Confessions of an anarchist

The idea is becoming general that the propagandist of violent Anarchist doctrine should be treated with the same severity as is accorded those who carry out the hateful tenets he preaches.

Human beings, as we know, have sometimes held beliefs of which crime was the logical and necessary outcome—as, for instance, the Thugs in India, who looked upon the murder of travellers as a religious obligation. That Anarchism in its violent form is such a belief; that, in fact, its creed is merely a cloak for crime of every description, we have already seen.

Passing through a rather low-class part of East London, one fine Sunday morning, I was pained to hear a crowd applaud an Anarchist street-orator, who was openly and boldly advocating burglary and crimes of almost every description. On my expressing my surprise to a constable near by that Englishmen should approve such criminal sentiments, he replied, “Why, sir, them people practise what that fellow’s preaching—they’re thieves, sir, every man jack of them.”

This was some years ago; since then I have made a special study of Anarchist publications, and become acquainted with various Anarchists in different parts of the country. The result of my experience is the conviction that that constable was right—that the Anarchist agitator is simply the mouthpiece of the criminal classes. We punish the man who breaks the law, but leave the maker of law-breakers untouched.

The belief that “property is theft” (vide Proudhon, the “father” of Anarchism); that, according to the notorious Malatesta, everyone should be free “to do as he pleases” under all circumstances; that “everything belongs to everyone” (Kropotkin); and that a life of idleness and robbery culminating in murder, such as was led by the Anarchist miscreant, Ravachol, is a life which, according to the Commonweal, is “worthy of emulation,” is a belief which is marvellously comforting to those of criminal inclination, and to weak-minded persons who have a natural propensity to commit acts of an anti-social character. Such persons, in fact, flock to the Anarchist standard.

“Put money in thy purse,” wrote the notorious Johann Most, in his Freiheit of 1880. And the Anarchists have not been slow to act upon it. And why should they not? Has not their creed erased the words “right” and “wrong” from the vocabulary? “A fig for good and evil,” exclaims the Anarchist Max Stirner ... “neither has any meaning ... my concern is neither the godly nor the human; is not the true, the good, the right, the free, etc., but simply my own self.”

“Pillage and murder the rich,” was the favourite theme, not only of the French Anarchist slang journal Le Père Peinard, but of the various London Anarchist journals, as I have shown. Cyril Bell, a well-known London Anarchist, is reported in Freedom (December, 1891) as advising “revolt by refusing payment to shopkeepers whose goods we take when we want them,” etc. The Sheffield Anarchist said, “Don’t work;” and Dr. Creaghe, its editor, says that the “only logical way for an Anarchist to make a livelihood is by pillage,” which, with others, he attempted to put into practice. However, after a while, he wrote in the Commonweal that he was “discouraged with regard to the No Rent and Robbery Propaganda.” Not, mark you, because they were immoral—oh, dear no!—but because they were rather risky. He then proposed a poaching expedition as the easiest way of “living on the enemy.” “We should have to fight though, and perchance kill an occasional keeper or policeman,” he says, but this was only a mere detail, hardly worthy of consideration.

The following is an extract, not from some Burglary Manual, but from the writings of Prince Kropotkin, the leader of London Anarchists: “Instead of inanely repeating the old formula ‘Respect the law,’ we say ‘Despise law and all its attributes!’ In place of the cowardly phrase ‘Obey the law,’ our cry is ‘Revolt against all laws!’” The effect of such teaching can only be to demoralise rather than to elevate those who embrace it. But it is especially the mischievous meddling of Anarchists in strikes that is likely, one day, to produce results in this country similar to what has often taken place on the Continent and in America. There, acting upon the advice of Anarchist agitators, strikers have introduced the weapons of the knife, revolver, torch and bomb. It is true that here in England working men have not been led upon this path of criminality. But it is not for want of trying on the part of the Anarchists. During the great London dock strike thousands of Anarchist manifestoes headed “Fight or Starve!” were distributed among the men on strike, advocating the pillage of the shops, the blowing-up and setting fire to the docks and wharves. When the East End tailors struck, the Anarchist cry was altered to “Death to Sweaters!” While the London busmen’s strike was in full swing the Commonweal came out with an article recommending the poisoning of the horses. It is true the paper said don’t poison the horses, but it was advice of the don’t-nail-his-ear-to-the-pump order.

Among working men on strike, especially if the position is getting desperate and hopeless, there are always a number of hot-heads ready for mischief. This the Anarchists know and take full advantage of. Thus, if they are able to get the ear of men on strike, their advice is always to “seize the wealth in the shops,” hoping thereby, should a riot occur, they will themselves come out of the scrimmage the richer. One Anarchist I know, during the riots of 1886, when the unemployed sacked the shops in the West End, secured valuables which, to my certain knowledge, enabled him to dress in “purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously every day” for over a twelve month.

To sum up. We have seen that the Anarchist looks upon all acts from the point of view of the right of the individual to “do as he pleases” under all circumstances, and who, in the name of that “right,” passes a verdict of “not guilty” on the most atrocious deeds, the most revoltingly arbitrary acts. “What matter the victims,” exclaimed the Anarchist poet, Laurent Tailhade, on the evening of Vaillant’s outrage in the French Chamber; “what matters the death of vague human beings if thereby the individual affirms himself?”⁠[8]

It is sometimes said that often the violent language of Anarchists is but the hare-brained rattle of fools seeking a sensation. Be this as it may, the fact remains that weak-minded persons, and those with criminal leanings, are apt to take their writings and speeches seriously, and act upon them. It is a fact that every Anarchist group is composed largely of mere youths. To such, Anarchist views have some attraction, as being calculated to allow a reckless independence, freedom from control, and a kind of intellectual audacity which, for a time, fascinates. Accordingly, in the interests of such, my call is to everyone who has the moral and material welfare of the nation at heart—to political and social reformers, to Socialists, and to every kind of ethical and religious propagandist—to unite in calling for the total suppression of violent Anarchist publications, and the dealing out of equal punishments to those who incite to crime as for those who commit the actual offences.

Wyman and Sons, Ltd., Printers, London and Reading.