The Executors of Mrs. Hume
Blake

PROPOSED ROADS
TO FREEDOM fj

SOCIALISM, ANARCHISM AND SYNDICALISM

BY

BERTRAND RUSSELL, F. R. S.

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1919

R

PREFACE

THIS book is an attempt to compress into a small
compass a discussion which would require many vol
umes for its adequate treatment. It was completed
in April, 1918, in the last days before a period of
imprisonment. At that time few would have ven
tured to prophesy that the fighting would end before
the New Year. The coming of peace has made the
problems of reconstruction the more urgent. The
author has attempted to examine briefly the growth
arid scope of those pre-war doctrines which aimed at
fundamental economic change. These doctrines are
considered first historically, then critically, and it
is urged that, while none can be accepted en bloc, all
haA^e something to contribute to the picture of the
future society which we should wish to create.

In the historical parts of the work I was much
assisted by my friend Mr. Hilderic Couscns, who
supplied me with facts on subjects which I had not
time to investigate thoroughly myself.

LONDON, January, 1919.

iii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION vii

PART I.

HISTORICAL

I. MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 1

II. BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 82

III. THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 56

PART II.
PROBLEMS OF THE FUTURE

IV. WORK AND PAY 8G

V. GOVERNMENT AND LAW Ill

VI. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 139

VII. SCIENCE AND ART UNDER SOCIALISM 1C4

VIII. THE WORLD AS IT COULD BE MADE. . . 188

INTRODUCTION

THE attempt to conceive imaginatively a better
ordering of human society than the destructive and
cruel chaos in which mankind has hitherto existed
is by no means modern : it is at least as old as Plato,
whose " Republic " set the model for the Utopias of
subsequent philosophers. Whoever contemplates the
world in the light of an ideal whether what he seeks
be intellect, or art, or love, or simple happiness, or
all together must feel a great sorrow in the evils
that men needlessly allow to continue, and if he be
a man of force and vital energy an urgent desire to
lead men to the realization of the good which inspires
his creative vision. It is this desire which has been
the primary force moving the pioneers of Socialism
and Anarchism, as it moved the inventors of ideal
commonwealths in the past. In this there is nothing
new. What is new in Socialism and Anarchism is
that close relation of the ideal to the present suffer
ings of men, which has enabled powerful political
movements to grow out of the hopes of solitary think
ers. It is this that makes Socialism and Anarchism
important, and it is this that makes them dangerous
to those who batten, consciously or unconsciously
upon the evils of our present order of society.

vil

viii INTRODUCTION

The greal majority of men and women, in ordi
nary times, pass through life without ever contem
plating or criticising, as a whole, either their own
conditions or those of the world at large. They find
themselves born into a certain place in society, and
they accept what each day brings forth, without any
effort of thought beyond what the immediate present
requires. Almost as instinctively as the beasts of
the field, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of
the moment, without much forethought, and without
considering that by sufficient effort the whole condi
tions of their lives could be changed. A certain per
centage, guided by personal ambition, make the effort
of thought and will which is necessary to place them
selves among the more fortunate members of the com
munity; but very few among these are seriously
concerned to secure for all the advantages which they
seek for themselves. It is only a few rare and excep
tional men who have that kind of love toward man
kind at large that makes them unable to endure
patiently the general mass of evil and suffering,
regardless of any relation it may have to their own
lives. These few, driven by sympathetic pain, will
seek, first in thought and then in action, for some
way of escape, some new system of society by which
life may become richer, more full of joy and less
full of preventable evils than it is at present. But
in the past such men have, as a rule, failed to interest

INTRODUCTION ix

the very victims of the injustices which they wished
to remedy. The more unfortunate sections of the
population have been ignorant, apathetic from excess
of toil and weariness,

danger of Jmmediate punishment by the holders of
power, and morally nT^^V Bowing to the_josg nf.
self-respect resulting fr^nx^ilieir-JiEgr^dation. To
create among such classes any conscious, deliberate
effort after general amelioration might have seemed
a hopeless task, and indeed in the past it has gen
erally proved so. But the modern world, by the
increase of education and the rise in the standard of
comfort among wage-earners, has produced new con
ditions, more favorable than ever before to the
demand for ra^icjdr^^i^msiniction. It is above all
the Socialists, and in a lesser degree the Anarchists
(chiefly as the inspirers of Syndicalism), who have
become the exponents of this demand.

What is perhaps most remarkable in regard to
both Socialism and Anarchism is the association of a
widespread popular movement with ideals for a bet
ter world. The ideals have been elaborated, in the
first instance, by solitary writers of books, and yet
powerful sections of the wage-earning classes have
accepted them as their guide in the practical affairs
of the w orld. In regard to Socialism this is evident ;
but in regard to Anarchism it is only true with some
qualification. Anarchism as such has never been a

x INTRODUCTION

widespread creed; it is only in the modified form of
Syndicalism that it has achieved popularity. Unlike
Socialism and Anarchism, Syndicalism is primarily
the outcome, not of an idea, but of an organization :
the fact of Trade Union organization came first, and
the ideas of Syndicalism are those which seemed
appropriate to this organization in the opinion of
the more advanced French Trade Unions. But the
ideas are, in the main, derived from Anarchism, and
the men who gained acceptance for them were, for
the most part, Anarchists. Thus we may regard
Syndicalism as the Anarchism of the market-place,
as opposed to the Anarchism of isolated individuals
which had preserved a precarious life throughout the
previous decades. Taking this view, we find in
Anarchist-Syndicalism the same combination of ideal
and organization as we find in Socialist political
parties. It is from this standpoint that our study
of these movements will be undertaken.

Socialism and Anarchism, in their modern form,
spring respectively from two protagonists, Marx_and
Bakunin, who fought a lifelong battle, culminating
in a split in the first International. We shall begin
our study with these two men first their teaching,
and then the organizations which they founded or
inspired. This will lead us to the spread of Social
ism in more recent years, and thence to the Syndi
calist revolt against Socialist emphasis on the State

INTRODUCTION xi

and political action, and to certain^ movements out
side France which have some affinity with Syndi
calism notably the I. W. W. in America and Guild
Socialism in England. From this historical survey
we shall pass to the consideration of some of the
more pressing problems of the future, and shall try
to decide in what respects the world would be hap
pier if the aims of Socialists or Syndicalists were
achieved.

My own opinion which I may as well indicate /
at the outset is that pure Anarchism, though it
should be the ultimate ideal, to which society should
continually approximate, is for the present impos
sible, and would not survive more than a year or two
at most if it were adopted. On the other hand, both
Marxian Socialism and Syndicalism, in spite of many
drawbacks, seem to me calculated to give rise to a
happier and better world than that in which we live.
I do not, however, regard either of them as the best
practicable system. Marxian Socialism. I fear, j
would give far too muchfeower to the Stat^, while
Syndicalism, which aims al abolishing; the State,
would, I believe, find itself forced to reconstruct a
central authority in order to put an end to the rival- ;
Ties of different groups of producers. The best i
practicable system, to my mind, is that of Guild
Socialism, which concedes what is valid both in the >
claims of the State Socialists and in the Syndicalist

xii INTRODUCTION

fear of the State, by adopting a system of feder
alism among trades for reasons similar to those which
I are recommending federalism among nations. The
grounds for these conclusions will appear as we
proceed.

Before embarking upon the history of recent
movements In favor of radical reconstruction, it will
be worth while to consider some traits of character
which distinguish most political idealists, and are
much misunderstood by the general public for other
reasons besides mere prejudice. I wish to do full
justice to these reasons, in order to show the more
effectually why they ought not to be operative.

The loaders of the more advanced movements
are, in general, men of quite unusual disinterestedness,
as is evident from a consideration of their careers.
Although they have obviously quite as much ability
as many men who rise to positions of great power,
they do not themselves become the arbiters of con
temporary events, nor do they achieve wealth or the
applause of the mass of their contemporaries. Men
who have the capacity for winning these prizes, and
who work at least as hard as those who win them,
but deliberately adopt a line which makes the win
ning! of them impossible, must be judged to have an
aim in life other than personal advancement ; what
ever admixture of self-seeking may enter into the
detail of their lives, their fundamental motive must

INTRODUCTION xiii

be outside Self. The pioneers of Socialism^ Anar-
chism^jind Syndicalism liave f for the mn^f, part.,
experienced prison, exile, and poverty, deliberateT
incurred because they would not aTmndontheirjDrpja-
aganda; and by this conduct they have shown that
llie_jiope which inspired them was noj^oj-Jjieinseives,
but for mankind.

Nevertheless, though the desire for human welfare
is what at bottom determines the broad lines of such
men s lives, it often happens that, in the detail of
their speech and writing, hatred is far more visible
than love. The impatient idealist and without some
impatience a man will hardly prove effective is
almost sure to be led into hatred by the oppositions
and disappointments which he encounters in his
endeavors to bring happiness to the world. The more
certain he is of thepurity of his motives and the truth
of hisTgospel, the more indignant he will become when

Often hcTwill successfully

achieve an attitude of philosophic tolerance as
regards the apathy of the masses, and even as regards
the whole-hearted opposition of professed defenders
of the status quo. But the men whom he finds it impos
sible to forgive are those who profess the same desire
for the amelioration of society as he feels himself,
but who do not accept his method of achieving this
end. The intense faith which enables him to with
stand persecution for the sake of his beliefs makes

xiv INTRODUCTION

him consider these beliefs so luminously obvious that
any thinking man who rejects them must be dis
honest, and must be actuated by some sinister motive
of treachery to the cause. Hence arises the spirit of
the sect, that bitter, narrow orthodoxy which is the
bane of those who hold strongly to an unpopular
creed. So many real temptations to treachery exist
that suspicion is natural. And among; leaders,
ambition, which they mortify in their choice of a
career, is sure to return in a new form: in the desire
for intellectual mastery and for despotic power
within their own sect. From these causes it results
that the advocates of drastic reform divide them
selves into opposing schools, hating each other with
a bitter hatred, accusing each other often of such
crimes as being in the pay of the police, and demand
ing, of any speaker or writer whom they are to
admire, that he shall conform exactly to their pre
judices, and make all his teaching minister to their
belief that the exact truth is to be found within the
limits of their creed. The result of this state of
mind is that, to a casual and unimaginative atten
tion, the men who have sacrificed most through the
wish to benefit mankind appear to be actuated far
more by hatred than by love. And the demand for
orthodoxy is stifling to any free exercise of intellect.
This cause, .as well as economic prejudice, has made
it difficult for the " intellectuals " to co-operate prac-

INTRODUCTION xv

tically with the more extreme reformers, however they
may sympathize with their main purposes and even
with nine-tenths of their program.

Another reason why radical reformers are mis
judged by ordinary men is that they view existing
society from outside, with hostility towards its insti
tutions. Although, for the most part, they have
more belief than their neighbors in human nature s
inherent capacit}^ for a good life, they are so con
scious of the cruelty and oppression resulting from
existing institutions that they make a wholly mis
leading impression of cynicism. Most men have
instinctively two entirely different codes of behavior :
one toward those whom they regard as companions or
colleagues or friends, or in some way members of the
same " herd " ; the other toward those whom they
regard as enemies or outcasts or a danger to society.
Radical reformers are apt to concentrate their
attention upon the behavior of society toward the
latter class, the class of those toward whom the
" herd " feels ill-will. This class includes, of course,
enemies in war, and criminals ; in the minds of those
who consider the preservation of the existing order
essential to their own safety or privileges, it includes
all who advocate any great political or economic
change, and all classes which, through their poverty
or through any other cause, are likely to feel a dan
gerous degree of discontent. The ordinary citizen

xvi INTRODUCTION

probably seldom thinks about such individuals or
classes, and goes through life believing that he and
his friends are kindly people, because they have ne
wish to injure those toward whom they entertain no
group-hostility. But the man whose attention is
fastened upon the relations of a group with those
whom it hates or fears will judge quite differently.
In these relations a surprising ferocity is apt to be
developed, and a very ugly side of human nature
comes to the fore. The opponents of capitalism
have learned, through the study of certain historical
facts, that this ferocity has often been shown by the
capitalists and by the State toward the wage-earning
classes, particularly when they have ventured to pro
test against the unspeakable suffering to which
industrialism has usually condemned them. Hence,
arises a quite different attitude toward existing
society from that of the ordinary well-to-do citizen:
an attitude as true as his, perhaps also as untrue,
but equally based on facts, facts concerning his
relations to his enemies instead of to his friends.

The class-war, like wars between nations, pro
duces two opposing views, each equally true and
equally untrue. The citizen of a nation at war,
when he thinks of his own countrymen, thinks of them
primarily as he has experienced them, in dealings
with their friends, in their family relations, arid so
on. They seem to him on the whole kindly, decent

INTRODUCTION xvii

folk. But a nation with which his country is at
war views his compatriots through the medium of a
quite different set of experiences: as they appear
in the ferocity of battle, in the invasion and subjuga
tion of a hostile territory, or in the chicanery of a
juggling diplomacy. The men of whom these facts
are true are the very same as the men whom their
compatriots know as husbands or fathers or friends,
but they are judged differently because they are
judged on different data. And so it is with those who
view the capitalist from the standpoint of the revo
lutionary wage-earner: they appear inconceivably
cynical and misjudging to the capitalist, because the
facts upon which their view is based are facts which
he either does not know or habitually ignores. Yet
the view from the outside is just as true as the view
from the inside. Both are necessary to the complete
truth ; and the Socialist, who emphasizes the outside
view, is not a cynic, but merely the friend of the
wage-earners, maddened by the spectacle of the need
less misery which capitalism inflicts upon them.

I have placed these general reflections at the
beginning of our study, in order to make it clear to
the reader that, whatever bitterness and hate may
be found in the movements which we are to examine,
it is not bitterness or hate, but love, that is their
mainspring. It is Difficult not to hate^ those who
torture the objects of our love. Though difficult, it

xviii INTRODUCTION

is not impossible; but it requires a breadth of out
look and a comprehensiveness of understanding which
are not easy to preserve amid a desperate contest.
If ultimate wisdom has not always been preserved by
Socialists and Anarchists, they have not differed in
this from their opponents ; and in the source of their
inspiration they have shown themselves superior to
those who acquiesce ignorantly or supinely in the
injustices and oppressions by which the existing
system is preserved.

PROPOSED ROADS
TO FREEDOM

SOCIALISM, ANARCHISM AND SYNDICALISM

PART I
HISTORICAL

CHAPTER I

MAIIX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE

SOCIALISM, like everything else that is vital, js
rather ajiendency ffian a jtricflx definablebody of
doctrine. A definition of Socialism is sure either to
include some views which many would regard as not
Socialistic, or to exclude others which claim to be
included. But I think we shall come nearest to the
essence of Socialism by defining it as the advocacy
of communal ownership of land and capital. Com
munal ownership may mean ownership by a demo
cratic State, but cannot be held to include owner
ship by any State which is not democratic. Com
munal ownership may also be understood, as Anar
chist Communism understands it, in the sense of
ownership by the free association of the men and

1

2 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

women in a community without those compulsory
powers which are necessary to constitute a State.
Some Socialists expect communal ownership to arrive
suddenly and! completely by a catastrophic revolu
tion, while others expect it to come gradually, first
in one industry, then in another. Some insist upon
the necessity of completeness in the acquisition of
land and capital by the public, while others would
be content to see lingering 1 islands of private owner
ship, provided they were not too extensive or power
ful. What all forms have in common is democracy
and the abolition, virtual or complete, of the present
capitalistic system. The distinction between Social
ists, Anarchists and Syndicalists turns largely upon
the kind of democracy which they desire. Orthodox
Socialists are content with parliamentary democracy
in the sphere of government, holding that the evils
apparent in this form of constitution at present
would disappear with the disappearance of capital-
asm. Anarchists and Syndicalists, on the other
hand, object to the whole parliamentary machinery,
and aim at a different method of regulating the poli
tical affairs of the community. But all alike are
democratic in the sense that they aimi at abolishing
every kind of privilege and every kind of artificial
inequality: all alike are champions of the wage-
earner in existing society. All three also have much
in common in their economic doctrine. All three

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 3

regard capital and the wages system as a means of
exploiting the laborer in the interests of the possess
ing classes, and hold that communal ownership, in one
form or another, is the only means of bringing free
dom to the producers. But within the framework
of this common doctrine there are many divergences,
and even among those who are strictly to be called
Socialists, there is a very considerable diversity of
schools.

Socialism as a power in Europe may be said
to begin with Marx. It is true that before his time
there were Socialist theories, both in England and in
France. It is also true that in France, during the
revolution of 1848, Socialism for a brief period
acquired considerable influence in the State. JELut
the Socialists who precededMarx tended to indulge
in Utopian dreams and failed to found any strong or
stable political party. To Marx, in collaboration"
with Engels, are due both the formulation of a coher
ent body of Socialist doctrine, sufficiently true or
plausible to dominate the minds of vast numbers of
men, and the formation of the International Social
ist movement, which has continued to grow in all
European countries throughout the last fifty years.

In order to understand Marx s doctrine, it is
necessary to know something of the influences which
formed his outlook. He was born in 1818 at Treves
in the Rhine Provinces, his father being a legal

4 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

official, a Jew who had nominally accepted Chris
tianity. Marx studied jurisprudence, philosophy,
political economy and history at various German
universities. In philosophy he imbibed the doctrines
of Hegel, who was then at the height of his fame,
and something of these doctrines dominated his
thought throughout his life. Like Hegel, he saw in
history the development of an Idea. He conceived
the changes in the world as forming a logical develop
ment, in which one phase passes by revolution into
another, which is its antithesis a conception which
gave to his views a certain hard abstractness, and a
belief in revolution rather than evolution. But of
Hegel s more definite doctrines Marx retained noth
ing after his youth. He was recognized as a brilliant
student, and might have had a prosperous career as
a professor or an official, but his interest in politics
and his Radical views led him into more arduous
paths. Already in 1842 he became editor of a news
paper, which was suppressed by the Prussian Gov
ernment earty in the following year on account of
its advanced opinions. This led Marx to go to Paris,
where he became known as a Socialist and acquired
a knowledge of his French predecessors. 1 Here in the

1 Chief among these were Fourier and Saint-Simon, who
constructed somewhat fantastic Socialistic ideal commonwealths.
Proudhon, with whom Marx had some not wholly friendly rela
tions, is to be regarded as a forerunner of the Anarchists rather
than of orthodox Socialism.

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 5

year 1844 began his lifelong friendship with Engels,
who had been hitherto in business in Manchester,
where he had become acquainted with English Social
ism and had in the main adopted its doctrines. 1 In
1845 Marx was expelled from Paris and went with
Engels to live in Brussels. There he formed a Ger
man Working Men s Association and edited a paper
which was their organ. Through his activities in
Brussels he became known to the German Communist
League in Paris, who, at the end of 1847, invited him
and Engels to draw up for them a manifesto, which
appeared in January, 1848. This is the famous
" Communist Manifesto," in which for the first time
Marx s system is set 1 ortK It appeared at a for
tunate moment. In the following month, February?
the revolution broke out in Paris, and in March it
spread to Germany. Fear of the revolution led the
Brussels Government to expel Marx from Belgium,
but the German revolution made it possible for him

1 Marx mentions the English Socialists with praise in " The
Poverty of Philosophy" (1847). They, like him, tend to base
their arguments upon a Ricardian theory of value, but they
have not his scope or erudition or scientific breadth. Among
them may be mentioned Thomas Hodgskin (1787-1869), origi
nally an officer in the Navy, but dismissed for a pamphlet criti
cal of the methods of naval discipline, author of " Labour De
fended Against the Claims of Capital" (1825) and other works;
William Thompson (1785-1833), author of " Inquiry into the
Principles of Distribution of Wealth Most Conducive to Human
Happiness" (1824), and "Labour Rewarded" (1825); and
Piercy Ravenstone, from whom Hodgskin s ideas are largely
derived. Perhaps more important than any of these was Robert
Owen.

6 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

to return to his own country. In Germany he again
edited a paper, which again led him into a conflict
with the authorities, increasing in severity as the
reaction gathered force. In June, 1849, his paper
was suppressed, and he was expelled from Prussia.
He returned to Paris, but was expelled from there
also. This led him to settle in England at that
time an asylum for friends of freedom and in Eng
land, with only brief intervals for purposes of agita
tion, he continued to live until his death in 1883.

The bulk of his time was occupied in the compo
sition of his great book, " Capital." l His other
important work during his later years was the forma
tion and spread of the International Working Men s
Association. From 184?9 onward the greater part
of his time was spent in the British Museum, accumu
lating, with German patience, the materials for his
terrific indictment of capitalist society, but he
retained his hold on the International Socialist move
ment. In several countries he had sons-in-law as
lieutenants, like Napoleon s brothers, and in the
various internal contests that arose his will gen
erally prevailed.

The most essential of Marx s doctrines may be
reduced to three : first, what is called the material-

ir The first and most important volume appeared in 1867:
the other two volumes were published posthumously (1885 and
1894).

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 7

istic interpretation of history ; second, the law of the
concentration of capital ; and, third, the class-war.

1. The Materialistic Interpretation of History.
Marx holds that in the main all the phenomena of
human society have their origin in material condi
tions, and these he takes to be embodied in economic
systems. Political constitutions, laws, religions,
philosophies all these he regards as, in their broad
outlines, expressions of the economic regime in the
society that gives rise to them. It would be unfair
to represent him as maintaining that the conscjous
economic motive is the only one of importance ; it
is rather that economics molds character andoJnion A
and is thus tile jjriiue^ jource of much thalfappears
in consciousness to have no connection with them.
He applies his doctrine in particular to two revolu
tions, one in the past, the other in the future. The
revolution in the past is that of the bourgeoisie
against feudalism, which finds its expression, accord
ing to him, particularly in the French Revolution.
The one in the future is the revolution of the wage-
earners, or proletariat, against the bourgeoisie,
which is to establish the Socialist Commonwealth.
The whole movement of history is viewed by him as
necessary, as the effect of material causes operating
upon human beings. He does not so much advocate
the Socialist revolution as_^regict it. He holds, it
is true, that it will be beneficentTbut he is much more

8 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

concerned to prove that it must inevitably come.
The same sense of necessity is visible in Ijjs exposi
tion of the evils of the capitalist system. He docs
not blame capitalists for the cruelties of which he
shows them to have been guilty ; hejnerely points out
i" that they are under an inherent necessity to beHave
w cruelly so^ongas private ownership of land and
capital continues^ But their tyranny will not last
forever, for it generates the forces that must in the
end overthrow it.

2. The Law of the Concentration of Capital.
Marx pointed out that capitalist undertakings tend
to grow larger and larger. He foresaw the substi
tution of trusts for free competition, and predicted
that the number of capitalist enterprises must dimin
ish as the magnitude of single enterprises increased.
He supposed that this process must involve a diminu
tion, not only in the number of businesses, but also
in the number of capitalists. Indeed, he usually
spoke as though each business were owned by a single
man. Accordingly, he expected that men would be
continually driven from the ranks of the capitalists
into those of the proletariat, and that the capitalists,
in the course of time, would grow numerically weaker
and weaker. He applied this principle not only to
industry but also to agriculture. He expected to
find the landowners growing fewer and fewer while
their estates grew larger and larger. This process

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 9

was to make more and more glaring the evils and
injustices of the capitalist system, and to stimulate
more and more the forces of opposition.

3. The Class War. Marx conceives the wage-
earner and the capitalist in a sharp antithesis. He
imagines that every man is, or must soon become,
wholly the one or wholly the other. The wage-
earner, who possesses nothing, is exploited by the cap
italists, whoi possess everything. As the capitalist
system works itself out and its nature becomes more
clear, the opposition of bourgeoisie and proletariat
becomes more and more marked. The two classes,
since they have antagonistic interests, are forced
into a class war which generates within the capitalist
regime internal forces of disruption. Thejyorkmg
men learn gradually to combine against their
exploiters, first locally, then ^nationally f and^jit last
Internationally. TV^icn Jjiey have learned to com
bine inj^ej^iajti^njj^ They

will then decree that all land and capital shall be
owned in common ; exploitation will cease ; the tyr
anny of the owners of wealth will no longer be
possible; there will no longer be any division of
society into classes, and all men will be free.

All these ideas are alread} r contained in the "Com
munist Manifesto," a work of the most amazing
vigor and force, setting forth with terse compression
the titanic forces of the world, their epic battle, and

10 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

the inevitable consummation. This work is of such
importance in the development of Socialism and
gives such an admirable statement of the doctrines
set forth at greater length and with more pedantry
in " Capital," that its salient passages must be
known by anyone who wishes to understand the hold
which Marxian Socialism has acquired over the intel
lect and imagination of a large proportion of work
ing-class leaders.

" A spectre is haunting; Europe," it begins, " the
spectre of Communism. All the Powers of old
Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise
this spectre Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot,
French Radicals and German police-spies. Where
is the party in opposition that has not been decried
as communistic by its opponents in power? Where
the Opposition that has not hurled back the brand
ing reproach of Communism against the more
advanced opposition parties, as well as against its
re-actionary adversaries?"

The existence of a class war is nothing new:
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggles?" In these strugglesThe
fight " each time ended, either in a revolutionary
re-constitution of society at large, or in the com
mon ruin of the contending classes."

" Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie . . .
has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 11

whole is more and more splitting up into two great
hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing
each other : Bourgeoisie and Proletariat." Then fol
lows a history of the fall of feudalism, leading to a
description of the bourgeoisie as a revolutionary
force. " The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a
most revolutionary part." " For exploitation, veiled
by religious and political illusions, it has substituted
naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation." " The
need of a constantly expanding market for its prod
ucts chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface
of the globe." " The bourgeoisie, during its rule of
scarce one hundred years, has created more massive
and more colossal productive forces than have all
preceding generations together." Feudal relations
became fetters : " They had to be burst asunder ;
they were burst asunder. ... A similar movement
is gping on before our own eyes." " The weapons
with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the
ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.
But not only has the bourgoisie forged the weapons
that bring death to itself; it has also called into
existence the men who are to wield those weapons
the modern working class the proletarians."

The cause of the destitution of the proletariat
are then set forth. " The cost of production of a
workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means

12 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

of subsistence that he requires for his maintenance
and for the propagation of his race. But the price
of a commodity, and therefore also of labor, is equal
to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore,
as the repulsiveiiess of the work increases, the wage
decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of
machinery and diversion of labor increases, in the
same proportion the burden of toil also increases."

" Modern industry has converted the little work
shop of the patriarchal master into the great factory
of the industrial capitalist. Masses of laborers,
crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers.
As privates of the industrial army they are placed
under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers
and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bour
geois class, arid of the bourgeois State, they are
daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the
over-looker, and* above all, by the individual bour
geois manufacturer himself. The more openly this
despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the
more petty, the more hateful, and the more embit
tering it is."

The Manifesto tells next the manner of growth
of the class struggle. " The proletariat goes
through various stages of development. With its
birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At
first the contest is carried on by individual laborers,

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 13

then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the
operatives of one trade, in one locality, against the
individual bourgeois who directly exploits them.
They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois
conditions of production, but against the instru
ments of production themselves."

" At this stage the laborers still form an incoherent
mass scattered over the whole country, and broken
up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they
unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet
the consequence of their own active union, but of
the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to
attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the
whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for
a time, able to do so."

" The collisions between individual workmen and
individual bourgeois take more and more the charac
ter of collisions between two classes. Thereupon
the workers begin to form combinations (Trades
Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together
in order to keep up the rate of wages ; they found
permanent associations in order to make provision
beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and
there the contest breaks out into riots. Now and
then the workers are victorious, but only for a time.
The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the imme
diate result, but in the ever - expanding union of
the workers. This union is helped on by the im-

PUi PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

proved means of communication that are created
by modern industry, arid that place the workers
of different localities in contact with one another.
It was just this contact that was needed to centralize
the numerous local struggles, all of the same char
acter, into one national struggle between classes.
But every class struggle is a political struggle. And
that union, to attain which the burghers of the
Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required
centuries, the modern proletarians, thanks to rail
ways, achieve in a few years. This organization of
the proletarians into a class, and consequently into
a political party, is continually being upset again by
the competition between the workers themselves. But
it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It
compels legislative recognition of particular inter
ests of the workers, by taking) advantage of the divi
sions among the bourgeoisie itself."

" In the cor iitions of the proletariat, those of
old society at ^arge are already virtually swamped.
The proletarian is without property; his relation
to his wife arid children has no longer anything in
common with the bourgeois family-relations ; modern
industrial labor, modern subjection to capital, the
same in England as in France, in America as in
Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national
character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so
many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 15

ambush just as many bourgeois interests. All the
preceding classes that got the upper hand, sought
to fortify their already acquired status by subject
ing society at large to their conditions of appro
priation. The proletarians cannot become masters
of the productive forces of society, except by abolish
ing 1 their own previous mode of appropriation, and
thereby also every other previous mode of appro
priation. They have nothing of their own to secure
and to f oreify ; their mission is to destroy all previous
securities for, and insurances of, individual property.
All previous historical movements were movements
of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The
proletarian movement is the self-conscious, inde
pendent movement of the immense majority, in the
interest of the immense majority. The proletariat,
the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot
stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole super
incumbent strata of official society being sprung
into the air."

The Communists, says Marx, stand for the pro
letariat as a whole. They are international. " The
Communists are further reproached with desiring
to abolish countries and nationality. The working
men have no country. We cannot take from them
what they have not got."

The immediate aim of the Communists is the con
quests of political power by the proletariat. " The

16 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

theory of the Communists may be summed up in the
single sentence : Abolition of private property."

The materialistic interpretation of history is
used to answer such charges as that Communism is
anti-Christian. " The charges against Communism
made from a religious, a philosophical, and, g)en-
erally, from an ideological standpoint, are not deserv
ing of serious examination. Does it require deep
intuition to comprehend that man s ideas, views and
conceptions, in one word, man s consciousness,
changes with every change in the conditions of his
material existence, in his social relations, and in his
social life?"

The attitude of the Manifesto to the State is not
altogether easy to grasp. " The executive of the
modern State," we are told, " is but a Committee for
managing the common affairs of the whole bourge
oisie." Nevertheless, the first step for the proletariat
must be to acquire control of the State. "We have
seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the
working class, is to raise the proletariat to the posi
tion of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to
wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie,
to centralize all instruments of production in the
hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized
as the ruling class ; and to increase the total of pro
ductive forces as rapidly as possible."

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 17

The Manifesto passes on to an immediate pro
gram of reforms, which would in the first instance
much increase the power of the existing State, but
it is contended that when the Socialist revolution is
accomplished, the State, as we know it, will have
ceased to exist. As Engels says elsewhere, when the
proletariat seizes the power of the State " it puts an
end to all differences of class and antagonisms of
class, and consequently also puts an end to the State
as a State." Thus, although State Socialism might,
in fact, be the outcome of the proposals of Marx and
Engels, they cannot themselves be accused of any
glorification of the State.

The Manifesto ends with an appeal to the wage-
earners of the world to rise on behalf of Communism.
" The Communists disdain to conceal their views and
aims. They openly declare that their ends can be
attained only by the forcible overthrow of_all_exist-
ing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble
at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have
nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world
to win. Working men of all countries, unite !"

In all the great countries of the Continent,
except Russia, a revolution followed quickly on the
publication of the Communist Manifesto, but the
revolution was not economic or international, except
at first in France. Everywhere else it was inspired
by the ideas of nationalism. Accordingly, the rulers

18 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

of the world, momentarily terrified, were able to
recover power by fomenting the enmities inherent
in the nationalist idea, and everywhere, after a very
brief triumph, the revolution ended in war and re
action. The ideas of the Communist Manifesto
appeared before the world was ready for them, but
its authors lived to see the beginnings of the growth
of that Socialist movement in every country, which
has pressed on with increasing force, influencing
Governments more and more, dominating the Rus
sian Revolution, and perhaps capable of achieving
at no very distant date that international triumph to
which the last sentences of the Manifesto summon
the wage-earners of the world.

Marx s magnum opus, " Capital," added bulk
and substance to the theses of the Communist Mani
festo. It contributed the theory of surplus value,
which professed to explain the actual mechanism
of capitalist exploitation. This doctrine is very
complicated and is scarcely tenable as a contribution
to pure theory. It is rather to be viewed as a trans
lation into abstract terms of the hatred with which
Marx regarded the system that coins wealth out of
human lives, and it is in this spirit, rather than in
that of disinterested analysis, that it has been read
by its admirers. A critical examination of the theory
of surplus value would require much difficult and
abstract discussion of pure economic theory without

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 19

having much bearing upon the practical truth or
falsehood of Socialism; it has therefore seemed im
possible within the limits of the present volume. To
my mind the best parts of the book are those which
deal with economic facts, of which Marx s knowl
edge was encyclopaedic. It was by these facts that
he hoped to instil into his disciples that firm and
undying hatred that should make them soldiers to
the death in the class war. The facts which he ac
cumulates are such as are practically unknown to
the vast maj ority of those who live comfortable lives.
They are very terrible facts, and the economic system
which generates them must be acknowledged to be
a very terrible system. A few examples of his choice
of facts will serve to explain the bitterness of many
Socialists :

Mr. Broughton Charlton, county magistrate, declared,
as chairman of a meeting held at the Assembly Rooms,
Nottingham, on the 14th January, I860, "that there was
an amount of privation and suffering among that portion
of the population connected with the lace trade, unknown
in other parts of the kingdom, indeed, in the civilized
world. . . . Children of nine or ten years are dragged
from their squalid beds at two, three, or four o clock in
the morning and compelled to work for a bare subsist
ence until ten, eleven, or twelve at night, their limbs wear
ing away, their frames dwindling, their faces whitening,

20 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

and their humanity absolutely sinking into a stone-like
torpor, utterly horrible to contemplate." 1

Three railway men are standing before a London cor
oner s jury a guard , an engine-driver, a signalman.
A tremendous railway accident has hurried hundreds of
passengers into another world. The negligence of the
employes is the cause of the misfortune. They declare
with one voice before the jury that ten or twelve years
before, their labor only lasted eight hours a day. Dur
ing the last five or six years it had been screwed up to
14, 18, and 20 hours, and under a specially severe pres
sure of holiday-makers, at times of excursion trains, it
often lasted 40 or 50 hours without a break. They
were ordinary men, not Cyclops. At a certain point their
labor-power failed. Torpor seized them. Their brain
ceased to think, their eyes to see. The thoroughly " re
spectable " British jurymen answered by a verdict that
sent them to the next assizes on a charge of manslaughter,
and, in a gentle " rider " to their verdict, expressed the
pious hope that the capitalistic magnates of the railways
would, in future, be more extravagant in the purchase of
a sufficient quantity of labor-power, and more "abstem
ious," more " self-denying," more " thrifty," in the
draining of paid labor-power. 2

In the last week of June, 1863, all the London daily
papers published a paragraph with the " sensational "
heading, "Death from simple over-work." It dealt with
the death of the milliner, Mary Anne Walkley, 20 years
of age, employed in a highly respectable dressmaking

Vol. i, p. 227.

* Vol. i, pp. 237, 838.

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 21

establishment, exploited by a lady with the pleasant name
of Elise . The old, often-told story was once more re
counted. This girl worked, on an average, 16% hours,
during the season often 30 hours, without a break, whilst
her failing labor-power was revived by occasional sup
plies of sherry, port, or coffee. It was just now the
height of the season. It was necessary to conjure up
in the twinkling of an eye the gorgeous dresses for the
noble ladies bidden to the ball in honor of the newly-
imported Princess of Wales. Mary Anne Walkley had
worked without intermission for 26 l /2 hours, with 60
other girls, 30 in one room, that only afforded 1/3 of
the cubic feet of air required for them. At night, they
slept in pairs in one of the stifling holes into which the
bedroom was divided by partitions of board. And this
was one of the best millinery establishments in London.
Mary Anne Walkley fell ill on the Friday, died on Sun
day, without, to the astonishment of Madame Elise,
having previously completed the work in hand. The doc
tor, Mr. Keys, called too late to the death bed, duly bore
witness before the coroner s jury that " Mary Aune
Walkley had died from long hours of work in an over
crowded workroom, and a too small and badly ventilated
bedroom." In order to give the doctor a lesson in good
manners, the coroner s jury thereupon brought in a ver
dict that " the deceased had died of apoplexy, but there
was reason to fear that her death had been accelerated
by over-work in an over-crowded workroom, &c." " Our
white slaves," cried the "Morning Star," the organ of the
free-traders, Cobden and Bright, " our white slaves, who

22 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

are toiled into the grave, for the most part silently pine
and die/ 1

Edward VI: A statue of the first year of his reign,
1547., ordains that if anyone refuses to work, he shall be
condemned as a slave to the person who has denounced
him as an idler. The master shall feed his slave on bread
and water, weak broth and such refuse meat as he thinks
fit. He has the right to force him to do any work, no
matter how disgusting, with whip and chains. If the
slave is absent a fortnight, he is condemned to slavery for
life and is to be branded on forehead or back with the
letter S; if he runs away thrice, he is to be executed as
a felon. The master can sell him, bequeath him, let him
out on hire as a slave, just as any other personal chattel
or cattle. If the slaves attempt anything against the
masters, they are also to be executed. Justices of the
peace, on information, are to hunt the rascals down. If it
happens that a vagabond has been idling about for three
days, he is to be taken to his birthplace, branded with a
redhot iron with the letter V on the breast and be set
to work, in chains, in the streets or at some other labor.
If the vagabond gives a false birthplace, he is then to
become the slave for life of this place, of its inhabitants,
or its corporation, and to be branded with an S. All per
sons have the right to take away the children of the
vagabonds and to keep them as apprentices, the young
men until the 24th year, the girls until the 20th. If
they run away, they are to become up to this age the
slaves of their masters, who can put them in irons, whip

Vol. i, pp. 239, 240.

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 23

them, &c., if they like. Every master may put an iron
ring around the neck^ arms or legs of his slave, by which
to know him more easily and to be more certain of him.
The last part of this statute provides that certain poor
people may be employed by a place or by persons, who
are willing to give them food and drink and to find them
work. This kind of parish-slaves was kept up in Eng
land until far into the 19th century under the name of
" roundsmen/ 1

Page after page and chapter after chapter of
facts of this nature, each brought up to illustrate
some fatalistic theory which Marx professes to have
proved by exact reasoning, cannot but stir into fury
any passionate working-class reader, and into
unbearable shame any possessor of capital in whom
generosity and justice are not wholly extinct.

Almost at the end of the volume, in a very brief
chapter, called " Historical Tendency of Capitalist
Accumulation," Marx allows one moment s gjlimpse
of the hope that lies beyond the present horror :

As soon as this process of transformation has suffi
ciently decomposed the old society from top to bottom,
as soon as the laborers are turned into proletarians, their
means af labor into capital, as soon as the capitalist
mode of production stands on its own feet, then the
further socialization of labor and further transforma
tion of the land and other means of production into so-

1 Vol. i, pp. 758, 759.

24 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

cially exploited and, tlieref ore, common means of produc
tion,, as well as the further expropriation of private pro
prietors^ takes a new form. That which is now to be
expropriated is no longer the laborer working for him
self, but the capitalist exploiting) many laborers. This
expropriation is accomplished by the action of the im
manent laws of capitalistic production itself, by the
centralization of capital. One capitalist always kills
many, and in hand with this centralization, or this
expropriation of many capitalists by few, develop, on
an ever extending scale, the co-operative form of the
labor-process, the conscious technical application of
science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the trans
formation of the instruments of labor into instruments
of labor only usable in common, the economizing of all
means of production by their use as the means of pro
duction of combined, socialized labor, the entanglement
of all peoples in the net of the world-market, and with,
this, the international character of the capitalistic regime.
Along with the constantly diminishing number of the
magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolize all
advantages of this process of transformation, grows the
mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploita
tion ; but with this, too, grows the revolt of the working-
class, a class always increasing in numbers, and discip
lined, united, organized by the very mechanism of the
process of capitalist production itself. The monopoly of
capital becomes a fetter upon the mode of production,
which has sprung up and flourished along with, and
under it. Centralization of the means of production and
socialization of labor at last reach a point where they

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 25

become incompatible with their capitalist integument.
This integument is burst asunder. The knell of capi
talist private property sounds. The expropriators are
expropriated, 1

That is all. Hardly another word from begin
ning to end is allowed to relieve the gloom, and in this
relentless pressure upon the mind of the reader lies
a great part of the power which this book has
acquired.

Two questions are raised by Marx s work : First,
Are his laws of historical development true? Second,
Is Socialism desirable? The second of these questions
is quite independent of the first. Marx professes
to prove that Socialism must come, but scarcely con
cerns himself to argue that when it comes it will be
a good thing. It may be, however, that if it comes,
it will be a good thing, even though all Marx s argu
ments to prove that it must come should be at fault.
In actual fact, time has shown many flaws in Marx s
theories. The development of the world has been
sufficiently like his prophecy to prove him a man of
very unusual penetration, but has not been suffi
ciently like to make either political or economic his
tory exactly such as he predicted that it would be.
Nationalism, so far from diminishing, has increased,
and has failed to be conquered by the cosmopolitan

* Vol i, pp. 788, 789.

*6 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM,

tendencies which Marx rightly discerned in finance.
Although big businesses have grown bigger and have
over a great area reached the stage of monopoly,
yet the number of shareholders in such enterprises
Y i is so large that the actual number of individuals
interested in the capitalist system has continually
increased. Moreover, though large firms have grown
larger, there has been a simultaneous increase in
firms of medium size. Meanwhile the wage-earners,
who were, according to Marx, to have remained at
the bare level of subsistence at which they were in
the England of the first half of the nineteenth cen
tury, have instead profited by the general increase
of wealth, though in a lesser degree than the capital
ists. The supposed iron law of wagies has been
proved untrue, so far as labor in civilized countries
is concerned. If we wish now to find examples of
capitalist cruelty analogous to those with which
Marx s book is filled, we shall have to go for most
of our material to the Tropics, or at any rate to
regions where there are men of inferior races to
exploit. Again : the skilled worker of the present day
is an aristocrat in the world of labor. It is a ques
tion with him whether he shall ally himself with the
unskilled worker against the capitalist, or with the
\ capitalist against the unskilled worker. Very often
vf v he is himself a capitalist in a small way, and if he
AT is not so individually, his trade union or his friendly

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 27

society is pretty sure to be so. Hence the sharp
ness of the class war has not been maintained. There
are gradations* intermediate ranks between rich and
poor, instead of the clear-cut logical antithesis
between the workers who, have nothing 1 and the cap-
italists who have^all. Even in Germany, which
Eecame the home of orthodox Marxianism and devel
oped a powerful Social-Democratic party, nominally
accepting the doctrine of u Das Kapital " as all but
verbally inspired, even there the enormous increase
of wealth in all classes in the years preceding the
war led Socialists to revise their beliefs and to adopt
an evolutionary rather than a revolutionary attitude.
Bernstein, a German Socialist who lived long in
England, inaugurated the " Revisionist " movement
which at last conquered the bulk of the party. His
criticisms of Marxian orthodoxy are set forth in
his " Evolutionary Socialism." 1 Bernstein s work,
as is common in Broad Church writers, consists
largely in showing that the Founders did not hold
their doctrines so rigidly as their followers have
done. There is much in the writings of Marx and
Engels that cannot be fitted into the rigid orthodofy
which grew up among their disciples. Bernstein s

1 "Die Voraiifisetzimg-en des Sozialismus und die Aufgahen
der Sozial-Demokratie."

In March, 1914, Bernstein delivered a lecture in Budapest,
in which he withdrew from several of the positions he had taken
up (vide Budapest " Volkstimme," March 19, 1914).

28 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

main criticisms of these disciples, apart from such as
we have already mentioned, consist in a defense of
piecemeal action as against revolution. He protests
against the attitude of undue hostility to Liberalism
which is common among Socialists, and he blunts the
edge of the Internationalism which undoubtedly is
part of the teachings of Marx. The workers, he
says, have a Fatherland as soon as they become citi
zens, and on this basis he defends that degree of
nationalism which the war has since shown to be
prevalent in the ranks of Socialists. He even goes
so far as to maintain that European nations have a
rigjit to tropical territory owing to their higher
civilization. Such doctrines diminish revolutionary
ardor and tend to transform Socialists into a left
wing of the Liberal Party. But the increasing pros
perity of wage-earners before the war made these
developments inevitable. Whether the war will have
altered conditions in this respect, it is as yet impos
sible to know. Bernstein concludes with the wise
remark that : " We have to take working men as they
are. And they are neither so universally paupers as
was set out in the Communist Manifesto, nor so free
from prejudices and weaknesses as their courtiers
wish to make us believe."

Berstein represents the decay of Marxian ortho
doxy from within. Syndicalism represents an attack
against it from without, from the standpoint of a

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE 29

doctrine which professes to be even more radical and
more revolutionary than that of Marx and Erigels.
The attitude of Syndicalists to Marx may be seen in
Sorel s little book, " La Decomposition du Marx-
isme," and in his larger work, " Reflections on
Violence," authorized translation by T. E. Hulme
(Allen & Unwin, 1915). After quoting Bernstein,
with approval in so far as he criticises Marx, Sorel
proceeds to other criticisms of a different order. He
points out (what is true) that_JVlarx s theoretical^
economics remain verj_jifl, to fr[ RTin hefit.orism : the
orthodox political economy of his youth was accepted
by him on many points on which it is now known to
be wrong. According to Sorel, the really essential
thing in Marx s teaching! is the class war. Whoever
keeps this alive is keeping alive the spirit of Social
ism much more truly than those who adhere to the
letter of Social-Democratic orthodoxy. On the basis
of the class war, French Syndicalists developed a
criticism of Marx which goes much deeper than those
that we have been hitherto considering. Marx s
views on historical development may have been in a
greater or less degree mistaken in fact, and yet the
economic and political system which he sought to
create might be just as desirable as his followers sup
pose. Syndicalism, however, criticises, not only
Marx s views of fact, but also the goal at which he
aims and the general nature of the means which he

30 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

recommends. Marx s ideas were formed at a time
when democracy did not yet exist. It was in the
very year in which " Das Kapital " appeared that
urban working men first got the vote in England and
universal suffrage was granted by Bismarck in
Northern Germany. It was natural that great hopes
should be entertained as to what democracy would
achieve. Marx, like the orthodox economists,
imagined that men s opinions are guided by a more
or less enlightened view of economic self-interest, or
rather of economic class interest. A long experience
of the workings of political democracy has shown
that in this respect Disraeli and Bismarck were
shrewder judges of fyuman nature than either Lib
erals or Socialists. V It has become increasingly dif
ficult to put trust in the State as a means to liberty,
or in political parties as instruments sufficiently
powerful to force the State into the service of the
people. The modern State, says Sorel, " is a body of
intellectuals, which is invested with privileges, and
which possesses means of the kind called political for
defending itself against the attacks made on it by
other groups of intellectuals, eager to possess the
profits of public employment. Parties are consti
tuted in order to acquire the conquest of these
employments, and they are analogous to the State." 1

Syndicalists aim at organizing me^-i Tuvhjvy party,

1 La Decomposition du Marxisme," p. 53.

MARX AND SOCIALIST DOCTRINE SI

but by occupation. This, they say, alone represents
the true conception and method of the class war.
Accordingly they despise all political action through
*hg_rnf*fi"Tn nf Pfl.T*|ifnfflpnt and elections^ the kind of
action that they recommend is direct action by the
re^jujjonary syndicate or trndejimon.^ The~Battle~
cry of industrial versus political action has spread
far beyond the ranks of French Syndicalism. It is
to be found in the I. W. W. in America, and among
Industrial Unionists and Guild Socialists in Great
Britain. Those who advocate it, for the most part,
aim also at a different goal from that of Marx. They
believe that there can be no adequate individual
freedom where the State is all-powerful, even if thej
State be a Socialist one. Some of them are out-and-
out Anarchists, who wish to see the State wholly
abolished; others only wish to curtail its authority.
Owing to this movement, opposition to Marx, which
from the Anarchist side existed from the first, has
grown very strong. It is this opposition in its older
form that will occupy us in our next chapter.

CHAPTER II

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM

IN the popular mind, an Anarchist is a person
who throws bombs and commits other outrages,
either because he is more or less insane, or because
he uses the pretense of extreme political opinions as
a cloak for criminal proclivities. This view is, of
course, in every way inadequate. Some Anarchists
believe in throwing bombs; many do not. (Men of
almost every other shade of opinion believe in throw
ing bombs in suitable circumstances : for example,
the men who threw the bomb at Sarajevo which
started the present war were not Anarchists, but
Nationalists. And those Anarchists who are in
favor of bomb-throwing do not in this respect differ
on any vital principle from the rest of the com
munity, with the exception of that infinitesimal por
tion w r ho adopt the Tolstoyan attitude of non-resis
tance. Anarchists, like Socialists, usually believe
in the doctrine of the class war, and if they use
bombs, it is as Governments use bombs, for purposes
of war: but for every bomb manufactured by an
Anarchist, many millions are manufactured by Gov
ernments, and for every man killed by Anarchist
32

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 33

violence, many millions are killed by the violence of
States. We may, therefore, dismiss from our minds
the whole question of violence, which plays so large
a part in the popular imagination, since it is neither
essential nor peculiar to those who adopt the Anar
chist position.

Anarchism, as its derivation indicates, is^thc
theory ^ which is opposed to every kind of forcible
government. It is opposed to the State as the
embodiment of the force employed in the government
of the community. Such government as Anarchism
can tolerate must be free government, not merely in
the sense that it is that o^a2n^oji^ ? _l^Jn^t^j^iKe_^
that_itls"TKat asseiitedjo_bj__all.__ Anarchists object
to such institutions as the police and the criminal
law, by means of which the will of one part of the
community is forced upon another part. In their
view, the democratic form of government is not very
enormously preferable to other forms so long as
minorities are compelled by force or its potentiality
to submit to the will of majorities. Liberty is the /
supreme good in the Anarchist creed, and liberty/
is sought by the direct road of abolishing all forcible) j
control over the individual by the community. ^

Anarchism, in this sense, is no new doctrine. It
is set forth admirably by Chuang Tzu, a Chinese phil
osopher, who lived about the year 300 B. C. :

34 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow ;
hair, to protect them from wind and cold. They eat grass
and drink water, and fling np their heels over the cham
paign. Such is the real nature of horses. Palatial
dwellings are of no use to them.

One- day Po Lo appeared, saying : " I understand the
management of horses."

So he branded them, and clipped them, and pared
their hoofs, and put halters on them, tying them up by
the head and shackling them by the feet, and disposing
them in stables, with the result that two or three in
every ten died. Then he kept them hungry and thirsty,
trotting them and galloping them, and grooming, and
trimming, with the misery of the tasselled bridle before
and the fear of the knotted whip behind, until more than
half of them were dead.

The potter says: " I can do what I will with clay.
If I want it round, I use compasses; if rectangular, a
square."

The carpenter says : " I can do what I will with
wood. If I want it curved, I use an arc; if straight, a
line/

But on what grounds can we think that the natures
of clay and wood desire this application of compasses and
square, of arc and line? Nevertheless, every age extols
Po Lo for his skill in managing horses, and potters and
carpenters for their skill with clay and wood 1 . Those
who govern the empire make the same mistake.

Now I regard government of the empire from; quite
a different point of view.

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 35

The people have certain natural instincts : to weave
and clothe themselves, to till and feed themselves. These
are common to all humanity, and all are agreed thereon.
Such instincts are called " Heaven-sent/

And so in the days when natural instincts prevailed,
men moved quietly and gazed steadily. At that time
there were no roads over mountains, nor boats, nor
bridges over water. All things were produced, each for
its own proper sphere. Birds and beasts multiplied;
trees and shrubs grew up. The former might be led by
the hand; you could climb up and peep into the raven s
nest. For then man dwelt with birds and beasts, and
all creation was one. There were no distinctions of good
and bad men. Being all equally without knowledge,
their virtue could not go astray. Being all equally
without evil desires, they were in a state of natural in
tegrity, the perfection of human existence.

But when Sages appeared, tripping up people over
charity and fettering them with duty to their neighbor,
doubt found its way into the world. And then, with
their gushing over music and fussing over ceremony, the
empire became divided against itself. 1

The modern Anarchism, in the sense in which we
shall be concerned with it, is associated with belief
in the communal ownership of land and capital, and
is thus in an important respect akin to Socialism.
This doctrine is properly called Anarchist Corn-

1 " Musings of a Chinese Mystic." Selections from the Phil
osophy of Chuang Tzu. With an Introduction by Lionel Giles,
M.A. (Oxon.)- Wisdom of the East Series, John Murray, 1911.
Pages 60-68.

36 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

munism, but as it embraces practically all modern
Anarchism, we may ignore individualist Anarchism
altogether and concentrate attention upon the com
munistic form. Socialism and Ajiarchist^Commun-
ism alike have arisen from the perception that private
capital is a source of tyranny by certain individuals
over others. Orthodox Socialism believes that the
individual will become free if the State becomes the
sole capitalist. Anarchism, on the contrary, fears
that in that case the State might merely inherit the
tyrannical propensities of the private capitalist.
Accordingly, it seeks for a means of reconciling com-
numal ownership with the utmost possible diminution
in the powers of the State, and indeed ultimately with
the, complete abolition ot the !5taJ^ It has arisen
mainly within the Socialist movement as its extreme
left wing.

In the same sense in which Marx may be regarded
as the founder of modern Socialism, Bakunin may
be regarded as the founder of Anarchist Communism.
But Bakunin did not produce, like Marx, a finished
and systematic body of doctrine. The nearest
approach to this will be found in the writings of his
follower, Kropotkin. In order to explain modern
Anarchism we shall begin with the life of Bakunin 1

*An account of the life of Bakunin from the Anarchist
standpoint will be found in vol. ii of the complete edition! of
his works: "Michel Bakounine, (Euvres," Tome II. Avec une
notice biographique, des avant-propos et des notes, par James
Guillaume. Paris, P.-V, Stock, diteur, pp. vhlxiii.

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 57

and the history of his conflicts with Marx, and shall
then give a brief account of Anarchist theory as set
forth partly in his writings, but more in those of
Kropotkin. 1

Michel Bakunin was born in 1814* of a Russian
aristocratic family. His father was a diplomatist,
who at the time of Bakunin s birth had retired to his
country estate in the Government of Tver. Bakunin
entered the school of artillery in Petersburg at the
age of fifteen, and at the age of eighteen was sent as
an ensign to a regiment stationed in the Government
of Minsk. The Polish insurrection of 1830 had just
been crushed. " The spectacle of terrorized Poland,"
says Guillaume, " acted powerfully on "the heart D
the yowg~ofScer^hd contributed to inspire in him
th<TlrorYoT"6F despotism." This led him to give lip
thiT military career after two years trial. In 1834
he resigned his commission and went to Moscow,
where he spent six years studying philosophy. Like
all philosophical students of that period, he became
a Hegelian, and in 1840 he went to Berlin to continue
his studies, in the hope of ultimately becoming a
professor. But after this time his opinions under
went a rapid change. He found it impossible to
accept the Hegelian maxim that whatever is, is
rational, and in 1842 he migrated to Dresden, where

1 Criticism of these theories will be reserved for Part II.

38 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

he became associated with Arnold Huge, the publisher
of " Deutsche Jahrbuecher." By this time he had
become a revolutionary, and in the following year
he incurred the hostility of the Saxon Government.
This led him to go to Switzerland, where Jhe came in
contact with a group of German Communists, but, as
the Swiss police importuned him and the Russian
Government demanded his return, he removed to
Paris, where he remained from 1843 to 1847. These
years in Paris were important in the formation of his
outlook and opinions. He became acquainted with
Proudhon, who exercised a considerable influence on
him; also with George Sand arid many other well-
known people. It was in Paris that he first made
the acquaintance of Marx and Engels, with whom he
was to carry on a lifelong battle. At a much later
period, in 1871, he gave the following account of his
relations with Marx at this time :

Marx was much more advanced than I was, as he
remains to-day not more advanced but incomparably more
learned than I am. I knew then nothing of political
economy. I had not yet rid myself of metaphysical
abstractions^ and my Socialism was only instinctive. He,
though younger tEarf"% was~~aTrea3y"ah atheist, an
instructed materialist, a well-considered Socialist. It
was just at this time that he elaborated the first founda
tions of his present system. We saw each other fairly

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 39

often, for I respected him much for his learning! and his
passionate and serious devotion (always mixed, however,
with personal vanity) to the cause of the proletariat,
and I sought eagerly his conversation, which was always
instructive and clever, when it was not inspired by a
paltry hate, which, alas! happened only too often. But
there was never any frank intimacy between us. Our
temperaments would not suffer it. He called me a^)
sentimental idealist, and he was right; I called him aL
t vain man, perfidious and crafty, and I also was right. \

Bakunin never succeeded in staying long) in one
place without incurring the enmity of the author
ities. In November, 1847, as the result of a speech
praising the Polish rising of 1830, he was expelled
from France at the request of the Russian Embassy,
which, in order to rob him of public sympathy, spread
the unfounded report that he had been an agent of
the Russian Government, but was no longer wanted
because he had gone too far. The French Govern
ment, by calculated reticence, encouraged this story,
which clung to him more or less throughout his life.

Being compelled to leave France, he went to
Brussels, where he renewed acquaintance with Marx.
A letter of his, written at this time, shows that he
entertained already that bitter hatred for which
afterward he had so much reason. " The Germans,
artisans, Bornstedt, Marx and Engels and, above
all, Marx are here, doing their ordinary mischief.

40 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

Vanity, spite, gossip, theoretical overbearingness
and practical pusillanimity reflections on life, ac
tion and simplicity, and complete absence of life,
action and simplicity literary and argumentative
artisans and repulsive coquetry with them : Feuer-
bach is a bourgeois, and the word * bourgeois grown
into an epithet and repeated ad nauseum, but all of
them themselves from head to foot, through and
through, provincial bourgeois. With one word, lying
and stupidity, stupidity and lying. In this society
there is no possibility of drawing a free, full breath.
I hold myself aloof from them, and have declared
quite decidedly that I will not join their communistic
union of artisans, and will have nothing to do
with it."

The Revolution of 1848 led him to return to Paris
and thence to Germany. He had a quarrel with
Marx over a matter in which he himself confessed
later that Marx was in the right. He became a mem
ber of the Slav Congress in Prague, where he vainly
endeavored to promote a Slav insurrection. Toward
the end of 1848, he wrote an " Appeal to Slavs,"
calling on them to combine with other revolutionaries
to destroy the three oppressive monarchies, Russia,
Austria and Prussia. Marx attacked him in print,
saying, in effect, that the movement for Bohemian
independence was futile because the Slavs had no
future, at any rate in those regions where they hap-

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 41

pened to be subject to Germany and Austria.
Bakunin accused Marx of German patriotism in
this matter, and Marx accused him of Pan-Slavism,
no doubt in both cases justly. Before this dispute,
however, a much more serious quarrel had tak ;i
place. Marx s paper, the " Neue Rheinische Zeit-
ung," stated that George Sand had papers proving
Bakunin to be a Russian Government agent and one
of those responsible for the recent arrest of Poles.
Bakunin, of course, repudiated the charge, and
George Sand wrote to the " Neue Rheinische
Zeitung," denying this statement in toto. The denials
were published by Marx, and there was a nominal
reconciliation, but from this time onward there was
never any real abatement of the hostility between
these rival leaders, who did riot meet again until 1864.

Meanwhile, the reaction had been everywhere
gaining ground. In May, 1849, an insurrection in
Dresden for a moment made the revolutionaries mas
ters of the town. They held it for five days and
established a revolutionary government. Bakunin
was the soul of the defense which they made against
the Prussian troops. But they were overpowered,
and at last Bakunin was captured while trying to
escape with Heubner and Richard Wagner, the last
of whom, fortunately for music, was not captured.

Now began a long period of imprisonment in
many prisons and various countries. Bakunin was

42 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

sentenced to death on the 14th of January, 1850, but
his sentence was commuted after five months, and he
was delivered over to Austria, which claimed the
privilege of punishing him. The Austrians, in their
turn, condemned him to death in May, 1851, and
again his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for
life. In the Austrian prisons he had fetters on hands
and feet, and in one of them he was even chained to the
wall by the belt. There seems to have been some
peculiar pleasure to be derived from the punishment
of Bakunin, for the Russian Government in its turn
demanded him of the Austrians, who delivered him
up. In Russia he was confined, first in the Peter and
Paul fortress and then in the Schluesselburg;. There
he suffered from scurvy and all his teeth fell out.
His health gave way completely, arid he found almost
all food impossible to assimilate. " But, if his body
became enfeebled, his spirit remained inflexible. He
feared one thing] above all. It was to find himself
some day led, by the debilitating action of prison,
to the condition of degradation of which Silvio Pellico
offers a well-known type. He feared that he might
cease to hate, that he might feel the sentiment of
revolt which upheld him becoming extinguished in
his heart, that he might come to pardon his perse
cutors and resign himself to his fate. But this fear
was superfluous ; his energy did not abandon him a

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 43

single day, and he emerged from his cell the same
man as when he entered." 1

After the death of the Tsar Nicholas many polit
ical prisoners were amnested, but Alexander II with
his own hand erased Bakunin s name from the list.
When Bakunin s mother succeeded in obtaining an
interview with the new Tsar, he said to her, " Know,
Madame, that so long as your son lives, he can never
be free." However, in 1857, after eight years of cap
tivity, he was sent to the comparative freedom of
Siberia. From there, in 1861, he succeeded in escap
ing to Japan, and thence through America to Lon
don. He had been imprisoned for his hostility to
governments, but, strange to say, his sufferings had
not had the intended effect of making him love those
who inflicted them. From this time onward, he
devoted himself to spreading the spirit of Anarchist
revolt, without, however, having to suffer any further
term of imprisonment. For some years he lived in
Italy, where he founded in 1864 an " International
Fraternity " or " Alliance of Socialist Revolution
aries." This contained men of many countries, but
apparently no Germans. It devoted itself largely to
combating Mazzini s nationalism. In 1867 he moved
to Switzerland, where in the following year he
helped to found the " International Alliance of So-

1 Ibid. p. auctl

44 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

cialist Democracy," of which he drew up the pro
gram. This program gives a good succinct resume of
his opinons:

The Alliance declares_itself atheist; it desires the
definitive and entire abolition of classa_and the political
equality and social equalization of individuals of both
spypg. It desires that the earth, the instruinenfTof laborry
like all other capital, becoming the collective property of
society as a whole, shall be no longer able to be utilized
except by the workers, that is to say, by agricultural and
industrial associations. It recognizes that all actually
existing political and authoritarian States, reducing them
selves more and more to the mere administrative func
tions of the public services in their respective countries,
imist disappear in the universal union of free associa
tions, both agricultural and industrial.

The International Alliance of Socialist Demo^
racy desired to become a branch of the International
Working Men s Association, but was refused admis
sion on the ground that branches must be local, and
could not themselves be international. The Geneva
group of the Alliance, however, was admitted later,
in July, 1869.

The International Working Men s Association
had been founded iiiJCondon in 1864, and ils~statutes
and program were drawn up by Marx. Bakunin at
first did not expect it to prove a success and 1 refused
to join it. Biit~lt~spFeaH^with remarkable rapidity

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 45

in many countries and soon became a great power
of Socialist jdeas., Originally

it was by no means wholly Socialist, but in successive
Congresses Marx won it over more and more to his
views. At its jhiroLCoTigTriS^j i n "R mastiff 1<n Septem
ber, 1868, it became definitely Socialist. Meanwhile
Bakunin, regretting his earlier abstention, had
decided to join it, and he brought with him a con
siderable following in French-Switzerland, France,
Spain and Italy. At the fourth Congress, held at
Basle in September, 1869, two currents were strongly
marked. The Germans and English followed Marx
in his belief in the State as it was to become after the
abolition of private property ; they followed him also
in his desire to found Labor Parties in the various
countries, and to utilize the machinery of democracy
for the election o representatives of Labor to Par
liaments. On the other hand, the Latin nations in
the main followed Bakunin in opposing the State and
disbelieving in the machinery of representative gov
ernment. The conflict between these two groups grew
more and more bitter, and each accused the other
of various offenses. The statement that Bakunin
was a spy was repeated, but was withdrawn after
investigation. Marx wrote in a confidential com
munication to his German friends that Bakunin was
an agent of the Pan-Slavist party andl received from
them 25,000 francs a year. Meanwhile, Bakunin

46 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

became for a time interested in the attempt to stir
up an agrarian revolt in Russia, and this led him
to neglect the contest in the International at a crucial
moment. During the Franco-Prussian war Bakunin
passionately took the side of France, especially after
the fall of Napoleon III. He endeavored to rouse
the people to revolutionary resistance like that of
1793, and became involved in an abortive attempt at
revolt in Lyons. The French Government accused
him of being a paid agent of Prussia, and it was
with difficulty that he escaped to Switzerland. The
dispute with Marx and his followers had become
exacerbated by the national dispute. Bakunin, like
Kropotkin after him, regarded the new power of
Germany as the greatest menace to liberty in the
world. He hated the Germans with a bitter hatred,
partly, no doubt, on account of Bismarck, but prob
ably still more on account of Marx. To this day,
Anarchism) has remained confined almost exclusively
to the Latin countries, and has been associateoTwith a
hatred of Germany, growing out of the contests
between Marx and Bakumn in the International.

The final suppression of Bakunin s faction
occurred at the General Congress of the Interna
tional at the Hague in 1872. The meeting-place was
chosen by the General Council (in which Marx was
unopposed), with a view so Bakunin s friends con
tend to making 1 access impossible for Bakunin (on

hAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 47

account of the hostility of the French and Germian
governments) and difficult for his) friends. Bakuriin
was expelled from the International as the result of
a report accusing him inter aim of theft backed up
by intimidation.

The orthodoxy of the International was saved,
but at the cost of its vitality. From this time onward,
it ceased to be itself a power, but both sections con
tinued to work in their various groups, and the Social
ist groups in particular grew rapidly. Ultimately
a new International was formed (1889) which con
tinued down to the outbreak of the present war. As
to the future of International Socialism it would be
rash to prophesy, though it would seem that the
international idea has acquired sufficient strength to
need again, after the war, some such means of expres
sion as it found before in Socialist congresses.

By this time Bakunin s health was broken, and
except for a few brief intervals, he lived in retirement
until his death in 1876.

Bakunin s life, unlike Marx s, was a very stormy
one. Every kind of rebellion against authority
always aroused his sympathy, and in his support he
never paid the slightest attention to personal risk.
His influence, undoubtedly very great, arose chiefly
through the influence of his personality upon impor
tant individuals. His writings differ from Marx s as
much as his life does, and in a similar way. They are

48 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

chaotic, largely aroused by some passing occasion,
abstract and metaphysical, except when they deal
with current politics. He does not come to close
quarters with economic facts, but dwells usually in
the regions of theory and metaphysics. When he
descends from these regions, he is much more at the
mercy of current international politics than Marx,
much less imbued with the consequences of the belief
that it is economic causes that are fundamental. He
praised Marx for enunciating this doctrine, 1 but
nevertheless continued to think in terms of nations.
His longest work, " L Empire Knouto-Germanique et
la Revolution Sociale," is mainly concerned with the
situation in France during the later stages of the
Franco-Prussian War, and with the means of resist
ing German imperialism. Most of his writing was
done in a hurry in the interval between two insurrec
tions. There is something of Anarchism in his lack
of literary order. His best-known work is a frag
ment entitled by its editors " God and the State." 2

1 " Marx, as a thinker, is on the right road. He has estab
lished as a principle that all the evolutions, political, religious,
ard juridical, in history are, not the causes, but the effects of
economic evolutions. This is a great and fruitful thought, which
he has not absolutely invented ; it has been glimpsed, expressed
in part, by many others besides him; but in any case to him
belongs the honor of having solidly established it and of having
enunciated it as the basis of his whole economic system. (1870;
ib. ii. pj xiii.)

"This title is not Bakunin s, but was invented by Cafiero
and Elise~e Reclus, who edited it, not knowing that it was a
fragment of what was intended to be the second version of
"L Empire Knouto-Gennanique " (see ib. ii. p 283).

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM *9

In tliis work he represents belief in God and belief in
the State as the two great obstacles to human liberty.
A typical passage will serve to illustrate its style.

The State is not society, it is only an historical form
of it, as brutal as it is abstract. It was born historically
in all countries of the marriage of violence, rapine, pil
lage, in a word, war and conquest, with the gods suc
cessively created by the theological fantasy of nations.
It has been from its origin, and it remains still at present,
the divine sanction of brutal force and triumphant
inequality.

The State is authority; it is force; it is the ostenta
tion and infatuation of force: it does not insinuate
itself; it does not seek to convert. . . . Even when
it commands what is good, it hinders and spoils it, just
because it commands it, and because every command pro
vokes and excites the legitimate revolts of liberty; and
because the good, from the moment that it is commanded,
becomes evil from the point of view of true morality, of
human morality (doubtless not of divine), from the point
of view of human respect and of liberty. Liberty, mor
ality, and the human dignity of man consist precisely
in this, that he does good, not because it is commanded,
but because he conceives it, wills it and loves it.

We do not find in Bakunin s works a clear pic
ture of the society at which he aimed, or any argu
ment to prove that such a society could be stable.
If we wish to understand Anarchism we must turn

4

50 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

to his followers, and especially to Kropotkin like
him, a Russian aristocrat familiar with the prisons
of Europe, and, like him, an Anarchist who, in spite
of his internationalism, is imbued wijbh a fiery /hatred
of the Germans.

Kropotkin has devoted much oLWs writing to
technical questions of production. In " Fields, Fac
tories and Workshops " and " The Conquest of
Bread " he has set himself to prove that, if produc
tion were more scientific and better organized, a
comparatively small amount of quite agreeable work
would suffice to keep the whole population in com
fort. Even assuming, as we probably must, that he
somewhat exaggerates what is possible with our
present scientific knowledge, it must nevertheless be
conceded that his contentions contain a very large
measure of truth. In attacking the subject of pro
duction he has shown that he knows what is the really
crucial question. If civilization and progress are to
be compatible with equality, it is necessary that
equality should not involve long hours of painful
toil for little more than the necessaries of life, since,
where there is no leisure, art and science will die and
all progress will become impossible. The objection
which some feel to Socialism and Anarchism alike on
this ground cannot be upheld in view of the possible
productivity of labor.

The system at which Kropotkin aims, whether or

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 51

not it be possible, is certainly one winch demands a
very great improvement in the methods of produc
tion above what is common at present. He desires
to abolish wholly the system of wages, not only, as
most Socialists do, in the sense that a man is to be
paid rather for his willingness to work than for the
actual work demanded of him, but in a more funda
mental sense: there is to be no obligation to work,,
and all things are to be shared in equal proportions
among the whole population. Kropotkin relies upon
the possibility of making work pleasant: he holds
thatTnTsuch a^commiinity as he foresees, practically
everyone will prefer work to idleness, because work will
not involve overwork or slavery, or that excessive
specialization that industrialism has brought about,
but will be merely a pleasant activity for certain
hours of the day, giving a man an outlet for his spon
taneous constructive impulses. There is to be no
compulsion, no law, no government exercising force;
there will still be acts of the community, but these /"
are to spring from universal consent, not from any \
enforced submission of even the smallest minority^r
We shall examine in a later chapter how far such
an ideal is realizable, but it cannot be denied that
Kropotkin presents it with extraordinary persuasive
ness and charm.

We should be doing more than justice to Anar
chism if w did not say something of its darker side,

52 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

the side which has brought it into conflict with the
police and! made it a word of terror to ordinary citi
zens. In its general doctrines there is nothing essen
tially involving) violent methods or a virulent hatred
of the rich, and many who adopt these general doc
trines are/ personally gentle and temperamentally
averse from violence. But the general tone of the
Anarchist press and public is bitter to a degree that
seems scarcely sane, and the appeal, especially in
Latin countries, is rather to envy of the fortunate
than to pity for the unfortunate. A vivid and read
able, though not wholly reliable, account, from a
hostile point of view, is given in a book called " Le
Peril Anarchiste," by Felix Dubois, 1 which incident
ally reproduces a number of cartoons from anarchist
journals. The revolt against law naturally_jeads^
except in those who are controlled by a real passion
for humanity, to a relaxation of all_the usually
accepted moral rules^ ^^^^a_bitter_spirit jQJLjCtal-
iatory cruelty out of which good can hardly come.

One of the most curious Teatures of popular
Anarchism is its martyrology, aping Christian forms,
with the guillotine (in France) in place of the cross.
Many who have suffered death at the hands of the
authorities on account of acts of violence were no
doubt genuine sufferers for their belief in a cause,
but others, equally honored, are more questionable.

1 Paris, 1894.

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 53

One of the most curious examples of this outlet for
the repressed religious impulse is the cult of Ilava-
chol, who was guillotined in 1892 on account of
various dynamite outrages. His past was dubious,
but he died defiantly ; his last words were three lines
from a well-known Anarchist song, the " Chant du
Pere Duchesne":

Si tu veux etre heureux,

Nom de Dieu!
Pends ton proprietaire.

As was natural, the leading Anarchists took no part
in the canonization of his memory; nevertheless it
proceeded, with the most amazing extravagances.

It would be wholly unfair to judge Anarchist
doctrine, or the views of its leading exponents, by
such phenomena; but it remains a fact that Anar-
J^^l^tl-rHltg^ itsolf much thatTielTrnrtlie border^"
land of insanit

1 The attitude of all the better Anarchists is that expressed
by L. S. Bevington in the words: "Of course we know that
among those who call themselves Anarchists there are a minority
of unbalanced enthusiasts who look upon every illegal and sensa
tional act of violence as a matter for hysterical jubilation.
Very useful to the police and the press, unsteady in intellect
and of weak moral principle, they have repeatedly shown them
selves accessible to venal considerations. They, and their vio
lence, and their professed Anarchism are purchasable, and in.
the last resort they are welcome and efficient partisans of the
bourgeoisie in its renorseless Avar against the deliverers of the
people." His conclusion is, a very wise one: "Let us leave indis
criminate killing and injuring to the Government to its States
men, its Stockbrokers, its Officers, and its Law." ("Anarchism
and Violence," pp. 9-10. Liberty Press, Chiswick, 1896.)

54 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

remembered in exculpation of the authorities and
the thoughtless public, who often confound in a com
mon detestation the parasites of the movement and
the truly heroic and high-minded men who have elab
orated its theories and sacrificed comfort and suc
cess to their propagation.

The terrorist campaign in which such men as
Ravachol were active practically came to an end in
1894. After that time, under the influence of Pel-
loutier, the better sort of Anarchists found a less
harmful outlet by advocating Revolutionary Syndi
calism in the Trade Unions and Bourses du Travail*

The economic organization of society, as con
ceived by Anarchist Communists, does not differ
greatly from that which is sought by Socialists.
Their difference from Socialists is in the matter of
government: they demand that government shall
require the consent of all the governed, and not only
of a majority. It is undeniable that the rule of a
majority may be almost as hostile to freedom as the
rule of a minority: the divine right of majorities is a
dogma as little possessed of absolute truth as any
other. A strong democratic State may easily be led
into oppression of its best citizens, namely, those
whose independence of mind would make them a force
for progress. Experience of democratic parliamen
tary government has shown that it falls very far

1 See next Chapter.

BAKUNIN AND ANARCHISM 55

short of what was expected of it by early Socialists,
and the Anarchist revolt against it is not surprising.
But in the form of pure Anarchism, this revolt has
remained weak and sporadic. It is Syndicalism, and
the movements to which Syndicalism has given rise,
that have popularized the revolt against parliamen
tary government and purely political means of eman
cipating the wage-earner. But this movement must
be dealt with in a separate chapter.

CHAPTER III

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT

SYNDICALISM arose in France as a revolt against
political Socialism, and in order to understand it
we must trace in brief outline the positions attained
by Socialist parties in the various countries.

After a severe setback, caused by the Franco-
Prussian war, Socialism gradually revived, and in all
the countries of Western Europe Socialist parties
have increased their numerical strength almost con
tinuously during the last forty years; but, as is
invariably the case with a growing sect, the intensity
o fjajjyi^as.-xiiminisTie3as the number Q| kpligyf^rfe
has increased.

In Germany the Socialist party became the
strongest faclion of ~the -Reichstag, and, in spite of
difference^" of oj^ibir"aniolig~Ifs members, it pre
served its formal unity with that instinct for military
discipline which characterizes the German nation.
In the Reichstag election of 1912 it polled a third
of the total number of votes cast, and returned 110
members out of a total of 397. After the death of
Bebel, the Revisionists, who received their first
impulse from Bernstein, ovecame the miore strict
56

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 57

Marxians, and the party became in effect merely one
of advanced Radicalism. It is too soon to guess what
will be the effect of the split between Majority and
Minority Socialists which has occurred during the
war. There is in Germany hardly a trace of Syndi
calism; its characteristic doctrine, the preference of
industrial to political action, has found scarcely
any support.

In England Marx has never had many followers.
Socialism there has been inspired in the main by the
Fabians (founded__m 1883), who threw -over .. the
advocacy of revolution, the Marxian doctrine of
value, ancPEKe class-war. What remained was State
Socialism and a doctrine of " permeation." Civil I
servants were to be permeated with the realization \
that Socialism would enormously increase their j
power. Trade Unions were to be permeated with the I
belief that the day for purely industrial action was
past, andj that they must look to government (inspired
secretly by sympathetic civil servants) to bring
about, bit by bit, such parts of the Socialist program
as were not likely to rouse much hostility in the rich.
The Independent Labor Party (formed in 1893) was
largely inspired at first by the ideas of the Fabians,
though retaining to the present day, and especially
since the outbreak of the war, much more of the
original Socialist ardor. It aimed always at
co-operation with the Industrial organizations of

58

PROPOSED EOADS TO FREEDOM

wage-earners, and, chiefly through its efforts, the
Labor-Party ^_wa. formed in 1900 out of a com
bination of the Trade Unions and the political
Socialists. To this party, since 1909^aJ] th^ impor
tant Unions have belonged, but in spite of the fact
^that its strength is derived from Trade Unions, it
Jias stood jil ways for political rather thanrndustriaT
action. Its Socialism has been of a theoretical and
academic order, and in practice, until the outbreak
of war, the Labor members in Parliament (of whom
30 were elected in 1906 and 42 in December, 1910)
might be reckoned almost as a part of the Liberal
Party.

France, unlike England and Germany, was not
content merely to repeat the old shibboleths with con
tinually diminishing conviction. In France 2 a new
movement, originally known as Revolutionary Syn
dicalism and afterward simply as Syndicalism
kept alive the vigpr of the original impulse, and
remained true to the spirit of the older Socialists,
while departing from the letter. Syndicalism, unlike
Socialism and Anarchism, began f rom aiT~exi?tin^
organl^att6"iT~"aTid developed tile icfeas appropriate

1 Of which the Independent Labor Party is only a section.

a And also in Italy. A good, short account of the Italian
movement is given by A. Lanzillo, " Le Mouvement Ouvrier en
Italic/ Bibliotheque du Mouvement Proletaries See also Paul
Louis, " Le Syndicalisms European," chap. vi. On the other
hand Cole ("World of Labour," chap, vi) considers the strength
of genuine Syndicalism in Italy to be small.

THE SYNDICALIST REVQLT 59

to it, whereas Socialism and Anarchism began wijbk
tEelHeas and only afterward developed the organiza
tions which were their vehicle. In order to under
stand Syndicalism, we have first to describe Trade
Union organization in France, and its political
environment. The ideas of Syndicalism will then
appear as the natural outcome of the political and
economic situation. Hardly any of these ideas are
new; almost all are derived from the Bakunist sec
tion of the old International. 1 The old International
had considerable success in France before the Franco-
Prussian War; indeed, in 1869, it is estimated to
have had a French membership of a quarter of a mil
lion. What is practically the Syndicalist program
was advocated by a French delegate to the Congress
of the International at Bale in that same year. 2

The war of 1870 put an end for the time being
to tEe Socialist Movement in France. Its revival^
was begun by Jules Guesde in 1877. Unlike the Ger-

1 This is often recognized by Syndicalists themselves. See,
e.g., an article on " The Old International " in the Syndicalist
of February, 1913, which, after giving an account of the struggle
between Marx and Bakunin from the standpoint of a sympathizer
with the latter, says: "Bakounin s ideas are now more alive
than, ever."

2 See pp. 42-43, and ICO of " Syndicalism in France," Louis
Levine, Ph.D. (Columbia University Studies in Political Science,
vol. xlvi, No. 3.) This is a very objective and reliable account
of the origin and progress of French Syndicalism. An admirable
short discussion of its ideas and its present position will be
found in Cole s "World of Labour" (G. Bell & Sons), especially
chapters iii, iv, and xi.

60 PROPOSED IIOADS TO FREEDOM

man Socialists, the French have been split into many
different factions. In lihlTearly eighties there was a
split between the Pa7IiamTnlar^S^aliot3 and-ibe
A Y1 > - rf -h 1 s ^ s - The latter thought that the

first act of the SociaT Revolution should be the
destruction of the State, and would therefore have
nothing to do with Parliamentary politics. The
Anarchists, from 1883 onward, had success in Paris
and the South. The Socialists contended that the
State will disappear after the Socialist society has
been firmly established. In 1882 the Socialists split
between the followers of Guesde, who claimed to rep
resent the revolutionary and scientific Socialism of
Marx, and the followers of Paul Brousse, who were
more opportunist and were also called possibilists
and cared little for the theories of Marx. In 1890
there was a secession from the Broussists, who fol
lowed Allemane and absorbed the more revolutionary
elements of the party and became leading spirits in
some of the strongest syndicates. Another group
was the Independent Socialists, among whom were
Jaures, Millerand and Viviani. 1

The disputes between the various sections of
Socialists caused difficulties in the Trade Unions and
helped to bring about the resolution to keep politics
out of tihf T TTr nfng From this to Syndicalism was
an easy step. ___ _., ______

1 See Levine, op. cit., chap. ii.

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 61

Since the year 1905, as the result of a union
between the Parti Socialiste de France {Parti Ouv-
rier Socialiste Revolutionnaire Francais led by
Gucsde) and the Parti Socialiste Francais ( Jaurcs),
there have been only two groups of Socialists, the
L T nited Socialist Party and the Independents, who
are intellectuals or not willing to be tied to a party.
At the General Election of 1914 the former secured
102 members and the latter 30, out of a total of 590.
Tendencies toward a rapprochement between the
various groups were seriously interfered with by an
event which had considerable importance for the
whole development of advanced political ideas in
France, namely, the acceptance of office in the Wal-
deck-Rousseau Ministry by the Socialist Millerand
in 1899. Millerand, as was to be expected, soon
ceased to be a Socialist, and the opponents of polit
ical action pointed to his development as showing
the vanity of political triumphs. Very many French,
politicians who have risen to power have begun their

political career as Socialists^ and have endeo^ jJLaoJb

infrequently by employing the army to oppress

strikers. Millerand s action was the most notable

and dramatic among a number of others of a similar

^kmd JL __JTheir cumulative effect has been to produce a

. certain cynicism in regard to politics among the more

class-conscious of French wage-earners, arid this

62 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM-

state of mind greatly assisted the spread of Syndi
calism.

Syndicalism stands essentially for the point of

view~oFtKe producer as opposed to that of the con
sumer ; Tt is concerned with reforming actual work,
and the organization _of -industry, not^merely jrjtb-
securing greaterjgwardsf or work. From this point
of view its vigor and its distinctive character are
derived. It aims at substituting industrial for politi
cal action, and at using Trade Union organization
for purposes for_which orthodox Socialism would
look to Parliament. " Syndicalism " was originally
only the French" name for Trade Unionism, but the
Trade Unionists of France became divided into two
sections, the Reformist and the Revolutionary, of
whom the latter only professed the ideas which we
now associate with the term " Syndicalism." It is
quite impossible to guess how far either the organiza
tion or the ideas of the Syndicalists will remain intact
at the end of the war, and everything that we shall say
is k> be taken as applying only to the years before
the war. It may be that French Syndicalism as a
distinctive movement will be dead, but even in that
case it will not have lost its importance, since it has
given a new impulse and direction to the more vigor
ous part of the labor movement in all civilized coun
tries, with the possible exception of Germany.

The organization upon which Syndicalism de

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 63

pended was the Confederation Generate du Travail, .
commonly known as the C. G. T., which was founded ,%
in 1895, but only achieved its final form in 1902. It ^
has never been numerically very powerful, but has
derived its influence from the fact that in moments
of crisis many who were not members were willing
to follow its guidance. Its membership in the year
before the war is estimated by Mr. Cole at some
what more than half a million. Trade Unions (Syn
dicate) were legalized by Waldeck-Rousseau in 1884,
and the C. G. T., on its inauguration in 1895, was
formed by the Federation of 700 Syndicats. Along
side of this organization there existed another, the
Federation des Bourses du Travail, formed in 1893.
A Bourse du Travail is a local organization, not of
any one trade, but of local labor in general, intended
to serve as a Labor Exchange and to perform such
functions for labor as Chambers of Commerce per
form for the employer. 1 A ^j/T^ic^J^ln general
a local organization o a single industry, and is thus
a smaller unit than the Bourse du Travail. 2 Under
the able leadership of Pelloutier, the Federation des
Bourses prospered more than the C. G. T., and at
last, in 1902, coalesced with it. The result was an
organization in which the local Syndicat was fed-

1 Cole, ib., p. 65. }

3 " Syndieat in France still means a local union there are
at the present day only four national syndieais " (ib., p. 66).

64 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

crated twice over, once with the other Syndicat in
its locality, forming together the local Bourse du
Travail, and again with the Syndicats in the same
industry in other places. " It was the purpose of the
new organization to secure twice over the membership
of every syndicat, to get it to join both its local
Bourse du Travail and the Federation of its industry.
The Statutes of the C. G. T. (I. 3) put this point
plainly : * No Syndicat will be able to form a part of
the C. G. T. if it is not federated nationally and an,
adherent of a Bourse du Travail or a local or depart
mental Union of Syndicats grouping different asso
ciations. Thus, M. Lagardelle explains, the two sec
tions will correct each other s point of view: national
federation of industries will prevent parochialism!
(localisme), and local organization will check the cor
porate or * Trade Union spirit. The workers will
learn at once the solidarity of all workers in a locality
and that of all workers in a trade, and, in learning
this, they w r ill learn at the same time the complete
solidarity of the whole working-class." 1

This organization was largely the work of Pellou-
ties, who was Secretary of the Federation des Bourses
from 1894 until his death in 1901. He was an Anar
chist Communist and impressed his ideas upon the
Federation and thence posthumously on the C. G. T.
after its combination with the Federation des

1 Cole, ib. p. C9.

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 65

Bourses. He even carried his principles into the
government of the Federation ; the Committee had
no chairman and votes very rarely took place. He
stated that " the task of the revolution is to free
mankind, not only from all authority, but also from
every institution which has not for its essential pur
pose the development of production."

The C. G. T. allows much, autonomy to each unit
in the organization. Each Syndicat counts for one,
whether it be large or small. There are not the
friendly society activities which form so large a part
of the work of English Unions. It gives no
but is purely advisory. It docs net allow politics
to be introduced into the Unions. This decision w^s
originally based upon the fact that the divisions
among Socialists disrupted the Unions, but it is now
reinforced in the minds of an important section by
the general Anarchist dislike of politics. The C. G.
T. is essentially a fighting organization ; in strikes, it
is the nucleus to which the other workers rally.

There is a Reformist section in the C. G. T., but
it is practically always in a minority, and the C. G.
T. is, to all intents and purposes, the organ of
revolutionary Syndicalism, which is simply the creed
of its leaders.

The essential doctrine of Syndicalism is the class-
war, to be conducted by industrial rather than politi-
5

6.6 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM-

cal methods. The chief^i^us^al_methods advocated
are the strike, thje boycott,_the label and sabotage.

The boycott, in varipus forms, and the label,
shewing that tke work has been done under trade-
umorf conditions, have p]ajed a_ considerable part
in American labor struggles. ^^

.Sabotage is the practice of doing bad work, or
spoiling machinery or wnrk_which has aTrpady been
done, as a method of dealing with employers in a
dispute when a strike appearsi for some reason unde
sirable or impossible. It has many forms, some
clearly innocent, some open to grave objections. One
form of sabotage which has been adopted by shop
assistants is to tell customers the truth abmit the
articles they are buying; this form, however it may
damage the shopkeeper s business, is not easy to
object to on moral grounds. A form which has been
adopted on railways, particularly in Italian strikes,
is that qf obeying all rules literally and exactly, in
such a way as to make the running of trains prac
tically impossible. Another form is to do all the
work with minute care,, so that in the end it is better
done, but the output is .small. From these innocent
" forms there is a continual progression, until we come
to such acts as ah 1 ordinary morality would con
sider criminal; for example, causing railway acci
dents. Advocates of sabotage justify it as part of
war, but in its more violent forms (in which it is

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 67,

seldom defended) it is cruel and probably inexpedient,
while even in its milder forms it^ mustjtead to encour
age slovenly habits of work, which might easily.jper- V--
sist under the new regime that the Syndicalists wish
At the same time, when capitalists

express a moral horror of this method, it is worth
while to observe that they themselves are the first
to practice it when the occasion seems tp them appro
priate. If report speaks truly, an example of this
on a very large scale has been seen during the Rus
sian Revolution.

By far the most important of the Syndicalist
methods is the strike. Ordinary strikes, for specific
objects, are regarded as rehearsals, as a means of
perfecting organization and promoting enthmsiasm,
but even when they are victorious so far as concerns
the specific point in dispute, they are not regarded
by Syndicalists as affording any ground for indus
trial peace. Syndicalists aim at ..usjng^the _strike,
not to secure such improvements of detail as employ-
erT~mlay"grant, but to Jgj^.gjJi!lfi ...i^nHT^^nrTTif
employer and e^np^o^ed^and win the complete eman
cipation- of ifoe^wjarker, For this purpose what is
wanted is the Getlelral lltnl^ the complete cessation
of work by a sufficient proportion of the wage-earners
to secure the 1 paralysis of capitalism. Sorel, who
represents Syndicalism too much in the minds of the
reading publifc, suggests that the General Strike is to

68 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM-

be regarded as a myth, like the Second Coming in
Christian doctrine. But this view by no means suits
the active Syndicalists. If they were brought to
believe that the General Strike is a mere myth, their
energy would flag, and their whole outlook would
become disillusioned. It is the actual, vivid belief
in its possibility which inspires them. They are much
criticised for this belief by the political Socialists,
who consider that the battle is to be won by obtaining
a Parliamentary majority. But Syndicalists have
too little faith in the honesty of politicians to place
any reliance on such a method or to believe in the
value of any revolution which leaves the power of the
State intact.

Syndicalist aims are somewhat less definite than
Syndicalist methods. The intellectuals who endeavor
to interpret them.; not always very faithfully rep
resent them as a party of movement and change,
following a Bcrgsonian elan vital, without needing
any very clear prevision of the goal to which it is to
take them. Nevertheless, the negative part, at any
rate, of their objects is sufficiently clear.

They wish to destroy the State, which they
^regard as a capitalist institution, designed essen
tially to terrorize the workers. They refuse to
believe that it would be any better under State Social
ism. They desire t a see e ach industry sel f -governing,
but as to the means of adjusting the relations between

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 69

different industries, they are not very clear. They
are anti-militarist because they are anti-State, and
because French troops have often been employed
against them in strikes ; also because they are inter
nationalists, who believe that the sole interest of the
worklngfmian everywhere is to free himself from the
tyranny of the capitalist. Their outlook on life is
the very reverse of pacifist, but they oppose wars
between States on the ground that these are not
fought for objects that in any way concern the
workers. Their anti-militarism, more than anything
else, brought them into conflict with the authorities
in the years preceding the war. But, as was to be
expected, it did not survive the actual invasion of
France.

The doctrines of Syndicalism may be illustrated
by an article introducing it to English readers in
the first number of " The Syndicalist Railwayman,"
September, 1911, from which the following is quoted :

"All Syndicalism, Collectivism, Anarchism aims at
abolishing the present economic status and existing pri
vate ownership of most things; but while Collectivism
would substitute ownership by everybody, and Anarchism
ownership by nobody T Syndicalism aims at ownership by
Orp-nrug^fi T.nfrni* It is thus a purely Trade Union:

^- * fc ^ fc r M -: -^ -- -, - - -" m ~ *** ^

reading of the economic doctrine ana tlie class war
preached by Socialism. It vehemently repudiates Par
liamentary action on which Collectivism relies ; and it is,

70 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

in this respect, much more closely allied! to Anarchism,
from which, indeed, it differs in practice, only in being
more limited in range of action." (Times, Aug. 25, 1911).

In truth, so thin is the partition between Syndicalism
and Anarchism that the newer and less familiar " ism "
has been shrewdly defined as " Organized Anarchy." It
has been created by the Trade LJnions_of .France; but it
i obviously an international plant, whose roots have
already found the soil of Britain most congenial te its
growth and fructification.

Collectivist or Marxian Socialism would have us. be
lieve that it is distinctly a Labor Movement; but it is
not so. Neither is Anarchism. The one is substantially
bourgeois; the other arittecratic, plus a abundant output
of book-learning, in either case. Syndicalism, on the con
trary, is indubitably laborist in origin and aim, owing
next to nothing to the " Classes," and, indeed, resolute to
uproot them. The Times (Oct. 13, 1910), which almost
single-handed in the British Press has kept creditably
abreast of Continental Syndicalism, thus clearly set forth
the significance of the General Strike:

"To understand what it means, we must remember
that there is in France a powerful Labor Organization,
which ha,s for its open and avowed object a Revolution,
in which not only the present order of Society, but the
State itself, is to be swept away. This movement is called
Syndicalism. It is not Socialism, but, on the contrary,
radically opposed to Socialism, because the Syndicalists
Ijold that the State is the great enemy and tfiat the
Socialists ideal of State or Collectivist Ownership wsuld

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 71

make the lot of the Workers much worse than it is now
under private employers. The means by which they hope
to attain their end is the General Strike, an idea which
was invented by a French workman about twenty years
ago, 1 and was adopted by the French Labor Congress in
1894, after a furious battle with the Socialists, in which
the latter were worsted. Since then the General Strike
has been the avowed policy of the Syndicalists, whose
orgjanization is the Confederation Generale du Travail."
Or, to put it otherwise, the intelligent French worker
has awakened, as he believes, to the fact that Society
(Societas) and the! State (Civitas) connote two separable
spheres of human activity, between which there is no con
nection, necessary or desirable. Without the one, man,
being a gregarious animal, cannot subsist: while without
the other he would simply be in clover. The " states
man " whom office does not render positively nefarious
is at best an txpensive superfluity.

Syndicalists have had many violent encounters
with the forces of government. In 1907 and 1908,
protesting against bloodshed which had occurred in
the suppression of strikes, the Committee of the C.
G. T. issued manifestoes speaking of the Crovern-
ment as " a Government of assassins " and alluding
to the Prime Minister as " Clemencean the murderer."
Similar events in the strike at Villeneuve St. Georges
in 1908 led to the arrest of all the leading members

1 Trt fact the General Strike was invented \Sy a Londoner,
William Benbow, an Owenite, in 1831.

72 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

of the Committee. In, the railway strike of October,
1910, Monsieur Briand arrested the Strike Com
mittee, mobilized the railway men and sent soldiers
to replace strikers. As a result of these vigorous
measures the strike was completely defeated, and
after this the chief energy of the C. G. T. was directed
against militarism and nationalism.

The attitude of Anarchism to the Syndicalist
movement is sympathetic, with the reservation that
such methods as the General Strike are not to be
regarded as substitutes for the violent revolution
which most Anarchists consider necessary. Their
attitude in this matter was defined at the Interna
tional Anarchist Congress held in Amsterdam in
August, 1907. This Congress recommended " com
rades of all countries to actively participate in auton
omous movements of the working 1 class, and to
develop in Syndicalist organizations the ideas of
revolt, individual initiative and solidarity, which are
the essence of Anarchism." Comrades were to
" propagate and support only those forms and mani
festations of direct action which carry, in them
selves, a revolutionary character and lead to the
transformation of society." It was resolved that
"the Anarchists think that the destruction of the
capitalist and authoritary society can only be real
ized by armed insurrection and violent expropriation,
and that the use of the more or less General Strike

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 73

and the Syndicalist movement must not make us
forget the more direct means of struggle against
the military force of government."

Syndicalists might retort that when the move
ment is strong enough to win by armed insurrection
it will be abundantly strong enough to win by the
General Strike. In Labor movements generally, suc-
cessl through violence can hardly be expected except
in circumstances where success without violence is
attainable. This argument alone, even if there were
no other, would be a very powerful reason against
the methods advocated by the Anarchist Congress.

Syndicalism stands for what is known as indus
trial unionism as opposed to craft unionism. In this
respect, as also in the preference of industrial to
political methods, it is part of a movement which
has spread far beyond France. The distinction
between industrial and craft unionism is much dwelt
on by Mr. Cole. Craft unionism " unites in a single
association those workers who are engaged on a single
industrial process, or on processes so nearly akin
that any one can do another s work." But " organ
ization may follow the lines, not of the work done,
but of the actual structure of industry. All workers
working at producing a particular kind of com
modity may be organized in a single Union. . . .
The basis of organization would be neither the craft
to which a man belonged nor the employer under

74 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

whom he worked, but the service on which he was
engaged. This is Industrial Unioiiism properly
so called. 1

Industrial unionism is a product of America,
and from America it has to some extent spread to
Great Britain. It is the natural form of fighting
organization when the union is regarded as the means
of carrying on the class war with a view, not to
obtaining this or that minor amelioration, but to a
radical revolution in the economic system. Shis is
the point of view adopted by the " Industrial Work
ers of the World," commonly known as the I. W. W.
This organization more or less corresponds in Amer
ica to what the G. G. T. was in France before the
war. The differences between the two are those due
to the different economic circumstances of the two
countries, but their spirit is closely analogous. The
I. W. W. is not united as to the ultimate form which
it wishes society to take. There are Socialists, Anar
chists and Syndicalists among its members. But it
is clear on the immediate practical issue, that the
class war is the fundamental reality in the present
relations of labor and capital, and that it is by
industrial action, especially by the strike, that eman
cipation must be sought. The I. W. W., like the
C. G. T., is not nearly so strong numerically as it is
supposed to be by those who fear it, Its influence

1 " World of~Lab<xir," pp< 212, 213.

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 75

is based, not upon its numbers, but upon its power
of enlisting the sympathies of the workers in moments
of crisis.

The labor movement in America has been char
acterized on both sides by very great violence. Indeed,
the Secretary of the C. G. T., Monsieur Jouhaux,
recognizes that the C. G. T. is mild in comparison
with the I. W. W. "The I. W. W.," he says,
" preach a policy of militant action, very necessary
in parts of America, which would not do in France." 1
A very interesting! account of it, from the point of
view of an author who is neither wholly on the side
of labor nor wholly on the side of the capitalist, but
disinterestedly anxious to find some solution of the
social question short of violence and revolution, is
the work of Mr. Jolin Graham Brooks, called! "Amer
ican Syndicalism : the I, W. W." (Macmillan, 1913).
American labor conditions are very different from
those of Europe. In the first place, the power of the
trusts is enormous ; the concentration of capital has
in this respect proceeded more nearly on Marxian
lines in America than anywhere else. In the second
place, the great influx of foreign labor makes the
whole problem quite different from any that arises
in Europe. The older skilled workers, largely Amer
ican born, have long been organized in the American
1 Quoted in Cole, ib. p. 128.

76 PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM

Federation of Labor under Mr. Gornpers. These
represent an aristocracy of labor. They tend to
work with the employers against the great mass of
unskilled immigrants, and they cannot be regarded as
forming part of anything that could be truly called
a labor movement. " There are," says Mr. Cole,
" now in America two working classes, with different
standards of life, and both are at present almost
impotent in the face of the employers. Nor is it pos
sible for these two classes to unite or to put for
ward any demands. . . . The American Federa
tion of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the
World represent two different principles of com
bination; but they also represent two different
classes of labor." 1 The I. W. W. stands for indus
trial unionism, whereas the American Federation of
Labor stands for craft unionism. The I. W. W. were
formed in 1905 by a union of organizations, chief
among which was the Western Federation of Miners,
which dated from 1892. They suffered a split by the
loss of the followers of Dclcon, who was the leader of
the " Socialist Labor Party " and advocated a
" Don t vote" policy, while reprobating violent
methods. The headquarters of the party which he
formed are at Detroit, and those of the main body
are at Chicago. The I. W- W., though it has a less
~ Ib., p. 135.

THE SYNDICALIST REVOLT 77

definite philosophy than French Syndicalism, is quite
equally determined to destroy the capitalist system.
As its secretary has said : " There is but one bargain
the I. W. W. will make with the employing class
complete surrender of all control of industry to the
organized worker*" 1 Mr. Haywood, of the West
ern Federation of Miners, is an out-and-out follower
of Marx so far as concerns the class war and the
doctrine of surplus value. But, like all who are in
this movement, he attaches more importance to indus
trial as against political action than do the Euro
pean followers of Marx. This is no doubt partly
explicable by the special circumstances of, America,
where the recent immigrants are apt to be voteless.
The fourth convention of the I. W. W. revised a
preamble giving the general principles underlying
its action. " The working class and the employing
class," they say, " have nothing in common. There
can be no peace so long as hunger and want are
found among millions of the working people and the
few, who make up the employing class, have all the
good things of life. Between these two classes, a
struggle must go on until the workers of the world
organize as a class, take possession of the earth and
the machinery of production, and abolish the wage
sys