lived through all these horrors, that absence of hatred, that confidence in the final triumph of their ideas, that calm though sad gaze directed toward the future, and that readiness to forget the nightmare of the past, which struck -one in Malon, and, in fact, in nearly all the refugees of ere Oe the Commune whom I met at Geneva, —and which I still see in Louise Michel, Lefrancais, Elisée Reclus, and other friends.
From Neuchatel I went to Sonvilliers. Ina little valley in the Jura hills there is a succession of small towns and 286 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST villages, of which the French-speaking population was at that time entirely employed in the various branches of watchmaking; whole families used to work in small work- shops. In one of them I found another leader, Adhémar Schwitzguébel, with whom, also, I afterward became very closely connected. He sat among a dozen young men who were engraving lids of gold and silver watches. I was asked to take a seat on a bench, or table, and soon we were all engaged in a lively conversation upon socialism, govern- ment or no government, and the coming congresses.
In the evening a heavy snowstorm raged; it blinded us and froze the blood in our veins, as we struggled to the next village. But, notwithstanding the storm, about fifty watchmakers, chiefly old people, came from the neighboring towns and villages, — some of them as far as seven miles’ distant, — to join a small informal meeting that was called - for that evening.: The very organization of the watch trade, which permits men to know one another thoroughly and to work in their own houses, where they are free to talk, explains why the. level of intellectual development in this population is higher | than that of workers who spend all their life from early | childhood in the factories. There is more independence and more originality among the petty trades’ workers. But the absence of a division between the leaders and the masses in the Jura Federation was also the reason why there was | not a question upon which every member of the federation would not strive to form his own independent opinion. | Here I saw that the workers were not a mass that was being led and made subservient to the political ends of a few men; their leaders were simply their more active comrades, — initiators rather than leaders. The clearness of insight, the soundness of judgment, the capacity for disentangling com- } plex social questions, which I noticed amongst these work- | ers, especially the middle-aged ones, deeply impressed me; AMONG THE WATCHMAKERS 287 and I am firmly persuaded that if the Jura Federation has played a prominent part in the development of socialism, it is not only on account of the importance of the no-govern- ment and federalist ideas of which it was the champion, but also on account of the expression which was given to these ideas by the good sense of the Jura watchmakers. Without their aid, these conceptions might have remained mere ab- stractions for a long time.
The theoretical aspects of anarchism, as they were then beginning to be expressed in the Jura Federation, especially by Bakunin; the criticisms of state socialism — the fear of an economic despotism, far more dangerous than the merely political despotism — which I heard formulated there; and ‘the revolutionary character of the agitation, appealed strongly tomy mind. But the equalitarian relations which I found in the Jura Mountains, the independence of thought and expression which I saw developing in the workers, and their unlimited devotion to the cause appealed far more strongly to my feelings; and when I came away from the mountains, after a week’s stay with the watchmakers, my views upon socialism were settled. I was an anarchist. A subsequent journey to Belgium, where I could compare ‘once more the centralized political agitation at Brussels with the economic and independent agitation that was going on amongst the clothiers at Verviers, only strengthened my Miews. These clothiers were.one of the most sympathetic fppalations that I have ever met with in Western Europe.
vy ‘, xX vy ‘, xX Bakunin was at that time at Locarno. I did not seg him, and now regret it very much, because he was deat} when I returned four years later to Switzerland. It way he who had helped the Jura friends to clear up their ideas and to formulate their aspirations; he who had in- spired them with his powerful, burning, irresistible revo- lutionary enthusiasm. As soon as he saw that a small newspaper, which Guillaume began to edit in the Jura hills (at Locle) was sounding a new note of independent thought, in the socialist movement, he came to Locle, talked for whole days and whole nights also to his new friends about, the historical necessity of a new move in the direction of anarchy; he wrote for that paper a series of profound and brilliant articles on the historical progress of mankind to- wards freedom; he infused enthusiasm into his new friends,| and he ad that centre of propaganda, from which an- archism spread later on to other parts of Hurope.
After he had moved to Locarno,— whence he started a similar movement in Italy, and, through his sympathetic and gifted emissary, Fanelli, also in Spain, —the work that he had begun in the Jura hills was continued inde- pendently by the Jurassians themselves. The name of ‘‘ Michel”? often recurred in their conversations, — not, however, as that of an absent chief whose opinions were law, but as that of a personal friend of whom every one spoke with love, in a spirit of comradeship. What struck me most was that Bakunin’s influence was felt much less as the influence of an intellectual authority than as the influence of a moral personality. In conversations about ‘| i INFLUENCE OF BAKUNIN 289 anarchism, or about the attitude of the federation, I nevex heard it said, ‘‘ Bakunin says so,” or ‘ Baktinin thinks so,” as if it settled the question. His writings and his sayings were not regarded as laws, — as is unfortunately often the case in political parties. In all such matters, in which intellect is the supreme judge, every one in discussion used his own arguments. Their general drift and tenor might have been suggested by Bakunin, or Bakunin might have borrowed them from his Jura friends; at any rate, in each individ- ual the arguments retained their own individual character. I only once heard Baktinin’s name invoked as an authority in itself, and that impressed me so deeply that I even now temember the spot where the conversation took place and all the surroundings. Some young men were indulging in talk that was not very respectful toward the other sex, when one of the women who were present put a sudden stop to it by exclaiming: ‘ Pity that Michel is not here: he would put you in your place!’ The colossal figure of the revolutionist who had given up everything for the sake of the revolution, and lived for it alone, borrowing from his “ete of it the highest and the purest views of life, continued to inspire them.
I returned from this journey with distinct sociological ideas which I have retained since, doing my best to develop them in more and more definite, concrete forms.
There was, however, one point which I did not accept without having given to it a great deal of thinking and many hours of my nights. I clearly saw that the immense change which would deliver everything that is necessary for life and production into the hands of society —be it the Folk State of the social democrats or the unions of freely associated groups, which the anarchists advocate — would imply a revolution far more profound than any of the re- volutions which history had on record. Moreover, in such / 290 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST a revolution the workers would have against them, not the rotten generation of aristocrats against whom the French peasants and republicans had to fight in the last century, — and even that fight was a desperate one, — but the middle classes, which are far more powerful, intellectually and physically, and have at their service all the potent ma- chinery of'the modern state. However, I soon noticed that no revolution, whether peaceful or yiolent, had ever taken place without the new ideals having deeply penetrated into the very class whose economical and political privileges were to be assailed. I had witnessed the abolition of serf- dom in Russia, and I knew that if a consciousness of the injustice of their privileges had not spread widely within the serf-owners’ class itself (as a consequence of the pre- vious evolution and revolutions accomplished in Western Europe), the emancipation of the serfs would never have been accomplished as easily as it was accomplisned in 1861. And I saw that the idea of emancipating the workers from the present wage-system was making headway amongst the middle classes themselves. The most ardent defenders of the present economical conditions had already abandoned the _idva of right in defending their present privileges, — ques- tions as to the opportuneness of such a change having al- ready taken its place. They did not deny the desirability of some such change, they only asked whether the new economical organization advocated by the socialists would veally be better than the present one; whether a society ir which the workers would have a dominant voice would be avle to manage production better than the individual capi talists actuated by mere considerations of self-interest man aye it at the present time. | Besides, I began gradually to understand that revolu tions — that is, periods of accelerated rapid evolution anc rapid changes— are as much in the nature of human so ciety as the slow evolution which incessantly goes on nov THE PARIS COMMUNE 291 among the civilized races of mankind. And each time that such a period of accelerated evolution and reconstruction on a grand scale begins, civil war is liable to break out on a small or large scale. The question is, then, not so much how to avoid revolutions, as how to attain the greatest re- sults with the most limited amount of civil war, the smallest number of victims, and a minimum of mutual embitterment. For that end there is only one means; namely, that the oppressed part of society should obtain the clearest possible conception of what they intend to achieve, and how, and that they should be imbued with the enthusiasm which is hecessary for that achievement; in that case they will be sure to attach to their cause the best and the freshest in- tellectual forces of the privileged class.
~ The Commune of Paris was a terrible example of an outbreak with insufficiently determined ideals. When the workers became, in March, 1871, the masters of the great city, they did not attack the property rights vested in the middle classes. On the contrary, they took these rights ‘under their protection. The leaders of the Commune cov- ered the National Bank with their bodies, and notwith- ‘standing the crisis which had paralyzed industry and the consequent absence of earnings for a mass of workers, they protected the rights of the owners of the factories, the trade ‘establishments, and the dwelling-houses at Paris with their ‘decrees. However, when the movement was crushed, no ‘account was taken by the middle classes of the modesty of the communalistic claims of the insurgents. Having lived tor two months in fear that the workers would make an assault upon their property rights, the rich men of France took upon them just the same revenge as if they had made ‘the assault in reality. Nearly thirty thousand of them ‘Were slaughtered, as is known, —not in battle, but after they had lost the battle. If they had taken steps towards ‘the socialization of property, the revenge could not have ‘been more terrible.
292 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST If, then, —my conclusion was, — there are periods x human development when a conflict is unavoidable, and civil war breaks out quite independently of the will of par- ticular individuals, — let, at least, these conflicts take place, not on the ground of vague aspirations, but upon definite issues; not upon secondary points, the insignificance of which does not diminish the violence of the conflict, but upon broad ideas which inspire men by the grandness of the horizon which they bring into view. In this last case the conflict itself will depend much less upon the efficacy of firearms and guns than upon the force of the creative genius which will be brought into action in the work of reconstruction of Society. It will depend chiefly upon the constructive forces of Society taking for the moment a free course; upon the inspirations being of a higher standard: and so winning more sympathy even from those who, as a: class, are opposed to the change. The conflict, being thus: engaged on larger issues, will purify the social atmosphere itself, and the numbers of victims on both sides will cer- tainly be much smaller than if the fight is over matters of secondary importance in which the lower instincts of men find a free play.
With these ideas I returned to Russia. | XI Durine my journey I had bought a number of books and collections of socialist newspapers. In Russia, such books were ‘unconditionally prohibited ” by censorship; and some of the collections of newspapers and reports of international congresses could not be bought for any amount of money, even in Belgium. ‘Shall I part with them, while my brother and my friends would be so glad to have them at St. Petersburg?” I asked myself; and I decided that by all means I must get them into Russia.
I returned to St. Petersburg via Vienna and Warsaw. Thousands of Jews live by smuggling on the Polish frone tier, and I thought that if I could succeed in discovering only one of them, my books would be carried in safety across the border. However, to alight at a small railway station near the frontier, while every other passenger went on, and to hunt there for smugglers, would hardly have been reasonable; so I took a side branch of the railway and ‘went to Cracow. “The capital of old Poland is near to the frontier,” I thought, “‘and I shall find there some Jew who will lead me to the men I seek.”
I reached the once renowned and brilliant city in the evening, and early next morning went out from the hotel on my search. To my bewilderment I saw, however, at every street corner and wherever I turned my eyes in the otherwise deserted market-place, a Jew, wearing the tradi- tional long dress and locks of his forefathers, and watching there for some Polish nobleman or tradesman who might send him on an errand and pay him a few coppers for the service. I wanted to find one Jew; and now there were 294 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST too many of them. Whom should I approach? I made the round of the town, and then, in my despair, I decided to accost the Jew who stood at the entrance gate of my hotel, — an immense old palace, of which, in former days, every hall was filled with elegant crowds of gayly dressed dancers, but which now fulfilled the more prosaic function of giving food and shelter to a few occasional travelers. I explained to the man my desire of smuggling into Russia a rather heavy bundle of books and newspapers.
‘‘ Very easily done, sir,’”’ he replied. ‘I will just bring to you the representative of the Universal Company for the International Exchange of (let me say) Rags and Bones. They carry on the largest smuggling business in the world, and he is sure to oblige you.”’ Half an hour later he really | returned with the representative of the company, —a most elegant young man, who spoke in perfection Russian, Ger-} man, and Polish. | He looked at my bundle, weighed it with his hands, and| asked what sort of books were in it. | ‘¢ All severely prohibited by eee selaneene se that is| why they must be smuggled in.’ | “‘ Books,” he said, “ are not ae in our line of trade H our business lies in costly silks. If I were going to pay my| men by weight, according to our silk tariff, I should have} to ask you a quite extravagant price. And then, to tell) the truth, I don’t much like meddling with books. The} slightest mishap, and ‘they’ would make of it a political affair, and then it would cost the Universal Rags and Bones} ~ Company a tremendous sum of money to get clear of it.” | I probably looked very sad, for the elegant young man| who represented the Universal Rags and Bones Company immediately added: “Don’t be troubled. He [the hotell A teat tt will arrange it for you in some other way.” | ‘Oh, yes. There are scores of ways to arrange such a SMUGGLING BOOKS INTO RUSSIA 295 trifle, to oblige the gentleman,” jovially remarked the com. missionnaire, as he left me.
In an hour’s time he came back with another young man. This one took the bundle, put it by the side of the door, and said: “It’s all right. If you leave to-morrow, you shall have your books at such a station in Russia,” and he explained to me how it would be managed.
‘How much will it cost?” I asked.
‘‘ How much are you disposed to pay?”’ was the reply.
I emptied my purse on the table, and said: ‘That much for my journey. The remainder is yours. I will travel third class!”
‘¢ Wai, wai, wai!’’ exclaimed both men at once. ‘‘ What are you saying, sir? Such a gentleman travel third class! ‘Never! No, no, no, that won’t do...Five dollars will ‘do for us, and then one dollar or so for the commissionnaire, if you are agreeable to it, — just as much as youlike. We ‘are not highway robbers, but honest tradesmen.” And ‘they bluntly refused to take more money.
I had often heard of the honesty of the Jewish smugglers on the frontier; but I had never expected to have such ‘a proof of it. Later on, when our circle imported many ‘books from abroad, or still later, when so many revolution- ‘ists and refugees crossed the frontier in entering or leaving ‘Russia, there was not a case in which the smugglers be- ‘trayed any one, or took advantage of circumstances to exact 'an exorbitant price for their services.
Next day I left Cracow; and at the designated Russian station a porter approached my compartment, and, speaking ‘loudly, so as to be heard by the gendarme who was walking ‘along the platform, said to me, “ Here is the bag your high- ‘ness left the other day,’’ and handed me my precious parcel.
I was so pleased to have it that I did not even stop at Warsaw, but continued my journey directly to St. Peters- burg, to show my trophies to my brother.
XII A FORMIDABLE movement was developing in the mean- time amongst the educated youth of Russia. Serfdom was abolished. “But quite a network of habits and customs of domestic slavery, of utter disregard of human individuality, of despotism on the part of the fathers, and of hypocritical | submission on that of the wives, the sons, and the daugh- | ters, had developed during the two hundred and fifty years | that serfdom had existed. Everywhere in Europe, at the | beginning of this century, there was a great deal of domestic | despotism, —the writings of Thackeray and Dickens bear| ample testimony to it; but nowhere else had that tyranny attained such a luxurious development as in Russia. All) Russian life, in the family, in the relations between com-’ mander and subordinate, military chief and soldier, employer’ and employee, bore the stamp of it. Quite a world of cus-' toms and manners of thinking, of prejudices and moral cowardice, of habits bred by a lazy existence, had grown up. Even the best men of the time paid a large tribute to these products of the serfdom period. i Law could have no grip upon these things. Only a vig- orous social movement, which would attack the very roots’ of the evil, could reform the habits and customs of every-' day life; and in Russia this movement — this revolt of the individual — took a far more powerful character, and be-) came far more sweeping in its criticisms, than anywhere in Western Europe or America. ‘‘ Nihilism’’ was the name. that Turguéneff gave it in his epoch-making novel, ‘‘ Fathers y and Sons.” \ The movement is misunderstood in Western Europe. In NIHILISM 297 the press, for example, nihilism is continually confused with terrorism. The revolutionary disturbance which broke out in Russia toward the close of the reign of Alexander II., and ended in the tragical death of the Tsar, is Coen described as nihilism. This is, however, a mistake. To confuse nihilism with terrorism is as wrong as to confuse a philosophical movement like stoicism or positivism with a political movement such as, for example, republicanism. Terrorism was called into existence by certain special con- ditions of the political struggle at a given historical mo- ment. It has lived, and has died. It may revive and die out again. But nihilism has impressed its stamp upon the whole of the life of the educated classes of Russia, and that stamp will be retained for many years to come. It is nihil- ‘ism, divested of some of its rougher aspects, — which were unavoidable in a young movement of that sort, — which gives now to the life of a great portion of the educated classes of Russia a certain peculiar character which we Rus- ‘Sians regret not to find in the life of Western Europe. It i is nihilism, again, in its various manifestations, which gives to many of our writers that remarkable sincerity, that habit lof « thinking aloud,” which astounds Western European . Teaders. ~ First of all, the nihilist declared war upon what may be described as “the conventional lies of civilized mankind.” ‘Absolute sincerity. was his distinctive feature, and in the fame of that sincerity he gave up, and asked others to give ‘up, those superstitions, prejudices, habits, and customs which their own reason could not justify. He refused to ‘bend before any authority except that of reason, and in the analysis of every social institution or habit he revolted ‘against any sort of more or less masked sophism. | _ He broke, of course, with the superstitions of his fathers, and in his philosophical conceptions he was a positivist, an agnostic, a Spencerian evolutionist, or a scientific materialist; 998 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST and while he never attacked the simple, sincere religious belief which is a psychological necessity of feeling, he - bitterly fought against the hypocrisy that leads people to. assume the outward mask of a religion which they repeats edly throw aside as useless ballast.
The life of civilized people is full of little Percubicudl lies. Persons who hate each other, meeting in the street, 7 make their faces radiant with a happy smile; ‘the nihilist: remained unmoved, and smiled only for those whom he was really glad to meet. All those forms of outward politeness which are mere hypocrisy were equally repugnant to him, and he assumed a certain external roughness as a protest against the smooth amiability of his fathers. He saw them wildly talking as idealist sentimentalists, and at the same time acting as real barbarians toward their wives, their chil- dren, and their serfs; and he rose in revolt against that sort of sentimentalism which, after all, so nicely accommodated itself to the anything but ideal conditions of Russian life, Art was involved in the same sweeping negation. Contin. ual talk about beauty, the ideal, art for art’s sake, zsthetics, and the like, so willingly indulged in, — while every object of art was bought with money exacted from starving peas: ants or from underpaid workers, and the so-called ‘ wor: ship of the beautiful’? was but a mask to cover the most commonplace dissoluteness, — inspired him with disgust, and the criticisms of art which Tolstdéy, one of the creates! artists of the century, has now so powerfully formulated. the nihilist expressed in the sweeping assertion, ‘A pair o! boots is more important than all your Madonnas and all you: refined talk about Shakespeare.” f Marriage without love, and familiarity without friendship were equally repudiated. The nihilist girl, compelled by her parents to be a doll in a Doll’s House, and to marry for property’s sake, preferred to abandon her house and hei silk dresses. She put on a black woolen dress of the plaines SINCERITY OF THE NIHILISTS 299 description, cut off her hair, and went to a high school, in order to win there her personal independence. The woman who saw that her marriage was no longer a marriage, that neither love nor friendship connected those who were legally considered husband -and wife, preferred to break a bond which retained none of its essential features. Accordingly she often went with her children to face poverty, preferring loneliness and misery toa life which, under conventional con- ditions, would have given a perpetual lie to her best self.
The nihilist carried his love of sincerity even into the minutest details of every-day life. He discarded the con- ventional forms of society talk, and expressed his opinions in a blunt and terse way, even with a certain affectation of outward roughness.
+ In Irktitsk we used to meet once a week in a club and ‘have some dancing. I was fora time a regular visitor at these soirées, but afterwards, having to work, I abandoned ‘them. One night, when I had not made my appearance for several weeks, a young friend of mine was asked by one of ‘the ladies why I did not appear any more at their gath- ‘erings. ‘‘ He takes a ride now when he wants exercise,” ‘was the rather rough reply of my friend. ‘“ But he might come and spend a couple of hours with us, without dancing,” \one of the ladies ventured to say. ‘‘What would he do here?” retorted my nihilist friend; “talk with you about fashions and furbelows? He has had enough of that nonsense.”? ‘‘ But he sees Miss So-and-So occasionally,’’ timidly ‘remarked one of the young ladies present. ‘‘ Yes, but she is a studious girl,’’ bluntly replied my friend; ‘‘he helps her with her German.” I must add that this undoubtedly ‘Trough rebuke had its effect, for most of the Irkutsk girls ‘soon began to besiege my brother, my friend, and myself with questions as to what we should advise them to read or ) r to study.
30g: > MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST With the same frankness the nihilist spoke to his ac quaintances, telling them that all their talk about “this poor people”? was sheer hypocrisy so long as they lived upon the underpaid work of these people whom they com- miserated at their ease as they chatted together in richly decorated rooms; and with the same frankness a nihilist’ would declare to a high functionary that the latter cared not a straw for the welfare of those whom he ruled, but was simply a thief, and so on. | With a certain austerity the nihilist would rebuke thd woman who indulged in small talk and prided herself on her “‘ womanly ” manners and elaborate toilette. He would: bluntly say to a pretty young person: “ How is it that you are not ashamed to talk this nonsense and to wear that chignon of false hair?’”? In a woman he wanted to find a comrade, a human personality, —not a doll ora “ muslin. girl,’”?—and he absolutely refused to join in those petty tokens of politeness with which men surround thove whom they like so much to consider as “ the weaker sex.” When) a lady entered a room a nihilist did not jump from his seat. to offer it to her, unless he saw that she looked tired and there was no other seat in the room. He behaved towards. her as he would have behaved towards a comrade of his own sex; but if a lady — who might have been a total stranger | to him — manifested the desire to learn something which) he knew and she did not, he would walk every night to the far end of a large city to help her.
Two great Russian novelists, Turguéneff and Gonchardff, have tried to represent this new type in their novels. Gon-| charoff, in “ Precipice,” taking a real but unrepresentative individual of this class, made a caricature of nihilism. Tur- guéneff was too good an artist, and had himself conceived too much admiration for the new type, to let himself be. drawn into caricature painting; but even his nihilist, Bazi- roff, did not satisfy us. We found him too harsh, especially ENTHUSIASM IN THE WORK 301 in his relations with his old parents, and, above all, we reproached him with his seeming neglect of his duties as a citizen. Russian youth could not be satisfied with the merely negative attitude of Turguéneff’s hero. Nihilism, with its affirmation of the rights of the individual and its negation of all hypocrisy, was but a first step toward a higher type of men and women, who are equally free, but live for / a great cause. In the nihilists of Chernyshévsky, as they are depicted in his far less artistic novel, ‘‘ What is to be Done?” they saw better portraits of themselves.
“Tt is bitter, the bread that has been made by slaves,’ our poet Nekrdasoff wrote. The young generation actually refused to eat that bread, and to enjoy the riches that had been accumulated in their fathers’ houses by means of servile labor, whether the laborers were actual serfs or slaves of the present industrial system.
All Russia read with astonishment, in the indictment which was produced at the court against Karak6zoff and his friends, that these young men, owners of considerable for- tunes, used to live three or four in the same room, never spending more than five dollars apiece a month for all their needs, and giving at the same time their fortunes for start- ing codperative associations, codperative workshops (where they themselves worked), and the like. Five years later, thousands and thousands of the Russian youth — the best part of it—were doing the same. Their watchword was, WV -nardd!’’ (To the people; be the people.) During ) the years 1860-65, in nearly every»wealthy family a bitter struggle was going on between the fathers, who wanted to ‘maintain the old traditions, and the sons and daughters, who defended their right to dispose of their lives according to their own ideals. Young men left the military service, the counter, the shop, and flocked to the university towns. Girls, bred in the most aristocratic families, rushed penni- Kheee 302 MEMOIRS OF A REVOLUTIONIST less to St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Kieff, eager to learn: profession which would free them from the domestic yoke and some day, perhaps, also from the possible yoke of: husband. After hard and bitter struggles, many of then won that personal freedom. Now they wanted to utilize it not for their own personal enjoyment, but for carrying t the people the knowledge that had emancipated them.