Anarchism and SocialismPlekhanov, Georgii Valentinovich
Philosophy
Anarchism and Socialism
Plekhanov, Georgii Valentinovich
Anarchism; Socialism
"Condemn the propaganda of deed?" says Elysée Reclus. "But what is this
propaganda except the preaching of well-doing and love of humanity by
example? Those who call the "propaganda of deed" acts of violence prove
that they have not understood the meaning of this expression. The
Anarchist who understands his part, instead of massacring somebody or
other, will exclusively strive to bring this person round to his
opinions, and to make of him an adept who, in his turn, will make
"propaganda of deed" by showing himself good and just to all those whom
he may meet."[75]
We will not ask what is left of the Anarchist who has divorced himself
from the tactics of "deeds."
We only ask the reader to consider the following lines: "The editor of
the _Sempre Avanti_ wrote to Elysée Reclus asking him for his true
opinion of Ravachol. 'I admire his courage, his goodness of heart, his
greatness of soul, the generosity with which he pardons his enemies, or
rather his betrayers. I hardly know of any men who have surpassed him in
nobleness of conduct. I reserve the question as to how far it is always
desirable to push to extremities one's own right, and whether other
considerations moved by a spirit of human solidarity ought not to
prevail. Still I am none the less one of those who recognise in Ravachol
a hero of a magnanimity but little common.'"[76]
This does not at all fit in with the declaration quoted above, and it
proves irrefutably that citizen Reclus fluctuates, that he does not know
exactly where his "companion" ends and the bandit begins. The problem is
the more difficult to solve that there are a good many individuals who
are at the same time "bandits" and Anarchists. Ravachol was no
exception. At the house of the Anarchists, Oritz and Chiericotti,
recently arrested at Paris, an enormous mass of stolen goods were found.
Nor is it only in France that you have the combination of these two
apparently different trades. It will suffice to remind the reader of the
Austrians Kammerer and Stellmacher.
Kropotkine would have us believe that Anarchist morality, a morality
free from all obligations or sanction, opposed to all utilitarian
calculations, is the same as the natural morality of the people, "the
morality from the habit of well doing."[77] The morality of the
Anarchists is that of persons who look upon all human action from the
abstract point of view of the unlimited rights of the individual, and
who, in the name of these rights, pass a verdict of "Not guilty" on the
most atrocious deeds, the most revolting arbitrary acts. "What matter
the victims," exclaimed the Anarchist poet Laurent Tailhade, on the very
evening of Vaillant's outrage, at the banquet of the "Plume" Society,
"provided the gesture is beautiful?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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