ANARCHISM
A CRITICISM AND HISTORY
OF THE ANARCHIST
THEORY
BY
E. V. ZENKER
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1897
Copyright, 1897
BY
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
PREFACE
n the day of the bomb outrage in the French Parliament I gave animpromptu discourse upon Anarchism to an intelligent audience anxiousto know more about it, touching upon its intellectual ancestry, itsdoctrines, propaganda, the lines of demarcation that separate it fromSocialism and Radicalism, and so forth. The impression which myexplanations of it made upon my audience was at the same timeflattering and yet painful to me. I felt almost ashamed that I hadtold these men, who represented the pick of the middle-class politicalelectorate, something entirely new to them in speaking of matterswhich, considering their reality and the importance of the question,ought to be familiar to every citizen. Having thus had my attentiondrawn to this lacuna in the public mind, I was induced to make asurvey of the most diverse circles of the political and Socialistworld, both of readers and writers, and the result was the resolve toextend my previous studies of Anarchism (which had not extended[Pg iv]much beyond the earliest theorists), and to develop my lecture into abook. This book I now present to my readers.
The accomplishment of my resolve has been far from easy. What littleliterature exists upon the subject of Anarchism is almost exclusivelyhostile to it, which is a great drawback for one who is seeking notthe objects of a partisan, but simply and solely the truth. One hadconstantly to gaze, so to speak, through a forest of prejudices anderrors in order to discover the truth like a little spot of blue skyabove. In this respect I found it mattered little whether I applied tothe press, or to the so-called scientific Socialists, or to fluentpamphleteers.
Laveleye, for instance, does not even know of Proudhon; for himBakunin is the only representative of Anarchism and the mostcharacteristic; Socialism, Nihilism, and Anarchism mingle together inwild confusion in the mind of this social historian. Garin, who wrotea big book, entitled The Anarchists, is not acquainted with asingle Anarchist author, except some youthful writings of Proudhon'sand a few agitationist placards and manifestoes of the modern period.The result of this ignorance is that he identifies Anarchismcompletely with Collectivi