By its amplitude the Anarchistic idea shelters and draws to it all those who have the feeling of personal dignity, the thirst after the beautiful and true. Should not the ideal of man be released from all fetters, all constraint? Have not all the divers revolutions he has wrought, pursued this end? If he still submits to the authority of his exploiters, if the human mind still struggles under the pressure of the vulgarities of capitalistic society, it is because accepted ideas, routine, prejudice, and ignorance, have been till now stronger than its dreams and desires for emancipation, precipitating it, after it has driven away the reigning masters, into a fresh abandonment of them, at the very moment it expects to free itself. Anarchistic ideas have come to bring light into the minds not only of the workers, but also of thinkers of every category; helping them to analyze their own feelings, stripping bare the causes of misery and indicating the means of destroying them, showing to all the route to follow and the end to be attained, explaining why previous revolutions have been abortive. It is this close relation with the secret sentiments of individuals which explains their rapid extension, which gives them their strength and renders them irrepressible. Governmental fury, oppressive measures, the rage of frustrated ambition, may set themselves against the ideas and their propagators; today the opening is made; they can no longer be prevented from making headway, from becoming the ideal of the disinherited, the motors of their attempts at emancipation.
Capitalistic society is so paltry, so narrow; large aspirations find themselves so cramped in it; it annihilates so many good intents, so many hopes, crushing and killing so many individualities that cannot stoop to its narrow views, that, could it succeed in stifling the voice of every living Anarchist, its oppressions would raise up new ones, equally implacable.
II
Individualism and Solidarity
“Anarchy and Communism protest against being coupled together,” declared certain dishonest adversaries, little anxious to throw light upon the question. “Communism is an organization; an organization prevents the development of individuality;—we will have none of it!” “We are individualists, we are Anarchists; nothing more!” exclaimed after them certain persons, sincere in the sense that they desired to appear more advanced than all their comrades, and having no originality their own. They entangled themselves in exaggerations, pushing the ideas to absurdity; and around them collected those whom the governing class has an interest in introducing among its adversaries, to divide or mislead them.
Now, behold those Anarchists launched into discussions Anarchy, Communism, the initiative, organization; the harmful or useful influence of groups; egoism and altruism; in fine, lot of things one more absurd than the other. For, after being thoroughly discussed by honest opponents, the end of it is that all want the same thing, though calling it by different names. As a matter of fact the Anarchists who demand Communism are the first to recognize that the individual has not been put into the world for society’s sake; that, on the contrary, the latter has been formed solely for the purpose of furnishing the former greater facility for evolution. It is quite plain that when a certain number of persons group together and unite their forces, they have in view the obtaining of a greater sum of enjoyment with a less expenditure of energy. In nowise have they the intention of sacrificing their initiative, their will, their individuality, for the benefit of an entity which did not exist before their union, which will disappear with their dispersion. To economize their forces while continuing to wrest from nature the things necessary to their existence, and which they could not obtain but by the concentration of their efforts, was certainly the motive which guided those human beings who first commenced to group themselves; or what, at least, must have been tacitly understood as such, if not completely reasoned out in their primitive associations, which associations might well be, even had to be, temporary and limited to the duration of the effort, falling apart when the result was once attained.
No Anarchist, therefore, thinks of subordinating the existence of the individual to the progress of society. Freedom of the people, complete freedom in all their modes of action, is all we ask. And if there be those who repudiate organization, who swear by the individual alone, who say that they despise the community, declaring that the egoism of the individual should be his only rule of conduct, and that the adoration of his ego should come before and above all humanitarian considerations—believing themselves to be therein more advanced than others—such people can never have studied the psychological and physiological nature of man, never have given themselves an account of their own feelings; they have no idea of what constitutes the real life of man, its physical, moral, and intellectual needs.
Our present society exhibits some of these perfect egoists: the Delobelles, the Hjalmar Eikdals, are not rare; they are found not only in romances. Without meeting any great number of them, it is sometimes given to us to run up against these types who think only of themselves, who see nothing in life but their own persons. If there is a tempting bit on the table they appropriate it without scruple. They live largely outside while their folks at home are dying of hunger. They accept the sacrifices of all who surround them—father, mother, wife, children—as their due, while they shamelessly put on dignified airs and take their ease. The sufferings of others are not counted, provided that their own existence runs smoothly. Still worse, they do not even perceive that others suffer for them and through them. When they are fed and well-disposed, humanity is satisfied and refreshed! Behold the type of your perfect egoist in
