The Haymarket tragedy of 1886, in Chicago, by which a number lost their lives in an ex plosion from a bomb thrown by some unknown hand, and which resulted in the trial and con viction of seven professed teachers of anar chism in that city, four to the gallows, two to life imprisonment and one to a term of 15 years, aroused the attention of the whole civil ized world. It is now seen, after the lapse of 17 years, that these men, even if dangerous to the community, were convicted more largely by the existing state of public terror than by any actual evidence connecting them with the throwing of the bomb. The fact that the par don of the three who escaped the gallows was petitioned for, after the terror of the time had died away, by some of the most prominent citi zens of Chicago, is proof of the change the public mind underwent regarding the accused. The controversy over the justice of their con viction is still unsettled. With these acts of murder and vengeance the purely economic doctrines of anarchism have of course no rela tion. "The propaganda of action" is repudi ated by those who are sometimes termed °phi losophical anarchists," to distinguish them from the revolutionary wing. This latter school regards force as fundamentally at war with their ideals. It does not believe that the social revolution can be accomplished by the methods of Bakunin and his school. Proudhon never preached force.
With the policy of °propaganda by action* in this country is linked the name of Johann Most, a former member of the German Reich stag; in France, that of Charles Malato love and admire Vaillant just as some English Republicans love and admire Cromwell, who was also a regicide — Charles Malato) ; and in Italy, that of Enrico Malatesta, an anarchist, like Kropotkin, of noble family. Oh seems to me that in the natural order of evolution vio lence has as much a place as the eruption of a volcano. All great progress has been paid for
by streams of blood. I cannot see how the present conditions based upon force can be changed in any other way than by force, and so long as they use force against us we must in self-defense employ violent methods."— En rico Malatesta).
As Proudhon was the father of anarchistic individualism, Kropotkin is as indisputably the father of anarchistic communism. Theoretic anarchism for some time subsequent to the ad vent of its French founder was rigidly indi vidualistic. Max Stirner, a follower of Proud hon in Germany, whose philosophy was more of a blank negation than that of his master, pushed the ego to a point where it more re sembles a caricature than a dogma, and Bakunin hated the idera of communism. But in Kropotkin it must be said that the idea of property has reached its disappearing point, and the ideal of anarchism is at the last purely communistic. Kropotkin's life and his roman tic career, united with the vast store of knowl edge he possesses, give to his professions of anarchism a fascination and a weight. Com munistic anarchism is essentially the doctrine of Tolstoy, who combines it with religious mo tives.
Eltzbacher, P., (Anarchis mus' ; Grave, J.,
Societe au lendemain de la revolution' (1882) ; Hamon,
hommes et les theories de l'anarchie> (1893) ; Kropot kin, P. A., (Paroles d'un revoke' (1884); (Conquest of Bread' (1906)i
Mo rality' ;
Communism,' etc.; Mala testa, E., (A Talk about Anarchist Communism> (1891); Nettlan, M., (Bibliographic de l'anar chic> (Brussels 1897) ; Reclus, E.,
and
Spooner, L.,