April
2004
A
Brief History of Anarchy
By Beth Gould
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Leon
Czolgosz, assassin of President McKinley in 1901 |
The history of the Anarchist movement is a contrast
between philosophy and means of implementation. This was a social, political
and economic movement, and an idealistic one. The late 19th century
was a time when workers in the newly industrialized world found the
chasm between rich and poor hopelessly large; most people in Europe
and the U.S. toiled and lived in squalid conditions; and there were
no regulations on working conditions or child labor, and no labor unions.
A combustible situation was developing and the time was ripe for the
Anarchist, Socialist and Communist movements, which rose to address
the disparity between classes. Where they differed was how to implement
these changes, and what an ideal society would look like. While Communists
saw the villain in the class system, Anarchists believed that only with
the total eradication of government and hierarchy could people truly
be free.
Propaganda of the Deed
So captivating was the idea of a stateless society, in which there was
no government, no law, and no property, that six heads of state were
assassinated within a 20-year period, all in the name of Anarchism.
They were President Carnot of France in 1894, Premier Canovas of Spain
in 1897, Empress Elizabeth of Austria in 1898, King Humbert of Italy
in 1900, President McKinley of the U.S. in 1901, and another Premier
of Spain, Canalejas, in 1912. In addition to these assassinations, there
were many acts of violence against the middle class and bourgeoisie,
who were believed to be the footsoldiers that kept the means of repression
in place. Together, these audacious acts were meant to inspire the working
class to spontaneously rise up to overthrow the economic and governmental
systems—an ignition referred to as ‘propaganda of the deed.’
Anarchists believed that ownership of property symbolized all that was
wrong with society. With its elimination, no human could again live
off the labor of another, and instead would live in equality and justice.
The role of the state would be replaced by voluntary cooperation among
individuals and the role of state law by the supreme law of the general
welfare. Anarchists did not believe that voting or persuasion was of
any use, because the ruling class would never give up its property or
the powers and laws which protected such ownership. This intransigence
made violence a necessity. Only revolutionary overturn of the entire
existing system would accomplish the desired result: a new social order
of utter equality and no authority, with enough of everything for everybody.
So reasonable seemed the proposition that once apprised of it the oppressed
classes could not fail to respond. The Anarchist task was to awaken
them to the idea by propaganda of the word and of the deed.
The two major thinkers during the formative period of Anarchism were
Pierre Proudhon of France, and his disciple, Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian
exile, who saw revolution as “a natural tendency of life. Even
a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality
and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of
its instinct to revolt.”
“What is Property?” Proudhon famously asked and answered,
“Property is theft.” “Do you not know,” cried
Enrico Malatesta in his Talk Between Two Workers, an Anarchist classic,
“that every bit of bread they eat is taken from your children,
every fine present they give to their wives means the poverty, hunger,
cold, even perhaps prostitution of yours?”
Proudhon believed that the “abstract idea of right” would
obviate the need for revolution and humans would be persuaded to adopt
the stateless society through reason. Where Bakunin differed was in
the necessity for violent revolution. As opposed to his philosophical
rival Karl Marx, who maintained that revolution would come only from
an organized industrial proletariat, Bakunin believed that immediate
revolution could explode in one of the more economically backward countries—like
Italy, Spain or Russia—where the workers, though untrained, unorganized
and illiterate, would be ready to rise because they had nothing to lose.
The task of the conscientious revolutionist was to popularize the idea
among the masses—to make them conscious of their own wants and
“evoke” thoughts to match their impulses, thoughts of revolt.
Once the workers knew their own will, “their power would be irresistible.”
“A single deed,” Anarchist thinker Peter Kropotkin wrote,
“is better propaganda than a thousand pamphlets.” Words
are “lost in the air like the sound of church bells.” Acts
are needed “to excite hate for all the exploiters, to ridicule
the Rulers, to show up their weakness and above all and always to awaken
the spirit of revolt.” He viewed the optimal Anarchist State as
an establishment of a kingdom of God. The inherent weakness within Anarchism
was its philosophical rejection of authority, organization and discipline,
necessary for a widespread revolution. However, they remained loyal
to these ideals, believing that revolution would burst from the masses
spontaneously.
Each strike or bread riot the Anarchist hoped—and the capitalist
feared—might be the necessary spark. Yet each time it appeared
that the workers had become so discontent that revolution might become
a reality, the spark was stamped out effectively—often brutally.
In response to the humiliating armistice signed by the French government
following the disastrous Franco-Prussian war of 1871 and the continued
occupation of Prussian troops, Parisian Communists and Anarchists rose
up and formed their own government based on eradication of the class
system. This massive uprising became known as the Paris Commune, the
egalitarian ideals of which soon degenerated into paranoia and militarism.
This uprising lasted for two months, and was ended by the French army,
who killed over 17,000 people while regaining control of Paris. Most
disheartening to Anarchists and Communists was that the Commune failed
to signal a general insurrection. Bakunin, disillusioned, wrote to his
wife, “We reckoned without the masses, who did not want to be
roused to passion for their own freedom.”
The Haymarket Massacre
The event that caused the Anarchist movement to gain worldwide fame
and notoriety took place in Chicago on May 1, 1885, the climax of a
decade-long campaign for the eight-hour workday. In every clash the
employers had the forces of law—police, militia and courts—as
their allies; and the workers were met with live ammunition and lockouts.
Driven by misery and injustice, the workers’ anger grew and with
it the employers’ fear and determination to stamp it out.
Anarchism was not a labor movement, but they saw in the struggles of
labor the potential for revolution. “A pound of dynamite is worth
a bushel of bullets,” cried August Spies, editor of Chicago’s
German-language Anarchist daily, Die Arbeiter-Zeitung. “Police
and militia, the bloodhounds of capitalism, are ready to murder!”
In this he was right: during a clash between workers and strikebreakers,
the police fired, killing two. “Revenge! Revenge! Workingmen to
arms!” shrieked handbills printed and distributed by Spies that
night. The protest meeting he called for the next day took place in
Haymarket Square; and when the police marched to break it up, a bomb
was thrown, killing seven police officers. Who threw it has never been
discovered, but eight Anarchists were sentenced to hang for the crime.
The defendants’ speeches to the court, firm in Anarchist principle,
served to make them martyrs, and resounded throughout Europe and America,
providing the best publicity Anarchism ever had. In the absence of direct
evidence establishing their guilt, they knew and loudly stated that
they were being sentenced for the crime, not of murder, but of Anarchism.
Regicide
Gaining momentum, the anarchist philosophers, who were not involved
in any actual violence themselves, believed that the time for revolution
was near, that they had captured the imaginations of the masses, and
that soon the world would erupt in a flame of revolution. The footsoldiers
responsible for supplying this spark had almost no contact with thinkers
like Bakunin and Proudhon. They were usually poor, desperate men, strangled
by society, frustrated, with no hope of improving their circumstances.
Leon Czolgosz, a Polish American, shot President McKinley on September
1, 1901. He wrote in his confession, “I killed President McKinley
because I done my duty…because he was an enemy of the good working
people.” He told reporters that he had heard Emma Goldman lecture,
“‘all rulers should be exterminated’…set me
to thinking so that my head nearly split with pain.” Czolgosz’s
actions and planning were done alone. He had no contact with and limited
understanding of Anarchist doctrines; his beliefs were instead based
primarily on the doctrine of regicide, “I don’t believe
we should have any rulers. It is right to kill them.” Yet it was
Czolgosz, as a result of his actions, who had the greatest impact on
the movement. As a result of the assassination, McKinley’s replacement,
Theodore Roosevelt, convinced Congress to amend the Immigration Act
to exclude persons disbelieving in or “teaching disbelief in or
opposition to all organized government,” effectively making Anarchy
illegal in the U.S.
The End of Propaganda of the Deed
At the dawn of the 20th century, the efforts of Anarchists to foster
a revolution based on human equality were met with militarism and repression.
Effectively ending this period of resistance, Anarchists turned to working
within syndicalist unions, bringing industry and government under the
control of federations of labor unions around the issue of better wages
and working conditions. Their most dangerous tool became the general
strike, with which they intended to one day cripple and overthrow their
capitalist oppressors.
In the 21st century, the Anarchist movement is still alive. Although
now separate from its more violent roots, modern Anarchists agree with
the philosophies of their forebearers. Their focus is now on more grassroots
efforts, including rent strikes, consumer boycotts, individual and collective
non-payment of taxes, strikes and protests. Where once the Anarchist
definition of direct action was throwing a bomb, today it is defined
as acting for oneself instead of ceding autonomy to a politician or
representative. In The Ego and Its Own, Max Stirner writes in 1907,
“The State’s behavior is violence, but it calls its violence
‘law’; that of the individual, ‘crime.’”
Though their tactics have changed, modern anarchists still believe in
eradication of government and the laws imposed by it.
Violence and Modern Anarchism
Many Anarchists are attracted to pacifism, because violence is authoritarian
and coercive, and thus contradictory to their basic tenets. Many believe
that violence is often counterproductive, alienating people and giving
the state an excuse to repress both the Anarchist and other popular
movements for social change. Most Anarchists support nonviolent direct
action and civil disobedience, which they believe often provide better
roads to radical change. However, pure pacifists are rare. Most accept
the use of violence as a necessary evil and advocate minimizing its
use. All agree that to bring about a revolution, violence would be necessary,
and this would just recreate the state in a new form; to destroy authority
or use violence to resist violence, however, is not authoritarian.
Anarchism today is not only about a future society, it is also about
struggle itself; it is not a conclusion but a process, created by people
initiating activity and liberation for themselves. And Anarchists both
old and new would not disagree.
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