People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1894 — ORIGIN OF ANARCHISM. [ARTICLE]

ORIGIN OF ANARCHISM.

Proudhon, Who First Used lhe Word, Was a True Idealist. Literary Digest. Dr. Karl Jeutsch, in Schorer’s Farailienblatt, Berlin, seeking for the origin of anarchism, goes back to medieval history, to the many endeavors of the poor to throw off the yoke of the wealthy, to the social revolutions of early times, and while he does not find the word anarchism, he contends that the thing itself did actually exist. He refers especially to the German war of the peasants as a notable instance of an organized uprising against the privileged classes; and upon the failure of this war he bases the rise of obsolute monarchy in Europe, which he says, with its bureaucracy and standing armies made all attempts at a popular rising impossible for nearly three hundred years; then the French revlution shook this absolutism to its very foundations. Looked upon from this point of view; he continues, anarchism is nothing but the desire for freedom which vents itself in English trade-un-ionism aud German socialism.

But the struggle of the poor against the rich is often accompanied by the resistance of the individual against the the community. Men in whom this individualism is very strongly developed are repulsed by both trade-uniodism and socialism, for both systems impose more or less irksome restraint.

The man who first used the word anarchism for the system was one of the noblest characters of his time, and had nothing in common with rascals of the Ravachol fraternity. His name was Peter Joseph Proudhon. With Karl Marx, he bases his plans for reform on the supposition that the laborer is robbed by the capitalist. Marx investigated production, and found fault with the arrangements of modern industries, while Proudhon laid the fault al the door of the trade. In his work, “Q t-

cst-ce la propriete,” he points cut that no one will of his own free will give more than he receives in return. The workman, however, gives to the employer more than lie receives in wages, forced to do so by our social and political systems. Therefore, the present exchange beween the worker and the capitalist js neither free nor just, and the property of the latter is acquired by theft.

Two Germans, the merchant Hess, and the teacher Grun, further developed the Frenchman’s ideas. The rapid ad vance of invention seemed to them to insure the posibility that a time would come when the children could playfully produce everything we need.

The reaction which followed the revolutionary movement during the forties suppresses anarchy tor a decade. In the sixties it arose again; the Russian Michael Bankunin organized international anarchism as opposed to the German social-democracy organized by Ferdinand LaS.salle. Bakunin condemns the alate in every form as a destroyer of personal liberty. His idea, Jiket&atof Proudhon’s is what Proudhon call anarchy, not a wild war of every one against every one else, but perfect libwith perfect order, every <one beina 1 useful io the rest of unan'kind by doi-pg that which I eases himself. Bakunin’s pupil, .Sergei Net.'scliajew, went further and began <our present anarchism. He intended to revolutionize all the Jiussian peasantry; he called the robbers to his aid and declared robbery “one of the most honor;aole modes of life among the Kussiaa people.” He busied lbinuself less with dreams of the I Utopia of the Anarchists than with the destruction of our pre- 1 -sent social system. He is th© originator of the “propaganda!

of action,” and recommends violence not only for the removal of obnoxious persons, but also “to show the people what power we possess.” Dissenters from the Socialists adopted these views, and international anarchism eame into being its first organization was the Federation Furassienne at Geneva, which was composed of Spaniards, Belgians and French. The German Anarchists acknowledged John Most as their head, He edited the Freiheit at Berlin, but was sentenced to state prison because he asked the people of all countries to follow’ the example of the Russian Anarchists in murdering Czar Alexander. In Germany the Socialists have expelled from their ranks all who sympathize with anarchism.