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Russell andthe Anarchists Other issues of "Anarchy"l Gontents of il0. 109 Please note that the following issues are out of print: I to 15 inclusive, 26,27, 38, ANiARCHY 109 (Vol l0 No 3) MARCH 1970 65 March 1970 39, 66, 89, 90, 96, 98, 102. Vol. I 1961l. 1. Sex-and-Violence; 2. Workers' control; 3. What does anar- chism mcarr today?: 4. Deinstitutioni- sariorr; 5. Spain; 6. Cinema; 7. Adventure playgrourrd; 3. Anthropology; 9. Prison; 10. [ndustrial decentralisation. Neither God nor Master V. Ncill; 12. Who are the anarchists?; 13. Richard Drinnon 65 Direct action; 14. Disobcdience; 15. David Wills; 16. Ethics of anarchism; 17. Lum- lleilther God pcn proletariat ; I {l.Comprehensive schools; Russell and the anarchists 19. 'Ihcatrc; 20. Non-violence; 21. Secon- dary Vivian Harper 68 modern; 22. Marx and Bakunin. nor Master Vol. 3. l96f : 23. Squatters; 24. Com- murrity of scholars; 25. Cybernetics; 26. RIOHABD DNIililOI{ Counter-culture 'l'horcarri 27. Yor-rth; 28. Future of anar- chisml 2t). Spies for peace;30. Com- Kingsley lAidmer 18 rnurrity workshop; 31. Self-organising systcmsi 32. Orimc; 33. Alex Comfort; Kropotkin and his memoirs J4. Scicnce fiction. Nicolas Walter 84 .17. I won't votc; 38. Nottingham; 39. Tsoucn ITS Roors ARE DBEpLy BURIED, modern anarchism I Iorncr l-ancl 40. Unions; 41. Land; dates from the entry of the Bakuninists into the First Inter- 42. India; 43. Parents and teachers; 44, Observations on eNanttnv 104 l'rarrsport; 45. Thc Greeks;46. Anarchisrn national just a hundred years ago. David Kipling 95 and historians. Vol. 5. 1965: 47. Freedom in work; 48. As it happens, this is the centenary year as well of the l-ord of the flies; 49. Automation; 50. a Cover by Rufus Segar Anarchist outlonk; 51. Blues, pop, folk; birth of the American anarchist, Emma Goldman. As 52. Limits of pacifism; 53. After school; modest, in-the-nick-of-time tribute to that splendid rebel, I 54. Buber, l-andauer, Mulrsam; 55. here Mutual aid; 56. Women; 57. Law; 58. should like, with your indulgence, to imagine her up Stateless societies. presiding over this session. Vol. 6. 1966: 59. White problem; 60. Drugs; 61. Creative vandalism; 62. Orga- She might commence with a sombre recital of the nisation; 63. Voluntary servitude; 64. Mis- spent youth: 65. Dercvolutionisation; 66. number of limes historians have pronounced anarchism Provo; 67. USA; 68. Class and anarchism; irrelevant to complex societies, as at best "poetic nonsense". 69. Ecology; 70. Libertarian psychiatry. A recent example: Mr. George Woodcock contended in 72. Strike City, USA; 73. Street School; his book called-Anarchism, published in 1961, that modern 74. Anarchism and reality; 75. Improvised drama; 76. 1984', 77. Anarchist group anarchists "form only the ghost of the historical anarchist handbook; 78. l.iberatory technology; movement, a ghost which inspires neither fear among 79. Latin America; 80. Workers' controll 81. Russian arrarchistsl 82. Braehead governmerts nor hope among people nor even interest School. among newspapermen". Hard after this prophesy followed Vol. 8. 1968: 83. Tcnants take over; Berkeley, the imaginative politics of the Provos in Amster- 84. Poverty; 85. Anarchist conversations; 86. Fishermen; 87. Penal System; 88. dam, the comic-strip uprising of the Situationists at Stras- IIATES: Wasteland culture: 89. France; 90. Stu- bourg University, the rebellion of the Berlin SDS, and then, dcnts; 91. Artists: 92. Two schools; 93. Single copies 3s. (40c.). Annual subscrip- in May 1968, the rise of the New Paris Commune" But let tion (12 i.ssues) 36s. ($5.00). Joint annual subscription with FREEDoM, the anarchist Vol. 9. 1969: 95. Yugoslavia; 96. Playing weekly-lwhich readers of eNencuv will at revolution; 97. Architects and people; RICHARD DRINNON is Professor of History ot Bucknell find iirdispensable) €3 l9s. 4d. Cheques. 98. Criminology; 99' Lessons fiom P.O.s and Money Orders should be made France: 100. About i anarchism; 101. University. These remarks were made from the chair at out to FREEDOM PRESS, 84s White- Approved schools, Detention Centres; the recent session on anarchism at the American Historical chapel High Street, London, E.1, England. 102. Squattcrs; 103. Rights of the young; 104. Refusing; 105. feich; 106. What is Association's Convention in Washington. property? Printed by Express Printers, London, E.l I 66 67 me draw on the breathless authority of Time magazine of and Red Rudi and Bernadette Devlin, and, for that matter, May 24, 1968, by way of summary: the women and men of the Resistance, the Women's Libera- "The black flag that flew last week above the tumul- tion Movement, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, and even, tuous disorders of ?aris stood for a philosophy that the if the Vice-President is to be believed, the organizers of the modern world has all but forgotten: anarchy. Few of the October Moratorium-Agnew ruled them to be, you know, students who riot in France, Germany or Italy-or in many "hardcore dissidents and professional anarchists". another country-would profess outright allegiance to Isn't it lovely, she might gleefully observe, that anarchy, anarchy, but its basic tenets inspire many of their leaders. like adultery, seems to be coming back ? And isn't it lovely Germany's 'Red Rudi' Dutschksand France's'Red Danny' that the august-nay, magisterial American Historical Cohn-Bdndit openly espouse anarchy. . . . Not silce the Association has unbended to devote an entire session to the anarchist surge in the Spanish Civil War has the Western topic? And this at one of its annual meetings at the heart world seen a movement so enthusiastically devoted to the of the American Empire, or, better, in the National Seat ! destruction of law, order and society in the name of un- limited individual freedom." But here she might raise a final series of questions: Why have historians made so many eager attempts to So Time is finally on our side, Emma might wryly entomb anarchism and other varieties of radicalism? Why observe. Nor will it do for Mr. Woodcock to contend that has the present unparalleled interest in anarchism been so the recent spurt of interest in anarchy lacks continuity with long in coming? the historic movement (see Commentary, August 1968). As Daniel Cohn-Bendit has made quite clear, he is well aware Can it be that anarchism's reiection of the Nation that while Marx stood to the left of Proudhon, Bakunin State and Empires, its commitment to decentralization, to stood to the left of Marx. the primacy of functional groups, to direct action, and to direct participation in decision-making--can it be that these And just a generation ago, she might recall, an editor commitments have frightened the great washed majority of of. Harpei's magazine commenced premature last rites for historians who have their own commitments to a distrust her by prefacing an article of hers written in 1934 with this of spontaneity, to an affection for order, for discipline, for comment: bureaucratic authority? Have not most of you, she might "It is strange what time does to political causes. A say to us-have not most of you really undertaken to be generation ago i1 seemed to many American conservatives scribes of the Prince or his successors? Haven't you found as if the opinions which Emma Goldman was expressing yourselves, despite all your rhetoric, locked into Michels' might sweep the world. Now she fights almost alone for Iron Law of Oligarchy? And liking your unfreedom? what seems a lost cause; contemporary radicals are over- Self-help, mutual-aid rnovements, organized from the whelmingly opposed to her. ." bottom up, she might conclude, have long awaited their It ls strange what time does to political causes, she chroniclers. If they seem another series of lost causes, be might agree-perhaps they, like the historical profession, not unduly distressed: I accept wholeheartedly one of the are subject to the same boom-bust cycle as the economy and graffiti on the walls of the Sorbonne which went: BE perhapi subject to the same mysterious causes-can we rule REALISTIC ! DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE. out wlth confidence the sunspot thesis of Jevons? What- ever reasons are adduced, she would accept with delight recent changes in the fortunes of anarchism and embrace with delight, as spiritual brothers and sisters, Red Danny 68 69 being devoted to the author's views on 'Problems of the Future' and how they might be solved.
"Mr. Russell in his frrst chapter gives a sketch of Karl Marx Russell and his socialist doctrine and points out that although state socialism Bertrand might be the outcome of the proposals of Marx and Engels, as put forth in the Communist Manilesto, they cannot be accused of any and the anarchists glorification of the Slate. lt is their foliowers who have made an idol of the State. The second chapter on "Bakunin and Anarchism' VIVIATI HABPER deals with the struggle between Marx and Bakunin in the International Working Men's Association. The Germans and English followed Marx, but the Latin nations in the main followed Bakunin in opposing the State and disbelieving in the machinery of representative government. l(e had ur atrurclist front Holland stuying with us' the secretary of Although Bakunin did not produce finished and systematic body *'ut a chunning urd vcry intalligent rnan, and has been a the AlT. He of doctrine, he may be regarded a good tleol in Spain with thc CNT. He v'as a gt-eat admirer 9f lours. as the founder of anarchist communism. HZ sai(l that hi lmtl recently written un atticle on anarchism for, 'There is something of anarchism in his ]ack of litcrary order.' If an Encycktpedirt.-of In the bibliography at tlrc ettd hc included "All we wish to understand anarchism, says Mr. Russell, we must turn the t,orks Bertrand Russel!"- hicause, he explained, thoug.h they to his followers, and especially to Kropotkin. wh<> presents his views as old anarchisr'T rlr). are not actually anarchist, they have'thc tendency' persuasiveness v/ooLSEY in a letter to Bertrand ftrrssc/l, November 1938- 'with extraordinary and charnl'. although our author -cAMEL says, 'the general tone of the anarchist press and public is bitter to a degree that hardly speaking what 'darker BIIRTRAND RUSSELL last month, much was said is sane'. In of hc calls the IN rsr EULocIES oF- side' anarchism, 'the anarchistic character of his thought. Michael Foot called of side which has brought it into conflict with about the the police and made anarchist, Edward Boyle characterised him as a libertarian. it a wortl of tcrror to the ordinary citizen', he him an says that the revolt against leads 'a Russell himself, years before, had confessed to "a temperamental law 1o relaxation of all the usually accepted moral rules'. In another part, however, Russell leaning to anarchism", and years before that, as far back as 1895' Mr. says that 'those anarchists who are favour bomb throwing do Beatrice Webb described him in her diary as "anarchic". Certainly, in of not in this respect differ on any vital principle from the rest the a mere glance at the titles of many of his books indicates that the of preoccupations anarchist thought, ttrre social and political issues community. For every bomb manufactured by an anarchist, of many millions are manufactured by governments; and which anarchists attempt to grapple with, were the same as the t, rpics for every man killed by anarchist violence, many with which he was concerned. millions are killed by the violence of States'. Is it a 'revolt against law' that leads States to relax 'the Yet in only one of his books did Russell give serious consideration usually accepted moral rules'? to anarchism itself as a social and political philosophy. This was in Roads to Freedom: Sociulism, Anarchism and Syndicalisrr, published "The chapter on 'The Syndicalist Revolf is a brief sketch of the in 1918, and reprinted eleven tirnes since then. Russell had been syndicalist movement in France, which arose as a protest against commissioned by an American publisher to write this book and completed parliamentary socialism. Syndicalists wish to destroy the State, *hich it in a hurry "in the last days before a period of imprisonrnent" in they regard as a capitalist institution, designed essentially to terrorise April 1918. the workers. They wish to see each industry self-governing. Similar in its aims and methods is the (Industrial this book strike anarchists when it was flrst published? IWW Workers of the World), How did an American organisation which Fortunately we can tell. from the long review published in rnssDo[,I has branches in most English-speaking countries, and whose clear-cut policy has been for March 1919, unsigned, and probably by the editor Tom Keell: summed up by its secretary in one sentence: 'Complete surrender of all control of "[t is verv interesting to anarchists to lind a philosopher of industry to the organised workers.t Mr. Russell finds something to Mr. Bertrand Russell's standing weighing tlte arguments for and against accept and something to reject in each of the 'isms' he deals with, anarchism; and although he says that it is 'for the present impossible" but says that 'the best practicable system, to my mind" is that of he admits that pure anarchism 'should be the ultimate ideal to which Guild Socialism, which concedes what is valid, both in the claims society sliould continually approximate'. The author has divided his of the State Socialists and in the syndicalist fear of the State'. We work into two parts-the first part dealing with socialism, anarchism cannot deal with Guild Socialism now, but will turn to Mr. Russell's and slrndicalism from the historical point of view, the second part criticism of anarchism in the second part of the book. 70 7t "The author first deals with the questions of production and law into our own hands'. But the spirit of mutual aid is still alive, distribution under anarchism. He quoGs largely from Kropntkin's and anarchists have never preached non-resistance. But we have found Anorchist Communism. which is the bhsis of his-criticism. Mr. Russell by experience that government and police do not protect us. Mr. Russell's ualnit. that the production of food and other necessaries of life sentence of six months' imprisonment taught him that lesson. .um"iint for the wellbeing of all could be so easily maintained that eueryooe would be able to take just what he or she required without "In spite of his belief in the necessity of some central organisation, any'check being necessary. Bui as to the other anarchist.proposal, backed by law and force, Mr. Russell shows very strong leanings itit tt er" shouft be no obligation to work, and no economic reward towards anarchism in his constructive proposals. He says, 'From the foi work, he has his doubts. He thinks that idlers could only be point of view of liberty, what system would be best? In what direction influenced if society were divided into small groups and-each group should we wish the forces of progress to move? From this point of oniv allowed to consume the equivalent of what it produced. The view, neglecting for the moment all other considerations, f have no seeing that system removed that *"irb"rr of each gloup- would ihereby be interested in doubt that the best would be one not far from At Aia their shard of work. But, of course, that would not be advocated by Kropotkin.' And later he says, 'The system we have anarchism, he admits. He then deals with the socialist theory, that advocated is a form of Guild Socialism, leaning more, perhaps, towards *oik ulone gives the right to the enjoymery ot. the- produce of anarchism than the official Guildsman would wholly approve. It is work-all wh5 can should be compelled to work. either by the threat in the matters that politicians usually ignore-science and art, human of starvation or by the operation-of the criminal law. Mr. Russell relations, and the joy of life-that anarchism is strongest, and it is says 'the- onty kind of work chiefly for the sake these things that we include such more less do"i not agree with this, as he that - of or recognised iitt Ue such as commends itself to the authorities', which anarchist proposals as the "vagabond's wage!"' Altogether Roads *itt i"ur" little freedom of choice to the individual. 'If the anarchist to Freedom is a very readable book, and-an exceptional feature with fia" his its dangers, the socialist plan has equal dangers.' Anarchism critics of anarchism-the author certainly understands the principles he iras the advanta[e as regards libeity, socialism- as regards inducement criticises,* even if he does not agree with them." to work. So hd suggesis-iicome, as a combination of these two advantages that a certain small sufficient for necessaries, should be given **r.* io all, wheJher they work or not, and that a- larger income should be sivin'to those wtio are willing to engage in some work which the lf. Roads to Freedom were a new book. published fifty years later, fommunity recognises as useflrl. This, of course, means that a an anarchist reviewer would have rnuch the same comments to make. 6f some kind would be necessary, an argument that But would Russell's own opinions have changed? In a new edition eovernins-body years publication, iuns thrdugh ihe whole book. in 1948, thirty after the original he contributed a nerv preface in which he remarked: "In the chapter on 'Government and Law' Mr' Russell ggts. to "So much has happened since that time that inevitably the grips with the anarchist position, and in this is -very disap-pointing. he uses argume-nts against anarchism which anarchists use opinions of all who are not impervious to experience have undergone i.t'times -For considerable apainst sovernment. instance, he says: 'Envy and love of power modifications. The creation and collapse of the League Nations, Fascism ord"inary human nature to find pleasure in interferences with the of the rise and fall of and Nazism, the second world lJad war, the development possibility lives of others.' Surely that should be a powerful reason_ why power of Soviet Russia, and the not remote of third world war, have afforded political lessons, should not be put int6 the hands of any body- Again, he. says-that a all mostly of a without govern^ment: 'the strong would oppress the weak'. Does sort to make the maintenance of optimism difficult. The creation nrssitt really believe that go-vernments eiist to the weak? of an authoritarian undemocratic form of Socialism in the USSR, fvfi -protect while very relevant t-lo to the present every government has protected the interests of the to many of the discussions in this book, does ,1ionn. und uny sover;mint in future will be compelled to stand by not, in itself, suggest any need for modification of the opinions advocated. dangers those"who put it in power. In dealing with-the-question of 'crime' The of a bureaucratic regime are sufficiently th6ft, cruelty to children, crimes of jealousy' rape and so such as *A io{t, t e admits that some of these are due to our present system of few months later in an article in rneroopr {August 1919) 'False Roads to socieiy, but says they are almost certain to occur- in any society to Freedom", W. C. Owen remarked that Russell "refers to Proudhon more than 'Granied, anarchist society people would once, but one feels that he has no conception of what Proudhon taught". And io-e'extent. but in an on 29 September, 1919, Harold Laski wrote to Russell, "in any nEw edition protect themselves from such anti-social acts. At present of book wish you good learn to ^ that I would say a word for Proudhon! I think people loo^k to the police and government for such protectiou in fact' that his Du Principe Federatif and his Justice dans la R|volution are vcry ire'ure frequently iold by magistrates that we 'must not take the great books". 72
emphasised, and what has happened in Russia only confirms the 73 justice of these warnings. In one respect-and this is my chief reasotr leaders, and he also met some anarchists including for agreeing to a reprint-this book is rendered again relevant to Emma Goldman, and growing Alexander Berkman, who showed him round Moscow. He was not present circumstances by the realization among Western allowed to visit Kropotkin. The Russian regime not what they desire. Before book he wrote on his return, The Socialists that the is Prgcticg and rheory Rolshevism, is highly the Russian Revolution, Syndicalism in France, the IWW in America, ol a intelligent and fair- minded account of what he saw, and how it ielated [o communist and Guild Socialism in England were all movements embodying theory, and-it was published time (and wish reali.ze Socialism at a how many such times suspicion of the State and a to the aims of there have been since the!) when, without creating an omnipotent bureaucracy. But as a result of as Russell said, it was regarded as a kind of treachery for a socialist to criticise a Comirunist admiration for Russian achievements all these movement died down dictatorship. in the years following the end of the first world war. In the first months of 1918, when this book was written, it was impossible to When Emma Goldman left Russia, Russell and Col. Josiah Wedg- obtain reliable information about what was happening in Russia, but wood tried to persuade the Home office to grant her asylum in Britaii. the slogan 'all power to the Soviets', which was the Bolshevik battle-cry, She wrote to him from Berlin in July 1922, "Thank you very much was taken to indicate a new form of democracy, anti-parliamentary for your- willingnes,s to assist me. . I was rather amused it your and more or Iess syndicalist. And as such it enlisted left-wing support. phrase 'that she will not engage in the more violcnt forms of Anarchism'- When it turned out that this was not what was being created, many I k1oy, of course, that it has been my rcputarion that I indulged in Socialists nevertheless retained one firm belief : it might be the opposite such forms, but it has never been borne out by thc facts. I-Io.,,vever, of what Western Socialists had been preaching, but whatever it tr should not want to .gain my right of iir;yl,.in in England or any might be it was to be acclaimed as perfect. Any criticism was other country pledging to abstain froir trrc exprc-ssion of my ideas, 9{ condemned as treachery to the cause of the proletariat. Anarchist or the right to protest _agzrinst injusticc. Two years and syndicalist criticisms were forgotten or ignored, and by exalting later she was granted permission to enier Britain. Two huidred State Socialisrn it became possible to retain the faith that one great and fifty membcrs of thc lcft-wing intelligentsia attendecl a dinner to country had realised the aspirations of the pioneers." welcome her. rRlnrx)M, reported that "By ftrr the bcsi speeches of the evening were those delivered by Bertrand Russell and wiiliam C. He remarks that those who could no longer give uncritical adoration Owgn. Mr. Russell, who has the most acute philosophical mind to the Soviet Government were impelled to look for less authoritarian in England, madc the most complete avowal of anarchisf convictions forms of socialism, like those described in his book. Guild Socialism of the evening." Emma Goldman's biographer, Richard Drinnon which he favoured in 1918 "still seems to be an admirable project, remarks that "when Emma rose, she was greeted with loucl applause. and I could wish to see advocacy of it revived". Her vehement attack on the Soviet government and its mercileis treat- ment of political prisoners, however, raised loud cries of protest. Was she gging back on her past? Was she throwing in the Not so anarchism. For he goes on, "But there are other respects .therewith in which I find myself no Ionger in agreement with my outlook of Tories? When she sat down, Bertrand Russell recafs, was deacl silence thirty years ago. If I were writing now, I should be much less sympathetic except from me'." to anarchism. The world is now, and probably will remain for a Drinnon notes that a comparable iack of enthusism met Emma's considerable time, one of scarcity, where only stringent regulation e{Iorts to form a committee to aid Russian political prisoners. Russell can prevent disastrous destitution. Totalitarian systems in Germany wroto to her to explain that he could nof participate in this work: and Russia. with their vast deliberate cruelties, have led me to take l. . .. I am not prepared,to advocate any alternaiive government in a blacker view than I took when I was younger as to what men are Russia: I am persuaded that the cruelties would be at*least as great likely to become if there is no forcible control over their tyrannical impulses." What an exasperating non sequitur! Once again, as FREEDoM remarked thirty years earlier, he was using arguments against It has been customary people anarchism which anarchists use against government. Totalitarianisrn for to draw arguments from the laws of Nature as is not the consequence anarchy government to what we oirght to do. Su"ch arguments of but its antithesis. ft is seem to me mistake; unbridled. a to imitate Nature may be merely-slavish. But if Nature is to be our model it seems thaf the anarchists have the best of the argument. The physical universe is orderly. not In the summer <>f 1920 Russell visited Russia, accompanying, because therc is a central goveinment but because every- body unofficially, the British Labour Delegation" He met the Bolshevik minds its own businest' RUS.ELL -"ERTRAND 74 75 under any other party. And I do not regard the abolition of all A year iater, Sacco ad vanzetti were executed in Boston. Russell,s government as a thing rvhich has any chance of being_ broughl about comment was: "r am forced to conclude that they were condemned life times or during the twentieth century. I am therefore on account their political in our of -opinions and that men who ought to unwilling to be associated with any movement which might seem to have known better ailowed themselves to express misieading "views imply tliat a change of government is desirable in Russia. I think as to the evidence because they heid that m-en with such Jpinions ;tlbf the Bolsheviks, in many ways, but quite as ill of their opponents. have no right to live. A view of this sor.t is one which i, ,"ry . . . I arn very sorry to have failed you, and I hesitated for a long dangerous,- since it transfers from the theological to the political ipherL be the onlv time. But the'above view is what, in the end, I felt to I {orm of persecution which it was thoug:ht rhat civi'lisea iou?rtries possible one for me." had outgrown." * x Emrra, says Drinnon, was "painfully disappointed" by this letter. {< * about seeming importunate ap' "Respect for Russell and diffidence His support for the persecuted anarchists parenlly prompted Emma to discontinue their corresponden_ce. But of the nineteen-twenties -repty was-probably Russell's Iast contact with anarc,hists, until, with his ln her to Laski she ripped into Russell's argument. She held, invoh,ement with the Direct point that thcrc was uo otlrer Action Cornmittee Agaiirst Nuclear war ironically, ihat it was illogical. l{is in the late nineteen-fifties and early nineteen-sixtics] political group of an advanced nature kr takc the- place of ihe he can-re in touch rvith anarchists of a compietely diflerent generation and background. iloisheviki seemed to her completely 'out of kccping with the scholarly The return to his first world war position of resistancc ancl pro,Jcadon" mind of a man like Russell'. Even if it wcrc so' what bearing Cid which earned him another prison poliiical justicc 1hc victims of the sentence, did not indicate a shift that have on a stand for for in his basic political outlooli In the leaflet At:t perish, goveinrnent? Besides, with every otho' political-organisation broken or a call to non-violent action by Earl Russell antl llev. Micltael scott, the and the 'aclherents wasting their livcs in Russian- prisons and authors ilp declare, "we are told that in a clcnr.clilsy only lawful methocls of c5ncentration camps, it is dilficult to say what political group is per-suasion should On be use!. Unfortunatcly" thc opposition to sanitv likely to be supcrior to the present on the throne of Russia'. and mercy on the part rh.sc was ftussell of wh. havi p.wcr is such as 1o make this shaky foundation of illogicality and lack of evidence, persuasion by ordinary mclhocls 'all liberty-loving men and wornen must sit dillicult ind slow, with the resuit really suggesting that that, if such methods alone-are cnrpkryed. we shali probably 6y while the Bolsi-reviki are gctting arvay.with murder?' all be supinely .Would dead before our purposs can bo achievecl. Respect for law is Russel[ have hesitated to use his pen and his voice in behaif of iiroortant and -only a very profound conviction can justify actions which flout political victims of the Czar? the ]aw." ttrre Dictatorship and the "'The quesiion, as I understand it, is writi,g in l"nnr,r>riu (21 must make use of, not the name of April" 1962), Nicolas walter conrmented Terror, such- as a Dictatorship perceptively on this phase of Russell,s public ,,Russell,s particular Group at the back of it. This seems to me to be the activity, the conl.ritrution to the unilaterist movement has been invziluable dominant issue confronting various men and women of Revoltttionary for a number of reasons, the most important being that he is very {ine leanirrgs, and noi who is being persecuted, or by whom.' " a ancl famous old man with charismaiic qualities who is, as pat pottle said However, in the follorving year, when the volume Letters frctm at thc old Eailey, 'an inspiration to us all'. But his contribution to Russicut Prisotts was published, Russell contributed trr-l acid intrcductory r"rnilalerist thought has, I think, been far less useful-even harrnful. letter: This rnay seem a hard thing to say, and even rather absurd, consiclering "I sincerely hope that the publication of 1hc folkx'ving documents Russell's intellectual stature and reputation. but if anyone doubts iI will contribute-tov,'iucls tire promotion of friendiy relations beirveen llre besi thing you can do is to read what he has aciualry said and the Soviet Government and the Governments of Western Powers. SociaL1ists, the stalesmr:n oi Creeri Britain, Ft'ance Idisied by Western Mcn fear thought more than they fear regard the prescnt l-rolclers of power in Russia iis anything else on carth, and America more than ruin, more even than death. Thoufht idealists therefore
85 lgitation is described in great detail in the second half of the Memoirs, but again it is necessary to emphasize- that- fropoifin;i ,"r"irti"r"ry activity lasted for only fourteen ybars (of which he ipeni nre-i" Irison;. ' From 1886 to 19li Kropotkin Kropotkin lived in England, and it was during this period that he wrote ihe Memoirs. rn" lggi rr" ririi"a-irre Nortfi America for the first time, to attend the meeting or British Association for and his memoirs the Advancement of science in Toro"nto,- anJ he toot< the opportunity- to across canada and also gi"" -travel tr "he r""iures in }IICOtAS WAI.TER several lrlaces in the united states. In New york met walter Hines P-age, editor of the Atrantic Monthly, who commisriooea a leries of autobiographical articles from him. These opp"ui"a f.o* september, 1898. to September. 1g99. with the tirle ..Airtobiography of a Revolutionist", and a longer version was publish.a Pnrnn KRoporKIN wAS THE BEST KNowN of all the Russian revolutionary in L6of tor* in England and the united states in 189g, wiih tne iiti'uii"t^ of exiles before 1917, and Memoirs of a Revolutionist is the best known a Revolutionist. of all his books. One can certainly appreciate it without knowing anything about him, and in a way it needs no introduction. But he The Memoirs is perhaps the best thing Kropotkin wrote,, and it was not a simple man, and it is not a simple book; moreover, the gives an unforgettable-pictuie of Russia in tire miiate or ttie nineteentn story it tells comes to an end long before he wrote it, and he lived century, of the populist movement there in the 1g70s, una--tt tn" long after he had written it. So onc can ccrtainly appreciate it more anarchist movement in western E,urope in the tszos and igsos. But if one knows something about his life-especially his laler life-and this is wherc we come [o the scconcl probrem rai."o-uy tn" uooi, tr," about the problems the book raises. lwel-ve years bctween c