sets of rules. But gradually the membership of the colony decreased until but twelve were left, of whom only six were voters. Will it be believed that among this six there actually were two parties?
The colony came to grief in a tangle of quarrelling. Two of the colonists bought their colleagues out, and started a flower business on their own account. This turned out a failure, and the affairs of the concern came before the Newcastle Bankruptcy Court in April, 1902.
In 1897 was founded the Whiteway Anarchist colony in Gloucestershire, which, I believe, exists to this day, but based on different principles. The colony was founded by Samuel Bracher, a Gloucester journalist, who, for £450, purchased a farm of 41 acres, provided implements, seeds, cattle, food, etc., in all spending some £1,200--his whole capital. At the beginning the colonists numbered only about eight, but ultimately the number rose to forty. Their first act was to show their contempt for “conventionality” by burning the title-deeds of the farm!
The colonists were, indeed, a curious crowd. They comprised a Leipsic doctor of philosophy, an Oxford tutor of Greek, a son of a wealthy Birmingham manufacturer, an ex-science lecturer, several artisans, a farmer, two or three Quakers, and a few women. They had no rules of any kind, and everyone did as he or she liked. To become a colonist no application was needed; all that anyone had to do was to take a seat at the common table. All things were supposed to be held in common (although how this was possible without some form of rules and authority passes comprehension), and all the money they possessed was kept in a small open box upon the mantel shelf. The result was that, whilst some of the colonists worked hard, the majority sponged idly upon their labours. Gradually the indolence and licence of some of the members became more pronounced, until in disgust, Bracher, the founder, his wife, and others, left the colony. No idea can be given of the indolence and sheer animalism of this Whiteway Anarchia, with its lawless licence and its cadging. So disgusted were some of the colonists that they renounced Anarchy straightway, and on an adjoining farm started a co-operative colony based on laws and authority, the chief law being “He that will not work, neither shall he eat.”