CHAPTER XIII THE ANARCHIST TRADITION (a) BAKUNIN

MR. E. H. CARR, in his wholly admirable biography of Michael Bakunin, has presented a very living and very human picture of the most influential force in modern anarchism, and those who desire an intimate insight into the curious and contradictory elements which went to the making of this enigmatic figure may safely be referred to Mr. Carr. Equally, Mr. Gerald Brenan, in disentangling The Spanish Labyrinth, has unfolded the quite extraordinary influence which Bakunin has exercised in countries remote from Premukhino where he began his troubled and tempestuous life. Though it may be difficult to come by his writings (such as they are) we in this generation have little excuse for being ignorant about him.¹

Bakunin was born to become a legend. Rising above his aristocratic traditions, he became a revolutionary by profession, associating himself with anything that might be termed an insurrection or revolt, and ultimately developing an insensate rage for destruction. Years of imprisonment and years of exile in Siberia (where, however, like Lenin, he does not appear to have been particularly unhappy) left him, after his escape to Western Europe by way of America, a great, bearded, toothless giant, returning like a spectre from the past to uphold the pause of anarchism and federalism against the authority of Marx. He remained a chaotic figure—chaotic in his life, chaotic in his thought, chaotic in his writings—thoroughly unpractical and destitute of common sense, as becomes an anarchist, yet with something about him of a likeable but rather spoiled child, mingling the real with the imaginary and playing at make-believe conspiracies, with all the paraphernalia of codes and cyphers designed to be used in communication with possibly non-existent correspondents.

Bakunin's place and influence in history are, in a sense, much more significant than his place in thought. There is justice in the criticism that, in his case, a pose takes the place of an argument. His writings are incoherent, and despite all his affectations of activity they are but scattered fragments. Nowhere is there a consecutive exposition of his views as a whole; and a grudging commentator might further suggest that even the substance of what he says is largely derived from his predecessors in the anarchist tradition. For the essence of Bakunin is to a considerable extent a restatement of Proudhon by one bred in a Russian environment, with perhaps more distant memories of Godwin, though probably these are not so much the result of any Godwinian influence, direct or indirect, as the natural outcome of the anarchist way of looking at things. On the other hand, Bakunin, whatever his claims as a thinker and a theorist—and they are probably small—has nevertheless continued to play a considerable part in the unfolding of events. Much of the history of the First International was coloured by the feud between Marx and Bakunin, and it was indeed because of this clash of personality that the First International was ultimately extinguished. Even more significant is the fact that, so far as anarchism has been a distinct movement in more recent times, it is primarily to Bakunin that it has looked for inspiration, even if perhaps it be the inspiration derived from a legendary figure. In a chapter designed to illustrate the anarchist tradition subsequent to Proudhon, Bakunin must therefore be assigned the first place.

So far as Bakunin's analysis of existing society is concerned, it cannot be said that he differs materially from what is the core of the Marxian position. It is a world of exploitation, of class antagonism, with the State and the machinery of the State merely the property of one of these classes. As opposed to les classes politiques (which a conjectural footnote suggests should probably read les classes privilégiées) are les classes ouvrières, the disinherited, deprived of capital, of land and of education. Between these is a yawning gulf which may not be bridged.¹ Labour is thus the slave, the bondsman, of capital and of property. The civilisation of the few is based on the forced labour and the relative barbarism of the many.² It is not merely that some live at the expense of others³; but in bourgeois society, as we know it, every individual is necessarily impelled to be an exploiter of others.⁴ In one place he defines property and capital as the power and the right to live on the labour of others, to exploit the labour of others who, possessing neither property nor capital, are compelled to sell their productive forces.⁵ Moreover, throughout history, the State has always been the patrimony of some privileged class interested in its existence-; indeed, for the safety of the State it is essential that there be some privileged class which is thus interested in its existence.⁶

This, however, is not of the essence of Bakunin. He may resent exploitation, but it is only in so far as exploitation is but a phase of a much larger evil. What moves Bakunin is tyranny, and by tyranny he means any infringement of liberty. ‘La Liberté, toujours la Liberté, rien que la Liberté,’ had been the motto of his teacher Proudhon; and Bakunin equalled, if it was hardly possible for him to surpass, the uncompromising attitude of his master in this respect. It was his grievance against the earlier socialists that—Proudhon apart—they had been inspired by a passion for réglementation.¹ Liberty, he held, was indivisible. Cut off the minutest fraction, and the whole is gone; ‘All my liberty is concentrated just precisely in that part, however small it may be, which you cut off.’² And the conclusion is pleasingly illustrated by reference to the wife of Blue Beard, who, being forbidden to enter one room, had no liberty whatever. Doubtless recalling Godwin's maxim that the first principle of morality is to disobey, she just had to enter the forbidden room as ‘un acte nécessaire de sa liberté.’ So, turning from very profane to sacred history, the same is true of the sin of Adam and Eve. The one prohibition imposed by the Almighty was ‘un acte d'affreux despotisme.’ Had they obeyed, the whole human race would have remained plunged in the most humiliating slavery: their disobedience was the first act of human liberty. Our first parents are to be commended because they underlined the two distinguishing features of man: ‘la faculté de penser et le besoin de se révolter.’³ The point is of some interest in connection with Bakunin's general political views to which we shall come presently: any command is an outrage to be resented and the only possible reply is disobedience—on principle.

The core of Bakunin thus consists in the repudiation of all authority, and—if rebellion means disobedience—rebellion against any authority claiming power of command, which by definition involves a restriction, and therefore complete annihilation of liberty. But indeed there are only two authorities which thus claim the submission and the obedience of man. There is God, and there is the State, who find themselves yoked together on the title-page of Bakunin's best-known pamphlet.⁴ When God and the State are repudiated and overthrown, there will be no one to issue commands, and man will enter on a blessed era of Proudhonian liberty.

The revolt against God (or the idea of God) and the rebellion against the State—his atheism and his anarchism—may, in a sense, be regarded as the two phases of Bakunin's gospel of disobedience; but it would be truer to say that in his mind the two tyrants melt into one. As Sir Thomas Browne observed long ago, atheism can hardly exist; Bacon, pretty much to the same effect, held that the great atheists are indeed hypocrites. In the case of Bakunin, it is not always clear whether he is frothing against God, or against man's imaginings of God; whether he is seeking to unseat a God who is, or chiding men for their folly in inventing a God who is not. This, happily, is not a history of atheism, and this phase of Bakunin might have been entirely ignored, but for the fact that it is inextricably intermingled with his political views and serves to illumine his anarchism. In Bakunin's views, anarchism and atheism are almost interchangeable terms, though at times perhaps his atheism should rather be described as anti-clericalism. The revolution is, he says, bound to be atheistical; and the reason he gives is the rather surprising one that experience and logic alike show that one superior in heaven is sufficient to create thousands of superiors on earth.¹ Putting it otherwise, the idea of a superior being, even in the remoteness of heaven, must be extirpated, in order that there may be no encouragement to the idea of superiority on earth. Moreover, the Church (embodying the idea of religion and of God) and the State owe their origin to the same causes. They are alike instruments for the enslavement of the mass of humanity by the few. In a picturesque phrase, the State is the younger brother—le frère cadet—of the Church; and therefore the attack must be made on both together. And indeed, the close relationship of Church and State in Russia may explain a good deal, not merely in Bakunin, but in more recent history.

For the rest, Bakunin's atheism need be glanced at only in so far as it presents a precise analogy with his anarchism. The governing consideration is that the existence of an acknowledged superior anywhere implies and encourages subjection and slavery elsewhere. In what is meant to be an epigrammatic summary:

Dieu est, done l'homme est esclave,
L'homme est intelligent, juste, libre—donc Dieu n'existe pas.²

With this is combined the essentially Proudhonian idea that inasmuch as religion teaches dependence and subjection, it undermines the dignity of man. A Christian, whatever else he may be—and he may be a prophet, a saint, a priest, a king and much more—cannot be a man, because, having no respect for human dignity in himself, he cannot respect it in others.³ The essence of all religions lies in the dénigrement of humanity for the greater glory of what is divine.⁴ Moreover, by curious reasoning which the enquirer may find in God and the State,the ideas of God and of immortality are fatal to love among men. They lead to complete egotism: protestantism in particular is a religious sauve qui peut.¹ Religion is necessarily anti-social; for the idea of God excludes everything else. To the religious man, his relation to God is the one thing that matters. Consequently he has morally no need of his fellows.² Nor is love possible except among equals. What is called the love between God and man, in view of their inequality, implies the despotism of the one and the slavery of the other. The only way in which God could emancipate man would be for him to abdicate.³ All very well for Bakunin to suggest the abdication of the Almighty; but to whom should the abdication be addressed? and what would happen to Bakunin and the rest of us on the abdication of God, in whom we live and move and have our being? It is doubtless a profound metaphysical question, but Bakunin seems to have hit on the one thing that the Almighty cannot do. To Voltaire's famous phrase that if there had been no God, it would have been necessary for man to invent one, he retorts that ‘si Dieu existait réellement, il faudrait le faire disparaitre.’⁴ What between the suggested abdication of God and Bakunin's readiness to make the Almighty disappear, we move in a strange world.⁵

This digression into a somewhat alien field may be excused in that it helps to an understanding of Bakunin, and facilitates the next stage of our journey. For his attitude to the State is merely, mutatis mutandis, the reflection of his attitude to God. If there is perhaps greater violence in his denunciation of the State, that is merely because the State is a more obviously immediate and ever-present tyrant. But the State also, in its very essence, issues commands, and thereby invades and destroys liberty, that choicest treasure. With surprisingly little variety of language, he repeats that the State is the negation of all liberty, that it is the sum of the negations of the liberties of all individuals, and much more.¹ It comes as a welcome change of phraseology to find, in a rather lumbering metaphor, that the State is an immense cemetery, in which all the manifestations of individual and local life, all that makes up ‘society,’ comes to be sacrificed, to die and to be interred.² The State has further this evil property in common with the Church that it assumes that all men are foncièrement mauvais.³ It is almost a commonplace of religion to assume that every man from his youth is given to evil; the State in no way lags behind its elder brother in holding that men are incapable of looking after themselves, and that they need to be governed and punished. To cull, almost at random, a few more flowers for this anthology, it may be noted that crime is a necessary condition of the existence of the State; it is, rather oddly, its exclusive monopoly.⁴ The State implies domination, and all domination implies the existence of masses who are dominated.⁵ It is the guarantor of all exploiters, a device in which the minority plays the part of the hammer and the majority that of the anvil.⁶ Perhaps, however, the most arresting and illuminating characterisation of the State is to be found in the culminating sentences of a long denunciatory passage in God and the State. Because of its peculiar flavour, it should preferably be left in French:

L'État c'est l'autorité, c'est la force, c'est l'ostentation et l'infatuation de la force. II ne s'insinue pas, il ne cherche pas à convertir: et toutes les fois qu'il s'en mêle, il le fait de très mauvaise grâce; car sa nature, ce n'est point de persuader, mais de s'imposer, de forcer.... Alors même qu'il commande le bien, il le dessert et le gâte, précisément parce qu'il le commande, et que tout commandement provoque et suscite les révoltes légitimes de la liberté; et parce que le bien, du moment qu'il est commandé... devient le mal. La liberté, la moralité et la dignité humaine de l'homme consiste précisément en ceci, qu'il fait le bien, non parce qu'il lui est commandé, mais parce qu'il le conçoit, qu'il le veut. et qu'il l'aime.⁷

Even when the State commands what is good, the good thereby becomes evil, and the State's action excites ‘legitimate revolts.’ It is elsewhere said to be a ‘legitimate sentiment’ that arouses every man to rebellion against any measures imposed upon him, even if liberty itself is the ultimate object.⁸ We are back, it will be observed, with the wife of Blue Beard, standing before the forbidden door. A mere command spoils everything; the duty of disobedience overrides every other consideration—including what might otherwise have been our own desires in the matter.

All this leads inevitably to the repudiation of any and every body that claims to exercise any measure of control, to the rejection of any proposed organisation which involves the establishment of a regulating authority of any kind whatever.¹ From all these many iniquities and blemishes of the State, from the fact that it is in all regards a flagrant violation of humanity, entangling mankind in slavery, and much more, inadequately sampled in the foregoing illustrations, Bakunin infers the ‘absolute necessity of the destruction of States’²; and in a significant phrase he extends his definition of Revolution, which means war, to cover the destruction of men and of things.³ Destruction becomes an end in itself.

That way lies madness, a wild dream of ‘amorphism,’ of the universal destruction of all social institutions; and in Nihilism, which represents the development of this rage for destruction, we do in fact find a froth of words which could spring only from a mind where reason has been unseated. In the literature which centres round Bakunin, a quite prominent place has been assigned to the Revolutionary Catechism, a document in cipher produced at the trial of Netchaïeff in 1871.⁴ It is probable that Bakunin was in fact the author of this document; this at least is the view of Mr. Carr, and his authority should be good enough for most. With this should be taken the Programme of the Alliance de la Démocratie Socialiste,⁵ a body which was the peculiar creature of Bakunin. In these documents, anarchism, so far from being as in Godwin something like a hang-over from the Garden of Eden, becomes a propaganda of assassination, of universal destruction, of the necessity of ruthlessly and brutally so proceeding that not one stone shall be left standing on another. Chaos and old night are to come again, without overmuch thought of what is to follow chaos. Even if Bakunin may not have been the author of the Revolutionary Catechism, he certainly inspired and approved it. It is more plausible, but again a poor defence, to suggest that Bakunin, especially in his old age, liked to play the Bogy-man, until even he himself was impressed.⁶

Let us resist the allurements which draw us towards amorphism and chaos, and the contemplation of Bakunin vigorously sweeping with the besom of destruction, and ask whether it is possible to find in him hints of a not-impossible world. Probably the answer we should get to such an enquiry is that, though all States may crumble and perish, nevertheless society may remain; and it is society and not the State that is the important thing, just as it is society that provides the natural home of man. Beyond this, the answer is found in ‘Federalism,’ a word admittedly capable of more than one interpretation, but in the anarchist tradition largely implying the spontaneous and voluntary formation of associations. With these pointers, it may help to note how Bakunin in his more sober moments regarded the problem to be solved. He is sufficiently under the influence of Proudhon to define socialism as consisting of justice—most deceitful of words.¹ Justice, needless to say, is not the justice of Roman Law, nor the justice of the Churches, but is the justice which is founded on the conscience of man, in its French sense. Even on this definition justice remains somewhat nebulous; but in Bakunin's view, the problem of justice may be reduced to fairly concrete terms. What is necessary is

to organise society in such a manner that every individual man or woman, coming into life, should find approximately equal means for the development of his different faculties and for their utilisation by his work; to organise a society which, making the exploitation of one by another for ever impossible, should allow each one to participate in the enjoyment of social riches (which are never in fact produced by anything but labour) only to the extent to which he will have directly contributed to the production of this wealth by his own labour.²

In such a world each will be le fils de ses œuvres, and no more; it is a programme which, without pausing to consider how far it is realisable, brings Bakunin very close to the individualistic ideal of the Right-to-the-Whole-Product School in its most literal interpretation.

The environment in which justice, as so interpreted, will be realised, is that of federalism. In one place, Bakunin is surprisingly precise in the matter of federalism, outlining under quite a considerable number of headings the principles on which the United States of Europe may be established.¹ The ‘salutary principle of federalism’ is opposed to the centralisation and the omnipotence of the State,² and a first condition of the United States of Europe is that these States shall be very different from any State we now know. Centralised States may not be admitted; and the only basis of the future organisation of the world is the ‘free federation of the individuals in the communes, of the communes in the provinces, of the provinces in the nations, and finally of these nations in the United States, first of all of Europe, and later of the whole world.’³ At the first blush, this presents the appearance of a somewhat grandiose hierarchical structure; but later governing principles reveal that this sky-scraper, stretching from the individual to the United States of the World, is held together by no steel framework. For it is made clear that every nation, every province, every commune is to enjoy complete autonomy; and that there must be at all times the right of free union and free secession at every stage of the ladder.⁴ This is indeed described as the first and most important of political rights: ‘no perpetual obligation can be accepted’—nor for that matter, can any obligation, however evanescent. It is difficult to visualise these ‘United States of the World,’ which is clearly a misnomer as applied to a system in which everything is in perpetual flux; where there are no bonds; and where commune, province, and nation may secede and reaffiliate at less than two minutes’ notice.

Along a somewhat different line it might be argued that Bakunin, when he aims at being constructive, almost falls into that tradition which would aim at the replacement of politics by ‘administration.’ In one place he argues that everything that partakes of the nature of political power must be abolished—for many reasons already cited; but once abolished ‘it must be replaced by the organisation of productive forces and economic services.’⁵ Elsewhere in the same tract he defines the ultimate aim as ‘the transformation of the political federation into a national and international economic federation.’⁶ This may be nebulous, but it is not intentional ‘amorphism.’ As has been suggested elsewhere, however, the idea of maintaining economic administration (under whatever name) as something distinct from politics leads nowhere.

In any case there is clearly in all this no political structure; nor is there meant to be. It is of the essence of the anarchist vision that there should be, to fall back on Proudhon's formula, ‘no governmentalism.’ But there is society which is all that man needs, and which somehow will manage things without the alternating shackles and guidance of Whitehall. Not only so, but it is somewhat surprising to note how necessary, in Bakunin's view, society is for man. Society does not limit man's liberty; it is on the contrary society that creates his liberty.¹ It is the basis of his quite effective criticism of the whole conception of the Social Contract that this fiction recognises only isolated individuals and the resulting State, and forgets all’ about society, which is the ‘natural mode of existence of people living together’² quite apart from any contract. Liberty is to be sought, not at the beginning of history, before a contract was devised; it is rather the end to which man moves. The complete emancipation of each individual is the supreme end of history.³ It is only in society that man becomes man, and Bakunin comes as near as may be to quoting Aristotle. Likewise, so far is it from being true that the liberty of another is an infringement and a curtailment of my liberty, that in fact I can enjoy freedom only if all others are equally free, These are noble sentiments which admirably illustrate the idealist side of anarchism.

One last point before we leave Bakunin. We have seen the State marked for destruction; we have seen society survive. Society is natural and inevitable. In that future world when governmentalism will have passed away, men will still be restrained, and may need restraint. He will be restrained by society without, however, any infringement or curtailment of liberty. Bakunin distinguishes between the official, and therefore tyrannical, authority of the State, and the non-official and entirely natural action of society on each of its members. He comes very near to realising that this authority may be as tyrannical as that exercised by’ the State. The action of society is acknowledged to be more insinuating, more imperceptible, but perhaps for that reason none the less powerful. It operates through customs, habits, prejudices, traditions. Bakunin indeed speaks of ‘la tyrannie sociale, souvent écrasante et funeste’⁴ And to rebel against this (and rebellion is the primary duty of every anarchist) is as difficult as to rebel against Nature.⁵ The pressure of society on the individual is, as he says, immense.¹ Most men are happy only if they are faithfully following tradition and routine.

The position thus disclosed is somewhat curious. When the State with its armoury of laws has ceased to tyrannise, when we are past this tyrant's stroke, we are to be guided gently by public opinion and the silent pressure of our fellows. But in fact public opinion is a restraining influence only in small communities; and quite consistently anarchists always, professedly or by implication, dream of a world of village communities, where everyone has under his eyes and is actively interested in the occurrences in his neighbours’ backgarden. Our neighbours’ censure may count for a good deal in Hogsnorton; it counts for nothing, or next to nothing, in Wandsworth and Lewisham. And the further qualm which cannot be laid is this: where the circumstances are such that public opinion might be an effective substitute for a law-giver, it may reach a height of tyranny than which nothing more damnable can be imagined. Bakunin himself has said it: it may be a tyrannie écrasante et funeste. Anyone who has lingered with Kafka in the village that lay under The Castle will recall with horror one episode revealing how bitter may be the tyranny of proud and self-righteous tongues—a tyranny all the more terrible, because it is a vague, undefined tyranny. There is much to be said for what an earlier political philosopher called ‘a known law.’

All of which suggests that Bakunin, in delivering the human race from a visible tyrant, may be subjecting him to a still more grievous tyranny.

(b) KROPOTKIN

Prince Kropotkin (1842–1921) is probably the most representative, as he is certainly the most attractive and engaging, of the modern anarchists. Nurtured in the highest court circles of what was once St. Petersburg, he moved inexorably to an exile spent, like most exiles, within our hospitable shores—largely at Harrow, and later at Brighton, if one may be geographically precise. Unfolding events made it possible for him, before he died, to exchange Brighton for the U.S.S.R.

The charm of Kropotkin lies in his inoffensiveness. Not for him the mouth-foaming of Bakunin; the violence, tinged with insanity, of the Nihilists. No one illustrates more admirably that strain in anarchism which makes it, in certain manifestations, a doctrine meet for vegetarians. Not indeed that Kropotkin shrinks from the idea of revolution; on the contrary, it occupies the centre of his thoughts. But, to revive a half-forgotten phrase, it is pre-eminently a frische, fröhliche revolution to which he looks forward, an urbane and humane transition, in which no heads will be broken, neither will the red cock crow on any man's roof. With his benevolent beard billowing in the breezes of Brighton, he was deservedly the most beloved of political exiles.

The significance of Kropotkin is that, unlike most anarchist writers, who are anarchic in their presentation, he gives a reasonably systematic statement of the faith that is in him. He may not be able to make the impracticable appear practicable; but at least he reveals himself as a seductive guide along the primrose path to revolution. In substance, Kropotkin bears evidence of the continuing influence of Proudhon, with remoter memories’ of Godwin; while in the other direction he serves as a pointer towards syndicalism, though indeed syndicalism in its prime was a contemporary manifestation of Kropotkin's later active years.

What Kropotkin has in common with others may be touched on lightly. The fundamental fact is exploitation; the world is rich but the workers are poor. It is an old story, never better expressed than by a very early aphorist and poet;

The rich hath great labour in gathering riches together: and when he resteth, he is filled with his delicates.

The poor laboureth in his poor estate; and when he leaveth off, he is still needy.

The abiding poverty of the poor arises because the essential things have been appropriated by the few. So far we are on a broad road. Kropotkin is by no means unique in emphasising that production is a comprehensively joint process; but he certainly lays a quite unusual emphasis on this view, which indeed he makes the corner-stone of his reasoning. Just as, in the soi-disant science of finance, there is a somewhat heretical theory that all taxation ends in a general diffusion throughout society, so Kropotkin comes near to outlining a general diffusion theory of production. Everything is done by everybody; and nobody can be said to do anything unaided. There is not a thought, not an invention which is not common property.¹ In virtue of the past, production is a ‘social fact.’ The instruments of production are part of the common heritage of the race; no one can work without the assistance of all manner of other people, dead and alive. How then can we assess the share of each in the wealth which all have contributed to produce.² In a phrase more picturesque than usual, he declares Paris to be the fruit of eighteen centuries of toil, the work of fifty generations of the whole French nation.³ How then can anyone appropriate the meanest building in such a city without committing a flagrant injustice? If the means of production are the collective work of humanity, the product ought to be the collective property of the race. Everything belongs to all; equally, all belongs to everyone.

It follows from this that the wage-system stands condemned, and must be abolished; for it is of the essence of the wage-system that it consecrates individual ownership, differentiating between meum and tuum. Further, it assumes that it is possible to evaluate the work of each individual. It is one of the cardinal errors of the collectivists that they seek to maintain the wage-system. To proclaim the principle of ‘To each according to his deeds’ is but to perpetuate injustice, since the measurement of each man's deeds is for ever impossible.¹ So likewise the ‘right to work’ is but a delusion. What we must proclaim is the ‘right to live’; needs (and their satisfaction) must be given precedence over duties. Society must share the means of existence.²

What about the State, to which (assuming it is properly used) the orthodox collectivist pins his hopes as potentially a bulwark against the exploiting tendencies of the selfish minority? Kropotkin's answer (or one of his answers) is that the State is the arch-offender and prime mover in facilitating and instigating the exploitation of man by man. The State, in a phrase more suggestive of prejudice than of calm ratiocination, is defined as:

a society of mutual insurance between the landlord, the military commander, the judge, the priest, and later on the capitalist, in order to support each other's authority over the people, and for exploiting the poverty of the masses and getting rich themselves.³

This is pre-eminently the class organisation of the Marxians. Quite consistently also, Kropotkin disowns the argument that we are suffering from an ‘anarchy of production’ made possible by the remissness of a laissez faire State. His answer is that there never has been a laissez faire State; it has always been consciously on the side of the capitalists and monopolists and has never given the worker the liberty of opposing that exploitation. In fact, now and always, it is the State's ‘push’ that has provided the first foundation of all capitalist fortunes.⁴ Just as private ownership must go, so also must the State, the organ and prime accomplice of the exploiters. For a proper comprehension of the anti-State theories of Kropotkin, it should, however, be recalled that he regards the State as something relatively recent in the history of modern European civilisation. The State, he holds, is a form of society, which has developed only since the sixteenth century.⁵ It might be argued, therefore, that it is not the State as such that he attacked but the modern State (quaere, since the time of Bodin and Machiavelli). ‘Real historians,’ he remarks, with the unpleasant innuendo of italics, ‘know that the State was reconstituted only upon the ruins of the mediaeval free cities.’ The question had better be left to real historians.

These then are the two objectives; and with a pathetic optimistic faith, Kropotkin contrives to persuade himself that the tide in the affairs of men is flowing strongly towards the double goal of communism and anarchy. Here we encounter some of the more significant ideas of Kropotkin. Perhaps he is on somewhat firmer ground when he infers a drift to communism than in arguing for a drift to anarchy, where he is not on firm ground at all. But even so, the weight of his conclusions in the matter of communism is a somewhat grievous burden to be borne by the few frail examples which he cites. Broadly, he argues that the communistic principle is being established ‘in the thousand developments of modern life’¹; though in fact the number of instances given falls lamentably short of this conveniently rotund figure. There are bridges on which tolls used to be paid; now you may cross and recross unchallenged. The water from the bath-room tap is yours without stint (assuming that the water-rate is paid); if there is a shortage, there may indeed be an appeal to be content with immersion in a five-inch bath, but your individual requirement will not be measured. (Strictly speaking, this is doubtfully true of large-scale consumers, but to note this is perhaps to niggle unduly.) Museums, libraries (provided by the municipality) may be enjoyed by the consumer to the point of exhaustion. A zone ticket on the railway, where available, enables the holder, if he chooses, to spend his days and nights in a railway carriage, within the frontiers of his zone. In all these cases, argues Kropotkin, the principle is ‘Take what you need,’ and he would have us believe that there is a general tendency not to measure individual consumption. Admittedly, the examples given by Kropotkin are somewhat tenuous; and for the most part they rely on the existence of an authority armed with very considerable powers, which ought to be abhorrent to an anarchist. Water does not flow from the bath-room tap in response to the antics of a water-diviner.

Kropotkin, writing to-day and speaking in terms of possibilities rather than manifest tendencies, might have put the point more strongly. For a generation has arisen which has learned that a society may exist in which money is impotent, unless waited upon by a train of attendant coupons. Moreover, the coupons, if not the money, are distributed to all gratuitously and (apart from special needs) in equal quantities. It would be interesting, even if unprofitable, to speculate on the inferences which Kropotkin might have drawn from a rationed world: for undoubtedly, a system of rationing which extends effectively to all the obvious essentials of life is a one-sided approach to communism, even if something more is required to make it more than a mere approach. Kropotkin, however, is probably right here in emphasising a possibility which is illustrated by the development of the Social Services. The future may very well reveal a State providing more and more ‘services,’ and making them available, either free of charge, or as required in return for a fixed charge. It is a short step from free meals to children to free meals to workers. It is not a very long step from a policy of heavy subsidies to secure cheap bread to a policy of somewhat heavier subsidies in order to provide gratuitous bread. The difference between municipal houses let at an uneconomic rent and at no rent at all is largely one of degree. It is not beyond the wit of man to imagine a State which will provide Post Office facilities free, placing the whole burden on the long-suffering tax-payer, assuming that he still survives. This is the real point in Kropotkin's argument, and it relates to one of the most significant features of our times. We are living in an age when all manner of commodities and all manner of services are being made more widely available, by a policy of subsidies, aids, subventions and what-nots. Free education leads quite logically to free text-books and free meals. Free medical attention quite logically to free medicines, and, without much ingenuity, one might argue, to free bread and free milk. We have subsidised our agriculture, and we have subsidised our coal. We five in a subsidised age. Whether a universally subsidised and subsidising society is also a communistic society is perhaps a problem to be discussed by undergraduates and fallen angels. On the immediate issue raised by Kropotkin it may, however, be observed that the type of communism which would be exemplified by the free distribution of bread would, to most people, be quite inconceivable apart from a strong State, blessed with a strong Chancellor of the Exchequer, a strong Ministry of Transport and a strong Ministry of Food.

Kropotkin's argument that we are experiencing a drift towards anarchism cannot even claim the merit of inviting a plausible and more tenable restatement. There is beyond a certain point, he argues, a tendency to shake off the yoke of authority and to aim at a system founded more or less on the principles of individual liberty.¹ More surprising is his extreme claim that ‘everywhere the State is abdicating and abandoning its holy functions to private individuals.’² This ‘tendency of the human race... to reduce government interference to zero’³ is not just exactly the most obvious feature of the age in which we live, nor for that matter of the period in which Kropotkin wrote. The argument, so far as it is an argument, has kinship with one of the many facets of Guild Socialism later. It invokes the enormous multiplication, the ‘prodigious development’ of all manner of voluntary associations, linking together people who have common interests or who desire to attain a common end. There are learned societies; there are Trade Unions; there are even the Kegelbrüder¹—the Brothers of the Nine-Pins. There is the English Life-Boat Association; there is the Red Cross. Not only so, but some of these are international in their operation. Railway Unions, quite independently of the States involved, make and keep international agreements among themselves regarding matters where their interests impinge. In Kropotkin's view, the functions of government are passing from the State to these ‘human groupings which form themselves freely.’ Over a large part of the field we are thus bound together by free agreement; and an indefinite extension of these spontaneous groups will in the end relieve us from the incubus of the State. The world's work will be done by free associations, self-generated for the purpose.

Perhaps we may ignore these excellent fellows, the Kegelbrüder—the Brothers of the Nine-Pins—as only a very minor symptom or symbol. On the main issue, this vast multiplicity of voluntary organisations is an undeniable fact; but it is almost the reverse of the truth to regard voluntary associations as possible inheritors of the functions of the State. In the examples that are relevant to the question of the State's activity, the real sequence of events is that the voluntary organisation does the pioneering. When it has convinced the public conscience that it exists for a laudable end, the State takes it over, generally on the plea that voluntary effort may mean overlapping, and that in any case it may have difficulty in ‘covering the ground.’ The State has been a great generaliser and universaliser of private and voluntary effort. The voluntary hospital—patet omnibus—preceded and pointed the way to the Municipal and State Hospital; the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows (and many more) laid the basis of the Health Insurance Scheme; the Trade Unions aimed at a minimum wage long before the Trade Board Acts; it was late in the day, and after much disinterested labour, that the State began to take an interest in Boys’ Clubs and Playing Fields. The list might be indefinitely extended. Enough has been said to suggest that voluntary associations, in our time at least, do not relieve the State of its functions: rather do they, if they are of the right kind, prepare the way for further extensions of State activity.

Despite the world's drift to anarchy, a revolution is nevertheless necessary, according to Kropotkin, in order to give effect to the expropriation of ‘everything that enables any man to appropriate the produce of others' toil’²—also, of course, in order to realise the ‘right to live.’ In The Conquest of Bread, Kropotkin gives a somewhat detailed and extremely naive account of his revolution, which with its pleasant air of insouciance has a good deal in common with the General Strike, which some of the syndicalists proposed to combine with a picnic in the Bois de Vincennes. The communalisation of bread, dwellings and clothes comes first.¹ It is to be a spontaneous movement; groups are to spring up in every street to ascertain the available supplies, and supervise their distribution. To embark on a revolution, relying on ‘groups springing up,’ unfortunately fails to contemplate the possibility that more than one group may spring up. There may indeed spring up a plethora of groups, whose chance encounters, as they pursue their lawful affairs, may lead to friction in strange places. But in Kropotkin's world, everything is done by talk, and everyone is not merely agreeable, but reasonable—qualities not always conspicuous in the heat of revolution. Also, as with the syndicalists, there must not be undue preparation:

In any case, a system which springs up spontaneously, under stress of immediate need, will be infinitely preferable to anything invented between four walls by hide-bound theorists sitting in any number of committees.²

Man will accomplish greater things, and accomplish them better and by simpler methods than those dictated to him beforehand.³

This is the anarchist equivalent of the optimism which assures us that it will be all right on the night. Later, we shall find in the syndicalists that unreadiness becomes one of the chiefest of virtues, as indeed it was, in a certain sense, with the early Christians.

The account of that phase of the revolution which is concerned with the transfer of houses has become a classic example of the guilelessness of the anarchist, knowing not the world nor the things of the world. After the appropriate groups of volunteers have sprung up and done their scheduling, they convene all the inhabitants to meet at a convenient place to carry through the redistribution:

Then, without waiting for anyone's leave, those citizens will probably go and find their comrades who were living in miserable garrets and hovels and will say to them simply: ‘It is a real Revolution this time, comrades, and no mistake about it. Come to such a place this evening; all the neighbourhood will be there; we are going to redistribute the dwelling-houses. If you are tired of your slum-garret, come and choose one of the flats of five rooms that are to be disposed of, and when you have once moved in you shall stay, never fear. The people are up in arms, and he who would venture to evict you will have to answer to them.’⁴

A solemn council forthwith to be held
At Pandemonium,

says Milton; but it would be a feeble affair, compared to the great night when all the inhabitants of Battersea, Lambeth, Stockwell and parts of Wandsworth assemble in Battersea Park to talk over a little bit of business in the matter of houses. It is a curious carrying forward of memories of the Russian Mir to circumstances where, to put it no higher, another technique is required.

It is unnecessary to follow further the Songs of Innocence and Inexperience which provide the themes of Kropotkin's revolution. It is of more interest to visualise, if possible, the structure of society when anarchism of the Kropotkin type prevails. In essence this has already been indicated in connection with Kropotkin's argument that we are moving towards anarchism through the transference of the State's functions to numberless voluntary organisations.¹ Indeed, the chief aim of anarchism is represented as being that of awakening the constructive powers of the masses.² Here the kinship of anarchism to the liberal tradition is sufficiently manifest: the doctrine that the ‘masses’ should do things for themselves would have earned the cordial approval of John Stuart Mill. Thus, with a shrinking and shrivelling of the State, and with a sprouting of associations and of federations of associations, of communes and of federations of communes, all free to be born or die at will; to unite, affiliate or part company; all living in amity together, we reach the anarchist paradise.³ This free functioning of free associations does not require, and indeed cannot make use of anything corresponding to representative government, which is the political form appropriate to capitalist rule. What is wanted (and the words are significant) is something ‘more popular, more decentralised, and nearer to the folkmote of self-government.’⁴ Just as Kropotkin does not, apparently, greatly object to the State as it was before the sixteenth century, so he does not object to the rudimentary folk-mote. Like Godwin, he is probably prepared to tolerate the Parish Council.

The conception of law is so closely linked up with that of the State that a glance at Kropotkin's attitude to law in general may be permissible. Obviously, an anarchist who tosses the State overboard must also be prepared to get rid of all law, leaving at most agreements voluntarily accepted and observed. Various reasons may, however, be advanced for discarding law, just as there may be various ways of getting rid of the undesired excrescence. Broadly, two ideas dominate what Kropotkin says on the subject. The first in effect is that law is unnecessary. The idea of ‘Mutual Aid’¹ plays a large part in Kropotkin's equipment; he held that the law of mutual aid was more important than the law of mutual struggle. The moral sense of mankind is, he argues, merely a further evolution of the instinct of mutual aid; and this provides a force ‘infinitely more powerful than the orders of any religion or any law-makers.’² Waiving the terminology of his theory of mutual aid, this presumably means that the instinct of benevolence is sufficient to keep man straight without the command of law.

The second line of attack on law is designed to show that in essence it is a superfluity into which there has been injected something that is pernicious. The central core of law is represented by a body of usages and customs. Law merely confirms existing customs and crystallises them.³ In an extreme statement, which even a casual glance at any statute-book is sufficient to refute, it is held that ‘Laws can only follow the accomplished facts.’⁴ So far law is merely the sum-total of ‘certain habits and customs already recognised as useful.’ But into this there is injected a pernicious infusion: the law-maker surreptitiously introduces something new ‘which is entirely to the advantage of the military and governing minorities.’⁵ A body of good traditions and habits is presumably unexceptionable; but ‘law’ should not be reduced to writing. It becomes a device whereby the past fetters the future. In a phrase which might be, and perhaps is confusedly, a quotation from Godwin: ‘It is impossible to legislate for the future.’⁶

Perhaps enough has been said to indicate the chief features of Kropotkin's anarchism. He would, in short, revive a more populous Garden of Eden, teeming with guileless and guiltless men, nourishing themselves with the produce of glass-frames. For the rest, he is rather faithful to some of the elements which Fourier presented to the anarchist tradition. Work, of course, will be attractive and light—four or five hours a day, ceasing altogether in the middle or upper 'forties.⁷ There will likewise be the possibility of varying it according to taste: not in vain did Fourier's butterfly flit from flower to flower.⁸ All this inevitably demands the elimination of Fourier's parasites: think of ‘how many, in the so-called civilised nations, produce nothing, how many work at harmful trades... and lastly, how many are only useless middlemen.’⁹ Fourier had expressed this very true thought more fantastically, and therefore more memorably; More had said it with greater eloquence; Saint-Simon had said it in one brief all-comprehensive sentence that barked at the reader in capital letters. Lastly, that awful vision of eight million women, spending two or three hours at eight million fires, preparing eight million roasts—though the pen may be the pen of Kropotkin, surely the thought is the thought of Fourier. And contemplating from afar the chaotic, confused and redundant activity of these eight million women, perhaps the last thought left is this: how anarchic indeed will be our way of life, until we have the sense to adopt anarchism!

(c) BERTRAND RUSSELL

After un ci-devant noble (for thus does Bakunin describe himself), after a Russian Prince—an English Earl: for, when we come to the anarchists, we move in high society. There might conceivably be some argument as to whether Mr. Bertrand Russell (if we may continue to extend to him his more familiar designation) should properly appear in this section. He does not, it is true, recommend that we should forthwith ‘go anarchist.’ Indeed in the volume which is of most interest for our purpose, Roads to Freedom, considerable fragments of the State and of law are still left at the end to cumber the ground. But pure anarchism, though at present unattainable, is stated to be the ultimate ideal to which society should continually approximate; that it is at present unattainable is due to the imperfections of man which may gradually be overcome.¹ His final recommendation is of a system ‘not far removed from that advocated by Kropotkin, but rendered more practicable by the adoption of the main principles of Guild Socialism’²—that is to say, a cross between pure anarchism and that system of socialism which has gone furthest in eliminating the State. This, it is true, was written in 1918, when Guild Socialism was still a coming force. In any case, whatever label, if any, may properly be attached to Mr. Russell, he has the mind of an anarchist and he pleads their cause. Indeed, on certain points he is extremely illuminating as to the essence of anarchism: he accordingly provides a welcome supplement to Bakunin and Kropotkin.

The primary impulse to Mr. Russell's social and political philosophy is doubtless to be found in his detestation of authority. He is a rebel; if he does not, like Godwin, regard disobedience as the first of virtues, at least he looks upon obedience as something incompatible with the fine flower of liberty. This explains his antagonism to the State as we know it. It is of the essence of the State ‘that it is the repository of the collective force of its citizens.’³ It exacts blind obedience. The excessive power of the State, it is argued, is ‘one of the chief causes of misery in the modern world.’⁴ Without going into other lines of argument, it may be noted here that one of the reasons why the State is so harmful is to be found in ‘its vastness and the resulting sense of individual helplessness.’ The machine is so large that, even in a democracy, the bulk of mankind are ‘dwarfed by knowledge of their own impotence.’¹ The point is a familiar one in all current criticisms of the working of our democratic system. The puny elector in a constituency of 30,000 voters, called upon to choose between three unknown candidates dumped upon him by the Party organisations, may well be excused if from fatalism he drifts to indifference.

The same approach explains Mr. Russell's antagonism to State socialism. This ‘road to freedom’ would still leave us moving in a world of authority, with the State as universal employer, and the individual worker still dwarfed.² Moreover, Mr. Russell is an author, a philosopher and a scientist, with sympathetic kinship with the arts, and the authoritarianism of the authoritarian socialist State fills him with horror. Art, we are told, springs from ‘a wild and anarchic side of human nature’³; the artist and the bureaucrat are for ever in antagonism. That the artist in his impulses should be fettered by authority, and should be required to create in accordance with the provisions of Statutory Rules and Orders is a ‘nightmare’: ‘In such a world all that makes life tolerable to the lover of beauty would perish.’ Here perhaps we touch rock-bottom in Mr. Russell's political philosophy. What matters most in man is his artistic and creative impulses, which are essentially ‘wild and anarchic.’ Whatever authority may be necessary, it must at least be kept within such bounds as will leave this ‘wild and anarchic side’ free play. Put more briefly and with much elision: Man in his essential and distinguishing features is by nature an anarchist.

On the economic side, the difference for Mr. Russell between anarchism and socialism is that orthodox socialism, hard-heartedly following St. Paul, would seem to exact at least a willingness to work as a condition of maintenance, whereas anarchism is more generous.⁴ Indeed, the two essential features of anarchism in this interpretation are, firstly, that there should be provided to everyone, free of conditions, ‘as much of all the ordinary commodities as he or she may care to consume’ (rarer commodities being divided equally); and secondly, and inferentially, that on no one should there rest any obligation to work. At this point the ordinary reader, whose vision has been beclouded by the mists of this present sinful world, may consider that we now enter a veritable fairy-land or Garden of Eden. For it is of the essence of anarchist theory that all work is or may be a pleasure; and that, if it is not, it is the mess we have made of things, the environment in which men work and the conditions under which they work, that prevent labour from being a perpetual fountain of joy. It was ‘le travail attrayant’ that was to make Fourier's Phalanx hum like a hive of singing masons. The question may appear trivial, but it is far from being so, involving as it does the profound problem of the nature of work and the thorny conundrum whether the sordid race of economists are justified in regarding it as a ‘disutility.’ Taking anarchistic literature in the bulk, and for the moment allowing Mr. Bertrand Russell to fall into a discreet background, there are two considerations on which this rosy view is based. Firstly, it has been argued, and the point may be conceded, that the dividing line between an activity that is work and one that is pleasure is at times mighty tenuous and fine. The mountaineer and his guide are to all intents and purposes going through the same motions, but one is supposed to be enjoying himself, and the other is working under a contract of (or for) service. The outward indifferent eye can see little distinction between a professional football-player, working hard to earn an honest living, and the amateur who perhaps sweats and grunts even more unrestrainedly on Saturday afternoon for the greater glory of Nether Muckridge; the activity of a racing motorist does not differ so greatly from that of some taxi-drivers; the pleasure of a holiday in the country, especially in war-time, is greatly increased if, within suitable limits, one is allowed to share the toil of the swinked hedger. Surveying these and a thousand other examples that might be cited, the innocentminded asks why, if plutocrats pay vast sums to be allowed for a season to scramble o'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, in pursuit of elusive and invisible deer—why indeed should not the shepherd in Inverness-shire be the happiest of men, since all these pleasures are his, every day in all the years, with the added satisfaction of at least being able to see the sheep?

The second prop of optimism is this: even admitting for the moment that work is unpleasant, there is by common consent a lower depth that is even more unpleasant. The unhappiest of men, at any rate after the first few days, is he who is condemned to do nothing and is effectively prevented from doing anything. And the proof is that the moment anyone is put in a position to do nothing, he at once proceeds to do something: he will keep bees, or collect firewood, or give his hours to the theory and the practice of the bagpipes. Unless for those who are utterly senile, some kind of activity is essential. Combining these two undeniable verities, the anarchist theory of work emerges. Hardly any kind of work is wholly unattractive under certain conditions. Man is a restless, fidgety animal that must be doing something. It follows that if people at large are exempted from the obligation of doing anything, they will, in order to escape the weariness and the lassitude of their unoccupied hours, forthwith throw themselves on anything requiring to be done; and so the problem is solved. The world's work will be accomplished by people in full flight from the boredom of idleness.

One need not be very old in order to detect at what point the premises are unequal to the burden of the conclusion. On the first point, it is true that there is hardly any occupation which it would not be pleasant, or at least interesting, to engage in once: a day in the mines as a stripper, or a trip on a trawler, perhaps even as far as Bear Island, would be an ‘experience’—perhaps even a memorable experience. But it is of the essence of work—perhaps indeed it approaches to a definition of work—that it is an activity which must be continued, even after the novelty, the interest and the excitement have evaporated; and as we know things now, and probably to a large extent under any system of industrial organisation, it must go on, for it is given to few to play about from one trade or profession to another. The deck-hand on the trawler, having returned from Bear Island, must forthwith return to Bear Island—which is much less amusing. A dentist remains a dentist; an architect an architect. They may envy each other; but they cannot have a pleasant holiday by changing jobs for a month. The shepherd looking down the long years, sees an unending vista of sheep, bearing a marked family resemblance to each other. The burden of his life is that the sheep go on, and he cannot get away from them. An undergraduate with remarkable psychological insight has looked deep into the soul of a professor:

Year after year I deliver the same lectures
To fifteen crescents of stupid faces.
God, how I hate their faces.
They seem to get more stupid every year.¹

They don't really; and viewed dispassionately, they don't even seem to; but even here, work is a ‘disutility,’ because it goes on and on, and must go on, beyond the point where, but for a sense of duty or the necessity of earning a living, the worker would gladly desist, or turn to something else—if it were available, which it seldom is.

One further point may appear too trivial for mention, but its consideration is obviously essential in connection with the anarchist view of work as seen in Godwin, and in Fourier, so far as certain elements of Fourierism are germane to the anarchist tradition. So long as we live in a society which has advanced in any degree beyond a state of primitive disintegration towards a condition of mutual interdependence, it is essential that we should be able to rely on each, other. Expressed more sordidly and prosaically, this means that everyone must fulfil his contract, and in a sense make himself the slave of a time-table. We must know that the train will leave King's Cross at 10 A.M.; we must be able to rely on the engine-driver being there; we must have an assurance that he will see the job through, He may not, sixty miles from London, hand over the train to one of the passengers, merely because, with Delius, he has just heard the first cuckoo of the spring, because the meadows are bespangled with orchids, the ditches a gleam of golden king-cups, and all nature summons him to partner the dining-car attendant in a round of golf on an adjacent course. It is almost an insult to the compositor to ask him to set in type an observation so fatuously obvious; yet it is almost necessary, in view of the quiet assumption of so many of the philosophical anarchists that the world can be run without binding agreements, by people acting on the spur of the moment at the prompting of the Butterfly or, as in Kropotkin's revolution, by ‘groups springing up.’ For most people, the vision of the future is an indefinite continuation of the same kind of work; few people can effectively change the nature of their occupation beyond the age of thirty, if so late. So also, in the short period, for most people work represents the punctilious discharge of a duty at a definite place and at a predetermined hour. We bind ourselves to our fellowmen; and he who is bound cannot enjoy anarchic freedom.

The other limb in the anarchist argument is equally limp. Doubtless those who are so placed that they need not work, do in fact forthwith proceed to find’ occupation’; and they may indeed find extremely useful occupation. They may serve the State and their fellow-men by spending their nights walking the division-lobby of the House of Commons. More usefully, perhaps, they may help to administer the affairs of their county, their city, or their parish. And, as all anarchists emphasise without ceasing, there are all manner of voluntary bodies with which they may become associated, ranging from some of the highest importance down to the Society for the Promotion of Laudable Ends. This indicates the obvious weakness of this side of the anarchist argument. Work done by those who, being idle, are impelled by their conscience to be useful, may be work without which society could not stand; but it tends to be conspicuous; it tends to be honorific; it is by preference concerned with ‘administration’ and ‘organisation’ (equally blessed words). It does not put meal into the bin, or coal into the scuttle, or bring water from the tap. Life in a mine, where the only concession to the Butterfly is an alternation between Day Shift, Back Shift and Night Shift, is not in itself sufficiently attractive to overcome the ‘allurements of Sloth.’

These observations, being designed to rebut the excessive rosiness of the anarchist view, may suggest a pessimism that is equally unjustified. An honest heart-searching will probably convince most people that the prospect of work (or at least, the thought of the same work in the future) is much more disconcerting than work itself. Work is not in itself disagreeable; most of it is, at worst, neutral, tending to the agreeable or pleasurable, especially where work is combined with the opportunity of human contacts. The question of the psychology of man's attitude to his work is, however, a vast problem which must be avoided here. It is sufficient for our purpose to note that work is not, and never can be, perpetually attrayant. The interesting question is why the thought of returning to work is so frequently loathsome and repugnant, while the actual resumption of work need not be in any way unpleasant. Probably the man who on Sunday shrinks from Monday's task does so because he then contrasts it with all the much more pleasurable things he might do; whereas on Monday, being occupied, he has no time for such day-dreams. Perhaps the nearest approach to the truth is to be found in the view attributed to the inhabitants of the City of the Sun, that all work is a discipline. It is a medicine, without which our life would be lacking in health.

In the foregoing discussion we have wandered somewhat from Mr. Russell to the general question of the anarchist view of labour. Mr. Russell is sufficiently realistic to concede that ‘some necessary work must always remain disagreeable.’¹ He cites as examples the work of an agricultural labourer, a type of activity which many generations considered as alone compatible with human dignity, the work of a coal miner, and that of a stoker on an Atlantic liner. Under the influence of Guild Socialist affiliations, he believes that with the help of economic self-government, ‘something of the artist's joy in creation’ might inspire nearly all work. In this way, through the magic of self-governing associations, nine-tenths of the world's work could be made preferable to idleness, even in the eyes of men guaranteed a livelihood whether they worked or not. For the remaining tenth—the Atlantic stokers and their kin—the inducement of additional reward would be needed.²

The conclusion that Mr. Russell draws from the arguments in favour of anarchism are commendably cautious; it is that they are ‘sufficient to make it seem possible that the plan might succeed, but not sufficient to make it so probable that it would be wise to try it.’³ For the present, therefore, because of the attaching doubt, we are to be spared the undiluted blessings of anarchism; but Mr. Russell, seeking to find a halfway house between anarchism which has the advantage as regards liberty, and socialism which is more effective in the matter of inducements to work, presents a curious scheme which would present some nice administrative problems to the Ministry of Food in the future anarchic-socialist State, unless indeed they could be solved by the simple procedure of ‘groups springing up’ to see to it.

Under this scheme, the population falls into four grades, so far as concerns distribution and rewards. In the first place, the anarchist principle is observed in that there is to be a ‘certain small income, sufficient for necessaries,’ payable to all irrespective of work or of willingness to work, payable therefore to the conscientious objector to work. This is later given the pleasing designation of the ‘vagabond's wage,’ and with a slight variation in terms is defined as ‘sufficient for existence but not for luxury.’¹ In later discussions which scarcely concern us here, Mr. Russell tends to assume that the chief beneficiaries under the provision of the vagabond's wage will be artists who desire to give their whole time to their art, and others of the same breed who would gladly cultivate poetry and painting on peasoup and potatoes. In fact, he scarcely seems to realise that the vagabond's wage, the reward of indolence, might attract predominantly a very different type of person.

Somewhere above this, there is to be a higher level of wages—how much higher is not and cannot be specified, since it depends on the productivity of the community—payable to all who are willing to engage in useful work, whether or not work can be found for them. Since all service ranks the same with the anarchists, as with God, there is no need to differentiate here between skilled and unskilled. This will in fact be the normal wage for all members of the community who profess to prefer useful work to a life of vagabondage, and it will be equal for all. But two variations are in fact suggested. There may be some who would like to cultivate the arts—but not as full-timers. Not for them the comparative rigours of a vagabond's life, receiving sufficient for existence but not for luxury. ‘A little luxury and a little art,’ is not an unreasonable motto; in fact, vagabonds and Bohemians are not temperamentally given to asceticism. We must therefore provide an intermediate rate of remuneration for the man whom we may call the semi-vagabond, who is willing to work for half the normal hours in order the more luxuriously to pursue art in the other half of his life. Lastly, there is the man who is prepared to be a stoker on the transatlantic liner and the few others on whom even economic self-government cannot confer the artist's joy in creation. These clearly must receive something more than the normal in order to overcome their natural aversion from disagreeable work. What all this means in concrete terms is of course not disclosed; but we may perhaps get some visual picture of what is involved if we imagine the vagabond receiving bones and stock; the semi-vagabond, dubious sausages and rabbits; the ordinary willing worker, beef and mutton; and the transatlantic stoker, salmon, grouse and fur coats.² This is Mr. Russell's suggestion of a practicable method of combining the advantages of anarchism and socialism.

Mr. Russell, it has been said, is not the complete anarchist; he realises that the State, if only in an attenuated form, is still necessary. This concession is very significantly linked up with the fact that Mr. Russell is one of the few socialists who do not believe in the fundamental goodness of all men, or attribute all our evil instincts to our present evil environment. He usefully reminds us that our bad impulses are not wholly due to a bad social system.¹ He is here at one with the fundamental doctrines of Christianity:

The faith that launched point-blank her dart
At the head of a lie—taught Original Sin,
The Corruption of Man's Heart.

There were wars, he tells us, before there was capitalism; wars, indeed, to some extent grow out of ordinary human nature. Man, in his view, is naturally competitive, acquisitive and pugnacious.² Respect for the liberty of others is not a natural impulse.³ The general impression left by a perusal of Mr. Russell's writings is that he looks upon man as a bossing, bullying, blustering, interfering kind of animal, never content to leave his fellows alone: and perhaps he is right. ‘People,’ he says rather pathetically, ‘who find a pleasure in ordering others about (and this includes most of the energetic people in the world) will not like anarchism, where every man can do as he pleases.’⁴

We cannot therefore count on crimes ceasing, merely on the ground that the proclamation of Utopia will undo the effects of the Fall of Man. There will be opportunities of theft—indeed copious opportunities, for the vagabond, not content with his meagre ration, may by direct action seek to achieve a more equitable and generous distribution. There will be crimes of violence. Utopia will not put an end to jealousy, the injured lover's hell; and we may therefore expect the usual crop of crimes passionels. Lastly, there may be subversive activities. There may be some—presumably those who find pleasure in ordering others about—who do not appreciate an anarchist regime, and they might be tempted to raise a private army, with sinister ends in view; which things could not be tolerated.⁵ For all these reasons, to prevent violence, disorder and crime, something like a State is required.⁶ It is, however, a curious commentary on the whole question that this nearest possible approximation to a condition of anarchy which seeks to abolish the State, is compelled to maintain in existence the remnants of a State, in order to prevent the State from being re-established.

In all this, there is something curiously reminiscent of mediaeval theology. The State, it will be recalled, was not a part of original natural law. Like the acceptance of private property, it was something added to natural law by human agreement, to meet the sinful state of man resulting from the Fall. The State was needed to restrain man's sinful impulses; and but for the frailty of man, there would be no need of the State. But, needless to say, Mr. Russell does not view sin with Miltonic eyes; rather is he the reincarnation of Godwin. In the forefront he places the contention that ‘the whole conception of guilt or sin should be utterly swept away’¹; and with it, naturally, the cognate idea of punishment. Crimes of violence are to be dealt with by a scientific psychological treatment, ‘designed to elicit more beneficial impulses.’² Crimes, springing from supposed self-interest, are to be dealt with, apparently, by an appeal to reason. In a most delectable phrase, such an one

ought to be made to feel that self-interest itself, when it is fully understood, can be better served by a life which is useful to the community than by one which is harmful. For this purpose, it is chiefly necessary to widen his outlook and increase the scope of his desires.³

Crime, in short (so-called), is to be treated no less tenderly than an infectious disease. Nor has Mr. Russell any doubts as to the efficacy of the cure: ‘By the method of individual curative treatment, it will generally be possible to secure that a man's first offence shall also be his last.’⁴ This is to reveal a faith in the power of reason for which there is no foundation, and a knowledge of human nature as touchingly inadequate as that of Godwin. When the vagabond steals the semivagabond's rabbits, it is to be pointed out to him that if he really wishes rabbits, he can get them by being useful to the community (an idea which, presumably, never occurred to him before), and we are further to increase the scope of his desires. There may just be a danger that when the scope of his desires has been sufficiently enlarged, he may proceed to steal the stoker's grouse.

Yet if, because of men's imperfections, we may not forthwith attain to anarchism, it is to that distant port that the ship of State should meanwhile direct its course, ridding itself of its ballast and its junk as it proceeds on its way. Government and law will be reduced to a minimum.⁵ The transformation will be effected along familiar anarchistic lines. Autonomy will be granted to Churches and to industries, and indeed to any groups which have important common interests, not shared by the rest of the community⁶; and generally ‘the positive purposes of the State... ought as far as possible to be carried out, not by the State itself, but by independent organisations.’⁷ In a more carefully pondered phrase, we should aim at ‘the increasing devolution of positive political initiative to bodies formed voluntarily for specific purposes.’⁸ And under the stress of this process of devolution, what will become of the State, that stubborn reality? It will not wholly evaporate, but will become something like a federal authority or court of arbitration. But do not, please, ask who will enforce the arbitration award. If this is not anarchism, the answer may be that it is a world which has the advantage of combining all the difficulties and impossibilities of Kropotkin, of Syndicalism and of Guild Socialism.

(d) CONCLUSIONS ON ANARCHISM

We have in earlier chapters seen the anarchism of Godwin and of Proudhon; and in the present have more briefly surveyed three more modern representatives of the school. We shall not meet the anarchists again, except in so far as anarchism is one of the ingredients of syndicalism. In concluding this chapter, it may be well to underline a few points which have not been discussed, or have only been touched upon incidentally, in the foregoing pages.

The fundamental trouble with the anarchist is that, though he may be highly intelligent, he has no sense. It follows that a fruitful discussion of anarchism is almost an impossibility. If they do not realise that they have set their nest among the stars, no word of man will persuade them that their thoughts are moving in a world unreal and unrealisable. Anarchists are a race of highly intelligent and imaginative children, who nevertheless can scarcely be trusted to look after themselves outside the nursery pen.

With regard to anarchism itself, one should perhaps distinguish between individualist anarchism, which is merely egotism run mad, the philosophy of the superman, and anarchist communism, which at least recognises the existence and the claims of other ‘egos.’ So also we are scarcely concerned with the conception of anarchism which, it is to be feared, is securely rooted in the popular mind, where, since the days of nihilism, an anarchist is a bomb-thrower, possessed with a rage of destruction. The expression of this phase of anarchism—to which Bakunin was not a stranger—can be but a frothing at the mouth, leaving no room for thought or social theory: it is ‘bitter to a degree than seems scarcely sane,’¹ as Mr. Russell himself has it. For our purposes, anarchism is a philosophical theory of society and the State, which, though it may talk of revolution, has nevertheless affinities with pacifism.

So viewed, the central point in anarchism is not so much a passion for equality or justice as a horror of any kind of authority, any kind of command, any kind of restraint. It follows—the point may be noted without further discussion—that anarchism is almost necessarily atheistic, always bearing in mind Sir Thomas Browne's dictum, already cited, regarding the virtual impossibility of effective atheism. For God is the supreme authority, the ultimate law-giver of the Universe. Accordingly, in the more outspoken anarchists (Proudhon and Bakunin, for example), God and the State are linked together as the twin manifestations of tyranny over man.

The second general point is that anarchists are bound to assume, explicitly or implicitly, that man is more or less flawless, and wholly reasonable. It is not always an easy task living with our fellows under any circumstances. A society where all restraint is removed, where each does what is right in his own eyes, insistently demands that all passion be spent, and that human benevolence and mutual tolerance should reach heights hitherto undreamed of. On somewhat similar grounds, anarchists have been universally impelled towards a preference for small groups. From Godwin downwards, the public opinion of the group is invoked as a restraining influence in place of law; but it is only in small groups that the averted glances of our neighbours can be effective in this way. Anarchism indeed only begins to be thinkable in a world of small, isolated, primitive communities, where reason has been enthroned, and where each man has crucified his own flesh.

With regard to that part of anarchist ideals which relates to an adequate distribution of essential goods to all, quite apart from any question of work done or of obligation to work, two points may be suggested. In the first place, it ought to be obvious that such a minimum dividend to all, though it may be part of anarchist theory, could never administratively be part of anarchist practice. Kropotkin cites, as a portent, the case of water supplied free to all to the utmost limits of requirements (apart, of course, from the payment of a water rate); Mr. Bertrand Russell adopts the illustration with approval. But a moment's reflection should satisfy anyone that the supply of water to all and sundry demands not merely the exercise of governmental authority (central or local, or both), but the development of administrative machinery of quite considerable complexity. Water mains are embedded in compulsory powers, in coercions and prohibitions. It is quite possible that Society may in time considerably extend the ‘free list.’ It is a development which the State socialist of the Fabian type may quite legitimately contemplate: but not the anarchist, so long as he remains within the disabling conditions of anarchism, since the development is one which would demand not merely a strong State, but an extremely efficient State.

The other point with regard to the ‘free distribution’ ideal may perhaps come rather close to current political controversy; but as it is germane to a consideration of anarchist philosophy, it should at least be glanced at here. The anarchist frequently says that even if a certain proportion of the population preferred to live in idleness, it would not greatly matter, or would not matter at all. And indeed if we accept the anarchist doctrine that work is a pleasure, then assuredly no great harm would be done in leaving work to those who enjoy it; the idler might indeed be represented as a benefactor who by his unselfish abnegation increases the sum of the enjoyment of others. Yet to those who look on labour as a burden, and ultimately as a weariness, the situation will appear in a somewhat different light. For however it may be disguised, the conscientious objector to work, for whom the anarchist scheme of things is prepared to make provision, is a sponger and a sorner, living idly on the sweat of his fellows. To-day, however, beyond all doubt, the tide is flowing in the direction of a more tender attitude towards the idler; and it may be interesting to speculate as to the underlying reason. It may be suggested that fundamentally it is not unconnected with the increasing complexity of the industrial machine. In the preceding chapters we have repeatedly heard witnesses, with varying degrees of emphasis, point out that under a far-reaching system of division of labour it is impossible to say what anyone produces. Kropotkin, who figures in this chapter, is an extreme example. In his eyes, production is a social process in which, more or less, everybody does everything, aided indeed by all previous generations; and on the reverse side, in which no one specifically can be said to produce anything. There is too much mutual aid to make any calculation possible. When production becomes thus impersonal, the connecting link between the personal effort of any individual and the final result is lost sight of, and may indeed be forgotten. It is a text-book commonplace that division of labour may undermine the sense of responsibility. In such an atmosphere it is fairly obvious that the sight of one who eats, yet refuses to work, will give less offence than in an age and a society where the intimate relationship between individual effort and the final result is not merely recognised, but is accepted as one of the fundamental assumptions of life. And the force of this consideration will perhaps be more fully realised if we invoke the point of view prevalent where it is still impossible to conceal the original relationship between effort and result. The farming and the fishing communities are, almost proverbially, the most individualistic sections of the community; and the reason is not far to seek. They are nearer the foundations and the realities of life. ‘I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding,’ remarked Solomon; and what he observed was strikingly in accordance with individualistic philosophy. A community of peasant proprietors would not lightly accept the proposition that they should supply all the needs of one in their midst who was idle ‘through refusal of suitable employment,’ because they know that, in their line of life, to the slothful Want cometh as an armed man. The same is true of the fisherman. No doubt there may be occasional miraculous draughts of fishes; but over a season, the catch of fish is fairly proportionate to the competence, the industry and the carefulness of the skipper. It is the skipper who knows the fishing grounds and the unseen floor of the sea as he knows the back of his own hand; who knows the winds and the tides and is weather-wise; who is willing to go out when others find a plausible excuse for staying at home; who knows how to be tender with his gear and his tackle—this is the happy fisher, this is he, whose boat comes in heavy with its load when others may return half-empty. And this explains why fishermen in the past, and in so many areas to-day, have turned resolutely away from co-operation, even in matters where co-operation would be beneficial. For where the relation between effort and result is immediate and obvious, co-operation to the self-reliant so easily appears to be a device whereby the slothful and the incompetent may take advantage of the industrious.

On the other hand, with increasing complexity of society, with the population at large increasingly remote from the producers of the actual commodities which would form the constituent elements of the vagabond's wage, the more marked will be the tendency to assume that the wealth of the world just happens to be there, awaiting distribution, without the previous necessity of labour on the part of anyone. A war periodically may, temporarily and partially but not very effectively, open our eyes. Modern society, largely because it is urban, does not know enough and does not think enough about what lies behind the satisfaction of its needs. The Kropotkin theory (expressed crudely) that everybody helps everybody to do everything is in practice easily re-interpreted as implying that all we need just comes to be there, in the shop windows or below the counter, without individual effort on the part of anyone.

In this impersonal atmosphere, proposals that the vagabond who refuses to work should nevertheless be a welcome guest at the common table do not shock as they would have done in less sophisticated times, when we all lived nearer to the tail of the plough and possessed the knowledge that such proximity brings. The conclusion is that this particular aspect of anarchism—the consecration of The Right to be Lazy, to fall back on the title of an older pamphlet—can be made plausible only in a somewhat artificial and top-heavy society whose complexity has obscured the foundations on which it stands.¹