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r.OMRAHF KRO' 




4^4 





PKTIiK ALEXEIVITCH KKdPOTKIN 
Born in the 0)d Esquerries' Quarter of Moscow in 



LIVES OF GREAT ALTRURIANS 



COMRADE KROPOTKIN 



vr 
ViaOR ROBINSON 



**71? liberate one's country T she 
said, ^''It is terrible even to utter 
those words ^ they are so grands 
TuBGENEv: ''On the Eve." 



PRICK, ONC DOLLAR 

THE ALTRURIANS 

12 MouKT Morris Park West 

New York City 

1908 



I. V 






V 



This book is not copyrighted^ 
How could it be? 




HARVARD 

UNIVERSITY 

LIBRARY 

OCT 20 1960 



8 Comrade KropotTdn 

fell dead on the spot. The emperor spent 
his time reviewing troops and altering uni- 
forms.* If an officer appeared in the streets 
with the hooks of his uncomfortable collar 
unfastened, he was liable to be degraded 
to the rank of a common soldier and de- 
ported to some distant province. It a 
soldier complained of his diet, or was guilty 
of the slightest infraction of the most in- 
significant rule, he was condemned to run 
the gauntlet. He was stripped naked, his 
hands were tied behind him, and he was 
brought between two long rows of pawing 
privates and eager ^non-coms,' equipped 
and armed with sticks, whips and gun- 
stocks. Behind the soldiers stood officers 
commanding, " Harder ! Harder ! " Thru 
these lines the victim was compelled to run 
— because in yesterday's paltry parade con- 
ducted by a petty sergeant, he scratched 
his itching neck. At first it was his shoul- 
ders which they struck, but before he had 
gone very far he had no longer a back, 
but only a bleeding mass of quivering flesh 
thru which parts of the bones protruded. 
A doctor was always present to see that 
the culprit did not die before receiving his 
full punishment. That is, if he were 

• See "Russia," by Alfred Rambaud. 



Under Nicholas I, 



booked for 500 blows and was on the point 

of succumbing after receiving 300, it was 
the physician's duty to send him to a hos- 
pital to regain sufficient strength to allow 
the additional 200 to be administered. 
However, in spite of the medicus, the 
mangled men often perished before their 
time, and then there was nothing to do 
but beat the corpse.* 

During this reign originated the wide- 
spread system of stealing Jewish children 
from their homes, separating them from 
their families, severing them from their 

* Among those who witnessed this spectacle was Germain 
de Lagny, who describes it in his book, **The Knout and the 
Russians "... ** After fourteen himdred strokes, his face 
which had long before begun to turn blue, assumed suddenly 
a gpreenish hue ; his eyes became haggard and almost started 
out of their sockets, ftt)m which large blood-colored tears 
trickeled down and stained his cheeks. He was gasping and 
gradually sinking. The officer who accompanied me ordered 
tilie ranks to open, and I approached the body. The skin was 
literally ploughed up, and had, so to say, disappeared. The 
flesh was hacked to pieces and almost reduced to a state of 
jelly; long stripes hung down the prisoner's sides like so many 
thongs, while other pieces remained fastened and glued to the 
sticks of the executioners. The muscles, too, were torn to 
shreds. No mortal tongue can ever convey a just idea of the 
sight. ... It was seven months before he was cured and his 
health re-established ; and, at the expiration of this period, he 
was solemnly taken back to the place of execution, and forced 
once more to run the gauntlet, in order to receive his full 
amoimt of six thousand strokes. He died at the commence- 
ment of this second punishment. . . . After all, Russia is only 
an immense barrack, in which every one is in a state of arrest.** 
Yet the author of these words was a worshipper of Nicholas ! 



10 Comrade Kropotkin 

faith, and bringing them up to serve in the 
army. These were the Cantonists.* Thus 
it came about that when a mother of Israel 
gave birth to a boy, she did not rejoice as 
for one born and living, but lamented as 
for one dead and departed. (Sometimes 
Jewish mothers saved their children from 
the army by cutting off their fingers, or 
taking out one of their eyes). 

Liberty was so shackeled she did not 
even dare weep aloud.f Since that un- 
lucky day when Ryleev, Pestel, Bestuzhev, 
Kakovsky and Muraviov-Apostol dangled 
from a tall straight post and a strong cross- 

* They were called Cantonists because they were kept and 
trained in military settlements or cantons under Arakcheev. 
It is a most remarkable fact — considering the circumstance 
that they were taken away in early childhood — that several 
Cantonists who were able to live thru the horrors of the service, 
returned to their homes as orthodox and as fanatically devoted 
to their religion as if they had spent the preceding twenty-five 
years not in the military barracks of the gentiles, but in dieder 
and shool reciting the Torah. 

t He slaughtered Poland like a hound tears a hare. ^But 
below all (in the Museum of the Kremlin), far beneath the feet 
of the Emperor, in dust and ignominy and on the floor, is flung 
the very Constitution of Poland — parchment for parchment, 
ink for ink, good promise for good promise — which Alexander 
I. gave witili so many smiles, ajod which Nicholas I. took away 
witii so much bloodshed.'* — Andrew D. White, "The Develop- 
ment and Overthrow of Serfdom in Russia," Atlantic Monthly 
November 1869. This sentence which I have quoted is correct, 
but the reader who is unfamiliar with Russian history had bet- 
ter avoid the article, as the last paragraph alone contains as 
many lies as there are kalachi in Moscow. 



Under Nicholas L 11 

bar, no revolutionist arose to oppose ty- 
ranny. During all the many years of the 
reign of Nicholas-with-the-Stick, no ray 
of light brightened a darkened nation, no 
torch glimmered in the bloody gloom. 
Hope was dead. Freedom was buried. 
Literature was in exile. Knowledge lay in 
a closed coffin. But censorship was alive, 
and autocracy had more eyes than Argus. 

An anonymous pamphlet, toward the end 
of his reign, cried out that the czar had 
rolled a great stone before the door of 
the sepulchure of Truth, that he had placed 
a strong guard round her tomb, and in the 
exultation of his heart had exclaimed, " For 
thee, no resurrection!" 

So thoroly was liberalism crushed, so 
completely was absolutism supreme, that 
^Nikolaus Palkin' walked the streets of 
bleeding Russia unattended and unafraid. 

Alas, when a nation has only knees to 
bend, but no hands to strike 1 

After his shadow had obscured the sun 
for a quarter of a century, a brilliant fes- 
tival was given in his honor at Moscow — 
called the Holy City because it contains 
a Miracle Monastery for glorifying God and 
a Kremlin Fortress for crucifying Man. 
It was a fancy-dress ball, and a thousand 



12 Comrade Kropotkin 

gorgeous uniforms were there, from the 
leather coat of the Tungus to the em- 
broidered flummery of the chamberlain. 
In this aflfair the children of the nobility 
played an important part. They were 
lavishly attired, and each carried an en- 
sign representing the arms of the prov- 
inces of the Russian empire. At a given 
signal the little emblem-bearers began to 
march, and on reaching the purple plat- 
form upon which the royal family sat, all 
standards were lowered. The inflexible 
autocrat viewed the scene with satisfaction 
— all the provinces bowed before him. 
When the children retired to the rear of 
the immense hall, someone pulled the 
smallest of the boys from the ranks and 
placed him on the imperial elevation. The 
lad was arrayed as a Persian prince, and 
wore a jewel-covered belt and a high bon- 
net. Nicholas I. looked at his chubby face 
all surrounded with pretty curls and taking 
him to the czarevna Marie Alexandrovna, 
said in his military voice, "This is the sort 
of boy you must bring me.'' The woman 
was gravid at the time, and the soldier- 
like joke made her blush. 

"Will you have some sweets?'* asked 
the emperor. 



Under Nicholas I. 13 

"I want some of those tiny biscuits 
which were served at tea/' eagerly res- 
ponded the child. A waiter was called 
and he emptied a full tray into the tall 
bonnet. 

"I will take them home to Sasha," said 
the curly little cherub. 

Mikhael — the czar's brother — now paid, 
attention to the little visitor. "When you 
are a good boy," he said, " they treat you 
so," and he passed his rough hand down- 
wards over the rotund features of the di- 
minutive would-be Persian; "but when you 
are naughty, they treat you so," and he 
rubbed the child's nose upward. 

The poor innocent did his best to res- 
train himself, but unhappily the gushing 
tears could not be repressed. The ladies 
at once took his part, and Marie Alexan- 
drovna set him by her side on a velvet 
chair with a gilded back — William Morris 
being then unknown. Soon the big eyes 
began to close, and drowsily putting his 
beautiful head in the lap of the future em- 
press, the boy fell soundly asleep. 

And the frolic went on. Under the glit- 
tering chandeliers the dancers glided. Over 
the waxen floors the merry feet waltzed. 
Wine disappeared by barrels, and revelry 



14 Comrade Kropotkin 

ran riot. Swords, spurs, buckles, medals, 
diamonds— how they all sparkled! The 
smooth-cheeked courtiers and the slick- 
tongued cavaliers gaily jested, and the silk- 
swathed ladies flirted their proverbial fans 
and smiled flatteringly at their wit, but not 
the wisest of them knew that someday this 
babe would awake and make his name ter- 
rible to the ears of tyrants! 



SCENES FROM SERFDOM 

To be sold, three coachmen, well-trained and band* 
some ; and two girls, the one eighteen and the 
other fifteen years of age, both of them good- 
lookii^ and well acquainted with various kinds 
of handiwork. In the same house there are for 
sale two hairdressers ; the one twenty-one years 
of age can read, write, play on a musical instru- 
ment, and act as huntsman ; the other can dress 
ladies' and gentlemen's hair. In the same house 
are sold pianos and organs. 

Advertisement in the Moscow Gazette, 1801. 

SETER KROPOTKIN'S father 
was a general and a prince. His 
family originated with a grand- 
son of Rostislav Mstislavich the 
Bold. His ancestors had been Grand 
Princes of Smolensk. He was a descen- ' 
dant of the house of Rurik, and judged 
from the standpoint of heredity, had more ■ 
right to the throne than the Romanoffs. 
Incidentally he was like most military men 
— barbarous, pitiless, merciless. He owned 
twelve hundred male serfs. We do not 
know how many maids. Neither do we 
know how many were scarred by the knout, 
how many were flogged till the breath of 
life left them, nor how many hanged them- 
selves under his window. 




16 Comrade Kropotkin 

. — -^^ 

If this brave warrior — who received the 
cross of Saint Anne for gallantry, because 
his servant Froll rushed into the flames to 
save a child — became imbued with the 
notion that there was not suflBcient hay in 
the barn, he would call one of his serfs, 
strike him in the face, and accuse him of 
overfeeding the horses. In order to prove 
he was right he would make another cal- 
culation, and come to the conclusion there 
was too much hay. So he would bang 
his slave again for not giving the equidae 
enuf. Suddenly he would sit down and 
write a note: Take So and So to the 
police station, and let loo lashes with the 
birch rod be administered to him. 

On such occasions Peter would run out 
— his rosy cheeks wet with weeping — catch 
the unhappy soul in a dark passage, and 
try to kiss his hand. The serf would tear 
it away, and say bitterly, "Let me alone; 
you too, when you grow up, will you not 
be just the same?" 

"No, no, never I" cried the child, while 
the hot tears choked him and made him 
cough for breath. 

The females of all animals, having dis- 
likes and preferences, exercise the right of 
selection; rejecting one and receiving an- 



Scenes From Serfdom 17 

other; sending away a male who is repul- 
sive to them, and accepting a wooer they 
find attractive.* 

Such absurd liberty was never allowed 
the serfs. They married when, where and 
whom the master wished. The Kropot- 
kins owned a woman named Polya — intel- 
ligent and artistic — an exceptional serf. 
Her body was bound; her hands were 
doomed to labor; her talents brought bene- 
fits not to herself; her skill was at the ser- 
vice of others; her industry profited her 
owners; she was a chattel, chained and 
confined — but her heart could not be con- 
trolled. She deeply loved a neighboring 
servant, and was with child from him. 
The lover, forgetting the Russian proverb, 
"One cannot break a stone wall with his 
forehead,'' implored permission to marry 
her. . . . The Kropotkins owned also a 
dwarf called ^bandy-legged Filka.' Be- 
cause of a terrible kick which he received 
in his boyhood, he ceased to grow. His 
legs were crooked, his feet were turned 
inward, his nose was broken, his jaw was 
deformed. It was the GeneraFs will that 
the refined Polya should wed this unsightly 

• See Darwin's "Descent of Man." 



18 Comrade Kropotkin 

imp. She was forced to obey. The 
* happy couple' were sent to the estate of 
Ryazan.* 

During the sixth year of the reign of 
Alexander IL, a servant dashed wildly into 
Peter Kropotkin's room. It was early in 
the morning, and Kropotkin was still in 
bed. But the servant brandished the tea 
tray and babbled excitedly, "Prince, free- 
dom! The manifesto is posted on the 
Gostinoi Dvor." In a moment Kropotkin 
was dressed and began to run out. Just 
then a friend came running in. "Kropot- 
kin, freedom!" he shouted, "Here is the 
manifesto!" 

Kropotkin read it. His eyes beamed. 
He stamped his feet. O happy day! No 
more slavery — serfdom was abolished — the 
muzhiks were free. Not the dark ghosts 
of reaction, but the luminous sons of light 
had triumphed. Not Shuvaloff, Muravioff, 



* Yet Kropotkin was not among the cmelest proprietora* 
To read what occurred on the estate of General Arakcheev is 
enuf to drive the stoutest mind insane. In the '*Ru8iki Aichiv^ 
is an account of a woman who by the most horrible tortures 
killed hundreds of her serfs, chiefly of the female sex, several 
of them young girls of eleven and twelve. Another woman 
murdered a serf boy by pricking him with a pen-knife, because 
he had neglected to take proper care of a rabbit. See Sir D. 
M. Wallace's "Russia.** Also the "Memoirs of a Sportsman " 
and "Mumu** by Turgenev. 



SceneM From Serfdom 19 

and Trepoff, but Herzen, Turgenev and 
Chernishevsky.* 

That afternoon Kropotkin attended the 
last performance of the Italian Opera. 
Baveri, the conductor of the band, raised 
his baton; the musicians began to play, 
but human voices drowned the notes, for 
the people were shouting for their czar — 
Redeemer I — Deliverer 1 Then Baveri stop- 
ped, but the hurrahs did not. Again Baveri 
waved his stick wildly in the air, the fid- 
dlers grasped tightly their bows, the drum- 
mers beat with all their strength, the play- 
ers inflated their lungs and blew the brazen 
instruments with might and main, but from 
that powerful band not a bar of music 
could be heard, for the people were shouting 
for their czar — Immanuel I — Illustrious I 
Strangers met in the streets, embraced, 
kissed each other thrice on the cheek, and 
shouted for their czar— Father I — Messiah! 
In front of the royal palace, peasants and 
professors mingled, and shouted for their 
czar — Emancipator I — Liberator! When he 



* Leonora B. Lang, who translated Rambaud's "Histoire 
de la Russie** ftt>m French to English, says there are about 
thirteen ways of spelling Patzinak. Ditto for Chemishevsky. 
The form which 1 have chosen is prehaps as proper as any, and 
simpler than most. An Knglish reader is not supposed to be 
able to pronounce Tschemyschewskiy. 



20 Comrade Kropotkin 

really appeared, crowds eager and im- 
mense, ran after the carriage and shouted 
for their czar — Tsar O^voboditel! 

As a dream disappears at dawn, so died 
this enthusiasm. The brief moment of 
promise was followed by an eternal hour 
of despair; the short day was succeeded 
by the endless night. Hell may not be 
Hell, but a Romanoff is a Romanoff. Only 
one year later, the despot in Alexander 
awoke — mature and monstrous. If the dead 
could touch the living, Nicholas would 
have hugged his son. The steps of the 
scaffold became slippery with the blood of 
the best. The rope of the hangman was 
jerked day and night, and the key of the 
jailer creaked in a thousand locks. Re- 
action had won, and liberalism lay covered 
with a crimson shroud. 

The Valuev volcano vomited its smoth- 
ering lava as far as Siberia, and General 
Kukel who with Kropotkin's help was pre- 
paring a long list of necessary reforms, 
was dismissed from his post because an- 
other place had been found for him — in 
prison. 

On the other hand there was a district 
chief who robbed the peasants and whipped 
their wives, and whose brutality and dis- 



Scenes From Serfdom 21 

honesty were so unanswerably exposed by 
the energetic Kropotkin that this officer was 
also transferee! — to a higher position in 
Kamchatka where he found more roubles 
for his purse and more women for his 
knout. 

When Kropotkin returned to St. Peters- 
burg on an official commission, a high 
functionary said to him, " Do you know 
that Chernishevsky has been arrested ? He 
is now in the fortress." 

"Chernishevsky? What has he done?" 

"Nothing in particular, nothing! But 
man cher^ you know — state considerations I 
. . . Such a clever man, awfully clever! 
And such an influence he has upon the 
youth. You understand that a government 
cannot tolerate that: that's impossible! in- 
tolerable mon cherj dans un Etat bein 
ordonne / " * 

For these mad acts of a drunken des- 
potism, there was neither shadow of ex- 
cuse nor shade of reason, except that a 
Romanoff was hungry and thirsty for vic- 
tims, satisfying the blood-craving spirit that 
cried within him, demanding that the bright- 
est youths and the noblest girls be changed 
to lifeless corpses. 

♦ See P. Kropotkin's "Memoirs of a Revolutionist." 



22 Comrade Kropotkin 

Is it any wonder that men who on the 
great day of emancipation quoted with tears 
in their eyes the beautiful article by Her- 
zen,* "Thou hast conquered, Galilean," 
now recited these other words by the same 
exile: "Alexander Nikolaevich, why did 
you not die on that day? Your name 
would have been transmitted in history as 
that of a hero." 

* For an account of Henen*s influence, see the " Russian 
Revolutionary Movement,** by Konni Zilliacus. This excellent 
volume which all should read is of especial interest to Finns. 



EXPLORATIONS 

And at the same time falls upon his ear the plain- 
tive song of the Russian peasant ; all wailing and 
lamentation, in which so many ages of suffering 
seem concentrated. His squalid misery, his whole 
life stands forth full of < sorrow and outrage. 
Look at him ; exhausted by hunger, broken down 
by toil, the eternal slave of the privileged classes, 
working without pause, without hope of redemp- 
tion. For the government purposely keeps him 
ignorant, and every one robs him, every one 
tramples on him, and no one stretches out a 
hand to assist him. No one? Not so. The 
young man knows now '* what to do." He will 
stretch forth his hand. He will tell the peasant 
how to free himself and how to become happy. 
His heart throbs for this poor sufferer who can 
only weep. The flush of enthusiasm mounts to 
his brow, and with burning glances he takes in 
his heart a solemn oath to concentrate all his life, 
all his strength, all his thoughts, to the liberation 
of this population which drains its life blood in 
order that he, the favored son of privilege, may 
live at his ease, study, and instruct himself. He 
will take off the fine clothes that burn into his 
very flesh; he will put on the rough coat and 
the wooden shoes of the peasant, and abandoning 
the splendid paternal palace which oppresses him 
like the reproach of a crime, he will go forth 
"among the people" in some remote district, and 
there, the slender and delicate descendant of a 
noble race, he will do the hard work of the peasant, 
enduring every privation in order to carry to him 



Comrade KropotMn 



the words of redemption, the Gospel of our age, 
— ^Socialism. What matters to him if the cut- 
throats of the Government lay hands upo n him ? 
What to him are exile, Siberia, death? Full of 
his sublime idea, clear, splendid, vivifying as the 
mid-day sun, he defies suffering, and would meet 
death with a glance of enthusiasm and^a smile of 
happiness. — Stkpniak : Underground Russia. 



fflETER KROPOTKIN came into 
life sailing on its topmost wave. 
The fat of the land, and its milk 
I and honey were his. Personally, 
nothing was denied him. All the gifts 
had been lavished upon him. Position was 
his, health he had in abundance, he was as 
handsome as the characters in Tolstoys 
War and Peace, and his talents were 
many and varied. To use the Russian ver- 
nacular, he was born in his shirt 

But not praise from princes or bows 
from beauties could induce him to fritter 
away his splendid energies in senseless 
dinky-dinks at Moscow or foppish balls at 
Petersburg. He wished to exercise head, 
hand and heart, for he agreed with John 
Ruskin that whatever else you are, you 
must not be useless and you must not be 
cruel — two adjectives which best portray 
the average official. 

As has already been said, while still a 



Ewplorationa S5 



youth Kropotkin went to Siberia to aid 
Kukel improve the prisons, the exile sys- 
tem, etc. But when the Herzen-reading 
Kukel was recalled, and it was no longer 
permitted to mention the word "reform,'' 
Kropotkin became an explorer. 

Being clever, he soon made several im- 
portant discoveries — the border-ridge of the 
Khingan, the tertiary volcanoes of the Uyun 
Kholdonsti, a direct route to the Amur. 

Also it is interesting to remember that 
he was among the first Europeans who 
entered Manchuria,* and he w6nt at the 
risk of being put in a cage and conveyed 
across the Gobi on a camel's back. It was 
impossible to go as an officer, so Kropot- 
kin disguised himself as a trader, put on a 
long blue cotton dress, and acted like a 
Muscovite merchant — sitting on the edge 
of the chair, pouring his tea in the saucer, 
blowing on it with puffed-out cheeks and 
staring eyes, and nibbling tiny particles 
from his lump of sugar. 

One night as he wandered thru a Chinese 
town, the inhabitants by signs asked him 
why such a young man wore a beard. 

♦ By P. Kropotkin: "A Journey from the Trans-Baikal to 
the Amur by Way of Manchuria," in the "Russian Messenger/* 
June 1865. 



26 Comrade Kropotkin 

Answering by the same means, Kropotkin 
told them that if he had nothing else to 
eat he could eat the beard. This caused 
the Celestials to roar with laughter, and 
they petted him tenderly, showed him their 
houses, and offered him more pipes than 
Skitaletz's Gavril Petrovitch could have 
smoked. 

In 1866, Kropotkin found what previous 
explorers had vainly sought — a communi- 
cation between the gold mines of Yakutsk 
and Transbaikalia. 

Then came what he considers his chief 
contribution to science: the important dis- 
covery that the maps of Northern Asia were 
incorrect, because the main lines of struc- 
ture run neither north and south, nor east 
and west, but from the southwest to the 
northeast.* 

Later Kropotkin was to lead an expedi- 
tion to the Arctic seas, but as the govem- 

* Not even Kropotkin^s enemies have denied his scientific 
ability. Zenker, in his unfair and unsympathetic book on 
** Anarchism** says, '*The dreaded Anarchist Kropotkin is and 
always has been active as a writer of geographical and geo- 
logical works, and enjoys a considerable reputation in these 
sciences, apart Arom his activity as a Socialist teacher and agi- 
tator." The conservative Hon. Andrew D^ White in nis 
''Autobiography *' calls him '* one of the most gifted scientific 
thinkers of our time.*' The unbelievably cruel Pobedonostieff 
— who would gladly have used the thumb-screws on him — leisn 
to him as ''a learned geographer and sociologist." 



Explorations S7 



ment was spending enormous sums in erect- 
ing scaffolds, it could not spare a poltinik 
for explorations in unknown regions. How- 
ever the Geographical Society sent him to 
Finland to study the glacial deposits. Here 
he made valuable researches relative to the 
glaciation of the country. He conceived 
the idea of writing a monumental physi- 
cal geography of Northern Europe. His 
chief ambition was to become the Secre- 
tary of the Society, for then he would be 
in a condition to considerably advance the 
cause of science. 

But because he now had more leisure 
than formerly, he began seriously to think 
of another subject — The People. When he 
crossed a plain which had no interest for 
a geologist, he thought of their sufferings. 
When he walked from one gravel pit to 
another, he mused on their downtrodden 
hopes. Sometimes the hammer would pause 
in mid-air before it struck the chisel, be- 
cause the naturalist was dreaming of these 
plundered beings. After collecting an im- 
mense amount of evidence, he anticipated 
what keen joy he would have in analysing 
and arranging it for publication; but then 
another feeling would assert itself — what 
right had he to this happiness when all 



28 Comrade KropotJdn 

around him were men and women and chil- 
dren struggling and slaving for a bit of 
mouldy bread? Yes, yes, Kropotkin was 
thinking about the hungry people. 

It was in the autumn of 1871, as he 
looked over the hillocks of Finland, and 
saw with his scientific eye the ice accumu- 
lating in the archipelagos at the dawn of 
mankind, that he received this telegram 
from the Geographical Society : "The coun- 
cil begs you to accept the position of sec- 
retary to the society." 

At last Kropotkin was in a position to 
realise his old dream, but: he pondered much 
before answering, for he now direamed a 
new dream — how to lighten the burdens of 
the overworked people. . 

A voice in the wind said, "To work for 
Science is great." 

Then another voice spoke saying. "To 
toil for Humanity is greater." 

So Kropotkin wired, "Most cordial thanks, 
but cannot accept.*' The chisel of the geol- 
ogist slipped from his fingers, and from 
that day on Peter Kropotkin carried in his 
upraised hand a burning torch for the 
weary people. 



THE NIHILISTS 

"He is a nihilist." 

"What I" cried his father. As to Paul Petrovitch, 
he raised his knife, on the end of which was a 
small bit of butter, and remained motionless. 

"He is a nihilist," repealed Arcadi. 

"A nihilist," said Nicholas Petrovitch. "This word 

■ must come from the Latin Nihil, nothing, as far 
as I can judge ; and consequently it signifies a 
man who . . . who recognizes nothing?'' 

"dr. rather who respects nothing," said Paul Pet- 
rovitch; and he began again to butter his bread. 

"A man who looks at everything from a critical 
point of view," said Arcadi. 

"Does that not come to the same thing?" asked 
his uncle. 

"No, not at all; a nihilist is a man who bows be- 
fore no authority, who accepts no principle with- 
out examination, no matter what credit the prin- 
dple has." — Tubgenev : Fathers and Sons. 

pT was a cheerless Saint Peters- 
1 burg to which Kropotkin returned 
—a city in the grip of the powers 
I of darkness. The officials des- 
poiled^ the. muzhiks of their last copecks, 
and if the poor peasants sought redress in 
institutions ironically known as "courts of 
justice,"* they were either imprisoned for 

• "TTiw court is worse than a house of iU-fame; there they 
sell only bodies, but here you prostitute honor and justice and 
Uw " — Ippoiot MmHKOj. 



80 Comrade KropotTdn 

life or murdered outright — at the order of the 
very men who were fleshed with pillage. 

The best writers had escaped abroad, or 
languished in faraway Siberia, or had de- 
parted upon a still longer journey. 

Where was Lavrov? Who heard of 
Mikhailov? What fortress held Pisar^v? 
Why sat no ardent youths at Chernishev- 
sky's feet? 

The reformers who had worked for the 
abolition of serfdom were still. An un- 
canny fear possessed them. They trembled 
at the thought of Trepoff. They shud- 
dered at the sight of Shuvaloff. They 
wished nothing but obscurity; they prayed 
only for oblivion to cover them. They 
denied with pale faces that they had ever 
held advanced opinions. They were a piti- 
ful lot, but it is hard to blame them. Like 
a blood-crazed beast Alexander roamed his 
empire, slaughtering human beings with a 
ferocity that would have made a pack of 
wolves protest In the dead of the night 
they were shot — and sometimes at dawn. 
No reasons were assigned, no questions an- 
swered. Russia prostrated herself at the feet 
of power — poisoned with the fangs of force. 
Little wonder the old generation was 
frightened. 



The NiUUsts 31 



The lime had grown in their bones, and 
to have these bones crushed by Katkoff 
in the casemates of the Fortress of Peter 
and Paul was not pleasant. The fathers 
withdrew from the society of their sons. 
Even the older brothers held alool. At 
every step the young people heard, " Pru- 
dence, young man." Never before was 
youth so deserted, and never before was 
youth so splendid, so supreme, so sublime. 
Was it for them to follow the craven foot- 
steps of a cowardly generation? Let the 
overcrowded prisons answer! Let the 
youngster-jammed dungeons reply! 

From the army came the young officer 
and cast aside his uniform. From the 
palace stepped forth the young prince and 
threw oft his costly mantle. From the 
general's family hastened the young heiress 
and put away her silken dresses. 

It is not for a halting tongue to celebrate 
this youthful band of pioneers. It is not 
for a faltering pen to chant praises to those 
whose glory is unrivalled. History has not 
seen their equals. They deserve the wor- 
ship of a better world than this. We who 
have no faith in God or reverence for 
Government, may well bow our heads at 
the recollection of men who left comfort- 



82 Comrade Kropotldn 

able firesides to expose themselves to mad- 
dening tortures. We miay well fall right 
down on our knees at the thought of wo- 
men who bade farewell to wealthy par- 
ents to bare their breasts to the sabre of 
the gendarme and the embrace of the 
cossack. 

Authorities they rejected. , The chains 
of custom they rent asunder. Even the 
axiomatic they re-examined. With the 
luke-warm, half-hearted agnosticism of 
Huxley, they were dissatisfied. Out-and- 
out apostles of Atheism were jthey, and one 
of the first books they printed, w^s Lud- 
wig Buchner's. The theory of trahsform- 
ism they eagerly accepted, and more than 
any English evolutionist they would gladly 
have died to prove Darwin right and Cu- 
vier wrong.* 

Only one mistake they made — they spat 
upon Art They found no joy in beauty. 
An arched rainbow, a Grecian urn^ a vine- 
covered cottage, were nothing to them. 
They scorned the laurels of the golden- 
haired Apollo. They claimed a shoe- 
maker was superior to Raphael because he 
makes useful things while the other does not. 

* If the reader has not read Stepniak's " tlndergrouiid 
Russia" he should do so without delay. 




THE SCAFFOLD'S BRIDE 
s for such girls that the czar liuys rope. 



The Nihilists 35 



tocracy permitted these young teachers to 
continue their educative work among the 
peasants, Russia to-day would not be a 
nation of illiterate muzhiks, and millions 
who are now hopelessly blind would have 
eyes that see. 

who is intimate with Nicholas II., the scoundrel who praises 
Trepoff, and yet speaks of uplifting humanity I ! He has writ- 
ten a lying book, "The Truth About Russia.'* 



THE TERRORISTS 

In July 1906, I was in Bialystok. A pogrom had 
just been started. I saw women who were re- 
peatedly raped before the eyes of their husbands 
and their fathers. I saw a child, four years old, 
deliberately shot in the arm by a soldier, I saw 
a girl of twelve shot in the stomach. I saw a 
hospital that was purposely fired upon by soldiers 
merely to create a panic among the patients. 
The local schoolmaster was killed by three gen- 
darmes driving nails into his skull. The whole 
reason for the massacre was to terrify the popu- 
lation into submitting meekly to various govern- 
mental impositions. The massacre is a recog- 
nized weapon of the Russian Government, often 
used to shape political ends. By what standards 
of the eternal verities is it wrong to combat this 
kind of slaughter by removing the official or offi- 
cials responsible? To assassinate an Alikhanov, 
a Pavlov, a Min, a Dubossov, a Sergius, a Plehve, 
is, to my mind, precisely like killing a rattle* 
snake that has crawled into a nursery, or stamp- 
ing out a pest, or blowing up a building to stop 
the further spread of the Hames. 

Kellogg Durland : Tke Necessity for 
Terrorism in Jtussia. 

sJT is not often remembered — the 
it should be — that at this time 
these Nihilists were not politicals, 
I and did not fight czarism. Their 
object was to teach the alphabet, not to 
overthrow the dynasty. It was only when 



The Terrorists 37 



the government condemned to a slow death 
in Siberia every one who printed a leaflet, 
or distributed a pamphlet, or attended a 
meeting, or listened to a speaker, or joined 
a co-operative association, or started an 
experimental farm, or went to a technical 
school, or taught a peasant — -that they com- 
menced to oppose the Romanoff regime. 
It was only when the ultimatum, "No. 
schools allowed!"* was for several years 
rammed down their throats at the point of 
the bayonet that the Nihilists became Ter- 
rorists. It was only when the prisons over- 
flowed with their young warm blood that 
Sophia Perovskaya waved her handker^ 
chief. 

The shaft of truth is naked, and so ar- 
mored with bias is the mind of man, that 
the missle cannot pierce the mail. In spite 

* This fact is so notorious that even an obscurantist like 
W. R. Morfill must admit it. See the passage in his mediocre 
book, '^Russia.'* But illiberal as this work is, it at least is not 
outrageous. What however are we to do with Augustus Hare 
("Studies in Russia **) who writes that exile to Siberia is pleas- 
ant; with Rev. Henry Landsell ("Through Siberia**) who in- 
forms us that punishment with the knout was not painful; with 
Miss Annette Meakin C*A Ribbon of Iron**) who describes the 
cruel Gribsky as a kindly man ; with John A. Logan (** Joyful 
Russia**) who is religiously convinced that the czar is an angel; 
with Francis H. Skrine 0*Expansion of Russia**) who approves 
the worst crimes of the house of Romanoff. Of course lackeys 
are always plentiful, but how sad that Russian Despotism 
should have Anglo-American defenders. 



38 Com/rade Eropothin 

of the unanswerable array of historical data, 
many will still exclaim, "We do not be- 
lieve in using force in Russia. We believe 
in education.'' 

O huge Sviatogor, giant-hero of the 
primitive Russians, endow us with your 
mighty nerves, lest we burst! 

There was a girl — Miss Gukovskaya, A 
young girl — fourteen years old.* She ad- 
dressed a crowd — about Kovalsky. She 
was transported to a remote part of Siberia 
for life. The child could not endure the 
wilderness and drowned herself in the 
Yenisei. 

There was another girl who gave a 
single pamphlet to a worker. Her pun- 
ishment was nine years of hard labor and 
then life-long exile among Siberian snows. 

A young man was found reading a book 
not admired by the censor. He was put 
in prison and kept there until he commit- 
ted suicide. 

When the gay and gentle Starinyevitch 
was a student, a manifesto was found in 
his possession. Unwilling to incriminate 
another, he refused to say from whom he 

* Russian heroines begin early. The renowned Vera Za»- 
ulitch was just sweet sixteen when she startled the world by 
shooting and wounding the murderous General Trepo£E!. 



The Terrorists 39 



received it. For this omission he spent 
twenty years in filthy prisons. 

While searching the room of Rosovsky 
who was not yet twenty, the police dis- 
covered a proclamation of the Executive 
Committee, 

"Who gave it to you?" 

"That I cannot say. I am not a spy." 

He was sentenced to death and died on 
the scaffold.* 

Kropotkin mentions another youth of 
nineteen who posted a circular in a rail- 
way station. He was caught and killed — 
hanged I think. "He was a boy," says 
Kropotkin, "He was. a boy but he died 
like a man." 

Ask a Revolutionist if he knows Sophia 
Bardina and his glowing eyes will answer 
yes. Because she read a couple of articles 
in public, she was condemned to several 
years' penal servitude, which by special 
favor of the czar was commuted to life- 
long exile. 

Leo Deutsch in his mild and modest 
Sixteen Tears in Siberia^ tells of a few 
girls of Romny who hit upon the plan of 
loaning one another books and making notes 
on them. Soon a few young men joined, 

* See " Russia Under tiie Czars," by Stepniak. 



40 Comrade Kropotkin 

and thus was formed a small reading society, 
such as might help to pass away the long 
winter evenings in the dull provincial town. 
For this — and for absolutely nothing but 
this — '^the conspirators of Romny" were 
deported across the Urals. 

Only a couple of years ago, several school- 
teachers met at Tiflis to discuss the best 
method of improving their educational cur- 
ricula. A commander entered and cried, 
^^Disperse!" Turning to his cossacks he 
said, "These women are yours '' — and all 
were raped with impunity. 

As long as the Romanoffs rule Russia, 
only idiots opaque and impervious to rea- 
son, can speak of education without action. 

If education were permitted, revolution- 
ary violence would not be, because ter- 
rorism is the last straw to which the 
drowning nation clutches. They cling to 
this because under existing circumstances 
nothing else is possible, nothing, nothing, 
nothing. 

Russia has produced no greater Terrorist 
than Gregory Gershuni, and when this 
glorious Jew stood before his " judges " he 
told them: "History will forgive you every- 
thing; the centuries of oppression, the mil- 
lions you have starved to death, the other 



The Terrorists 41 



millions you have sent to be butchered on 
the battlefield; everything but this — that 
you have driven us who mean well with 
our fatherland to seek recourse in murder."* 



* This is the sentiment of all Russian Rebels. When the 
beautiful revolutionary nurse, Anna Korba, was on trial, 1889, 
she said, *'If the party of the Will of the People adopts the 
policy of terror, it is not because it. prefers terrorism, but be- 
cause terrorism is the only possible method of attaining the 
objects set before it by the historical conditions of Russian life. 
These are sad and fateful words, and they bear a prophecy of 
terrible calamity. Gentiemen — Senators, you are well ac- 
quainted with the fundamental laws of the Russian Empire. 
You are aware that no one has a right to advocate any change 
in the existing imperial form of Government, or even to think 
of such a thing. Merely to present to the Crown a collective 
petition is forbidden — and yet the country is growing and de- 
veloping, the conditions of social life are becoming day by day 
more and more complicated, and the moment approaches when 
the Russian people will burst thru the barriers from which there 
is no exit. " Here she was interrupted by the presiding judge, 
but continued, "The historical task set before the party of the 
Will of the People is to widen these barriers and to obtain for 
Russia independence and freedom. The means for the attain- 
ment of these objects depend directly upon the Government. 
We do not adher obstinately to terrorism. The hand that is 
raised to strike will instantly fall if the Government will change 
the political conditions of Ufe. Our party has patriotic self- 
control enuf not to take revenge for its bleeding wounds ; but, 
unless it prove false to the Russian people, it cannot lay down 
its arms until it has conquered for that people freedom and 
well-being.*' One of the last things that Stepniak tells us in 
"King Stork and King Log " is : "Terrorism is the worst of all 
methods of revolutionary warfare, and there is only one thing 
that is worse still — slavish submissiveness, and the absence of 

any protest." An unusually good editorial, *'The Meaning of 

Terrorism," appeared recently in the New York Evening Post, 
in which it was correctly said, **In exchange for freedom of 
self-expression, the Revolutionists stand ready instantly to 
abandon terror, and they point for proof of their sincerity to 



42 Comrade Kropotkin 

. Men cannot meet for purposes of dis- 
cussion, because if they do, they will be 
beaten and bayoneted. Children cannot, 
for they will be hacked to pieces. Wo- 
men cannot, for their bodies will be util- 
ized to warm the beds of cossacks. 

Such liberticide must be answered by 
tyrannicide! And the hand that holds a 
dagger, red with the blood of a despot, 
is the noblest hand of all! 



the cessation of warfare during the period when the Duma was 
being elected and sat, to their readiness even now to suspend 
hostilities for the coming elections ; small reason tho they have 

for confidence In the future plans of the government.*' The 

Boston Herald (March 16, 1905), in a column editorial called 
**How Assassins Are Made," says, **The dark cloud' of Russian 
oppression is riven only by thunderbolts. There is no wind of 
free speech to drive it away." ^The editor of Altruria (Nov- 
ember 1907) in answering a gentleman who objected to ter- 
rorism in Russia, writes, ** When he says ' there are other ways,* 
he is mistaken. That's all. That is just the. trouble. In Rus- 
sia there are no other ways ; not at present. There was hope 
of peaceful reformation ; the Government destroyed that hope. 
The bomb and the bullet, therefore remain the only weapon.** 



SOPHIA PEROVSKAYA 

All the condemned died like heroes. Kibalkttch and 
Geliabov appeared very calm and resigned. Tim- 
othy Mikhailov pale but firm ; Rysakov calm and 
under control, but his face w^as as white as a 
sheet. Sophia Perovakaya'a courage struck us all 
with astonishment. Not a sign of fear of death 
in her lovely countenance. Her cheeks wore the 
fresh roses of youth and health, and a heroine's . 
soul gleamed from her gentle, but lirm and seri- 
ous face. 

— From the reactionary Kolnische Zeitung. 

SlUSSIA has long been famous for 
'1 its Circles, which far surpass in 
interest and excellence, those of 
I any other country. According 
to the calculation of the police, each mem- 
ber contributes to the society either a pint 
or a quart of blood, but this computation 
is too conservative.- Those who join Rus- 
sian Circles do not measiire the amount, 
but are ready to give unto the last drop. 
At these meetings, chairmen and cere- 
mony are unknown. Those present sit on 
chairs, lean against the window-sill, or 
squat on a broken sofa. They sing mel- 
ancholy songs, smoke cigarettes and over- 
work the samovar. They dress carelessly 
in loose blouses of colored calico. Their 




44 Comrade Kropothin 

hair is disheveled, their faces are flushed, 
their eyes are blazing. All argue at once, 
and in order to make themselves heard, 
interrupt each other, shout animatedly, 
bang the table, and rattle the spoon in the 
glass. The noise is deafening, but from 
the din of the debate fly forth sparks which 
may eventually inflame even this outraged 
empire of officials and icons. 

In 1872, Kropotkin joined the most im- 
portant of these groups — the Circle of 
Chaykovsky. Kropotkin was now a thoro- 
going revolutionist, and it is foolish to ask 
as Grand Duke Nicholas did, "When did 
you begin to entertain such ideas?'' 

In a country like Russia, where the 
present government incites the troops to 
massacre the people, hoping in this way 
to prolong its existence;* where the war- 
dens do a thriving business by turning over 
the female prisoners to the soldiers at so 
much a piece; where the Dnieper-Demons 
beat women to the ground and ride their 
horses over their bosoms; where they toss 
children in the air and catch them on their 



* See the book on massacres by the ex-bureaucrat Prince 
Urusoff, in which the high official ^ows that the government 
itself is the chief pog^om-preparer. Translated hy Herman 
Rosenthal. 



Sophia Peravskaya 45 

bayonets ; * where they hack babes in 
twain and hurl the bleeding pieces at 
their agonized mothers; where they ham- 
mer spikes thru the heads of old men;f 
where youths are exiled for life for read- 
ing a forbidden author; where vulgar offi- 
cers command refined women to become 
their mistresses X or pay the penalty of 
having their families shipped to that side 
of the tear-drenched monument which says, 
"Asia;'' where officials who plan pogroms 
are promoted, and those who protest are 
imprisoned § where tortures like pricking 



«« ♦ 



• See ''Within the Pale,'* by Michael Davitt. Also Bialik's 
Al Shechitah,** either in the Jewish Quarterly Review or 
The Maccabean, January 1907. Translation by Helena Frank. 

t See the **Report of the Duma Commission on the Pogrom 
at Bialystok,** published in the London Jewish Chronicle, July 
1906. Reprinted in its entirety in the American Jewish Year 
Book, 1906-1907. At Kishineff, the wife of Fanorissi Siss had 
nails driven thru her eyes. See also Book II of "Gillette's 
Social Redemption," and Kropotkin's letter in the London 
Times, July 25, 1908. 

X See "Russia from Within," by Alexander Ular. This 
truthful volume contains many horrible revelations concerning 
the fearfully cruel and corrupt Gr9,nd Dukes. 

§ For a well-edited "Table of Pogroms" see American 
Jewish Year Book, 1906-1907. Out of hundreds of examples, 
here is one : On the last day of October 1905, a frightful car- 
nage overtook the Jews in Odessa. There financial loss amounted 
to at least one million rubles, and six thousand of them were 
killed and injured. The Self-Defense was well organized, but 
when they fought too valiantly, the police surrounded them 
and shot them down. The janitors were ordered to point out 
Jewish flats to the mob. An imperial Ukase was published, 
thanking the troops for their excellent work. Nineteen offi- 



' Sophia Peravskaya 47 

see sweet Sophia Perovskaya say severely, 
"How dare you bring so much mud in this 
house!" — what life could be intenser? 

The Circle of Chaykovsky held its meet- 
ings in a little dwelling in the suburbs of 
Saint Petersburg. There was nothing about 
it to excite suspicion. The neighbors often 
saw the mistress attending to her business. 
They knew her to be an artisan's wife, an 
ordinary workingwoman. She wore a cot- 
ton dress and men's shoes, her head was 
covered with a fancy kerchief, and she 
trudged slowly along, carrying on her 
shoulders full pails of water from the Neva 
River. 

But they did not know that she belonged 
to the highest aristocracy; that one of her 
ancestors was the morganatic husband of 
Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the 
Great; that her grandfather was Minister 
of Public Instruction; that her uncle was 
a renowned conqueror in Asia Minor; that 
her father was Governor General of St. 
Petersburg; that she herself had shone in 
the most fashionable drawing rooms of the 
capital, and that her name was Sophia Per- 
ovskaya, — a name which thrills the soul of 
every rebel to its center. 

Physically she was like a novelist's her- 



48 Comrade Kropotkin 

oine. She had golden hair and her eyes 
were blue. A lissom figure, a musical 
voice, a charming laugh.* Pure with a 
maiden's modesty, chaste with a virginal 
shyness. So graceful and girlish that she 
never looked more than eighteen — even 
when she was twenty-six. Of such a sym- 
pathetic nature that when she became a 
nurse, sufferers whose nerves quivered in 
distress, claimed their agony abated as soon 
as she entered. Her mother she loved to 
adoration, and often at the risk of her life, 
she left her hiding-place to give Varvara 
Sergyevna the joy of folding her hunted 
child in her aching arms. Her father had 
human form, but was in reality a fiend, 
yet rejoice that he lived, for from his ultra- 
reactionary loins was born the white queen 
of the red revolution. 

From her sixteenth year, Sonya was ready 
to die for the Cause — with a smile on her 
beautiful lips and a wave of her graceful 
hand, with the crimson banner above her 

* "She had the ready laugh of a girl, and laughed witii so 
much heartiness, and so unaffectedly, that she ideally seemed a 
young lass of sixteen. ... At dinner time, when all met, 
there was chatting and joking as tho nothing was at stake, and 
it was then that Sophia Perovskaya — at the very moment when 
she had in her pocket a loaded revolver intended to blow op 
everything and everybody into the air — most frequently de- 
lighted the company with her silver lau£^. ** — Stbiviak. 



Sophia Peravskaya 49 



head, and upon her bosom a red carnation. 
I speak figuratively. She would not have 
worn these things. She was altogether too 
simple. 

Hers was a life full of pain, and in 1881 
came the supreme sorrow. Her heart 
twitched with the torture, for Andrew 
Geliabov, the man she loved so fondly, was 
in the casemate of the fortress, and all 
knew, and Sonya knew too, that soon 
around his beloved neck would be a bluish 
streak. Yet her brilliant intellect was 
not dimned or darkened. That will of iron 
and those nerves of steel, neither broke nor 
faltered. It was then that she arranged 
every detail for the assassination of Alex- 
ander II. She may have wept in private, 
but to her comrades she said with dry 
eyes, "When I give the signal, throw the 
bomb.'' 

The appointed day came. In a metal- 
clad carriage, the czar drove to the parade. 
Behind him in a sledge rode Colonel 
Dvorjitsky. Burning eyes looked at a girl. 
A handkerchief fluttered in the air — 
Sonya's signal I Rysakov threw his bomb. 
The Emperor alighted — unhurt. Then 
Grinevetsky too, flung a blessed ball of 
Kibalkitch's make, and within a few hours 



50 Comrade Kropotkin 

the old despot and the young martyr pas- 
sed out of the world. 

Sophia Perovskaya inspired the greatest 
stanzas of the Poet of the Sierras, for us- 
ually the verse of the slangy Joaquin Mil- 
ler is mediocre. But how grand are these ! : 

"A storm burst forth! From out the storm 

The clean, red lightning leapt. 

And lo, a prostrate royal form . . . 

And Alexander slept! 

Down thru the snow, all smoking, warm 

Like any blood, his crept. 

Yea, one lay dead, for millions dead! 

One red spot in the snow 

For one long damning line of red. 

Where exiles endless go — 

The babe at breast, the mother's head 

Bowed down and dying so. 

And did a woman do this deed? 

Then build her scaffold high. 

That all may on her forehead read 

The martyr's right to die! 

Ring Cossack round on royal steed! 

Now lift her to the sky! 

But see! From out the black hood shines 

A light few look upon! 

Lorn exiles, see, from dark, deep mines, 

A star at burst of dawn! ... 



Sophia Peravskaya 51 

A thudl A creak of hangman's lines! — 
A frail shape jerked and dra wn I . . . '' 

Before stepping upon the scaffold, Sophia 
Perovskaya wrote a note. (I know it has 
often been printed, but how can I help 
publishing it again?) Think you she la- 
ments that one so gifted should perish so 
young? Read: 

"Mother, mother! Beloved, beloved one! 
If you only knew how cruelly I suffer at 
the thought of the sorrow and torture I 
have caused you, dearest — ! I beg and 
beseech you not to rack your tender heart 
for my sake. Spare yourself, and think 
of all those who are round you at home, 
and who love you no less than I do — and 
need you constantly; and who, more than 
I, are entitled to your love and affection. 
Spare yourself too, for the sake of me, 
who would be so happy if only the agon- 
izing thought of the sorrow I have caused 
you did not torture me so unspeakably. 
Sorrow not over my fate which I created 
for myself, as you know, at the strict be- 
hest of my conscience. You know that I 
could not have acted differently, that I was 
obliged to do what my heart ordered, that 
I had to go and leave you, beloved mother, 



52 Comrade Kropotkin 

■■' - — — - ■ ■■ ■■ ■ » ■ ■ ■■ ■ ■■■■■■, ■■ ■ ■ ■ .1 y ■ ■ ■ ■ ■ 

when my countr}^ called me. Do not think 
that the death that inevitably awaits me 
has any terror for my soul. That which 
has happened is only, you know, what I 
have been expecting every day, every hour, 
during all those years, and what sooner or 
later, must overtake me and my friends. 
Soon, in the course of a few days, I must 
die for the cause, for the idea, for which 
I devoted my life and all the powers of 
my soul and body. How happy I should 
be then, dearest, beloved! Once more I 
beseech you not to mourn for me. You 
are well aware how ineffably I love you, 
I have always, always, loved you. By this 
love I conjure you to forgive your Sonyal 
Again and again I kiss your beloved hands, 
and on my knees, thank you for all you 
have given me during every moment of 
my life. On my knees I beseech you to 
bear to all the dear ones at home my last 
loving greetings! To-morrow I shall stand 
once more in the presence of my judges; 
probably for the last time. But my clothes 
are so shabby, and I wanted to tidy my- 
self up a bit. Buy and send me, dearest 
mama, a little white collar and a pair of 
simple loose sleeves with links. Perhaps 
it will be vouchsafed us once again to 



Sophia Perovskaya 63 



meet. Till then, farewell! Do not for- 
get my last fervent prayer, my last thought: 
forgive me and do not bewail me.'' 

Yes, this is her letter. "Buy and send 
me, dearest mama, a little white collar and 
a pair of simple loose sleeves with links.'' 

A woman still — but glorified, radiant, 
resplendent — a woman all inspired, up- 
raised, exalted, uplifted, aureoled. 




THE FORTRESS OF PETER AND PAUL 

A strange feeling came over me when I saw that I 
was being conveyed to this prison, used by the 
Government of the Czars for political offenders 
only ; a place never spoken of in Russia without 
a shudder. — Leo Dkutsch : Sixteen Years in 
Siberia. 

aHE Circle of Chaykovsky exerted 
immense influence all over 
[ the empire, forming branches in 
I every province, and producing 
the greatest of the Russian Revolutionists. 
Yet the particular group to which Kropot- 
kin belonged was daily decreasing, on ac- 
count of the imprisonment of its members. 

In January 1874, the police became so 
vigilant that the remaining comrades thought 
it wise for Stepniak to leave St. Peters- 
burg. But this noble and lovable giant, 
whose simplicity earned him the epithet of 
" Baby," refused to obey. He protested 
warmly, and remained at his risky post un- 
til the Nihilists actually forced him to de- 
part to a safer city. 

It was also time for Kropotkin — who had 
become famous by his speeches to the 
'prostoi narod ' — to conceal himself, but in 
his case a strange circumstance prevented. 



The Fortress of Peter and Paul 56 

He had just completed his essay on the 
glacial formations, and it was necessary to 
read it at a meeting of the Geographical 
Society. When he finished, an animated 
discussion began, but laurels were on Kro- 
potkin's head; it was admitted that all old 
theories concerning the diluvial period in 
Russia were erroneous. This paper pro- 
duced such an excellent impression that it 
was proposed to nominate the author presi- 
dent of the Physical Geography section. 
So Kropotkin sat among the fine gentle- 
men, and shook hands with the digni- 
fied professors, and smilingly thanked the 
learned savants for the honors they con- 
ferred upon him, but inwardly he asked 
himself if he would not spend that very 
night in the prison of the Third Section. 

His guess was not a bad one. He was 
soon arrested. After certain tedious for- 
malities, he was put in a cab. A colossal 
Circassian sat at his side. The genial 
Kropotkin spoke to him, but the mass of 
meat only snored. Many of Kropotkin's 
comrades were already entombed in Litov- 
sky prison, but his question if he too were 
going there was unanswered. Then the 
cab crossed Palace Bridge, and it was no 
longer necessary to interrogate the guar- 



66 Comrade KropotJdn 

dian. Peter Kropotkin knew he was bound 
for that silent coffin of stone which darkly 
rises like a Hell-on-E-arth — the Fortress of 
Saint Peter and Saint Paul. 

He leaned over and looked at the flow- 
ing Neva, knowing he would not soon see 
the graceful river again. Over the gulf 
of Finland, clouds were hanging, but the 
prisoner searched for patches of blue sky. 
The sun was going down, wearily perhaps, 
but proudly, for as it slowly sank below 
the horizon it left behind it gossamer colors 
of sapphire and scarlet, with glint and glow 
of gold. (And the officer snored.) 

The carriage turned to the left and en- 
tered a dark passage. Kropotkin was now 
within the gate of the Cemetery for the 
Living, the mouldy, murderous Tomb of 
Torture. Thru his mind flashed all the 
horrors of this famous prison whose dreaded 
name is uttered only in a voice hushed and 
awed.* Within these walls the Decem- 
brists became martyrs. Here Nechaev — 
in the gloomy Alexis ravelinf — was kept a 
prisoner for life. Here Perovskaya had 
been confined. Here was incarcerated the 



* See the **Meinoir8 of a Revolutionist." 
t See the " Russian Bastille " l^ Simon O. Pollodc in the 
International Socialist Review, March 1907. 



The Fortress of Peter and Paul 57 

poet-prince Odoeysky, about whose early 
d^ath the banished Lermontov wrote so 
tender an elegy. 

The carriage stopped before another 
gate which was opened by soldiers. Here 
Catherine II.* buried alive all who opposed 
her abominations. Here the terrible Min- 
ich tortured his enemies until they expired 
from the agony. Here Princess Tarakanova 
was locked in a cell which filled with 
water, causing the rats to climb upon her 
body to save themselves from drowning. 
Here in the awful loneliness of the silent 
dungeons, an army of unfortunates had 
gone insane. 

The carriage rested again and Kropotkin 
was taken to a third iron gate which opened 
into a dark room where he could vaguely 
see several soldiers in soft felt boots glid- 
ing noiselessly about as if they were phan- 
toms from another world. He recalled that 
here was caged much of the winged glory 

* If anyone cares to know to what sexual depravities royal 
ladies can descend, let him read what Dr. W. W. Sanger says 
about Empress Elizabeth and the two Catherines in his valuable 
**History of Prostitution. " The number of lovers they caressed 
was surpassed only by the number of thinkers they tortured. 
The first-named had a reputation for humaneness. Does this 
mean that during her reign no one was exiled? No, it means 
that during her reign only 80,000 of her subjects were knouted 
and deported to Siberia. 



68 Comrade Kropotkin 

of Russian Literature — Ryleev, the poet of 
freedom whose forbidden ballads Kropot- 
kin's mother copied in her note-books; 
Griboyedov who wrote one immortal mas- 
terpiece* and then put pen no more to 
paper because the censor mutilated his work 
beyond recognition; Shevchenko who dip- 
ped his quill in a soul of tears and wrote 
heart-breaking poetry about his fellow-serfs; 
Dostoyevsky, the sensitive novelist who 
described so well the injured and insulted ; 
Pisarev, a truly marvellous critic whose 
voice was a trumpet-call arousing the youth 
to a higher life; Chernishevsky, the pro- 
foundest thinker of his time, as great a 
genius as the race of man has produced.f 
These — and how many more! — had spent 
weary years in the fortress where he was 
now walking. 

He remembered that in one of these cells 
the dauntless Karakozov was frightfully 
maltreated by being deprived of sleep. 
The gendarmes, who were changed every 
two hours, were ordered to keep him awake. 

* Prophetically named "The Misfortune of Having Brains. ** 
(Gore ot Uma). 

t For a brief but sympathetic sketch of Chernishevsky by 
one who knew him personally, see the ''Russian Reyolt " by 
Edmund Noble. It contains tiiis sentence : "Such was the cost 
of trying to be a Cobden or a Bright in Russia I ** 



The Fortress of Peter and Paul 69 

Karakozov was inventive, and as he sat on 
his small stool he would cross his legs, and 
swing one of them to make his tormentors 
believe he was up; meanwhile he would 
steal a nap, continuing to swing his leg. 
When the gendarmes — depraved, imbruted 
blood-spillers — discovered the deception, 
they shook him every few moments whether 
he swung his limb or not. It is also quite 
certain that all his joints were crushed, 
for when he was taken out from the for- 
tress to be hanged, he looked like a lump 
of rubber or heap of jelly. His head, arms, 
legs, trunk, were altogether loose as if they 
contained no bones or only broken ones. 
It was terrible tp see the strenuous efforts 
he made to ascend the scaffold. 

Kropotkin was taken to another black 
hall where armed sentries were moving. 
He thought of the mighty Bakunin, who 
was kept in an Austrian prison chained to 
the wall for two years, and then spent six 
more in this Fortress of Peter and Paul, 
and yet came out as fresh and pink as a 
boy. 

He was put into a cell — a casemate 
originally intended for a cannon. A heavy 
oak door was shut behind him, a huge key 



60 Comrade Kropotkin 

turned in the lock, and the prince who 
had slept in the lap of an empress, who 
had been petted by Nicholas I.^ and who 
as sergeant of the corps of pages became 
the closest personal attendant of Alexander 
IL, was left alone in a darksome reduit. 

The prisoner examined his cell. High 
up in the granite wall a hole was cut. 
Kropotkin dragged his stool there, looked 
out and listened. Emptiness — no sound. 
He tapped the walls — no response. He 
struck the floor with his foot — no reply. 
He spoke to the sentry — no answer. The 
coldness, the dampness, the darkness were 
bad eniif, but this utter silence, this in- 
tense stillness, this grave-like deadness were 
maddening. 

No human being addressed him; no Hy- 
ing thing held intercourse with him — ex- 
cept the pigeons which came morning and 
afternoon to his window to receive food 
thru the grating. Only the bells of the 
fortress cathedral were heard. Every quar- 
ter of an hour they chimed to the glory 
of Jesus, and every midnight they pealed 
forth, "God save the Czar." 

Then all was mute . . . and nothing 
more . . . 

Not only did no one speak to him, he 



The Fortress of Peter and Paul 61 

was not even permitted to speak to him- 
self. When the killing silence first began 
to oppress him, he hummed a tune. Then 
the spirit of song took hold of him, 
and he raised his voice. He sang from 
his favorite opera, Glinka's Ruslan and 
Ludmila — "Have I then to say farewell 
to love forever?" 

"Sir," said a bass voice thru the food- 
window, "do not sing! " 

A few days later, Peter Kropotkin could 
not sing. 



BROTHERS 

The worst is, that the gendarmes cannot live with- 
out political plots ; if they have none to deal with 
in reality, they must invent some ; otherwise they 
run the risk of seeing their budget diminished for 
the next year. This is the reason why alarming 
reports as to future political attempts circulate as a 
rule a few weeks and even months before the re- 
newal of the special budget serving to pay this 
sort of people. — Maxim Kovalkvsky: Jtussian 
Political Institutions. 

^p time crept on with crippled feet, 
halting and limping on its broken 
crutches, held back b)' heavy ball 
and clanking chain. Thru the 
five feet of granite the sun could not pen- 
etrate, but grief came in thru the mortar. 
No oxygen passed the Judas, but with 
noisy wings sorrow flew in the embrasure. 
The oaken doors held freedom out, but 
sadness passed the bars of iron. 

A great blow came to Kropotkin He 
heard news which sickened him. Life lost 
its meaning. His stool remained unused 
in the corner.* All the day long, and dur- 

* Determining to preserve hla [Afsical vigor, Kropotkin 
mapped out for himself a course in gymnastics. Among other 
feats, be made excellent If undignified use of bia weighty oak 
atool. He balanced it on his nose and lifted it with his teeth ; 
he put it on the end of his foot aod raised it at right anglu to 




Brothers 63 



ing the endless hours of night, he wandered 
up and down his cell like a dazed animal. 
Friendly faces could not see him, but dis- 
tress was his warder, and despair became 
his familiar visitor. He had learnt of the 
arrest of his brother Alexander* — the Sasha 
for whom he had saved the tiny tea-cakes. 

The history of Peter Kropotkin can never 
be written and the name of Alexander left 
out. Tho only a year older, Sasha was in 
advance of him intellectually. This alone 
shows what a remarkable child he was, for 
Peter also was precocious: at twelve he 
dropped his title of prince, signing himself 
merely P. Kropotkin; at fourteen he wrote 
articles in favor of a constitution; and while 
still at school, he became the author of a 
text-book on physics which was printed for 
the use of his class-mates. 

But more than anyone else, it was Sasha 
who opened unknown vistas to him, who 
stimulated his mind, who guided his stud- 
ies, and directed his reading. 

his body ; he turned it on its edges and twirled it like a wheel ; 
he tossed it from one hand to the other, faster and faster; and 
he hurled it between, under, and across his leg^. 

* That is, his arrest in 1875 ; for Alexander Kropotkin had 
previously been arrested and thrown into prison in 1858, for 
reading Emerson's essay on "Self-Reliance,'' which was loaned 
to him by a university professor. For a portrait and his noble 
behavior on this occasion, see George Kennan's world-known 
"Siberia and the Exile System." 



64 Comrade Kropotkin 

"What happiness/' wrote Kropotkin many 
years later, "it was for me to have such a 
brother 1 To him I owe the best part of 
my development.'' 

However, we soon forget Sasha's abili- 
ties — great as they were — in the contem- 
plation of his white^ soul, of his spotless 
character, of his open heart, of his affec- 
tionate and exceptional personality. 

When he grew to manhood, he departed 
from Russia* His spirit was too lofty to 
exist in this blood-soaked hell of ghoulish 
czars. He needed freedom like the eaigle 
needs the mountain crag. Had he shared 
his brother's views, he would have remained 
to work and die for the Cause. But as it 
was his opinion that a popular uprising was 
an impossibility, he could take no part in 
political agitation, and he went to Switzer- 
land with wife and child. Here his great 
scientific work assumed monumental pro- 
portions; it was to be a nineteenth century 
counterpart of the renowned Tableau de la 
Nature of the Encyclopaedists. He labored 
in love, for science was to him what it was 
to Darwin. 

Then he heard of Kropotkin's arrest In 
a twinkling he left everything. He re- 
entered the gore -dripping cave of the 



Brothers 65 



Bloody Bear. For his loved brother's sake 
he breathed again the murderous miasma. 
Once more he walked in that cursed 
country where the nagaika of the cossack 
beats freedom to death. 

Better than anyone else, he knew that if 
Kropotkin could not write, he would die. 
The Geographical Society and the Academy 
of Sciences wished the prisoner to finish 
a volume on the glacial period, and using 
this as a support, S^^sha petitioned the au^ 
thorities to allow his brother resume work. 
He made every scholar in the capital mis- 
erable, and plagued every scientific asso- 
ciation until they agreed to support his 
application. 

The fi:*uit of this labor was that the 
governor entered Kropotkin's cell bearing 
precious gifts. It would take an Ippolit 
Mishkin in his most eloquent moment to 
describe the captive's unfathomable joy 
when he felt the paper beneath his palm and 
clutched in his hungry fingers, an inked pen I 

In the presence of gendarmes, the bro- 
thers were permitted to see each other.* 
Sasha was much agitated. He hated the 
very sight of the uniforms of the execu- 
tioners, and was too frank to keep his feel- 

* See Kropotkin's **Meinoirs of a Revolutionist.*' 



66 Comrade Kropotkin 

ings to himself. Kropotkin was happy to 
see his honest face, his eyes full of love, 
and yet he wished him as far away as 
Zurich, for he knew that tho Sasha now 
came to the Third Section by day of his 
own free will, the time would come when 
he would be brought there by night under 
the escort of blue-garbed gendafmes. 

Kropotkin was right. Sasha wrote a let- 
ter to his friend, the famous refugee and 
profound thinker, P. L. Lavrov, in which 
he mentioned his fears that his brother 
will fall ill in his armored chamber. 

The Third Section intercepted the letter 
and arrested the writer. This was the 
story which leaked into Kropotkin's cell 
and broke him down. 

There is a touching little poem by Nora 
Perry about two attractive young ladies 
who come home after the ball. It is late, 
and they sit on the bed in their pretty 
nightgowns, stockingless, slipperless, comb- 
ing their beautiful hair. Their dresses and 
flowers and ribbons are scattered over the 
room. They talk of the evening's revel, 
and laugh idly at the waltz and merry 
quadrille. Yet the hearts of these girls are 
not quite as light as their lips, for they both 



Brothers 69 



with grief; Sasha was told he would be 
transported to one of the loneliest towns 
in farthest Siberia; that he would travel 
in a cart between two gendarmes; that his 
wife could not go with him, but might 
follow later. 

A year passed, and Sasha remained in 
exile. Another year, and he was still in 
Siberia. His sister Helene, without asking 
anyone, wrote a petition to the c^ar. She 
gave it to her cousin Dmitri Kropotkin, an 
unfeeling scoundrel who was afterwards 
killed by the revolutionist Goldenberg. At 
this time he was governor-general of Khar- 
koflf, aide-de-camp of the emperor, and a 
favorite of the court. Heartless as he was, 
he thought it unjust for a non-political to 
be exiled so long, and he handed the pe- 
tition personally to Alexander II., adding 
words of his own in support of it. Roman- 
off took the document and wrote upon it: 

"Let him remain there."* 



* This is a typical drop in the ocean of his extreme cruelty. — 
Among those who contributed to my **Symposium on Human- 
itarians,** (see August 1908 issue of the Medico-Pharmaceutical 
Critic and Guide), was the distinguished ex-ambassador to Ger- 
many and Russia, Andrew D. White, Ph. D., L. H. D., LL.D. 
He mentioned as one of his favorites, Alexander II. Naturally 
I could not understand such a barbaric choice. A little later, 
this eminent former President and Professor of Cornell Univer- 
sity published his ** Autobiography,** and I found he was the 
apologist, admirer and friend of PobedonostasefF! He speaks 



70 Comrade KropotTdn 

Ten years later. Sasha was still in bleak 
Siberia, cut off from his scientific work, 
severed from the intellectual world. A 
gloomy night — the wolves howled and 
Sasha lived. But these things could not 
go on forever. A silent night — the wail 
of the wolf ceased, and the soul of Sasha 
escaped.* Helene wrote no petitions to 
Death, but it was Death that liberated him. 



as highly- of this relentiess persecutor as of Leo Tolstoy! 
I deserve to have mj isjc^ slapped for expecting Truth and 
Right from an official personage ! 

* He committed suicide by shooting himself. 



THE OPEN CATE 

The autumn night is dark as the crime of the traitor. 
But darker still, piercing the mist like a gloomy 
vision, stands — the prison. The sentinels are strid- 
ing idly around, and in the deepness of the night 
is heard their groanlike melancholy "Lis-ten I" 
Tho the walls of the barrier are strong, tho the 
iron locks are unbreakable, tho the lyes of the 
gaolers are keen, and everywhere are shining 
bayonets, stiil the prison is not a morgue. Thou 
sentinel, be not negligent, trust not the darkness, 
be careful, Lis-ten! . . . Mikmaii.ov. 

TlHE plague of the prisoris was up- 
1 on Kfopotkin — he was sick with 
scurvy* and dying from insuffi- 
I cient oxidation of the blood. The 
wretches who lifted the shutter of the Judas 
and spied upon him, believed he would 

• For a deacriptioD of Uiia disease, see Professor Osier's 
"Principles and Practise of Medicine."— —"In parts of Russia 
scurvy ia endemic, at certain seasoDB reaching epidemic pro- 
portions ; and the leadii^ authorities upon the disorder, now 
in that country, are almost unanimous, according to Hoffmann, 

in regarding it as infectious." This reference to a physician 

reminds me of an interesting little book which has just ap- 
peared, "GUmpses of Medical Europe," by Dr. Ralph L.Thomp- 
BOQ, Writing of Russia he says, "In St. Petersburg are fine 
parks and theatres and comfortable hotels in abundance. But 
despite it all there is an odd feeling of oppression that strikes 
one the moment he lands on Russian soil, and one doesn't 
breathe freely till he is out of it all." . . - "Personally I 
wouldn't mind foregoing health, friends and money, to fame; 
bat If it came to a question of bving in Russia, I would choose 
to die unknown." 



72 Comrade KropotMn 

• • 

soon change his silent casemate for a 
silent coffin. 

His relatives heard about his condition, 
and their alarm was great. His sister 
Helene tried to obtain his release on bail, 
but the procureur turned himself like a 
golden pheasant and said with a sinister 
smile, "If you bring me a doctor's certifi- 
cate that he will die in ten days, I will 
release him.'' The girl fell in a chair and 
sobbed aloud. Shubin smiled again, for 
like Gorky's Tchizhik in Orloff and his 
Wife^ he was fond of gratuitous entertain- 
ments. 

But a prince is not a peasant, and Kro- 
potkin was examined by a thoroly compe- 
tent physician who ordered his transfer to 
the military hospital (where politicals were 
sent when it was thought they Would soon 
require an undertaker). 

Kropotkin improved at once. With a 
full chest he breathed the blest air which 
he had missed so long. The rays of the 
sun warmed him, and the scent of flowers 
gladdened his life. The immense window 
of his spacious room may have been grated, 
but it was never closed. He sat there all 
day gazing at the rows of trees. Later he 
was taken out for an hour's walk in the 



The Open Gate 78 



prison yard— large, and full of sweet grow- 
ing grass. The first moment he entered it, 
he stopped on the doorstep unable to move. 
Before him was a gate, and it was open! 
He tried not to look at it, yet stared at it 
all the time. 

The desire of the moth for the flame, 
the attraction of steel for loadstone, the 
bond between chlorine and hydrogen, the 
affinity of kalium for the halogens — what 
are these compared to the passion of a 
prisoner for an open gate? 

Kropotkin trembled as if in a fever. 
From head to foot his body shook, while 
the heart leaped and his pulses throbbed. 
He soon managed to let his Circle know 
how near he was to liberty, and immedi- 
ately the comrade^s determined to aid him 
in escaping. Plans and plots were devised 
and disposed of, till Kropotkin feared all 
would be too late. He violated the rules 
of h)^giene, hoping to keep in bad health, 
for he knew his walks would be stopped 
as soon as the doctor pronounced him well. 
Alas! in spite of all his efforts, his weight 
increased, his eyes brightened, his com- 
plexion cleared, his digestion improved. All 
symptoms of scurvy left him, — the livid 
> spots under the skin and the oozy spongy 
gums disappeared. 



74 Comrade KropotJcin 

At last all was ready. The revolution- 
ists were sentimental, and decided the es- 
cape should occur June 29th, Old Style, 
for this is the day of Peter and Paul. It 
was arranged that Kropotkin's signal that 
all was well should be the taking off of his 
hat, and if all were right outside, the com- 
rades would send up a red toy balloon. 
The day of the "saints'' came. At the 
usual time — four o'clock — Kropotkin was 
brought out for his walk. He took off 
his hat, and waited for the little balloon. 
But in the air no red ball arose, and at the 
end of an awful hour, he returned to his 
cell — sick, crushed and broken. 

A peculiar thing had happened. Usually 
hundreds of balloons could be bought near 
the Gostinoi Dvor. Yet that day not a red 
one was seen — only blue and white ones 
were there. Later one was discovered in the 
possession of a child, but it was damaged 
and couid not ascend. The comrades 
rushed into an optician's shop, bought an 
apparatus for making hydrogen, and filled 
the rubber with the gas. Had they pumped 
it full of fluorine, the result would not have 
been worse. No inflation occurred, and the 
unexpanded balloon did not fly — but time 
did. The comrades grew worried. Then 



The Open Gate 76 



a lady attached the useless toy to her um- 
brella, and holding it above her head walked 
along the prison wall. But Kropotkin saw 
nothing because the wall was high and the 
lady was short. 

The next day, at two, another lady came 
to the prison, bringing Kropotkin a watch. 
Not dreaming that a pocket time-piece 
could contain anything dangerous, the au- 
thorities passed it along without examina- 
tion. Kropotkin did not look at the hour, 
but pulled off the lid, and found a tin)^ 
cipher note containing a new plan. ( Had 
one of the officials performed this opera- 
tion the lady's life would have been for- 
feited.) 

This time the comrades rented the bunga- 
low opposite the hospital. A musician was 
there ready to play on his violin if all were 
well. For a mile around every cab had 
been hired to render pursuit difficult. But 
what was to be done with the soldier who 
was posted at the gate and who could 
easily prevent Kropotkin from gaining the 
street, by merely stepping in front of him 
with lowered bayonet? Ah, the comrades, 
like Chitchikoff in Gogol's Dead Soulsj 
had an idea. This soldier had once worked 
in the laboratory of the hospital, and there- 



76 Comrade Kropotkin 

fore they appointed one of their number 
to divert his attention by a discussion on 
microscopes. 

At four o'clock Kropotkin was escorted 
to the yard. He waited a moment, wiped 
his brow as if it were hot, and took off 
his hat. From the little gray house a violin 
sounded. The tones fell sweetly on Kro- 
potkin's ears. He moved toward the gate 
intending to run in a moment. Suddenly — 
the music ceased. His heart hurt. Some- 
thing writhed. One painful minute passed 
. . . Two . . . Three . . . Four . . . Five . . . 
Ten minutes ... No music ... 'A quarter 
of an hour. . . Some heavily loaded carts 
entered the gate, and Kropotkin understood 
the cause of the interruption. 

Immediately the violin trilled. Kropot- 
kin listened with interest. The musician 
was talented, and performed with much 
feeling. You felt that if three of the strings 
broke, like Paganini he would still make 
ravishing music on the fourth. Moreover 
his technique was perfect. He was play- 
ing a mazurka from Kontsky — wild, eager, 
thrilling, — a mad mazurka. It attracted 
Kropotkin like a magnet. It pulled him to 
the end of the footpath. He trembled lest 
it should stop again, but the intoxicated 



The Open Gate 77 



sounds floated over the prison yard, louder 
and louder, with ever-increasing passion 
and freedom. 

Kropotkin glanced at the sentry. This 
hero followed a line parallel to his, but 
five paces nearer the gate. He was sup- 
possed to walk directly behind the prisoner, 
but as Kropotkin always crawled feebly 
along at a snaiPs pace, the able-bodied sen- 
try who was too vigorous to creep, hit upon 
the above device. 

Five paces nearer the gate — that was 
bad. But the sentry was only a sentry, 
while Peter Kropotkin was a mathematician 
and a psychologist. He calculated that if 
he began to run, the soldier instead of 
heading directly for the gate to cut off 
his escape, would obey his natural instinct 
and endeavor to seize him as quickly as 
possible. He would thus describe two sides 
of a triangle, of which Kropotkin would 
describe the third alone. 

Fortissimo — how loudly that violin 
played! Kropotkin ran! 

No sooner had he taken a few steps than 
some peasants who were piling wood, 
shouted, "He runs! Stop him"! It was for 
the people that Kropotkin was in prison; 
it was for them that he descended from 



78 Comrade Kropotkin 

his high estate; it was for them that he 
was ready to die at any moment. But the 
blocks with the slanted brows did not 
understand. At night when the)^ lay on 
their rotting straw,, they thanked the good 
gods for sending them such good masters. 
Now they called out, "Stop him I Stop 
him I''* 

When Kropotkin heard that cry, he fled 
with a speed equal to Commandant Masyu- 
kov*s, when Madame Sigida struck him. 
Already the sentry — doing just what Kro- 
potkin expected him to do — was at his 
heels. Three soldiers who were sitting on 
the doorstep, followed. The athletic sen- 
tinel was so confident he could outrun the 
invalid that he did not fire, but flung his 
rifle forward, tr)^ing to give the fleeing 
patient a bayonet-blow in the back. But 
it is never safe to take chances with even 
a sick runner, when he is sprinting for his 
life. 

"Did you ever see what a big tail that 
louse has under the microscope ?'' asked the 
scientific comrade of the soldier at the gate. 

* For a work dealing witii revolutionary workmen and 
peasants, see "Mother,'' by Maxim Gorky. See also the ad- 
mirable **Russia's Message" by William ^^lish Walling. This 
book is illustrated with magnificent photographs, including the 
latest one of Kropotkin. 



The Open Gate 79 



"What, man! A tail? Why, man, you're 
craz}'!" 

"That's right. It has a tail as long as 
that." 

"Come man, none of your tales now. Do 
you take me for a fool? I know a thing 
or two about the microscope myself." 

"But I tell you it has. I aught to know 
bet):er. That's the very first thing I saw 
under the microscope." 

At this moment Kropotkin ran past them 
unnoticed, and tho usually much interested 
in convex lenses, took absolutely no part 
in the animated argument. 

On gaining the street he was dumfounded 
to see that the huge man who occupied 
the carriage wore a military cap. The un- 
happy thought came to him that he had 
been betrayed. But on running nearer he 
saw it was a friend. 

"Jump in! Jump in!" cried this modern 
Mikoula Selaninovich in a terrible voice, 
calling him a vile name. Leaning over to 
the coachman, he shoved a revolver in his 
face, screaming, "Gallop! Gallop! I will 

kill you, you 1 !" using language abusive 

enuf to have made every foul-mouthed cos- 
sack in the cavalry stare in mute admiration. 

Springing into the air from a forefoot, the 



80 Comrade Kropotkin 

beautiful horse — a famous trotter named 
Barbar — flew along as if it were shod not 
with steel but with wings. When the cause 
of Revolution is triumphant, this flying 
quadruped should receive a statue of purest 
gold, for two years later it rendered another 
magnificent service to the movement by 
bearing to safety the Nihilist Stepniak, after 
he helped assassinate the monstrous Mez- 
entsov — murderer of many.* 

Like lightning it leapt thru a narrow lane ; 
they entered the immense Nevsky Prospect; 
they turned into a side-street; Kropotkin 
ran up a stair-case; the smiling comrade- 
coachman drove away. At the top of the 
steps waiting with painful anxiety was his 
sister-in-law. Physiologists claim it is im- 
possible to do two things at one instant, 
but Kropotkin says that when he fell into 



* The Russian Revolutionists are too modest. Stepniak in 
''Underground Russia,** finds it necessary to mention that 
Mezentsov was stabbed to death in the streets of Saint Peters- 
burg in full daylight, but he does not tell the reader that he 
himself was the author of the glorious deed. To find this out, 
we must go to another work ; for instance, Konni ZiUiacus's 
''Russian Revolutionary Movement," or Leo Deutsch's "Six- 
teen Years in Siberia,** (see the English translation by Helen 
Chisholm). On the other hand Deutsch escaped in a roman- 
tic manner from the prison in Kiev, but in his book he 
refers to it so casually that if we wish to learn the facts 
we must go to another work ; either Stepniak*8, or Professor 
Thun*s "Geschichte der revolutionaren Bewegung in RusslaDd.** 



The Open Gate 81 



her arms, she laughed and cried at once, 
and at the same time bade him change his 
clothes and crop his beard. Ten minutes 
later, he and his muscular Mikoula left the 
house, and took a cab. About an hour 
after, the house was searched, but as Kro- 
potkin was not there, and it was necessary 
to arrest someone, the police took his sister 
and his sister-in-law. 

Kropotkin was puzzled where to spend 
the time till evening, but his big friend 
knew. He called out to the cabman, "To 
Donon!" which has the same significance 
in Saint Petersburg that Delmonico has in 
New York, or Cecil in London, or Doree 
in Paris, or Bristol in Berlin, or Sacher in 
Vienna. 

The decision was wise, for the police 
searched the dirty slums, but not the swell 
West End. So Kropotkin, dressed in an 
elegant costume, entered the aristocratic 
restaurant, and as he walks thru the halls 
flooded with light and crowded with guests, 
let us fill the biggest bumper with the 
richest wine, and quaff congratulations to 
the noblest prince that was ever impris- 
oned — and escaped. 

Then softly let us retreat on tiptoe, and 
glance at his products for the book-shelf. 



FROM THE PRINTING PRESS 

You poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, if you 
understand your true mission and the very interests 
of art itself, come with us. Place your pen, your 
pencil, your chisel, your ideas at the service of 
the revolution. Figure forth to us, in your elo- 
quent style, or your impressive pictures, the heroic 
struggles of the people against their oppressors, 
fire the hearts of our youth with that glorious re- 
volutionary enthusiasm which inflamed the souls 
of our ancestors ; tell women what a noble career 
is that of a husband who devotes his life to the 
great cause of social emancipation 1 Show the 
people how hideous is their actual life, and place 
your hands on the causes of its ugliness ; tell us 
what a rational life ^vould he, if it did not en- 
coimter at every step the follies and ignomies of 
our present social order. — P. Kropotkin : Ati 
Appeal to the Toung^. 

|ETER KROPOTKIN'S writings 
range from obscure articles in 
unknown papers read by a hand- 
I fill of faithful subscribers, to 
cloth-bound far-famed volumes translated 
into several languages; include contribu- 
tions to periodicals as revolutionary as Re- 
volte and as respectable as the Atlantic 
Monthly; embrace all subjects from ma- 
chinery to music, and from Tolstoyism to 
Terrorism. 




From the Printing Press 83 

Judged from a literary standpoint, his 
work is distinctly disappoiiiting. It is style- 
less. But it has one redeeming feature: 
clearness. The man is straight. He is not 
ashamed of his ideas. He speaks right out. 
He is one of the few authors who writes 
for the peculiar purpose of being under- 
stood. He does not bury the flower of 
his thought in a wilderness of words. 

It cannot be contended that Kropotkin 
gave up his style because he writes for 
workers who are unable to appreciate the 
beauty of literary composition. A man may 
refuse a title with an oath as Carlyle did, 
or give it up as Kropotkin himself did, but 
he who has a style relinquishes it not, for 
this is a gift besides which the 'boast of 
heraldry' is as a puppy's snappish yelp unto 
the lion's mighty roar. 

Neither can it be, claimed that Kropot- 
kin's stylistic deficiency is due to the fact 
that he is an economist. So was Henry 
George, and yet there is a magical music 
in Progress and Poverty which makes the 
phrases flow like a poem of Pushkin's. 

Nor can it be argued that his style has 
been spoilt by the circumstance that he 
writes in various languages, for in none of 
his work is there epigram, imagery or im- 



84 Comrade Xropotkin 

agination — the glorious trinity of the stylists. 
But what has a foreign tongue to do with 
it? Was not Kossuth just as much an artist 
in English as in his native pepper? Even 
when he cried that we must seize the op- 
portunity by the front hair? Many waters 
cannot quench love, and strange alphabets 
do not wipe out style. 

What is a stylist? He is one who handles 
words, who licks phrases into shape, who 
moulds clauses to his bidding, who compels 
a sentence to leave a deathless impression, 
who weaves a connected chain of harmony 
from the scattered links of language. 

Kropotkin has written very much, but 
practice does not make a stylist any more 
than learning the rules in the Rationale 
of Verse makes one capable of producing 
The Raven. The secret of style is re- 
vealed to few. Its essence is a mystery 
in which only a handful are initiated. The 
elusive occultism of art consists in this — 
that a single expression has the power to 
either damn a passage into oblivion, or to 
emblazon it forever in eternity. 

To give a striking instance: When Ed- 
gar Poe first wrote To Helen^ these lines 
composed the second stanza: 



From the Printing Press 86 

^^On desperate seas long wont to roam, 
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, 

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home 
To the beauty of fair Greece, 

And the grandeur of old Rome.'' 

In this case the concluding couplet is 
cheap and commonplace — ''fair Greece'' and 
"old Rome'* being anemic expressions unfit 
to live. Poe amended it to read: 

"To the glory that was Greece, 
And the grandeur that was Rome." 

Miracle of Art ! This^ is not a change, 
but an apotheosis. We now have two lines 
which lay before us in gorgeous perfection 
a picture of the past; two lines as splendid 
as they were sickly, as magnificent as for- 
merly they wery mediocre. Yet the idea 
is the same in both cases. What then is 
it which makes so much difference ? It is 
the manner of expression — it is style — it 
is art. 

There is no reason why one man should 
be a stylist and another should not, but so 
it is. Huxley was a stylist; Darwin was 
not; Herzen, yes; Kropotkin, no. 

Being anxious to know Kropotkin's ex- 
act attitude towards Art, I wrote to him 
asking categorically: "In your opinion, have 



86 Comrade KropotJdn 

exquisite poets like Keats and Pushkin- — 
who never touched social questions, but 
celebrated only beauty — been of much 
benefit to mankind?'' 

He answered thus: "Not in a direct way, 
but perhaps very much in an indirect 
way: Pushkin by creating language,* and 
Keats by teaching love of nature. As to 
"exquisiteness,'' have we not had too much 
of those egotistic sweets?" 

Closely analysed, and reduced to its ul- 
timate elements, this answer shows that 
Kropotkin has no use for art per se. Ac- 
cording to him Keats and Pushkin are 
benefactors not because of their beautiful 
verses, but because of other reasons. Ex- 
quisiteness he condemns altogether. He 
rejects the doctrine of Art for the sake of 
Art. He does not subscribe to the creed 
of Flaubert, Gautier, Bouilhet, Maupassant, 
Anatole France and Lafcadio Hearn. 

I think Kropotkin is wrong, and I be- 
lieve that because his work lacks artistic 
finish, much of it is doomed to perish. 

Maxim Gorky, in speaking of a brief 
period when the Russian Censorship was 

* When Pushkin began to write, the Russian litenuy lan- 
guage was in a somewhat unsettled and nebulous state, and his 
poetry helped to fonn and fix it. He thus did for Russian lit^ 
erature what Chaucer did for English. 



From the Printing Press 87 

somewhat suspended, said, "Books fell over 
the land like flakes of snow, but their ef- 
fect was as ^sparks of fire!'' 

If Kropotkin wished to express the same 
idea, he would say it something like this: 
"Numerous books of all descriptions were 
published and distributed thruout Russia." 

How fine Gorky's; how poor Kropotkin's. 
How vivid the former; how weak the latter. 
This is the difference between style and 
lack of it. Not in the entire range of Kro- 
potkin's writings is there a single sentence 
in any way comparing with the above one 
of Gorky's; for he who writes without art 
holds a crippled pen. I may be mistaken, 
but in my opinion this single quotation from 
the Bitter One is worth all Kropotkin's 
Freedom Pamphlets. It is sublime in its 
similes and exquisite in its antitheses. 
There is a power in it which unchains en- 
thusiasm and awakens intensity. "Books 
fell over the land like flakes of snow, but 
their effect was as sparks of fire." It is 
art. It is unforgettable, while to remember 
a phrase from Modern Scijence and An- 
archism is impossible. 

With this introduction, we may proceed 
to examine his work, much of which is 
necessary and valuable, tho none of it is 



88 Comrade KropotJdn 

of primal or epoch-making importance. 
Stepniak is right when he says, "He is not 
a mere manufacturer of books. Beyond his 
purely scientific labors, he has never written 
any work of much moment." And as 
Herzen said of Ogaryov, we may remark 
of Kropotkin: "His chief life-work was 
the working out of such an ideal person- 
ality as he is himself.'' 

The majority of prominent periodicals 
in England and America to which Kropotkin 
has contributed, are listed in the Reader^ s 
Guide which can be found in any library, 
and those interested can look them up. 
Of course, many of these articles are first- 
class, but I can stop to mention only two. 
See Russia and the. Student Riots ( Out-- 
look^ April 6, 1901), which deals with the 
disturbances which caused the young revo- 
lutionist, Peter Karpowitch, to kill Bogo- 
lepov. Minister of Public Instruction. It 
shows with painful clearness the extreme 
and useless savagery of that cruel,repulsive, 
Stead-praised, arch-murderer, Nicholas II. 

See also the Present Crisis in Russia, 
{JVortk American Review, May 1901). In 
this excellent essay he refers to the* Procur- 
ator of the Holy Synod in these words: 
"Pobedonostzeft', a narrow-minded fanatic 



From the Printing Press 89 

of the state religion, who — if it were only 
in his power — would have burnt at the 
stake all protestants against Orthodoxy and 
Catholicism."* 

Who should answer this article, but Po- 
bedonostzeff himself ! {Russia and Popular 
Education^ N. A. R. September 1901). 
How strange when Light and Darkness 
are arrayed against each other If Pobedon- 
ostzeff calls Kropotkin "a learned geogra- 
pher and sociologist;" but says; "Tho a 
Russian, he (Kropotkin) does not under- 
stand Russia, and is incapable of under- 

* Kropoticin is too mild. Pobedonostzeff, world-renowned 
as the ^Modern Torquemada," shed more blood, and was a 
colder and — if possible — crueller being than the terrible Span- 
ish Inquisitor, while the physical tortures that he used, with 
the exception of burning at the stake which was too open an 
affair, were practically the same that were in vogue during 
the Dark Ages. He started numerous massacres which resulted 
in the deaths of g^reat numbers. He often inflamed peoples who 
lived in harmony, to destroy each other. He was eminently 
successful in stirring up racial hatred and religious prejudice. 
**When I was in the Caucasus I saw the Georgian everywhere 
working peacefidly and contentedly side by side with the Tartar 
and the Armenian. How happily and simply, like children, 
they played and sang and laughed, and how difficult now to 
believe that these simple, delightful people are busy killing 
each other in a senseless, stupid way, obedient to dark and evil 
influences.** — Maxim Gorky in London Times. These ^dark 
and evil influences** emanat^ ^m the medieval fissures in the 
theolog^c brain of Constantine Petrovitch Pobedonostzeff. 

t Twenty years previous, in the pages of this very mag^azine, 
the same thing occurred, for the enlightened Ingersoll and the 
orthodox Jeremiah Black argued about Christianity. 



90 Comrade KropoMn 

standing his country; for the soul of the 
Russian people is a closed book to him 
which he has never opened." It is note- 
worthy that he does not attempt to deny 
Kropotkin's charge that if it were only in 
his power he would burn at the stake all 
protestants against orthodoxy and Catholi- 
cism. Doubtless he considers this his 
chief crown of glory. 

There was a further response from Kro- 
potkin, (/Russian Schools and the Holy 
Synod^ N. A. R. April 1902). 

Among his pamphlets which are used 
assiduously by the anarchists of all coun- 
tries for propaganda, -and which often cause 
the arrest of the devoted distributer, are: 
Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal. 
The State : Its Historic Role. War. Law 
and Authority. The Paris Commune. Or- 
ganized Vengeance — called Justice. An- 
archist Communism: Its Basis and Prin-- 
ciples. An Appeal to the Toung. The 
Psychology of Revolution. The Wage 
System. These tracts are valuable as eye- 
openers to uneducated workmen, but they 
possess no merit whatsoever for cultured 
liberals. 

Altho Kropotkin has written more than 
thirty geographical articles for the Ency^ 
clopedia Britannica^ it is difficult to think 



From the Printing Press 91 

of this revolutionaire as a contributor to 
this backward publication. The Encyclo- 
pedia Britannica is not on the trail for 
truth — it wants current prejudices. For in- 
stance, Professor Samuel Davidson, D. D., 
LL. D., was asked to contribute an essay 
on the Canon. Happening to be a scholar 
as well ^as a theolog, the ivenerable man 
was not satisfied with the logic of Father 
Irenaeus, that since the earth has four 
corners, and there are four winds, and 
animals have four legs, there must be four 
Gospels. His article was so mutilated by 
the editors of the Encyclopedia^ that in 
justice to himself, he was obliged to publish 
the original version in book form. The 
Canon of the Bible. When the Encyclo^ 
pedia mentions liberty, it is from the re- 
actionary viewpoint. T^i^ American Supple- 
ment follows its parent in this respect, for 
here are eulogistic accounts of the second 
and third Alexanders, by Nathan Haskell 
Dole.* This Hterat is so ignorant of the most 
important epochs in the Russian Revolution, 
that he writes," Vera Zasulich murdered Gen- 
eral Trepov;" when all the world knows that 

* We wonld natarally expect better things from the author 
of that specially fine sonnet, ^^Russia" (see Stedman^s Ameri- 
can Anthology) , beginning : 

^^Satuniian mother ! why dost thou devour 
Thy ofilspring, who by loving thee are curst?" 



93 Comrade KropotJdn 

Trepov was only wounded and soon recov- 
ered.* Luxuriously abound the weeds of his 
misstatements. f He speaks of the ^private 
virtues' of Alexander III. They must have 
been very private indeed, for no one ever 
discovered them. He speaks of his ^noble 
aspirations/ but the son of Maria of Hesse- 
Darmstadt had only this one aspiration: 
to wipe out freedom as effectually as a 
whirlwind blows away a puff of smoke. 
Such is the famous publication to which 
all school-girls resort when they must pre- 
pare a composition on Milton. 

* The same mistake (and a respectable number of others) is 
made by William Eleroy Curtis in his false and disgustinff **The 
Land or the Nihilist." He devotes a whole chapter to ^exan- 
der II., speaks continually of his assassination, and yet does not 
know even the name of the famous assassin. He says it is 
Elnikoff (sic) ! This is a bad guess. On this occasion two bombs 
were thrown. The first by Rysakov, and it destroyed the car- 
riage. The second by Grinevetsky, and it destroyed the em- 
peror. How carefiilly and conscientiously the well-informed 
author has studied the history of the Russian Revolution which 
he so vilely condemns ! If he ever compiles a work on England, 
I dare say he will announce that Charles I. wfu sentenced to 
death by the Quakers. 

t It almost emials Broughton Brandenburg*s **Thfe Menace 
of the Red Flag^ (Broadway Magazine, June 1908), in which 
Bakunin is called a Frenchman ! I read the unlimib^ number 
of errors in this article with uncontrollable amazement. Few 
men, I said, are gifted with such an infinite amount of ig^no- 
rance and godliness. The next day the newspapers announced 
that this same Saint Broughtonius had been arreted by his wife 
and was being sued for abandonment and non-support. 

P. S. As I correct these proofs I learn that Brandenbuig 
the Blessed is again under arrest; this time for forging Grover 
Cleveland's signature to a campaign article and selling it to the 
New York Times for $900. 



From the Printing Press 98 

Kropotkin's strictly scientific works, the 
Orography of Asia and the Glacial Period 
were written in Russian and have not been 
translated into English. 

During his imprisonment at Clairvaux, 
appeared his Words of a Rebels 1885, in 
French, published by Elisee Reclus. It is 
a critical exposition of Anarchism.* 

In 1886 he published his first book in 
English, In Russian and French Prisons. 
This work soon disappeared from the mar- 
ket. Kropotkin himself offered a high price 
for a copy, but could not obtain one. It 
seems the agents of the Russian govern- 
ment bought up the entire edition and 
destroyed it. 

In 1 892 appeared his Conquest of Breads 
in French, which has been translated into 
Dutch, German, Spanish, Portugeuse, Nor- 
wegian, English. It is perhaps his most 
important work and has been much re- 
viewed and quoted. Notice to those who 
wish to think: Study this volume. 

In 1898 appeared his Fields^ Factories 
and Workshops. This highly excellent work 
is the splendid outcome of several essays 

* For an impartial discussion of the various anarchial 
schools, including of course Peter Kropotkin*s, see ^Anarchism** 
by Dr. Paul Eltzbacher. 



94 Comrade KropotJdn 

which were written a decade previous for 
the Nineteenth Century (1880- 1890), and 
one for the Forum^ (^Possibilities of Ag- 
riculture^ August 1890). If nations would 
follow this book, how great would be their 
gain in prosperity and happiness!* 

This book is a plea for intensive agri- 
culture, and in view of the great cry, 

* Without venturing my own opinon, I must say that in 
this work Kropotkin enunciates a theory which few radicals 
accept — the Decentralisation of Industries. Briefly stated, 
the doctrine is this : It is untrue that certain nations are 
specialised either for industry or for agriculture. Countries 
which economists have declared to be merely agricultural 
lands, have recently advanced so rapidly in industries that 
the supremacy of the champions is seriously threatened. No 
one or two nations can again secure a monopoly of industry, 
for the tendency of modern civilization is towards a spread- 
ing and scattering of industries all over the earth. Not a 
mere shifting of the center of gravity from one country to 
another, as formerly happened in Europe wh^n the commer- 
cial hegemony migrated from Italy to Spain, then to Holland, 
and Anally to Britain, but an actual and permanent decentral- 
isation of industry, by its very nature making it impossible 
for any nation to gain industrial ascendancy. Even the most 
backward nations will soon manufacture almost everything 
they need. There is much advantage in this combination of 
industrial with agricultural pursuits. It is well to have pro- 
duction for home use — each region producing and consuming 
its own manufactured goods and its own agricultural pro- 
duct. Of course the Socialists are diametrically opposed 

to this contention, and they answer it with one word — the 
trusts. When I spoke with Leonard I). Abbott about Kro- 
potkin, he told me his high opinion of him, but soon referred 
to this hypothesis, and laughed. It was the same when I 
mentioned the point to Dr. Antoinette Konikov, etc. See 
Abbott's "A Visit to Prince Kropotkin," (Twentieth Century, 
October 2, 1897). 



From the Printing Press 96 

"Back to the land!" which is sweeping 
over the nations, it is a fulfilled prophecy. 
It is the remedy for social ills — the solu- 
tion of the labor problem. Kropotkin shows 
that by the new method of scientific farm- 
ing, a man can make a living from an acre 
of ground,* and as soon as the working- 
man realizes this fact — and can get a bit 
of land — he will be able to discharge his 
employer and bounce his boss. By all 
means read the chapters on The Possibil- 
ities of Agriculture: no fairy-tale is more 
miraculous.f 

In 1899 appeared in book form the Me- 
moirs of a Revolutionist which had first 
run serially in the Atlantic Monthly^ (Sep- 
tember 1898 to September 1899), under the 
title. Autobiography of a Revolutionist. 
In the magazine, the introduction is by 
Robert Erskine Ely, who was Kropotkin's 
host when the Russian traveled in America. 
In the book, however, the preface is by 
Brandes. Neither of these forewords is 
brilliant, but the latter is the worse. When 

* My friend Elmer Littlefield has demonstrated the same 
thing on his acre on Fellowship Farm, Westwood, Mass. His 
magazine, Ariel, is an enthusiastic advocate of intensive agri- 
cnltare. 

t Bolton Hairs "Three Acres and Liberty" is based to a 
great extent on this work of Kropotkin *s. 



96 Comrade KropotJcin 

we think of Norway, we think of only one 
man — Ibsen. When we think of Denmark, 
we think of only one man — Brandes. But 
in this case his preface was a fizzle. In 
fact, it is almost as bad as the erudite Lav- 
rov's preface to Stepniak's splendid Under- 
ground Russia. No better and nobler book 
than these Memoirs has been written; no- 
thing higher and purer could be written. 
Only one thing is lacking; indeed, it is the 
chief omission in the cosmos of Kropotkin 
— the poetic note. He is good and great, 
but the passionate fire is denied him. His 
soul is not aflame with poesy's burning 
brand. He could never cry out like the 
student Ivan Kalayev, "My soul is burning 
with stormy passion; my heart is full of 
battle-boldness. O, if I could only see the 
coming of liberty I O, to pull the mask of 
falsehood from the face of the murderer, to 
strike the tyrant with the steel-arm! Enuf 
tears! Let the glorious, victorious struggle 
arise! The people are calling us! It is a 
shame, it is a crime to wait longer! Fall 
upon the enemy, my honest hereditary 
sword 1 I am thine, altogether thine, O my 
country, my mother!'* But leaving divine 
enthusiasm aside, this volume is perfection. 
He who peruses its loving pages, gains a 



» ^^^ 

From the Printing Press 97 

tender brother whose body is unseen, 
but whose memory becomes imperishable. 
When you read it, you cry a little, because 
the man who wrote it was so kind. Across 
the miles you seem to hear his fraternal 
voice, and you know if you write to him, he 
will answer you thus : "Dear Comrade." — If 
you have time to read but a single volume 
a year, and desire one by a Russian, and ask 
my advice, I say: Read one of these — 
Underground Russia^ by Stepniak; or 
Memoirs of a Revolutionist^ by Kropotkin.* 

In 1902 he wrote Modern Science and 
Anarchism^ a booklet of about one hun- 
dred pages which is much admired and 
extensively advertised by the anarchists. 

By far his most important work of re- 
cent years is. Mutual Aid: A Factor in 
Evolution.^ His contention is that in pro- 
gressive evolution, mutual aid plays a greater 
part than mutual struggle. He claims that 
most Darwinians have misinterpreted Dar- 
win's ideas. For an able analysis of this 

* After finishing the "Memoirs,** my ft*iend, Miss Margaret 
Scott wrote me : "As a system of ethical training it might be 
advisable to have our poUce lieutenants read one chapter a day 
of Kropotkin, while lawyers, mayors and such, should have to 
get thru three. I'hink of the mental upheaval !** 

t Spargo the Socialist — always a vehement foe of the An- 
archists — calls this "a wonderful book.** See his "The 
Socialists.** 



98 Comrade Kropotkin 

great book, see the review by Professor 
Vladimir G. Simkhovitch, {^Popular Science 
^uarterly^ December 1903). 

In 1905 appeared his Russian Litera- 
ture'^ — a ver}' good and useful text-book — 
which originated in a series of eight lect- 
ures, delivered March 1901, at the Lowell 
Institute in Boston. It is not perfect, but 
this is not the author's fault. With only 
three hundred pages at his disposal, it is 
impossible to treat all adequately, while 
some writers had to be omitted entirely. 
For example, there is not a line about the 
famous anti-militarist novelist, Vsevqlod 
Garshin (1855-1888), or of Simon Nadson 
(1862- 1 887), the exquisite and melancholy 
poet who chanted songs not at sunrise, but 
in shadow and solitude, and died in youth 
and sadness, leaving to the Outcasts of the 
Ages another great name to cherish.f 

In reading this book we experience a 
peculiarly uneasy sensation: — 

We read of Lomonosov, by far the 
greatest Russian of his age, whose life was 
broken by political persecution. 

* This book is not permitted in Russia — when KeUogg Dor- 
land traveled there, he had to rip off the cover and wrap 
the pages around his body. 

t Several intelligent Russians tell me Nadson is their favor- 
ite poet ; therefore this must be considered a serious omiasion. 
One exclaimed, **What, he whites about Fet and not Nadson !** 



From the Printing Press 99 

We read of the moral Novikov, whom 
Catherine II. sentenced to serve fifteen 
years in a secret cell in Schusselburg. 

We read of Labzin, who wrote against 
corruption, and consequently was forced to 
end his days in exile. 

We read of Radischeff — the first to point 
out the horrors of serfdom — who was 
imprisoned, deported, and died by suicide. 

We read of the epoch-making Pushkin 
who was exiled to Kishinev at twenty, 
and later to Mikhailovskoye, and who es- 
caped permanent political exile in Siberia 
b}^ accident. 

We read of the Byronic Lermontov who 
was banished to the Caucasus for writing 
a poem on the death of Pushkin. 

We read of Ryleev, Odoevsky, Shev- 
chenko, Griboyedov, Pisarev,Chernishevsky, 
whose martyrdoms I have already men- 
tioned. 

We read of the brilliant and poetic Po- 
lezhaev, who was send tg the barracks 
when a minor and died there from con- 
sumption. 

We read of the popular novelist Bes- 
tuzhev, who was exiled to Siberia and then 
sent to the Caucasus as, a soldier. 



100 Comrade Kropoikin 

• 

We read of the great Gogol who suiSered 
at the hands of the censorship. 

We read of Turgenev who was arrested 
and exiled to his distant estates for writing 
a brief obituary notice of Gogol. Had it 
not been for his influential friends he would 
have gone to Siberia. 

We read of Leo Tolstoy whose excellent 
educational experiment was violently abol- 
ished by the government, so enraging this 
extraordinary man that he warned Alexan- 
der II. he would shoot the first police of- 
ficer who would again dare to enter his 
home. 

We read of the high-strung Dostoyevsky 
who for no reason at all was sentenced to 
death, brought to the gibbet, pardoned there, 
condemned toiihard labor, imprisoned, ex- 
iled, deprived of literary work, beaten with 
the cat-o'-nine-tails, tortured in a thousand 
ways, year after year, till he became a 
mental and physical wreck. In all the his- 
tory of the human race, from the day that 
primitive man roamed the untamed forests, 
and stubbing his naked toe agaiifM a root, 
fell down to worship it, to placate it, to 
appease it, until the scientific time that a 
biologist like Haeckel absolutely denied 
the existence of god and soul, — there has 



From the Printing Press 101 

been nothing more horribly cruel than the 
czarish treatment which the Russian gov- 
ernment meted out to the gifted youth who 
produced a work in his early twenties that 
caused Nekrasov to cry out to Belinsky, 
"A new Gogol is born to us!'** 

We read of Plescheev, one of Russia's 
foremost poets, who was sent as a soldier 
to the Orenburg region, and endured per- 
secution for years. 

We read of Mikhail Mikhailov — one of 
the most valued contributors to the Sov- 
remennik. (The Contemporary), a wonder- 
ful periodical numbering among its contri- 
butors, Chernishevsky, Dobrolubov, Tolstoy, 
Nekrasov — who was condemned to hard 
labor in Siberia where he soon died. 

We read of Ostrovsky, the Father of the 
Russian Drama, who was placed under 
police supervision as a suspect. 

We read of the loving Levitov — "a pure 
flower of the Russian steppes'' — who while 
a student was exiled to the far north, and 
later removed to Vologda where he was 
forced to live in complete isolation from 
everything intellectual and in awful pov- 
erty verging on starvation. 

* On this subject see "Russia and the Russians," by Ed- 
mund Noble. 



102 Comrade JCropotkin 

We read of Petropavlovsky who was 
early exiled to the Siberian government of 
Tobolsk, where he was kept many years 
and from which he was released only to 
die soon after from consumption. 

We read of Saltykoff ( Schedrin ), the 
greatest of satirists, who was exiled for 
several years in the miserable provincial 
town of V3^atka. 

We read of Belinsky, the greatest of 
critics, who fortunately died young enuf 
to escape the fortress. When he was dy- 
ing an agent of the state-police would call 
from time to time to ascertain if he were 
still alive. Had he recovered he would 
have been transfered to Peter and Paul. 

We read of the persecution of Palm and 
Potyekhin; of the years that Melshin, Ko- 
rolenko, Zasodimsky, Elpatiievsky, etc, spent 
in exile. By this time a terrible truth dawns 
upon the startled mind: In RomanofPs 
Russia, scarcely one single writer of worth 
has escaped imprisonment or banishment.* 

♦ "The history of Russian Literature is a maHyrology. ** 
See "Russian Traits and Terrors,** by E. B.Lanin, the collec- 
tive signature of several writers in the Fortnightly Review. 
The Twentieth Century (June 26, 1897) ends its review of this 
volume with this sentence : "Concerning Russian prisons the 
book makes revelations so sickening that language is polluted 
by the recital of them. Swinburne's fierce ode is mild in its 
characterization of their brutal infamy, and it is possible, after 



From the Printing Press 108 

And these prophets who have been thus 
persecuted were not despicable rhymers like 
Alfred Austin, or duke-and-duchess novel- 
ists like Harold MacGrath. They were 
great-brained men whose mission was to 
uplift a nation. Had the Catherines, Nicho- 
lases, and Alexanders been less powerful, 
Russia would not now be the foulest blot 
on our skull-strewn earth.* 

Ivan Federof was the first of Russian 
printers. In 1564 he cast the Slavonic char- 
acters. Being accused of heresy, he fled for 



reading these pages to agree with Ernest Belfort Bax*s assertion 
that any sane man, knowing the facts, who pronounces it wrong 

to assassinate the Czar, deliberately lies." Swinburne's poem, 

*'Russia: An Ode,** altho it contains a few weak lines, is cer- 
tainly one of the most fiery outbursts in the language, and is 
clearly the work of a master. Here is a representative passage : 

"Hell recoils heart-stricken: horror worse than hell 

Darkens earth and sickens heaven ; life knows the spell. 

Shudders, quails, and sinks — or, filled with fierier breath. 

Rises red in arms devised of darkling death. 

Pity mad with pcission, anguish mad with shame. 

Call aloud on justice by her darker name ; 

Love g^ws hate for love's sake ; life takes death for guide. 

Night hath none but one red star — Tyrannicide. 

* Imagine the United States of America if Franklin had 
been murdered, if Irving had been knouted, if Bryant had been 
exiled, if Emerson had been imprisoned, if Longfellow had 
been starved, if Whittier had been hanged, if Holmes had been 
flogged, if Thoreau had been shot, if Whitman had been poi- 
soned, if Hawthorne had been chained with iron, if Lowell had 
been kept in a secret dungeon, if Motley had spent his life in a 
mine, if Parkman had been tortured^ etc., etc., etc. 



104 Comrade KropotJcm 

his life. The Lithuanian magnates with 
whom he sought refuge, forced him to till 
the soil. Unhappy Federof said, "It was 
not my work to sow the grain, but to scat- 
ter thru the earth, food for the mind, nour- 
ishment for the souls of all mankind." He 
perished in Lemberg in extreme poverty.* 
Woful was his fate — symbolic of the sad 

* See ** Russian Novelists" by Viscount Vogue. But the 
statements of this virulent French reactionary must be re- 
ceived with extreme caution as his perverted brains frequently 
prevent him from stating the truth. For example, in speaking 
of Turgenev, he says, "But, tho always ready to help others, 
he certainly never gave his aid to any political intriguer. Was 
it natural that a man of his refinement and high culure should 
have aided the schemes of wild and fruitless political conspir- 
acies?" By 'political intriguer* he means an 'enemy to the 
empire,' a revolutionist. Now the facts are that no one was 
of greater use to Herzen the arch-revolutionist and his thun- 
dering Kolokol, than Turgenev. Herzen was in England and 
often it was impossible to explain how he knew some of the 
events which he described. It was Turgenev who furnished 
him this information. All this is revealed by the published 
corespondence of Herzen and Turgenev. Turgenev was 
fully and entirely in sympathy with the Russian Revolution. 
He earnestly desired to meet Ippolit Mishkin, and begged 
Kropotkin to tell him all he knew about this defiant 
revolutionary orator. Turgenev deeply loved his own Baz- 
aroff, and in explaining him says, "If the reader is not 
won by Bazaroff, notwithstanding his roughness, absence of 
heart, pitiless dryness and terseness, then the fault is with me 
— I have missed my aim ; but to sweeten him with syrup (to 
use Bazaroff*s own language), this I did not want to do, altho 
perhaps thru that I would have won Russian youth at once to 
my side .... When he calls himself nihilist, you must read 
revolutionist.'* 



From the Printing Press 106 

destiny which was to befall every literary 
man in Knoutland.* 

Let the Russian who intends to become 
an author prepare his last will and testa- 
ment, and notify the nearest undertaker. 
No night will be too dark to keep gen- 
darmes from bursting into his room and 
hauling him off to a prison from which he 
may never emerge. (If he comes from an 
aristocratic family let him adopt an empty- 
eyed skull and yellow cross-bones as a 
suitable coat-of-arms) . In the den of the 
bloody bear there is a blackness as of many 
clouds. Within this deep shadow, Virtue 
is slaughtered and Genius treated like an 
unwelcome cur. 



* This does not include obsequious authors like Derzhavin 
and Karamzin. Masters are usually willing to fling a few 
crumbs to their fawning dogs. 




IN LATER LIFE 

There are at this moment only t\To great Russians 
n'ho think for the Russian people, and %vhose 
thoughts belong to mankind, — Leo Tolstoy and 
Peter Kropotkin. — Gkurg Brandes 

STORM careered madly over the 
Northern Sea, its impatient waves 
heaving and howling, leaping 
with a burning frenz)', the fum- 
ing raging billows surging and swelling, 
calling and crying, roaring louder and louder, 
vaulting higher and higher. 

The steamer shook and swayed and strug- 
gled; the frightened passengers sought shel- 
ter in their state-rooms, but one of them 
sat for hours upon the stem of the deck, 
enjo5'ing the tempest intensely, putting out 
his face so it could be watered by the foam 
of the dashing waves. This was Kropot- 
kin. After the years he had spent in the 
charnel cell, no wonder every fibre in his 
body was trembling and throbbing to meet 
the force and passion of the sea-storm. 

He landed safely in the country where 
Herzen founded The Bell-, where Lavrov 
edited Forward, where Felix Volkhovsky 
was to conduct Free Russia, and where 
he himself was to start Freedom. 



In Later Life 1 07 



For over thirty years he has remained 
abroad. He never returned to Russia. He 
is one of the few revolutionists who never 
went back to that sunken swamp where 
liberty's wrapped in her winding-sheets, 
while tyranny's Irobed in ermine. There 
are two reasons for this. In the first place 
he became interested in a new-born idea — 
Anarchism — and felt he could be more 
useful as an apostle of this movement than 
as a rebel in Trepovdom. As is well-known, 
his lectures and writings on the subject 
have earned him the title, "Father of 
Anarchist-Communism." Secondly, when 
the Nihilists where changed (by purple 
butchers) into Terrorists, they dropped their 
propaganda of pamphlets to study the pro- 
perties of petroleum, and thus were forced 
to neglect the varletry. However, Kropot- 
kin's sympathies drew him more and more 
towards those human machines who toil so 
hard for their bread that if you cut their 
pennies open, the blood would gush from 
them. 

About a year after his escape, Kropotkin 
attended an important labor congress in 
Belgium (1877). A few days later the po- 
lice received an order to arrest him. At 
this time the theologians were in power, 



108 Comrade Kropotkin 

and the Belgian comrades knowing a clerical 
ministry would be only too willing to turn 
him over to the blood-sucking czar, insisted 
upon his leaving the country. On returning 
to his hotel, he found his good friend James 
Guillaume — small physically, big in all other 
respects — barring the way to his room, 
and sternly announcing that Kropotkin 
could enter only by using force against him. 

The next morning the ejected delegate 
sailed for London, but soon went to Paris 
where he helped to form radical groups. 
Again he was wanted by the police, but 
by mistake they arrested a Russian student 
(1878). Later he left for Switzerland where 
he founded an anarchistic paper, Ae J^e^ 
volte (1879). 

Two years later Alexander II. was as- 
sassinated. The government hanged the 
revolutionists at home, but pretended the 
exiles abroad were responsible for the deed. 
The Holy League was formed to execute 
the refugees. An officer who knew Kro- 
potkin when he was a page de chambre, 
was appointed to kill him. A woman was 
sent from Petersburg to Geneva to lead the 
conspiracy. Kropotkin took matters coolly, 
collected a pile of threatening letters — of 
which the police later relieved him — and 



In Later Lxfe 1 09 



nothing happened except that Helvetia was 
told if it did not expel the agitator, then 
Alexander III., the Lord's Anointed, would 
drive out from Russia all the Swiss gov- 
ernesses and ladies' maids, while the czarina 
would refuse to eat Swiss cheese. This was 
more than the little republic could stand, and 
Kropotkin was told to go. He says he did 
not take umbrage at this. 

He went once more to London, where 
he met his old comrade Chaykovsky, and 
together they began to preach their gospel 
of freedom. Always to work for the libera- 
tion of humanity — that isn't such a bad 
idea, is it?* 

At this time there was no movement in 
the Island which had imbibed the narcotic 
of reaction and lay in a wakeless torpor, 
and Kropotkin and his devoted wife felt 
so lonely among the napping Britons that 
they decided to cross the channel. "Better 
a prison in France than this grave," they 
said. They were followed by an arAy of 

* Kropotkin is still able to cross London Bridge, but his 
comrade is missing. For many years Chaykovsky kept away 
from Russia. During a whole generation uie man who taught 



Perovskaya was a wanderer in other lands. Some months ago 

Iff no longer. He 
is now in the Fortress of Peter and Paul. The Father of the 



he went back — he could control his yearning no longer. 



Revolution will sleep among his children. 

P. S. As this book goes to press, the haypv news comes that 
Chaykovsky has been liberated on a heavy bail, but it is not 
yet known what the government intends to do with him. 



110 Comrade Kropotkin 

informers, freely furnished by the loving 
Russian Government which cannot bear to 
see its children travel without suitable pro- 
tection. Not to be outdone in courtesy, the 
French police soon escorted him to the 
official lodging-house. 

Kropotkin was incarcerated in the central 
prison of Clairvaux where had been con- 
fined old Blanqui — the communard at whose 
burial Louise Michel spoke words which 
will have no funeral. Kropotkin was well- 
treated, the officials were polite, and he 
was permitted to give his fellow-prisoners 
instruction in physics, languages, geometry 
and cosmography. Unfortunately, Clair- 
vaux is built on marshy ground, and Kro- 
potkin fell sick from malaria. His wife 
who was studying in Paris, preparing for 
the degree of Doctor of Science, hastened 
from Wurtz's laboratory to the prison-town. 
She remained there until her iconoclast was 
released. This event occurred after three 
years' imprisonment. He then went to the 
capital, lectured to an audience of several 
thousand, and left France immediately to 
avoid a forcible expulsion. 

Such are some of the scenes in the life 
of Peter Kropotkin — imprisoned by gov- 
ernments, pursued by police, followed 



In Later Life 111 



by spies,* hounded by agents of autocracy. 

This peace-loving man whose name is 
synonym for kindness, this tender soul as 
modest as Newton, as gentle as Darwin, has 
been hunted from frontier to border-line. 
Against none of his persecutors does he utter 
a single invective. He is the epitome of 
mildness, the incarnation of humaneness. f 

Ask anyone who has seen Kropotkin for 
an hour or has known him for a generation, 
to describe his most characteristic trait, and 
the invariable answer will be: simplicity. 
His is a great spirit — it has cast out flam. 
"Kropotkin is one of the most sincere and 
frank of men," says Stepniak. "He always 
says the truth, pure and simple, without any 
regard for the amour propre of his hearers, 
or for any consideration whatever. This 
is the most striking and sympathetic feature 
of his character. Every word he says may 
be absolutely believed. His sincerity is 
such, that sometimes in the ardour of dis- 
cussion an entirely fresh consideration un- 

♦ Some types are depicted in Gorky's latest work, "The 
Spy," translated by Thomas Seltzer. Because of its subject- 
matter this book acts as an emetic. 

t I remember hearing James F. Morton, A. M. — author of 
the excellent essay "The Curse of Race Prejudice" — speak to 
Elbert Hubbard about Catherine Breshkovskaya whom he had 
seen at the Sunrise Club, and in wishing to illustrate her gen- 
Ueness and lack of resentment for those who ill-treated her, 
he called her "a female Kropotkin.' 



n 



112 Comrade Kropotkin 

expectedly presents itself to his mind, and 
sets him thinking. He immediately stops, 
remains quite absorbed for a moment, and 
then begins to think aloud, speaking as the 
he were an opponent. At other times he 
carries on this discussion mentally, and after 
some moments of silence, turning to his 
astonished adversary, smilingly says, *You 
are right.' This absolute sincerity renders 
him the best of friends, and gives especial 
weight to his praise and blame.'' 

Most of Kropotkin's Russian revolution- 
ary comrades — using the term Comrade in 
its broad sense — ended their days in misery. 
Kroutikoff strangled himself with a piece 
of linen; Stransky poisoned himself; Zap- 
olsk}^ cut his throat with a pair of scissors ; 
Leontovitch and Bogomoloff hacked theirs 
with a bit of glass; Zhutin died in chains 
bound to the wall ; Kolenkin perished from 
wounds torn open by fetters; Rodin poi- 
soned himself with matches; Nathalie Arm- 
feldt died of prison consumption; Beverly 
was wounded with bullets and murdered 
with bayonet - thrusts ; Ivan Cherniavsky 
and wife and child were transported to 
Irkutsk, the temperature was thirty degrees 
below zero, and the baby died, while the 
mother went mad, howled, laughed, prayed, 



E'. "^'it. 


1;% 







114 Comrade Kropotkin 

flogged to death;* Marie Vetrova was 
raped and murdered ;t Jess}^ Helfman was 
tortured indescribably; Bobohov swallowed 
a handful of opium; Ossinsky's hair turned 
white in five minutes ; Maria Kovalevskaya — 
cover th}' face, freedom — suffered, took 
poison and died in the prison infirmary; 
Yakimova stayed up nights in the Trubetz- 
koi Ravelin to prevent the rats from de- 
vouring her baby; Olga Lubatovitch was 
stripped naked by men and beaten; Mal- 
yovany died in exile; the student Schmidt 
was murdered in his cell by his jailers; 
Spiridonova was violated by a cossack offi- 
cer and by a police chief; the high-minded 
Plotnikoff ended his days in an asylum; 
Bogulubov became a raving lunatic; Ser- 
dukov was so broken that he shot himself 
after his release; the poet Polivanoff also 
committed suicide thus — (Ah, those twenty 
long years in Schlusselburg!) ; the noble 
Balmaschoff was hanged; the beautiful Zin- 

* Leo Deutsch was a prisoner at Kara at the time of this 
tragedy, and he describes it in his "^Sixteen Years in Siberia.** 

t See "Woman, the Glory of the Russian Revolution" (Al- 
truria, July 1907), by Dr. Sonia Winstan. Note this sentence : 
"In arrests the police are always more cruel to women than to 
men, and I have seen women dragged by the hair to jail thru 
the streets of St. Petersburg, while men in the same group were 
led along in the ordinary way. In the prisons innocent young 
women are often placed with the lowest murderers.** 



In Later Lkfe 116 



aidatoo; Isaiev, Okladsky, Zubkovsky went 
mad; Kviotkovsky, Presniakoff, Soukanoff 
died in Skipper Peters Prison; Buzinsky, 
Gellis, Ignatius Ivanoff succumbed in the 
Key-Town Fortress; to Federoff was re- 
served a fate worse than death, worse than 
torture, worse than madness, for it was his 
destin}^ to become a dupe of the Black 
Hundreds and unwittingly slay Georg lollos 
— lover of liberty;* Ludmila Volken- 
stein, — but why continue an unhappy list 
which has neither beginning nor end? I 
could fill a library with such cases. 

Such individual torments fell not to the 
lot of Peter Kropotkin. Personally he has 
been favored by fortune. He has touched 
existence on every side and lived every 
life. The wisdom of the world is in his 
brain, and within his heart is lodged all its 
goodness. His experience has been unus- 
ually wide. He has been on intimate terms 
with czar and serf, he has met millionaire 
and mendicant, hei has hobnobbed with 
prince and pauper. He has lectured to 
aristocratic audiences who gazed calml}^ 
at him thru gilded lorgnettes and foppish 
monocles, and to empty-stomached work- 

♦ In Robert Crozier Long's "The Black Hundreds," in The 
Cosmopolitan, January 1908. 



116 Comrade Kropotkin 

men who cried loudly, "Pierre! Pierre! 
Notre Pierre!"* 

The finest men of all nations have hon- 
ored him. When a prisoner at Clairvaux, 
a petition for his release was signed by 
such geniuses as Herbert Spencer, Victor 
Hugo and Algernon Swinburne. When 
he required books, Ernest Renan put his 
library at his service. While at Paris, Tur- 
genev — who won immortality by a single 
word — wished to be introduced to him 
and celebrate his escape by a little banquet. 
When Catherine Breshkovskaya journej'ed 
for the first time to Petersburg, Kropotkin 
was on the same train; they discussed prob- 
lems, and this extraordinary woman says 
his words thrilled like fire.f Elie Reclus 

* ^^He is an incomparable agitator. Gifted with a ready 
and eager eloquence, he becomes all passion when he mounts 
the platform. Like all true orators, he is stimulated by the 
sight of the crowd which is listening to him. Upon the plat- 
form this man is transformed. He trembles with emotion ; 
his Yoice vibrates with that accent of profound conviction, 
not to be mistaken or counterfeited, and only heard when it is 
not merely the month which speaks^ but the innermost heart. 
His speeches, altho he cannot be called an orator of the first 
rank, produce an immense impression ; f o rwhen feeling is so 
intense it is communicative, and electrifies an audience. When, 
pale and trembling, he descends from the platform, the whole 
room throbs with applause." — Stepniak. 

t In Ernest Poole's "Catherine Breshkovskaya" In the Out- 
look. See also Kennan. After being a Siberian exile for over 
twenty-two years she came to America to collect funds for 
the Revolution, and immediately went back to Russia. She 



In Later Life 117 



was his brother. Elisee published his writ- 
ings and asked him to contribute to his 
Geography — the greatest in existence. Jean 
Grave is his disciple. "Ernest Crosby loved 
him. Georg Brandes praises him lavishly. 
Zola paid his work a high compliment. 
Elizabeth Cady Stanton spent an interesting 
day at his home. J. Scott Keltic, the emi- 
nent authority on African history, is one 
of his warmest friends. Bates, the Natur- 
alist on the Amazons whom Darwin men- 
tions so often, appreciated his scientific 
ability. Enrico Ferri closely studied his 
works. The learned Lavrov was his com- 
rade. Denjiro Kotoku, the Japanese essayist 
who founded the radical Heiminshimbun^ 
considers him one of the greatest humani- 
tarians of the nineteenth century.* At the 
home of Edward Clodd he argued with 
Grant Allen. When at East Aurora, I saw 
only one picture over the desk of Elbert 
Hubbard, and that was Kropotkin, Those 
who have read De Profundis will recall 
in what high pure words Oscar Wilde 

was captured, and like Chaykovsky is now in the fortress of 
Peter and Paul. She often said it was a shame for a Revolu- 
tionist to die in bed. 

♦ In my "Symposium on Humanitarians." For several other 
contributors who mentioned Kropotkin as one of their favor- 
ites, see this ^^Symposium." now published in book form by 
The Altrurians. 



118 Comrade KropotMn 

speaks of him. Tolstoy calls him a learned 
man.* The authors oi Russian Traits and 
Terrors speak of him as "one whose sci- 
entific accuracy and objectivity is beyond 
praise." James Knowles so respected him 
that he allowed him to write anarchistic 
articles for his high-toned Nineteenth Cen- 
tury. Laurence Gronlound gives him as 
a type of the ideal anarchist. In the soul 
of every libertarian swings a fragrant censer 
which offers up olibanum to the stainless 
character of the great revolutionist. Put 
those who love Kropotkin on one side, and 
those who don't on the other, and you will 
have separated the heralds of the morning 
from the spooks of the night. It is no 

* In the "Russian Revolution,** a senseless pamphlet, edited 
by v. Tchertkoff who is talented enuf to be doing better things. 
When it comes to a question of righteous resistance, Leo Tol- 
stoy is unbearable. A man who can say in effect, "Let the 
officials do whatever they want to do, let them shoot you down 
as often as they please, let them fill every prison in vast Russia 
with your bodies, let them rape your mothers and daughters 
and wives, let them hang your young children, but never resist 
in any way, only think of Jesus and read the Gospels,*' — such 
a man is what the doctors call non compos mentis. No wonder 
the Russian Government does not molest him. The gentle Kro- 
potkin says, "I am in sympathy with most of Tolstoy's work, 
tho there are many of his ideas with which I absolutely disa- 
gree — his asceticism, for instance, and his doctrine of non- 
resistance. It seems to me, too, that he has bound himself, 
without reason or judgment, to the letter of the New Testa- 
ment.** 



In Later Life 119 



more necessary to be an anarchist-commun- 
ist to have a warm spot in your heart for 
Peter Kropotkin, than it is necessary tb be- 
lieve in Adam and Eve to enjoy Milton's 
Paradise Lost. 



THE HBTOMAN OF THE BEVOLimON 

The heroism of our Russian comrades in the face 
of torture and death will be told in days to come 
by generations made rich by tbeir sacrifices. His- 
tory will pay an eternal homage to the victims 
of the bloody tyranny which now rules Russia. 
— J. Ramsay MacDonald, M. P. 

jlO the present generation of Rus- 
n sian Revolutionists Kropotkin is 
not an influence^ but an inspira- 
I tion. He is not a leader but an 
elder brother. He is to them a tj'pe of the 
man who without a moment's hesitation 
leaves everything for the Cause. He is a 
powerful voice crying out loudly against 
the oppressors of mankind. Voices like 
these they hear distinctly, and follow eager- 
ly, tho they lead to a cold Siberian grave. 
With the lavishness of the mountain cat- 
aract that wastes its waters on the rocks, 
the young radicals of Russia pour out their 
blood for an ignorant* and ungrateful peo- 
ple. As willingly as lovers walk to the 
altar, they go to the slaughter. They die 
as serenely as if they had a thousand lives 
to lose instead of one. When a Revolu- 



The Historian of the Revolution 121 

tionist is hanged, another takes his place 
while the gallow-grass around the choked 
neck is still visible* Imprison them for a 
quarter of a century, and on the day of 
their release they will conspire against czar- 
dom.* Torture them in the mines of Ner- 
chinsk, beat the men with the plet, rape the 
girls at will, thrust them into black holes 
swarming with vermin and rodents, taunt 
them, starve them, chill them, strike them 
to the ground, stamp on their faces with 
military boots, deprive them of air, worry 
their nerves to the breaking-point, string 
them up on slippery scaffolds, and they will 
only shout, "Long live the Revolution I''f 
Liberty is the goddess they worship, and 
for her sake, when necessary, they taste no 
food by day and touch no pillow by night. 
For her they put away books and handle 
bombs, and exchange palaces for prisons, 
and leave desks for dungeons, and go from 

♦ Since they are not permitted to work for freedom from 
the house-tops, they must do it in their secret chambers. 

t For a Russian revolutionary drama powerfully depicting 
such a scene, see ^^On the Eve," by Dr. Leopold Kampf. It 
has no connection with Turgenev's great novel of the same 
name. ' For a tragedy whose interest centers around a beau- 
tiful young man who has become insane in a Russian prison, 
see "To the Stars," by Leonid Andreyev, (Translated by Dr. 
A. Goudiss, Poet Lore, Winter 1907). Called by Helen A. 
Clarke, "a play in which there is no villain except the far-off 
Russian Government." 



1^ Comrade KropotTdn 

colleges to coffins. Their backs are ready 
for the lash, their throats are prepared for 
the noose. 

If the end comes at dawn in the yard of 
the Schlusselburg Prison, or at noon below 
the level of the Neva in the Fortress of 
Peter and Paul, or at midnight among the 
silent snows of Saghalien, — O liberty, how 
th}' lovers meet it! 

Against an autocracy as powerful as the 
Romanoff djnasty, rebels have never before 
contended. In all the world no men and wom- 
en like those of Young Russia. From primal 
daj's to modern times, no martyrs like these. 
Such sacrifices were never seen before.* 
Few expect to live beyond twenty, and 

* ^^Siuce the world's first wail went up from lands and seas 

Ears have heard not, tongraes have told not things like these. 

Dante, led by love*s and hate*s accordant spell 

Down the deepest and the loatliiest ways of hell, 

Where beyond the brook of blood the rain was (ire, 

Where the scalps were masked with dung more deep than mire, 

Saw not, where filth was foulest, and the night 

Darkest, depths whose fiends could match the Moscoyite. 

Set beside this truth, his deadliest vision seems 

Pale and pure and painless as a virgin's dreams. 

Maidens dead beneath the clasping lash, and wives 

Kent witli deadlier pangs tlian death — for sliame survives. 

Naked, mad, starved, scourged, spurned, frozen,, fallen, 

deflowered. 
Souls and bodies as by fangs of beasts devoured. 
Sounds that hell would hear not, sights no thoughts could 

shape. 
Limbs that feel as flame the ravenous grasp of rape," etc. 

SwiKBUKKK : ^^Russia : An Ode." 



The Historian of the Revolution 123 

thousands upon thousands perish long be- 
fore that age.* They offer themselves to 
be nipped in the fairest hour of their 
proudest bloom. O brilliant-eyed youth, O 
rosy-cheeked maid, be not so heedless of 
yourselves. Think a little of the pleaures 
of life. Leave the stupid muzhik to his 
fate, and cross the sea to a freer land. 

But from the foot of the scaffold there 
comes a cry, and from the steppes of Si- 
beria is heard a voice, and from the salt- 
works of Usolie rings an answer, and 
from the gold-mines of Kara comes a re- 
sponse, and from the Butirki of Moscow 
someone speaks, and from the prison of 
Akatui, Young Russia .utters the same word 
— Svoboda! Svoboda! Svoboda! 

Sometime in the future, when the true 
historian of the Russian Revolution appears, 
he will write of men and women of so ex- 
alted a nature, that antiquity will be dumb 
and boast n*o more her classic heroes. 

He will write of Bakunin, the Jupiter 

♦ "Marie Spiridonova was only twenty-one when she 
killed Lujenovsky ; and in St. Petersburg I knew a girl, a 
medical student — sweet, quiet, all soul — who was barely 
eighteen when she said to me, simply : "I shall live but a year 
or two — no more.** In this expectancy of death there is no 
mawkishness, no pose. They have seen their comrades go 
after a few days or years of service ; their fate will be the 
same.'* LeRoy Scott, "The Terrorists,'* in Everybody's 
Magazine. 



124 Comrade Kropotkin 

from whose forehead leaped a full-fledged 
movement; 

Of Dobroluboff, the genius who perished 
at twenty-five with a vaster wisdom to his 
credit than any youngster of whom we 
have record; 

Of Olga Lubatovitch, the immortal girl 
in whose great heart burnt the undying 
fire of insurrection; 

Of Vera Figner, the poetess, a woman of 
the rarest beauty and the highest talents, 
who passed her life behind stone walls; 

Of Aaron Sundelevitch, the thoughtful 
Jew who established the first free printing 
press in Saint Petersburg; 

Of Zuckerman, who was so merry that 
even in hell he jested, but who after all 
was only human and committed suicide in 
the wilds of Yakutsk; 

Of Maria Kutitonskaya, who was ready 
to be hanged with a baby in her womb; 

Of Eugene Semyonovsky, who wrote a 
letter to his father before committing sui- 
cide, that would make ever3rthing on earth 
— except of course an oflScial — weep; 

Of the taciturn Kibalchitch, who was ar- 
rested for giving a pamphlet to a peasant, 
and who, hearing in prison that an attempt 
had been made to exterminate the imperial 



The Historian of the Revolution 126 

family, broke his habitual silence by ex- 
claiming, "It's good ! It's fine ! If they don't 
send me to Siberia, Pll study nitroglycer- 
ine," — and who kept his promise, for he 
was the chemist who prepared the bomb 
that caused the bloody of Alexander to 
redden the snow; 

Of Ippolit Mishkin, the hero of the Case 
where all were heroes, whose oratory in- 
flamed all' Russia, who was sentenced be- 
cause he tried to rescue Chernishevsky, who 
received fifteen additional years for mak- 
ing a speech in prison over the dead body 
of Comrade Leo Dmohovsky, a man whom 
Turgenev wished to know, and whom Per- 
ovskaya wished to save; 

Of Demetrius Lisogub, the millionaire 
who lived like a pauper, giving everything 
to the Cause and spending nothing on him- 
self, grudging every coin he had to pay 
for his bread, dressing in rags even during 
the severest winters, supporting for a time 
the whole revolutionary movement, but con- 
tinually sorro>ying that in order not to for- 
feit his wealth he could take no active part 
in the battle,:aud smiling with happiness only 
when brought to the scaffold in the hang- 
man's cart, for at last he could bestow more 
than money — -he could sacrifice himself; 



126 Comrade KropotTdn 

Of the printer Maria KrilofF who tho old, 
ill and half-blind, worked with so much 
devotion that she excelled young and strong 
compositors, and who stuck to her post 
until she was arrested, weapons in hand, 
in the secret printing-office of Chemy 
Peredielj 

Of the intrepid Sophia Bogomoletz, who 
left husband and child for the Revolution, 
and spent her life in prison; 

Of Nicholas Blinoff, who was slaugh- 
tered in the Jewish pogrom in Zhitomir 
with the word 'Brother' on his noble lips; 

Of young Leo Weinstein, who fell in 
the same massacre crying ^Comrades;' 

Of the child Silin of Warsaw, who when 
only fifteen years of age was condemned 
to death ; when he was led out with band- 
aged eyes to be shot on the sand-hills, he 
wept so bitterly that the soldiers called to 
him, "Do not cry, there is no pain," upon 
which he shouted back, "I am crying be- 
cause I must die before accomplishing any- 
thing." 

He will tell how Valerian Ossinsky died, 
and then we will not think of Christ upon 
the Cross. 

He will write of those soft-eyed, sweet- 
voiced, tender Terrorists whose blessed 



The Historian of the Revolution 1 27 

bombs and bullets laid tyrants low: Zin- 
aida who shot Min; Spiridonova who slew 
Lujenovsky; Bizenko who killed Sakharoff; 
Eserskaja who assassinated Klingenberg; 
Ragozinnikova who destroyed Maximoffsky. 

Of those noble and daring youths who 
struck to the death their country's op- 
pressors : Kaltourin and Gelvakov who 
dispatched Strelnikoff; Balmaschoff who 
executed Sipyagin; Karpowitch who ended 
the days of Bogolepoff; Kalayev who re- 
moved Sergius; Schaumann who aimed 
well at Bobrikoff; Sazonov who wiped 
out Plehve. 

Of these he will write and of many, 
many more whose names are unknown to 
an ignorant public which yells itself hoarse 
for empty-headed officials, but whose 
memories encircle the hearts of freedom's 
orphans. 

He will write too, of a revolutionary 
thinker who dreams a philosophy which 
would dethrone tyranny and upraise liberty, 
the humanitarian who harbors a love which 
reaches to the uttermost ends of the earth, 
the true World-Man of the Better-Day — 
Comrade Kropotkin. 

Reader^ I press your hand warmly 



jinnouncements 



Lives of Great Altrurians 



BY VICTOR ROBINSON 

This is to be a series of biographies of men and 
women whose life-work was the liberation of human- 
ity from bondage. Not of bishops and warriors will 
Victor Robinson write, but of the Great Companions 
whose lances struck the shields of despotism. These 
lives are to be of no standard size and will not be 
written on contract-time. A great deal of inclina- 
tion and a little bit of opportunity will be the de- 
termining factors. 

Out of this series, two numbers have already been 
published : 

William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft 
Peter Kropotkin ~^ 

The rest of the subjects are still lodged within 
the cerebral cells of the author. The following are 
in preparation for precious print : 

Maxim Gorky Charles Darwin 

Walt Whitman Ernest Haeckel 

Robert Ingersoll Louise Michel 

Elisee Reclus Emile Zola 

Thomas Paine ~ August Comte 

Ferdinand Lassalle Baruch Spinoza 

Karl Marx Ivan Turgenev 

Victor Hugo Harriet Martineau 

Alexander Herzen Giordano Bruno 

Giuseppe Garibaldi Grant Allen 

Herbert Spencer Wendell Phillips 

Henrik Ibsen Henry George 

Thomas Huxley Henry Thoreau 

Leo Tolstoy Mrs. Stanton 



Wiiiiam Godwin and Mary Woiistonecraft 

BY VICTOR. ItOBINSON 

Written in the Author's Eighteenth Year 



TV7ILLIAM GODWIN was the father of philoso- 
^ phic radicalism in England. His wife, Mary 
Woiistonecraft, was the pi.oneer of the woman suffrage 
movement. Yet the present generation of reformers 
knows little about these glorious Liberals. This book- 
let tells briefly of Godwin's early life, of his develop, 
ment from orthodoxy to rationalism, of his epoch- 
making ^ ^Political Justice,*' of his naiTOw escape from 
imprisonment on the charge of high treason, of hiB 
first meeting and dislike of Mary Woiistonecraft, of 
his later love and marriage with her, of her former 
marriage and attempt at suicide, of their views on the 
marriage relation, of the storm which Mary Woiistone- 
craft caused by writing "A Vindication of the Rights 
of Woman," of her lamented death, of her talented 
daughter who eloped with Shelley, of Godwin's sub- 
sequent love affairs, of his philosophy, of his old 
age, etc. 

Pierre RamuM: in *D\e Freie Generation :'* 

Selten wohl, dass ims eine kleine Broschurenschrift in die 
Hande flel, die mit ahnlicher Glut des edelsten Idealisniiis 
verfasst ist, wie jene unseres amerikanischen Gcnossen 
Victor Robinson. 

Bugmne U. Debm, in "Appeal to Reason:*' 

The story of William Godwin and Mary Woiistonecraft 
is now in pamphlet form, fresh from the gifted pen of Victor 
Robinson it is a story of two great souls charmingly told 
by another. 



Elbmrt Kubbard, editor of "The Philistine :'* 

At the Roycrof t Chapel, Victor gave us a most admirable 
address on Godwin — quite the best thing he ever did. 

John Sherwln Cromby, author of "Government:" 

I shall prize your very graphic sketch because of its in- 
trinsic worth. 

William. Lloyd GarrUon, the eon of the great Abolitioniet: 

I have read with pleasure your estimate of these brave 
thinkers. What surviving qualities have truth and courage I 

Clinton P. Farrmll, brother-in-law and publisher of Ingersoll : 

Many many thanks for this beautiful booklet — a gem. May 
you live long and continue in the making of good books. 

Uoltalrlno do Cloyro, the most radical woman in Philadelphia: 

I am glad that some one has taken up the work I began 
some fifteen years ago, — that of compelling the deserved rec- 
ognition due to Mary Wollstonecraft from the English- 
speaking radical world. 

Champo S. JindrowM, counsel of the Htfe'liital Society of New York : 

I am indebted to you for the very delightful monograph on 
the lives of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. I 
value this book on account of its excellent literary and bio- 
graphical value. 

Honry J, Wookm, lover of our furred and feathered brothers: 

As soon as I received your book, my wife read it to me 
from beginning to end, starting with loving interest and end- 
ing with sympathetic tears. Then I read it again myself. 
Then I called upon my friend Fred Heath, editor of "The 
Social Democratic Herald," and talked to him about my 
"William and Mary," and together we hied to the public 
library and made a search for all we could find about the lives 
of these interesting friends. 

Jirtistically printed Illustrated with portraits 

25 cents, postpaid 

THE ALTRURIANS 
12 Mt. Morris Park, Wsit, New York City 



A Spposium on Homanitariais 



CONDUCTED BY 
VICXOR. ItOBINSON 

''Name your 10 £Eivorite humanitarians of the 
19th century.^ To this interesting questicm, replies 
have been received from 100 men and women, many 
of them of national and some of international feune. 
Among the contributors are: 



Alfred Russel Wallace 
Ernest Crosby 
Alexis Aladin 
Paul Carus 
Abraham Jacobi 
Eugene Debs 
Rose Hartwick Thorpe 
Benjamin R. Tucker 
John Spargo 
Wiluam Marion Reedy 
Edward Buss Foote 
Hubert Howe Bancroft 
Emma Goldman 
Harriot Stanton Blatch 
Hypatia Bradlaugh 
Luther Burbank 
Herbert N. Casson 

VOLTAIRINE DE ClEYRE 

Ina Coolbrith 
Havelock Ellis 



Harrison Grey Fiske 
B. O. Flower 
Hamlin Garland 
Wm. Lloyd Garrison 
Jacob Gordin 
Moses Harman 
Morris Rosenfeld 
Sadakichi Hartmann 
Henry Holt 
Geo. Wharton James 
Alexander Berkman 
Joseph Jastrow 
Bolton Hall 
Andrew D.WHrrE 
Jacques Loeb 
Rose Pastor Stokes 
Edwin Markham 
N. O. Nelson 
Simon Newcomb 
Louis F. Post 



Finely printed. Paper S5c, Cloth 50c. 

THE ALTRURIANS 
12 Mt. Morris Park, West, New York City 



NEVER-TOLD TALES 

Graphic Stories of the Evils of Sexual 

Ignorance 

BY DR. WILLIAM J. ROBINSON 



It is time that these tales should no longer remain 
"Never Told Tales." It is time that the ignorance 
which costs so much health, so much hapiness, so 
many lives, should no longer be permitted to hold 
its blighting sway in our midst ; it is time that life- 
destroying prudery should give way to vitalizing 
knowledge ; it is time that sanctimonious hypocricy 
should give way to comon-sense. It is time in short, 
that darkness should give way to light, and misery 
to happiness — it is time, therefore, that the "Never- 
Told Tales" should at last be told ! 

The author is convinced that if these tales were 
put into the hands of every man and woman about 
to marry, and into the hands of every father and 
mother who have adolescent children, much misery 
would be prevented and much good would be ac- 
complished. Hence does he send them forth into 
the world. . 

F'rofn the Author's Preface. 



Artistically bound and printed. Cloth $1, postpaid 

PUBLISHED BT 

THE ALTRURIANS 

12 Mount Morris Park West 

New York City